Talk:Persian Empire (dynasty)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Cleanup

This page has just been sitting here tagged with cleanup tags for years. History of Iran should cover the period 1925 to present. This article should be renamed history of Persia and cover the period of 600 BC to 1925, plus a "prehistory / early history" section. Persian Empire can either redirect to history of Persia or it can be a disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 14:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I tend to disagree (not that I have the time or the inclination to do any work on this). The whole history of Iran/Persia should be under the "History of Iran", per the Cambridge History of Iran (and other works such as Michael Axworthy's recent Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran). "Persia" is slightly outdated. (Only the Achaemenid and Sassanid empires were Persian in every sense of the word). --Folantin (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Folantin (the whole history of Iran should be in history of Iran and History of Persia should be redirected to that). About this page Persian Empire, it's better to convert it to a disambiguation page. Alefbe (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't find any useful material in this page which not already covered in Achaemenid empire, Sassanid empire or History of Iran. Alefbe (talk) 16:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

But this isn't a disambiguation page -- there aren't separate and distinct things that just coincidentally happen to all be called the "Persian Empire"; rather, there is a historical succession of different states within the same (or similar) territory and culture that have a clear relationship to each other. Can't this be formatted as a summary style article rather than having a misleading {{disambig}} tag? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:26, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

There should be more here to explain the various meanings of the phrase "Persian Empire", but the summary article already exists: History of Iran. "Persian Empire" applies to several states, but the history wasn't continuous. I suppose what most people in the West regard as the ancient Persian Empire is the Achaemenid Empire, but that was destroyed in the 4th century BC, to be followed by the Graeco-Macedonian Seleucid Empire and then the Parthian Arsacid Empire (Iranian, not Persian - although Roman writers often referred to the Parthians as Persians). The next genuinely Persian empire, the Sassanids, only emerged in the 3rd century AD. That was destroyed by the Islamic conquests of the 7th century, then you have to wait until the 16th before you have the Safavids founding a new "Persian Empire" in Iran. After that, it's more or less much continuous (through the Afsharids, Zands, Qajars and Pahlavis) down to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But this is best covered in summary style by the "History of Iran" article. --Folantin (talk) 10:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case, this should simply redirect to the History of Iran article. I'm going to have to agree with Russ here that having a disambiguation page isn't helpful, in that it doesn't distinguish between different things individually referred to as "the Persian Empire". Most cases searches and links intend the various incarnations as a group (≈the history of Iran). Dekimasuよ! 13:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Ummm i think these articles should be restored to their previous state until there is full agreement on what should happen. There seems to be well over 2000 links to this disam page now which will need sorting out. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Not really. The previous article was a dreadful fork of the History of Iran article. I think this page should be a short summary of the different meanings of the concept "Persian Empire" (somewhat similar to the Bulgarian Empire page). Looking at some of the links here, it's obvious people have been confusing the whole history of Iran and the "Persian Empire", e.g. Louis IX (there was no Persian Empire at this point of the Middle Ages). Those links need to be redirected to the specific Iranian empire they refer to or simply to the History of Iran article. --Folantin (talk) 15:00, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The Bulgarian example looks pretty good, that would certainly be better than this current disam page. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

There isn't anything such as "first Persian empire" and "second Persian empire" (you won't find it in academic papers or books related to the history of Iran, and Wikipedia is not the right place to introduce such terms). "Persian empire" is a term that mostly refers to "Achaemenid empire" and to a lesser extent to the "Sassanid empire" and also occasionally is used by some authors to refer to Persia (in the sense of Historic Iran). So, this page should be a disambiguation page. I'm totally against making this page like Bulgarian empire. Alefbe (talk) 16:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know that, which is why I wrote "somewhat similar" rather than "identical". In the strictest sense, "Persian Empire" only applies to the Achaemenids and the Sassanids but it is often applied to the Arsacids as well as every dynasty from the Safavids to the Pahlavis. This page should explain that. --Folantin (talk) 16:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I attempted to write a stub, since no one replied to my suggestion that a simple redirect to History of Iran would be the best solution. I am not trying to imply that this is the best possible writeup. Please feel free to take a red pen to it; but it is still better than a disambiguation page, since there is no particular empire to disambiguate to in most cases. Dekimasuよ! 16:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that in this case, a disambiguation page (ordered by the frequency of relevant usage in English texts) is much better than a summary which is based on original research. If you want to have a summary page on this subject, it should be directly based on reliable sources, not personal interpretations. About your statement that "there is no particular empire to disambiguate to in most cases", there is indeed. "Persian empire" is primarily used to refer to Achaemenid and Sassanid empires (for referring to history of Persia in general, this term is only occasionally used, and is not common). We should look at the common usage in English books and academic articles, not the current usage in Wikipedia. Alefbe (talk) 17:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The disambiguation page as it stands is not ordered by the frequency of relevant usage in English texts as far as I can tell (is that your personal interpretation?). What's most clear is that this disambiguation page is nearly useless to the end user, and for for the purposes of navigation that disambiguation pages are meant to address. How does this page help the reader choose an article? (a) the previous article, despite its faults, (b) a redirect to History of Iran, and (c) a summary page all serve that purpose better. Dekimasuよ! 17:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

As you've so far insisted on reverting to the disambiguation page and you say that the links can be disambiguated, I suggest you take a look at WP:DAB#Links to disambiguated topics: "A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix all resulting mis-directed links." It is also suggested that this be done before creating the disambiguation page. Anyway, there are about 1800 links to go. Three users who work on disambiguation have commented here thus far, and all of them have objected to this dab on the grounds that it doesn't assist navigation. Can you prove us wrong? Dekimasuよ! 17:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

For those 1800 pages, the disambiguation page that I created works better than this edition and is also at least as good as your edition in disambiguating the term and guiding those who click on this link to the relevant page. Avoiding a disambiguation page is not a good reason for "original research". Alefbe (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The disambiguation page does not do anything for those 1800 pages–they are meant to be linked to applicable articles, and a disambiguation page is not an article. If this is a disambiguation page, the links all need to be altered. And there is nothing on the current disambiguation page to help the reader know which article is intended by the link he or she clicked on. That is a significant failing. Please note that I did not request my version remain intact. I only requested that the disambiguation page not return. Dekimasuよ! 17:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Dekimasu's stub was on the right lines. It can be modified if necessary. The disambiguation page was far too short and dry to be of any benefit to the general reader who wants to know what "Persian Empire" means. --Folantin (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

PS: A lot of those links are going to need fixing anyway. Too many people have assumed "Persian Empire" is a synonym for Iran (plus we have really crazy stuff like the Safavids selling arms to the Allies in World War One!). --Folantin (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• Roman Empire and History of Italy. Italy is a territory. Rome is an Empire. The Persian Empire was made up of many, many dynasties with some being Afghani. Afghanistan is -not- Iran. It is its own territory. I find it amusing that Folantin decries that "Persian Empire" is seen as a "synonym for Iran", when she has been edit warring to push such a claim. However, that is what happens when you have such people that are here only to cause disruptions. A block should probably allow for people who actually care about Wikipedia to put a page in place. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"Persian Empire" is not a synonym of Iran in an article on Louis IX. You have shown no prior interest in this topic so please leave it alone. Otherwise people will simply assume you have some kind of vendetta against me. --Folantin (talk) 20:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Vendetta? No, you are edit warring on two articles to promote your ignorance of the situation. Iran is a territory. It is also a country that was established in the modern period. When the Mongols attacked the Persian Empire, they did not limit themselves to Iran. And no prior knowledge? Look at the edits at the 18th century page. I -built- that page and I built every Persian related aspect of it. You are a troll and you should have been banned long ago. If you revert the Persian Empire to the stub again I will put you up for Edit Warring. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

And it is completely ridiculous and intellectually bankrupt for you to dare use an example you just put in against consensus. You have just become a POV pusher along with an edit warrer. You have a chance to revert all of your mass changes or I will put it up at ANI for such mass edit warring and POV pushing. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Go right ahead. Everybody else on this page has discussed this like an adult, whatever our intellectual and procedural disagreements. Now you appear out of the blue with threats of ANI and blocks. Obviously, it's nothing personal. You think there was an entity called the "Persian Empire" in the 13th century, do you? I'd be interested to know what it was called. Now you have restored a version of this page in which the Medes are apparently Persians. Genius. --Folantin (talk) 20:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Appear out of the blue? You are the one mass edit warring and changing pages inappropriately because you have some mistaken understanding of what an empire is versus what a territory is. Wikipedia is based on MoS structures and consensus precedent. It was already pointed out that the model is Roman Empire and History of Italy. That was the model that this page followed already. You started edit warring and claiming that the Persian Empire didn't exist. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

No, you don't get it. I repeat, please tell me the name of the entity known as the "Persian Empire" in the time of Saint Louis. --Folantin (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

You do realize that an empire does not have to be continuous, yes? China did not have a continuous series of Empires. However, during that time the Mongols destroyed the Persian Empire. Timurid dynasty. However, the Afsharid dynasty is a historian acknowledged dynasty of the Persian Empire. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I still prefer a disambiguation page. Nonetheless, Folantin's edition is still much better than the old crappy version of this page. Alefbe (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Good changes yes BritishWatcher (talk) 21:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The old crappy version was the consensus version, and we have rules against page blanking, especially when there are citations of the text. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ottava Rima. The "old crappy version" was a featured article candidate, now it's not even close. Perhaps this page should be moved to Persian Empires, and then speak about the Achamenid, Arsacid, and Sassanid Empires. Warrior4321 21:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The right place to speak about the Achaemenid empire is in the page Achaemenid empire and the right place to speak about the Sassanid empire is in the page Sassanid empire. For other dynasties, the term "Persian empire" is not very common and for them, just briefly mentioning the occasional usage of the term is enough. Alefbe (talk) 21:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Um, its being a Featured Article candidate is completely meaningless. It's whether it passes FA that counts (or should count in an ideal world). Any page can be nominated, however bad. This one didn't get too many "Support" votes (unsurprisingly). The "old crappy version" was a pointless fork of the History of Iran page, containing all kinds of howlers. The Medes were Persians? That's news to me. The Safavid dynasty began in 1500 and ended in 1722? I don't think so. It also managed to confuse the adjective "Iranian/Iranic" with "Persian", so every Islamic dynasty which had Iranic ethnic origins or a Persianate culture was magically transformed into a "Persian Empire". --Folantin (talk) 21:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

History of Iran, like History of Italy, is about a territory, not an empire. Iran is not the Persian Empire. The Persian empire was one form of government that ruled over Iran at some point in time, just like Alexander's Empire and the Khan's Empire. Folantin, your membership in WikiProject Georgia and your history of user page proclamations of blatant POV makes it obvious that you are here pushing an agenda. You have already violated edit warring policies. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"My membership in WikiProject Georgia" makes me biased? LOL I'd forgotten I was even a member of that. That'd be why I argued that Shah Abbas' mother was Iranian not Georgian in the face of some persistent POV-pushing to the contrary. You're way out of your depth here. Take it to ANI if you want some drama. This really isn't the place per WP:TALK. You might want to refresh your acquaintance with our policies on assuming good faith before you do so. Or perhaps your own self-proclaimed philosophy, especially this bit: "Instead of judging others, I should focus on issues...I should seek to be a peacemaker, and not an instigator. I should keep my mouth shut and open up my ears more often. - Ottava Rima". --Folantin (talk) 22:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Labeling someone as a POV warrior is within Wikipedia standards, especially when you have made that apparently in some rather strong POV statements on your user page. Your edit warring, pushing for a one sided view, and inability to deal with scholarly standards is evident of the actions of people who are banned by Arbcom. WikiProject Georgia has a history of POV against both Russia and Persia, as both groups dominated the region over their history. This is the appropriate place to discuss your blanking of a encyclopedic page. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet more baseless slander. This is the talk page for discussing "Persian Empire". Last time I looked I wasn't a Persian Empire. If you want to discuss me, the archived version of the jokes on my user page or my reasons for joining Project Georgia, then take it to ANI. --Folantin (talk) 07:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You are involved in blanking the page. Saying that pointing it out is baseless slander is ridiculous. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)

#1. Although I recognize the problem with the 1800 links, rephrasing a list as prose does not solve anything. Those 1800 ambiguous uses will continue to be ambiguous, regardless of how this page is phrased.

#2. But the short-article has its advantages: it would inform, and that is of course what an encyclopedia should do. The fact that there are 1800 ambiguous uses demonstrates how uninformed many editors are, and we obviously need to address that in the long run.

I propose the following both-ways solution:

** A) use a setindex instead of a disambig. B) provide an RS-based description for the entries.

*** disclaimer: this is an example ***

---

Persian empire may refer to:

• The Achaemenid empire (ca. 550 BCE–330 BCE) was the Persian empire, so named because its monarchs were from Persis (Persia proper), a region of southwestern Iran. It is also from this usage that the term "Persia" came to be a pars pro toto term for the western half of the Iranian plateau (and so also roughly corresponding to the present-day Republic of Iran).
• The Sassanid empire (ca. 224 CE–651 CE) was also a "Persian empire" in every sense of the word since the Sassanid monarchs were (like the Achaemenids) from Persia proper. Because the Sassanids allied themselves very closely to the Parthians, the Sassanid state was also described as "the empire of Persians and Parthians".

Less commonly, "Persian empire" may also refer to:

• The Arsacid Parthian Empire (ca. 248 BCE–224 CE), whose monarchs – though not Persians in any ethnic sense – claimed to descend from the Achaemenid Artaxerxes (the term "Arsacid" is itself a variation of "Artaxerxes").
• The five modern-era Islamic kingdoms that ruled from 1501 to 1979: the Safavids (1501–1722), Afsharids (1736–1750), Zands (1750–1794), Qajars (1781–1925) and Pahlavis (1925-1979). These five states are sometimes referred to as "Persian" kingdoms because their centers of power lay in the western half of the Iranian plateau.

{{SIA}}

Together, these would address the usability issues pointed out by Dekimasu (17:17, 21 August 2009) and simultaneously address the accuracy issues noted by Folantin and Alefbe. How about it? -- Fullstop (talk) 22:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Good job. I could live with that with just a few changes in the tone of the language (it's a bit too colloquial as is). --Folantin (talk) 22:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

What Fullstop was exactly what I meant, a link to the empire with a little description. Warrior4321 22:47, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, the above is not appropriate. The Persian Empire does not refer to Sassanids or Arsacids or anyone else. The Persian Empire refers to a series of dynasties. Please see: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], etc. There are over 30 of these dynasties. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

No, you're mistaken. Such concoctions (either on WP per the examples, or on the web in general) are expressions of the post-1979 exile Iranian desire to distance themselves from the name "Iran" because of the stigmatic associations with fundamentalism etc, and because those uninformed children get a romanticized version of a remote past drilled into them. Although their use of "Persian" is condonable when it serves as a less threatening political identity for them personally, their heartache is not something we need (or ought) to take into account here. What we need to do is stick to the precise scientific terms employed in academic discourse. -- Fullstop (talk) 23:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Where did you pull that bs from? Seriously. Historians and mainstream individuals have declared the above dynasties as part of the Persian Empire for hundreds of years. Even Gibbon refers to them as such. Post 79 exiles? Edward Gibbon was not a post 79 exile. Fullstop, you have revealed yourself to a POV warrior who lacks any academic integrity. I suggest you back away from this article immediately. The "Persian Empire" refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Given comments like that, it seems highly unlikely that you are in a position to ascertain my academic integrity. But you are free to bang your head on the wall all you like. But please do that at a blog or newsgroup or whatever. Thanks. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, please explain how a word used post 1930 to describe a territory can accurately label something that ended 100 years before? Ottava Rima (talk) 00:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You'r speaking in riddles. What word was used post 1930, and what ended 100 years before? -- Fullstop (talk) 00:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

There are no riddles. This page claims that the "Persian Empire" are two different empires that existed before the "Persian Empire" existed. The Persian Empire was the series of dynasties following 600 AD. I already linked many of those dynasties above. Please look at the previous page and you will see that each of the dynasties was given a section. The removal of those dynasties is a serious case of blanking, which is a type of vandalism. To say that those pages are not part of the Persian Empire is not only going again 99.99% of historians and academics, but completely illogical and a violation of NPOV, V, and Fringe. I suggest this nonsense end immediately. Restore the page and improve the language. Anything less than having every single one of those dynasties listed with summaries of their pages is completely unacceptable. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Ottava's right, I think, after reading over this. There were many dynasties in the Persian Empire, to lump it as Iranian history would be like lumping the Roman Empire into Italy's history. Wizardman 00:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it. The appropriate analogy would be "Roman empire is named after Rome, as Persian empire is named after Persis". -- Fullstop (talk) 00:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Persia was the name of the territory before 1935. The term "Iran" was created then in the same way the term "Italy" was created with its unification. Before then, it was a loosely defined region. The "Persian Empire" was about 1300 years worth of on and off dynasties that ruled over a government that was centered in the region. The land included Persia, Afghanistan, parts of Iraq, and other countries in the same way the Roman Empire included France, Spain, parts of Germany, etc. The term was used by histories long before the 1900s and is the official term for the series of dynasties. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the term Iran was used in the Sassanid Empire and the empire's name according to Sassanian records is Iranshah or Eranshah. Nothing about Persia. Persia and Persians was a term given by the hellenistic states. I don't think the then unified hellenistic states of Greece considered the Arabs Persian, but rather Arabs. However, concering what Reza Shah did, he simply asked to remove the name of Persia and only use the term Iran. That does not mean it was not used before 1930's. Warrior4321 03:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Where did you get that from? Seriously, where? Not only did the Sassanids use a completely different character system than English, it was different from the modern Farsi that Iran comes from. Linguistically, there is no chance for you to even make that claim. Furthermore, as I stated above, the Persian Empire was the 30 or so dynasties between 600 AD and 1800 AD. Mentioning the Sassanids at all shows that you don't understand what you are talking about. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

What in the world is the basis for this nonsense you keep spouting? The Achaemenid and Sassanian empires are both very commonly called the "Persian Empire." Your buddy Gibbon calls the Sassanids that. The dynasties from the Safavids through the Pahlavis might occasionally be called the Persian empire, but not very frequently - the state they ruled is usually just called "Persia." The Islamic dynasties between the fall of the Sassanids and the rise of the Safavids, virtually none of which were of Iranian or Persian origin, are virtually never called the "Persian Empire." You have provided no evidence that they are, much less that it is incorrect to call the Achaemenids or Sassanid states the "Persian Empire." Furthermore, the term Italy was no more created in 1861 than the term "Iran" was created in 1935 - both are much older terms. And I don't see how the fact that the Sassanids used a different character system than English or modern Farsi has any relevance whatever - how does that disprove that they called their state "Iranshah" or "Eranshah"? john k (talk) 02:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you done making things up? Gibbon goes into great detail about Persia and their imperial state well into the fall of the Byzatine Empire. Also, the idea that "Iran" is an older term has already been destroyed as a lie propagated on this page - the language that it is supposed to come from has different phonetic alphabet than the modern Farsi the word "Iran" came out of. The two are very different. Furthermore, your argument complete ignores the 30 dynasties that were blanked from the page. Funny how that happens. You divert, make stuff up, and ignore the actual dispute. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, Gibbon is outdated and should not be seen as a reliable source on anything other than what eighteenth century people knew about. He's a great read, but not a useful source. Secondly, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying. Not that I disagree with you, but I don't understand this comment at all. How does having a different phonetic alphabet mean that the Sassanids cannot have called the state "Iran"? And I'm not ignoring any 30 dynasties. I said above that the states in Iran ruled by the dynasties between the fall of the Sassanids and the rise of the Safavids are virtually never referred to as "the Persian Empire." You seem to have no argument against this, except that Gibbon may have called them that 250 years ago. john k (talk) 03:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Outdent - John K, if you bothered to read the discussion before posting, you would have seen that Gibbon was used after someone declared that "Persian Empire" was a post 1979 term pushed by Iranian's with a "romanticized view of the past". The fact that you admit that you have no idea what I am saying is just proof that you shouldn't even be here. You couldn't bother to read the discussion, you have no clue what is being talked about, and you aren't contributing. What compelled you to post? "are virtually never referred" That right there is pure bollocks. Hell, most of those dynasties have references right at the tops of their pages saying that they are Persian imperial governments. The whole use of "dynasty" should have tipped you off. But yes, the previous Persian Empire page made it clear that historians, not you, not Folantin, or anyone else who has made it abundantly clear that you don't know the subject, primarily refer to the dynasties as Persian Empire because, surprise, that is the Persian Empire in its truest cultural self. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks!

1. You have shown no prior interest in this topic so please leave it alone. Otherwise people will simply assume you have some kind of vendetta against me.
2. I suggest you back away from this article immediately.

All users have the right to speak and discuss. You cannot ask people to stop discussing or leave. (See here, here and here for more information). Warrior4321 03:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The personal attacks started when Ottava Rima made the following comments: "I find it amusing that Folantin decries that 'Persian Empire' is seen as a 'synonym for Iran', when she has been edit warring to push such a claim. However, that is what happens when you have such people that are here only to cause disruptions." So I expect you to denounce that. --Folantin (talk) 07:40, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

@Folantin/Warrior4321: be class acts please. DFTT. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

A personal attack deals with the aspects of the individual and not their editing style. Blanking the page and then making arguments that reveal a complete ignorance of the fact that the Persian Empire refers to a series of 30 dynasties falls under the term "trolling". Such individuals are blocked, instead of listened to. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Folantin isn't ignorant of the "fact" that the Persian Empire refers to a series of 30 dynasties. Perhaps, instead, that is not a fact at all, but merely a repeated and unsupported argument that you keep making? john k (talk) 02:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

@Alefbe/@Dekimasu: what are your thoughts on the hybrid pseudo-disambig model?

@Folantin: would you do the honors and write it in less coloquial language?

-- Fullstop (talk) 09:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the cold light of day I can't see much wrong with the language. It's just "[the Achaemenid Empire] was the Persian empire" that might need rephrasing. --Folantin (talk) 10:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, as Wizardman has agreed, the disambiguation model cannot be acceptable. Not only are the two pages that are linked -not- the Persian Empire, you are completely ignoring the 30 dynasties that are. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as it goes, a set index page would be preferable to a disambiguation page in that the relevance of several of the constituent terms is being questioned, and it is acceptable to use citations on a set index, whereas that is generally discouraged as inappropriate content on a disambiguation page. In general, I am not opposed to any page except one that doesn't on some level deal with the term as something describing a unified set. Dekimasuよ! 15:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Potential rewrite: "The Achaemenid empire (ca. 550 BCE–330 BCE) is the state most commonly referred to as the "Persian Empire" in the West. It was so named because its monarchs were from Persis (Persia proper), a region of southwestern Iran." It's not brilliant and I'm sure someone else can do better. --Folantin (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Where did you get any of that from? Do you even have a source? And are you ignoring that these are what scholars call the Persian Empire - Tahirid dynasty 821–873, Alavid dynasty 864–928, Samanid dynasty 819–999, Saffarid dynasty 861–1003, Ziyarid dynasty 928–1043, Buyid dynasty 934–1055, Ghaznavid Empire 975–1187, Seljuk Empire 1037–1194, Ghori dynasty 1149–1212, Khwarezmid dynasty 1077–1231, Kartids dynasty 1231-1389, Ilkhanate 1256–1353, Muzaffarid dynasty 1314–1393, Chupanid dynasty 1337–1357, Jalayerid dynasty 1339–1432, Timurid Empire 1370–1506, Qara Qoyunlu Turcomans 1407–1468, Aq Qoyunlu Turcomans 1378–1508, Safavid Empire 1501–1722, Mughal Empire 1526–1857, Hotaki dynasty 1722–1729, and Afsharid dynasty 1736–1750. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you even have a source? It is incredibly rich that you keep on calling others ignorant without sources, while you keep on proclaiming nonsense as the revealed truth without having once given a source for any of it. And why are the Zand and Qajar dynasties excluded? The Zands were even, unlike the vast majority of your dynasties, actually of Iranian (Luri) origin. And the Safavids continued to rule until 1736. At any rate, it is up to you to provide sourcing that these various dynasties are ever referred to as the "Persian Empire." john k (talk) 02:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The Mughal Empire was a Persian Empire? LOL Perhaps it sacked itself in 1739. If every empire where Persian was spoken by the court and/or civil service is now going to be designated a Persian Empire why don't you add the British Empire while you're at it? IIRC Persian was the official language of the British Raj in India until the 1830s. --Folantin (talk) 21:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You do know that the Roman Empire sacked cities of the Byzantine Empire, right? And that the Byzantine Empire was still part of the Roman Empire, right? Since when did one Empire have to be in control, or since when did Empires not have splits, political strife, or the rest? Have you even read a history book? Gibbon spends 8,000 pages on internal struggles and fights for power, separations of empires and divisions among dynasties. Yet here you are, acting as if you have a clue but don't.

Hell, read the first line of the damn page: "The Mughal Empire (Persian: شاهان مغول Shāhān-e Moġul; self-designation: گوركانى - Gūrkānī)[1][2] was an Islamic and Persianate[3] imperial power of the Indian subcontinent which began in 1526, ruled most of Hindustan (South Asia) by the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and ended in the mid-19th century." You disgust me with your academic dishonesty. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, what in the world are you talking about? the Roman Empire sacked cities of the Byzantine Empire? When? How? What on earth does this mean? The Roman Empire, at any rate, was a state which had institutional continuity from Augustus (or even, arguably, from the early Republic) down to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. There were civil wars, but they were, you know, civil wars, and recognized as such. By no reasonable standard is this comparable to Nadir Shah's invasion of India. Being "Persianate" does not qualify a dynasty to be referred to as the "Persian Empire." You are ridiculous and tendentious. john k (talk) 02:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Blanked page

Following the consensus pattern for Empires, this page followed the pattern of Roman Empire. As such, it covered the 30 or so dynasties that were labelled the "Persian Empire" for hundreds of years. These dynasties spanned from 600 AD to 1800 AD. This cannot be covered in an disambiguation page. The "bold" was also done inappropriately. There are only a handful of people that are arguing for the disambiguation page and none have acknowledged the dynasties at all. Furthermore, no one bothered to notify the WikiProjects before making a major change. This is completely against consensus process and I believe that the page should be restored immediately and the shenanigans stopped. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Partial list of dynasties that were considered part of the "Persian Empire" can be found [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:History_of_Greater_Iran here]. There are others, and some are not "Iranian". Ottava Rima (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree: This is a highly viable scholarly topic, and we shouldn't kill it off. It may well be that it should link at the top to a disambiguation page, but it should not be replaced by a disambiguation page. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 198 FCs served} 13:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not being replaced by a disambiguation page. It's being replaced by a short article explaining the meaning of the umbrella term "Persian Empire". Britannica calls this an "historical empire from about 550 BC-640 AD", i.e. from the Achaemenids to the Sassanids. We already have articles on those states, as well as the intervening Seleucid Empire (Graeco-Macedonian/Hellenistic) and Arsacid Empire (Parthian - Iranian but not strictly speaking Persian). The summary version of all this history is at History of Iran. --Folantin (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The Persian Empire is not anything pre 600 AD. How can you not understand that? Gibbon sure as hell didn't use the term for those Empires. He used the term for Dynasties, just like every other historian for the past 400 years! Ottava Rima (talk) 14:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Not because I think these are reliable sources, but just because that wasn't my impression, I present this for your consideration. In common usage, I don't think that's the case. Dekimasuよ! 15:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Common usage? What are you talking about? A designation for a series of Dynasties over the past 400 years is the use. If there is any other term, then disambiguate it at the top with a hat not, not erase 60k worth of encyclopedic information devoted to it simply because you lack any clue on the subject. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

If you had looked at the history, you'd see the only thing I erased was the disambiguation page (the setup which implies that each era called "Persian Empire" is being treated as a separate entity). However, you're being inconsistent here with your other comments on this page. There are clearly things called the Persian Empire prior to 600 AD, in practice. That was my objection to your comment. You appear to have recognized this below, so there's no need to attack me. Dekimasuよ! 03:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

A response is not an attack. Furthermore, your comments still are justifying the blanking of 60k worth of information that was consensus agreed and part of multiple wikiprojects without any prior discussion or notification. At the very least, a major RfC would be needed to make such dramatic changes. You fail to recognize this point, which is disturbing. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Folantin's summary of the issues under consideration is correct. And yes, the Britannica example is a good summary of how the RSs deal with "Persian empire". Thankfully Wikipedia has V/OR/RS policies to keep the recently-seen novel hypotheses at bay. -- Fullstop (talk) 14:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Britannica is not a reliable source. It is a tertiary source. We use secondary sources. Furthermore, Folantin was referring to pre-Persian Empire empires, not the dynasties that made up the Persian Empire. Please get your terms correct. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

All else aside, WP:RS says that tertiary sources "may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion." That would seem to make using them appropriate for the stubbed version. Dekimasuよ! 15:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as how people are stubbing a 60k article about over 30 dynasties and ignoring the fact that the Persian Empire specifically refers to those 30 dynasties, a tertiary source is not enough evidence for such an action. The "Persian Empire" is a term that was used for historians for 400 years discussing post Islam Iranian empires that was broken down into a series of dynasties. The term "dynasty" also refers to the imperial state. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

1968 Cambridge History of Iran - as you can see, it is all +600 AD Muslim governments. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous - none of the extracts provided in that search use the term "Persian Empire" at all. john k (talk) 02:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying that the Medes, the Achamenians, the Arsacids and Sassanids were not part of the Persian Empire? Only the Islamic ones were? So then, the above stated empires were pre-Persian. Where did you get that from? Warrior4321 16:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

That book appears to start at 1000 AD anyway. Dekimasuよ! 16:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Plus the "Saljuq Empire" it refers to is the Great Seljuq Empire. The Seljuqs were Turkic. --Folantin (talk) 16:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

And the Byzantine Empire was referred to as the Byzantine Empire, but it was still part of the Roman Empire. Stop with the nonsense. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

And we can find plenty of sources that state that explicitly. I suspect we can find no sources that call the Mughals "the Persian Empire. john k (talk) 02:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

After seeing Ottavo's previous comments, I had found it useless to argue with Ottavo. Nonetheless, it's hard to ignore that his newest comment and referring to the usage of "Seljuq empire" and "Persian" in one chapter of a book (to claim that it was called "Persian empire") just set a new record in absurdity. Alefbe (talk) 18:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You got that absurdity because the search was effectively for "Persian" OR "empire", and not "Persian empire". A real search returns results that will probably bring on another tantrum. Perhaps this time on the evils of the Cambridge History of Iran. If the past "comments" (or whatever the polemics might be called) are a measure to go by, it will be an entertaining show. Baghdad Bob Redux. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Tantrum? Listen, you are all very close to being banned from the topic as a whole because you have already proven that you are a bunch of POV pushers who would rather blank the page then deal with the history. Not one of you has provided any proof nor have shown the ability to actually be constructive participants at Wikipedia. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet once again, watch your language. WP:Personal attacks states :

Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor.

No one here is going to get banned "from this topic", as we are building consensus. WP:CONSENSUS states:

Consensus is one of a range of policies regarding how editors work with each other. Editors typically reach consensus as a natural and inherent product of wiki-editing; generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, then everyone who reads it has an opportunity to leave the page as it is or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on the article talk pages.

That is exactly what we are doing. Warrior4321 02:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Your understanding of NPA or what a "personal attack" is is far from what the Wikipedia definition is. 2. I would go see the Macedonian naming ArbCom and see how ArbCom treats POV vandals. Wizardman already reverted the blanking of the page and said that the above claims were wrong. How do you think the rest of ArbCom will feel if this is put up because you feel that you know better than all of the secondary sources that built the 60k page along with all of the people that built it here? The blanking of the page was vandalism. Defending the blanking with such illogical statements that fly in the face of reality is defined as trolling. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

My "understanding" is from WP:NPA. Secondly, this is not a "blanking" of a page. It would come under removal of content, as the page was not "blanked" but was made into a disambig page and then into a short article. Since you want to defend the older version of the page, can you tell me what is the purpose of the older revision? What is wrong with having a disambig page with links to appropriate empire with a brief summary of the dynasty/empire? Warrior4321 04:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Warrior, it would be in your best interest to stop responding. You claim that it is not blanking yet you show no understanding of its use as per WP:VAND. "Removing all or significant parts of a page's content without any reason". There is no legitimate reason to remove well cited information that deals with a very long span of history and is also of high importance in multiple projects. An Arbitrator already reverted it once for this very reason. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with Ottava Rima and Shoemaker's Holiday. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

A few titles of scholarly works:

• Pierre Bryant: From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (i.e. Achaemenid Empire)
• Amélie Kuhrt: The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources for the Achaemenids
• A.T. Olmstead History of the Persian Empire (deals with Achaemenids).

On a later period (revival of Iranian political unity in 1501/1502):

• Andrew J. Newman: Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire --Folantin (talk) 15:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin, thank you for providing a source in that last one that contradicts 100% everything you have been saying, especially when that source describes how it is a restoration post Mongol conquest. It will be very nice around here once you are finally banned and Wikipedia is free of your nonsensical blankings of pages, POV warring, and other blatant disregards for both encyclopedic integrity and common sense. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"The Mughal Empire (Persian: شاهان مغول Shāhān-e Moġul; self-designation: گوركانى - Gūrkānī)[1][2] was an Islamic and Persianate[3] imperial power" - i.e. Persian Empire - L. Canfield, Robert; Jonathan Haas (2002). Turko-Persia in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521522919, 9780521522915. ; p. 20. Most of the subpages on the dynasties are equally referenced with the same statements. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You have nothing to say about the numerous sources which use "Persian Empire" to refer to the Achaemenids? And the fact that the Mughal empire was "Persianate" and an empire does not mean it can be called the "Persian Empire." That is just totally specious. You make up nonsense about the Mughals, etc., and then refuse to even begin to deal with the fact that there's a ton of books that call the Achaemenids the "Persian Empire." And nobody has denied that the state(s) ruled by the Safavids and their successors is/are sometimes called the "Persian Empire." It's the application of the term to dynasties between 700 and 1500 that is dubious. john k (talk) 02:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should get a clue? This is the previous version of the page. As you can see, they are included. What isn't included after the blank were the bulk of what is defined as the "Persian Empire". Notice that little note at the top "Most of the successive states in Greater Iran prior to March 1935 are collectively called the Persian Empire by Western historians". That "successive state" was the constant back and forth from 600 AD until 1800 AD. "And nobody has denied that the state(s) ruled by the Safavids and their successors is/are sometimes called the " Obviously, you haven't actually read the dispute, or bothered to look at the current page. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

But you are saying that the Achaemenids and the Sassanids are not the Persian Empire. You have said this several times on the talk page. At any rate, you seem to be using the old article as though it is a reliable source for what should be in it. It is not. And I have looked at the current page, which does in fact say that the Safavids and their successors are sometimes called the Persian Empire. What is in dispute is whether the Medes, the Seleucids, and the Islamic dynasties that ruled before the Safavids are ever called the "Persian Empire". I see little evidence that they are. The "evidence" you present appears to be separate uses of the words "Persian" and "empire" in books talking about the Seljuks or the Timurids or whatever. The old version of the article doesn't even include the Mughals, btw. john k (talk) 03:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"But you are saying that the Achaemenids and the Sassanids are not the Persian Empire." Correct. Just like Augustus's reign is not the "Roman Empire". Just like the Byzantines are not the "Roman Empire". Just like Charlemagne is not the "Roman Empire". They are all just cogs in a greater whole. "which does in fact say that the Safavids and their successors are sometimes called the Persian Empire" - a brief mention does not justify blanking a 60k page that had references. When an Arbitrator comes and reverts a page blanking, and then people revert him while ignoring multiple WikiProjects involved and years of consensus, that is a major problem. Wikipedia:Vandalism - "page blanking". This, by definition, is an act of vandalism. It is also a disgraceful act that has revealed to be based on an POV attack against the term "Persian Empire" simply because of "I don't like it". Ottava Rima (talk) 03:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, on Wikipedia we do not blank pages because they might not be complete. And you may claim to see little evidence that they are called such, but each of those pages has individual links to many references that say so. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:31, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, John, from looking at your talk page and history of it, it seems like you have quite a few people disagreeing with your "understanding" of history, especially when it comes to empires. This is quite a problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Moving forward

I think the discussion has been getting bogged down over questions about Ottava's comments that the scope of the article should be from "600 AD to 1800 AD". Since neither of the extant options defines the term that way, it would be more productive for us to discuss which is preferable: the current stub, or the article before it was turned into a disambiguation page. Upon reflection, I believe the old article is more useful to the reader. Both exist to summarize the topic; if there are questions of historical continuity, they can be dealt with within the framework of the article. I don't see a pressing need to reduce the amount of information that's available in our summary of other applicable articles. The old article appears to comply sufficiently with Wikipedia:Summary style that it would be worth restoring the article. It seems that a significant number of other editors share this assessment (Juliancolton, Shoemaker's Holiday, Wizardman, BritishWatcher, R'n'B, and possibly even johnk and Warrior4321, although they are arguing with Ottava over other issues). Dekimasuよ! 05:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "useful to the reader". The old version of this page was a rehash of the content of the page History of Iran, mixed with some bizarre original research and pure nonsense. I don't call such a thing "useful to the reader". I should also mention that asking opinion of other users is a good way to reach a consensus. But I prefer to see more comments from those who have been active previously in Iran-related articles (or pages related to the history of Middle East and Central Asia), not users who haven't been involved in any related page and don't care about the content of the page and just think that a 60k page is better that a 1k page (no matter how crappy and redundant that 60k is). For all who want to comment on this issue, I advise them first to read the arguments in this talk page and then look at the old version of this page and then look at the page History of Iran and then think about whether having that 60k rehash of History of Iran was useful or not, or whether Ottava's arguments are acceptable or not. Alefbe (talk) 06:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with Alefbe. The old article was simply "History of Iran c.700 BC - 1935 AD". It was a pure fork of the History of Iran article (minus the pre-history, the Elamites, half the Pahlavi dynasty - for some unexplained reason - and the Islamic Republic). It made some pretty dubious claims about almost all the polities ruling Iran between c.650 and c.1500 being "Persian Empires". What is the value of keeping this? People are getting upset because "60K of content" has been removed but when the content is misleading at worst or simply a duplication of information available elsewhere at best then there is no reason for it to be here. I've removed 150K of content from an article before because it was no good. As for "usefulness to the reader", well, look at Ottava Rima's contributions to this page and you have a perfect example of what the old article has done to the understanding of a complete novice in Iranian history. He relied on this Wikipedia article rather than Britannica, The Cambridge History of Iran (or other scholarly sources) to find out what "Persian Empire" meant and he's ended up in utter confusion. --Folantin (talk) 07:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

This brings us back to Dbachmann's post at the very top of the page, which contained a question that was never adequately answered. There have been a number of editors claiming that the Persian Empire article was a fork of History of Iran, but there have also been suggestions that much of the content of History of Iran would have been better off here instead; i.e., that it's not profitable to talk about the "history of Iran" before the point at which it came to be known as such in the Western world (among historians writing in English). Now, I know that you two disagree, which is why I didn't include you in the list above. However, in light of the discussion here since the page was dabbed/stubbed, I don't see any emerging consensus in favor of the dabbing/stubbing. It may be more useful to proceed from within the -framework- of the old article. Alternatively, an RfC could be opened–I have to object to the idea that editors who have been involved in articles on the Middle East or Central Asia in the past should be yielded to on those grounds. Dekimasuよ! 09:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The history of the "Persian Empire" (or the various states known as the "Persian Empire") is a subset of the History of Iran. 1935, the date when the Iranian authorities requested that foreigners should call the country commonly known as Persia "Iran" had no effect on the internal history of Iran. Likewise, 1985 (the date the authorities in Ivory Coast requested foreigners should start calling the country Côte d'Ivoire) was not a major turning point in Ivorian history and we don't split the article accordingly. Our article on the history of Siam is at History of Thailand with Siam a disambiguation page explaining the historical meaning of the term. The "History of Thailand" page doesn't start in 1939, then stop in 1945 and resume in 1949.--Folantin (talk) 09:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(Oh, I see he wrote 1925, not 1935 - although the former version of this page stopped suddenly in 1935. No, again, there is no reason to split the history there. I know of no books that do this. The Pahlavis were just as much Shahs of Iran as the Qajars. The transition from the Qajars to the Pahlavis wasn't a seismic shock in the history of Iran on the scale of the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. The big shock came in 1979).--Folantin (talk) 10:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)

In light of the two immediately preceding comments (ec: the comment of Dekimasu at 09:25, and Folantin's that follows it), I think I recognize what is going on and where the misunderstanding lies. To clarify:

• a) In academic literature, and in a historical context, "Iran" does not refer to the present-day country of Iran. Rather, "Iran" refers to Iranian nation, which is a concept that has existed since time immemorial, known to the Greeks since the mid 5th century BC, known to speakers of English since at least the 1500s, and in academic usage ever since the field of Iranian Studies was initiated by Anquetil Duperron in 1771.
• b) The geography that goes with the idea of an Iranian nation extends from the Tigris to the Indus. It too is of great antiquity, was also known to the Greeks and Romans, and is what the lead of the History of Iran article identifies itself as covering. As such, 'History of Iran' is comparable to History of India, which is distinct from the article on the 'History of the Republic of India'.
• c) In academic literature, and in a historical context, "Persian empire" is a technical term. It is not a catch-all phrase for any odd dynasty that happened to rule of what may or may not be termed "Persia". The latter term is extensively misused on Wikipedia, where it is often treated it as equivalent to every meaning of "Iran", which it is not. This misuse then (evidently) leads to the incorrect premise that "Persian empire" is a synonym for "Iranian empire", and ultimately to the mess that was this article.
  In reality, only very few Iranian kingdoms were/are called Persian empires. Of these only two are properly Persian empires in every sense of the word. Of these, only one is the Persian empire, and the rest are so-called only through analogy with the original.

Because the premise of the "framework" of the Persian empire article was false, it is not a good starting point for anything. The mini article on what "Persian empire" really refers to is a good starting point; it was the RightThing to do, and whoever did it deserves a medal.

Whether that mini article ought to be fleshed out, is something to be discussed at some other time. The basics need to be addressed first: is this article going to accord with what the RSs tell us, or is it going to be about what the uninformed would like the world to believe? -- Fullstop (talk) 11:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, before you make another claim about the use, please bother to read [6]. That is the actual use of the term. You can see that the English page was a translation of that page. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• There are four votes for the restoration of the page already. A member of the ArbCom was the first to revert the vandalism, and people have been edit warring it back in. There is no community support. The page will be restored and if people want to expand it to improve it, or if they want to copy edit it, that is fine. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Who are the four people? Warrior4321 14:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Ottava, Wikipedia is not a democracy and a simple vote based on head count does not trump arguments based on reliable sources. ArbCom has no mandate to adjudicate on matters of content so the fact that someone commenting on this page is an arbitrator is irrelevant. --Folantin (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)'

Consensus is a large portion of people. Five people saying no means that you lack consensus. If you go against the consensus, it would only justify speeding up a request to topic ban you for your actions. And ArbCom has a mandate on edit warring and blanking. Also, see the Macedonia naming dispute - they put many topic bans there, but a quick RfC would take care of it if you bother to restore the blanking. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Juliancolton, Shoemaker's Holiday, Wizardman and Dekimasu per his first comment in this thread. Plus myself. Since large scale changes must have consensus first, five people saying not to reduce the page by that much and instead work on how to improve it. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeing many arguments based on reliable sources there. You haven't presented any such arguments so "I agree with Ottava Rima" doesn't really cut it. The nearest you've come to using any source apart from Wikipedia or your own imagination is Gibbon. Apart from the fact he's two hundred years out of date, he did refer to the Sassanid Empire as the "Persian Empire". Here are some quotations on my user sub-page. --Folantin (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin, I am going to call you a liar, because many of my responses contained links and references. You responded. That means you knew that I provided references. Thus, your claims above are a flat out lie, or you happen to have one of the worse memories ever. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"I am going to call you a liar". Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment coming from you. I'm still waiting for a source for your claims (apart from your inability to distinguish "Persian Empire" from empire with a "Persianate culture"). Most of all, I'd I'd like to see you get a reliable source for this one: "The Persian Empire is not anything pre 600 AD. How can you not understand that?" --Folantin (talk) 07:18, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You can take that as a compliment all you want, but I have a long reputation for discovering plagiarism, original research, and other forms of academic deception and calling people out on that deception. And Folantin, the links above showing that there are many, many scholars that use "Persian Empire" as an entity that the Mongols invade prove that you cannot claim that it is the Sassanids. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

How about using the term in the same way reliable, up-to-date sources do?

As demonstrated in the examples above, if you read a book with "Persian Empire" in the title you won't get coverage of the history of the various states of Iran from 700BC - 1935. You will most likely get a book on the history of the Ancient Persian Empire(s) from the Achaemenids to the Sassanids (per the Britannica definition) or, even more likely, a book about one specific Ancient Persian empire, particularly the Achaemenid Empire. More rarely, you will get a book dealing with a dynasty of the Shahs of Iran between 1501/1502 and 1979. The title will state which dynasty it deals with (see Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire above).

If you want a book that covers every state known as the "Persian Empire", then you will have to get a history of Iran, the prime example being The Cambridge History of Iran (as Fullstop has demonstrated above).

Our coverage should reflect this state of affairs. This page should be a short article explaining the meaning of the term "Persian Empire" with links to the articles we have on each specific Persian Empire. What it should not do is provide a more or less continuous history of Iran from the 8th century BC to the early decades of the 20th century. --Folantin (talk) 11:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

[7]. That is the term. Unless you want to edit war other Wikis too. You can look at the Languages and see that the original page was reflected in the other versions. Your understanding is of a limited minority and originated in you being unwilling to accept that "Persian" was used instead of "Iran" on a page I was editing. There are many people above that wish for a restoration of the page and you lack all academic and logical credibility here. This page follows the format of Roman Empire as companion to History of Italy. It also deals with issues related to Afghanistan, parts of Iraq, India, etc, as these governments controlled large territories. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It only follows the history section. Warrior4321 13:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"It only follows the history section." What? That is what is being discussed. And it does not -follow- anything. That is where the article came from. This article is a translation. I already got a hold of a few people that I am friends with in Syriac studies that know multiple languages and could verify the content on the page and on other pages. In their field, they are also strongly involved with the history of the Persians. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This page follows the format of Roman Empire

You said that a few comments above. My response was :

No, it doesn't. It only follows the history section. Warrior4321 14:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

And as I said above, the history section is all that is under discussion or matters when the page is a -history- page. Regardless, the "follows" was in relationship of Empire to territory. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source (as you have found out by relying on Wikipedia rather than Britannica, The Cambridge History of Iran etc.). No Wikipedia article in any language can be used as a reliable source in the citations on a Wikipedia article. --Folantin (talk) 14:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin - here is a simple little thing for you - you claim about a use of a term. You claim about what words mean. You have no evidence to back that up. Even in other languages, people are 100% against your interpretation. Consensus is against you. Logic is against you. The sources are against you. The other Wikis are against you. There is only you in a corner with a few others who delight in blanking of pages and disrupting things. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Once again, nobody has "blanked the page". Nobody is being disruptive here apart from you. There is no way we could create an article based on your ideas because there are no reliable sources on the history of the Middle East and Central Asia which regard the Achaemenid and Sassanid empires as "pre-Persian", think the Mughal Empire was called the "Persian Empire" or tell us that "the Persian Empire was the 30 or so dynasties between 600 AD and 1800". This is pure nonsense. Please stop it, it's getting embarrassing. --Folantin (talk) 15:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

By definition, reducing a page by 60k is blanking. And your actions, by definition, are disruptive. I now have six people on my side and consensus is clearly against you. Are you done digging your own grave here? "There is no way we could create an article based on your ideas" - There was already an article and I, like the other five, are defending that article which you are hell bent on vandalising out of existence. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"Even in other languages, people are 100% against your interpretation."

Oh, yeah? The interwikis indicate otherwise.

Ottava Rima, you are being a pest. Uninformed and opinionated and tenditious.

Unless you have reliable sources to back up your absurd contention that the phrase "Persian empire" applies to A) every government that ruled over (portions of) Iran between 600 AD and 1515 (or 1800 or whatever version you are following now), and B) that Persians were not Persians but that Greeks, Arabs, Turks and whatnot were all Persians, then for heaven's sake cough them up. Otherwise quit bothering us and let everyone else do what is necessary to improve the encyclopedia. -- Fullstop (talk) 15:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop - You have provided nothing and consensus is against you. Your arguments are nothing. I have already provided many sources, and the page is referenced just like the individual pages that are being summarized. It was also a direct translation of the Farsi version before cites were added. So, this is not new, novel, or anything else, except in some strange POV twisted perspective which you seem to hold. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Say what? How many sources constitute "have provided nothing"? I gave you the correct link to the Cambridge History of Iran, after you -- in all ignorance -- abused that series to tell us that the Seljuks were Persians. Folantin has provided a list of sources that refer to the Achaemends as the "Persian empire". And, here is a list of references to "Persian empire" in the Encyclopedia Iranica. You'll probably now presume to tell us that all that is invalid, and that instead Wikipedia has been right all along.

Further, since when does violating V/RS/OR constitute having "consensus"? This article has been tagged since April.

And, contrary to your bold faced supposition that "[you] have already provided many sources", it would seem that you have not provided a single non-Wikipedia one aside from Gibbon (!), which you then also only vaguely allude to. Indeed, you haven't provided any sources for the absurd theory that "The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less." (23:56, 21 August 2009) Or for the bizarre notion that the Seljuk and Moghul empires were "Persian empires" (15:31, 22 August; 15:41, 22 August), or for the weird idea that anything pre-600 was "pre-Persian Empire empires" (15:25, 22 August); etc, etc, gaffes ad nauseum.

If you have cited reliable sources for those and other absurdities, I must have missed them, in which case please list them again.

And you are mistaken if you suppose that the dimwits who wrote the fa version were any better informed that the idiots who wrote this one (or for that matter better informed yourself, who demonstratively won't bother doing his homework). The mere fact that you hold up the banner for this pernicious nonsense is itself evidence of how badly it fails to inform, but actually disinforms.

So get your act together, shove the "strange POV twisted perspective which you seem to hold" abuse where the sun doesn't shine, and let the informed people do what is necessary to inform (and not to soapbox as has thus far been the case). -- Fullstop (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I take it that you haven't bothered to actually read anything on the page, or you would have seen multiple sources. Hell, look above where I pointed out references contradicting Folantin when she tried to claim that the Mughals were not Persian and part of the Persian Empire. The only one violating anything is you. The fact that you would dare try to put up the above while being demonstrably false is just proof that you aren't here to do anything but disrupt. I love how incivil you are, throwing around terms like "dimwits" and the rest. Are you done with your disruption? Consensus is clearly against you and building more and more each day. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

As usual, you "take it" wrong. The fact that I quoted some of the nonsense is an indication that your edits have been an endless source of amusement. Folantin did not "claim that Mughals were not Persian and part of the Persian Empire". You are putting words into his mouth. What Folantin did was dismiss your absurd idea that the Mughal empire was a Persian empire. That was a perfectly valid dismissal.

And again you claim "disruption" when in fact editors were working constructively until you came along to amuse them with "POV warrior" polemic and full throated assertions ala "The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less.". Ditto the spurious claims of "Consensus is clearly against you and building more and more each day" while blithely failing to honor any wp policy. Last time I heard, WP:V / WP:OR and WP:RS were still in force, and will continue to do so no matter how uncouth you become, or how hard you work to undermine them.

Again, I note that the full-throated assertion that "[you] have already provided many sources" could not be backed by reiteration of those (phantom?) sources. Please diff if reiterating them is too much trouble. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, word of advice. Your constant beligerances and inability to accept consensus, your claims to have secret knowledge of "truth", and your unwillingness to actually read above and see what everyone else can see is a serious problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

And Fullstop, there was no one "working constructively". When it was first blanked, Wizardman stepped in and said it was a problem. I followed immediately after. There was never consensus for it. And here are some more lovely sources (there are quite a few above) that poke even more holes into your story: [8], [9], and many, many more here, which refer to the Mongols defeating the Persian Empire and then ruling over it. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh look another good one. I would think the International Dictionary of Historic Places: Middle East and Africa would know what the words mean! I love how many people works refer to the Mongol rule as the Mongol-Persian Empire too in order to mark their rule over the Persian Empire. Funny how that works. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

All of those sources state the words "Mongol" and "Persian Empire" seperately. None of them state them together. Warrior4321 23:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Warrior, the Mongols invaded after 1000 AD. That would verify that the Persian Empire was a term being used much later than the Sassanids. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Not only do those sources not say the Mongol empire was a Persian empire, the newest suggestions ala "Mongols defeat[ed] the Persian Empire and then rul[ed] over it" were once more cause for merriment. Matches "The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less." perfectly of course.

And, once more, "have already provided many sources" were not substantiated. Instead, yet more lame ad hominems, yet more empty allegations of impropriety, and so on and so forth. -- Fullstop (talk) 07:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Actually, many of the sources do by saying Mongol-Persian Empire when referring to their dynasty in Persia. 2. The point was that the Mongols -invaded- the Persian Empire. That means that there was an Empire at the time Mongols invaded. That should have been obvious, especially when I stated that before. And "ad hominems"? Another word you misuse. Unlike you, I haven't attacked anyone or called them stupid. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Redirect to History of Iran

The same information that is contained here is maintained on History of Iran. Either redirect it there, or make a disambig page to the seperate empires, as having two pages containing the same information is redundant. Warrior4321 15:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

As pointed out countless times - Iran is one territory. That is like redirecting the Roman Empire to History of Italy. The Persian Empire covered parts of Iraq, Afghanistan, India, etc. It is a fundamental part of -all- of these territories. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, same information? Have you bothered to look at the pages? They are clearly not the same. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No it isn't. Atleast look at the pages first. Roman Empires start's it's "history" section from 27 BC and ends in the year 476, while the History of Italy page starts in the prehistoric era and ends in 2008. Big difference huh? History of Iran and Persian Empire both end at the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and begin at the Median Empire. Warrior4321 15:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I see that History of Iran starts thousands of years before this article and continues well past 1979, and includes entire sections on Khomeini and Khamenei. This article, on the other hand, starts at the Median Empire and ends here, around 1935. NW (Talk) 15:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

So because of two or three sections, two pages containing the same information excluding the two/three sections should be contained on Wikipedia? Warrior4321 17:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've already made this point above (twice): "The old article was simply 'History of Iran c.700 BC - 1935 AD' It was a pure fork of the History of Iran article (minus the pre-history, the Elamites, half the Pahlavi dynasty - for some unexplained reason - and the Islamic Republic)". And: "This page should be a short article explaining the meaning of the term "Persian Empire" with links to the articles we have on each specific Persian Empire. What it should not do is provide a more or less continuous history of Iran from the 8th century BC to the early decades of the 20th century." --Folantin (talk) 18:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. All the "Persian Empires" are covered in History of Iran. Yet rather than having a "short article", why not make it a disambig page which would then lead the users to the appropriate empires/dynasties. Warrior4321 22:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin, you do realize that you are being mocked off site for such a ludicrous argument, right? People are saying that you would have all pages related to France be one page. Please see the MoS size requirement. Pages are not supposed to have over 60k worth a text, and that"one page" cannot contain all information. Furthermore, you seem unwilling to acknowledge that the Persian Empire includes Afghanistan, India, and other territories that are not covered under the History of Iran. That little fact alone proves that you have no ground to stand on. Stop with these shenanigans immediately. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, there is some projection. You are the one being mocked for ludicrous arguments (not off-site, in your case). Because your arguments are ludicrous. Yours is, on the whole, one of the most ludicrous arguments I have ever seen anybody make with such fervor on Wikipedia. john k (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"Projection" would mean that I secretly don't want information on Afghanistan or the rest of the empire to be on the page. That is ridiculously absurd. My dear Kenney, consensus is against you, and your talk page is filled with people who point out that you don't understand consensus or history. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there information on this page that is not covered in History of Iran? Warrior4321 23:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. As I said, Afghanistan, India, and Iraq are not part of the history of Iran page. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

From History of Iran: History of Iran and Greater Iran (also referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by the Encyclopedia Iranica) consists of the area from the Euphrates in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the south. It includes the modern nations of Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the eastern parts of Turkey and Iraq. It is one of the classical ancient civilizations. Clearly History of Iran includes exactly the areas you are talking about. john k (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

They are not part of this page either. Warrior4321 23:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Really? Then why are there lines like "and the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.". This is the 8th time you have demonstrated not having actually read the other page. Go bother somewhere else. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I meant to say there were no sections on them. Warrior4321 23:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

You want whole sections devoted to them? Why? There aren't whole sections devoted to Iran. What is with you and strange POV? It is as if you don't understand how to deal with things in proper proportion. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If all that is needed is a few sentences that are missing, then obviously only a merge is neccesary. Warrior4321 23:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no possibility for a merge. This is not Iranian history just like Roman Empire is not Italian history. There will be overlap, but overlap is not justification to remove a page. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The Roman Empire was a seperate empire, just like we have a Sassanid Empire article. The Roman Empire commenced in 27 BC and ended in 476 BC. Comparing the Roman Empire article to History of Italy is like comparing the Sassanid Empire to History of Iran. The overlap between Persian Empire and History of Iran is too great to maintain a seperate article. The information on this article (excluding a few sentences) is all on the History of Iran article. Warrior4321 23:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there is no institutional continuity between the various states which have ruled Greater Iran, as there is for the Roman Empire. Just to nitpick a little, though, the Roman Empire did not end in 476 AD, and nobody would have thought it did at the time. The Roman Empire survived in the east, and gradually transformed into the Byzantine Empire, which ended in 1453.john k (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In fact, in comparing Italy with Iran, Roman Empire should be compared to Achaemenid Empire, which already has its own page. I should also mention once more that the most common usage of the term "Persian empire" (in English texts) is to refer to the Achaemenid empire. To avoid confusion and to refer to the other possible usage of the term, a disambiguation page will work just fine. Alefbe (talk) 00:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well technically, the complete empire split at 476 BCE, into the eastern and Western Roman Empire, which became known as the Byzantine Empire. Warrior4321 00:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

No, the empire split in 395 CE. The Western Empire came to an end in 476 CE. john k (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Really? That is proof that you don't have an advance degree in European History. ArbCom knows my degrees and knows that one of them is a Masters in Classical Literature. That involved classical history, and extensive studies in Roman History and the accuracy of Gibbon. Everyone knows that Charlemagne was emperor of the Western Roman Empire and also battled others wanting the title. Rome didn't "fall" - it slowly dissolved into independent states and was powerless to reclaim the territories as they split away. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, for God's sake. Seriously? You are completely insufferable. You're right, I've never heard of Charlemagne before, that's exactly why I said the Western Roman Empire ended in 476. This total ignorance about Charlemagne, which my saying the Western empire ended in 476 conclusively demonstrates, also proves that I cannot possibly have a master's degree in modern European history, because a detailed study of Charlemagne is absolutely necessary to receive an advanced degree in modern European history. You have exposed me as a fraud! Well done. john k (talk) 02:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Everyone knows that the Vandal sacking of Rome was -not- the fall of the Roman Empire or "Western" Roman Empire. The fact that Charlemagne took the title afterward is verification of that. The fact that Bede was discussing contemporary Emperors of the Western Roman Empire is proof of that. The only thing that changed was that the Church controlled the government and the heirs of the government without the former questioning. Your understanding of history seems to be below that of a first year history major. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whether everyone knows it or not (in general I am reluctant to assume that other people must know things), but someone who is being a dick about somebody else's supposed ignorance ought to know that the Vandals did not sack Rome in 476. He might also know that the Church did not control the government in Rome until hundreds of years after Odoacer took over from Romulus Augustulus - rather, there was secular government by Odoacer and the Ostrogothic kings as theoretical vicars for the Eastern Emperors, and then there was the return of direct rule by the eastern emperors themselves after Justinian. As far as Charlemagne, you are basically accusing me of ignorance because I don't hold to your nonsensical and idiosyncratic opinion that somehow Charlemagne was ruling the same state as Valentinian III. Which I suppose fits well with your nonsensical, idiosyncratic, and ridiculously strongly held notion that Shah Jahan was ruling the same state was Malik Shah (and the same state as Darius I?) This is all getting ridiculously far from the purported topic of this talk page, which is the article Persian Empire. Rather your posts seem to be largely directed at gratuitously insulting me. john k (talk) 05:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Kenney, please keep up. The "Vandals sacking Rome" is the time Rome fell, i.e. the city. That is what people refer to when they say that Rome fell. The Empire did not fall in the same way it didn't fall all of the other times one general usurped the authority of Rome in 476. "ruling the same state" If you had any idea about how an Imperial system works, each new emperor runs their own state and there is a new form of government that caters to each Emperor. This is why Gibbon made the famous claim that Rome fell and was reborn based on the qualities of the Emperors. But see, you don't understand basics of history, so I doubt you would understand any of the above. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Outdent - Wikipedia has something called an "MoS". It is a standardizing principle for structures of pages. The Roman Empire page and History of Italy is an analogy. So, comments like "The Roman Empire was a seperate empire", spelling errors and all, reveal that you don't understand the argument. And John, there was little institutional continuity in the Roman Empire, especially with multiple revolutions, assassinations, divisions of the Empire, and the such. Have you even bothered to read the Roman Empire page? The last of the Julian line stopped early in the Empire. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I have not read the Roman Empire page, but I have read a pretty significant amount about the Roman Empire that is not on Wikipedia. Are you some kind of performance art project where you base all your knowledge on the current composition of Wikipedia? The Julio-Claudian line came to an end with Nero. The idea that the state ruled by Vespasian or the Antonines was as different from the state established by Augustus as the Sassanids were from the Achaemenids is absurd. There was obviously constant change and evolution, and there wasn't dynastic continuity in the Roman Empire, but there was still real institutional and administrative continuity. The Senate continued to exist; there were consuls and other magistrates chosen every year; individual legions had continuous histories for hundreds of years; and so forth. The Roman Empire was a state. It was a state ruled by different people, but still recognizably the same state. All change was gradual to the point where it's very difficult to isolate a single date and say that that is where the Eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, in the history of Iran in the middle ages what you generally have is a new barbarian tribe coming in from the steppes and conquering whoever was there before - the Seljuks conquer the region, then the Khwarezmians, then the Mongols, then Timur. There is no dynastic continuity, but there isn't really any kind of continuity. john k (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The state was different. Ever wonder what happens after assassination attempts? After the empire is divided into four and them one takes over the others? You seem to have no actual knowledge or willing to understand that there was constant internal warfare and struggle in the Roman Empire for a very long time. And the Byzatine Empire is still the Roman Empire. In China, there is no dynastic continuity yet they all become part of the same imperial makeup. That is how empires work - they build on previous traditions while creating their own identities. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts on the Roman, Byzantine and Chinese empires. Unfortunately, they are off topic here. If you want to discuss whether the Roman and Byzantine empire should be one article (as is being implied with "Byzatine Empire is still the Roman Empire"), then perhaps you should visit the talk pages at those respective articles. They will no doubt be delighted to hear your merge suggestion.

And since you speak of the Byzantine Empire, andthe Roman Empire, you may also be looking for the Persian Empire, which too is elsewhere.

Fact is, Ottava Rima has not a straw of RS for the bizarre theories ala "The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less." Although entertaining, sourcing policies do not permit us to indulge in joke pages. Alas. -- Fullstop (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, declaring talking about how Empires are treated on Wikipedia is not off topic, and your claims to the such are as absurd as the rest of your statements on this page. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Really? Because it seems to me that your discussion quickly descended into a dispute over each others' academic credentials. Keep discussion pertinent, guys. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 13:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Returning to the topic of this talk section:
Redirection is not a viable solution because -- as all the pernicious misuse on Wikipedia shows -- the term needs to be explained. Otherwise, uninformed people will think (or will continue to think) that "Persian empire" is synonymous with "History of Iran", rather than being a name that is only applicable to a select few pieces of it.
Because it is necessary to inform, the only immediately viable option is to make the page a short article / explanatory setindex of reliable source usage.
Eventually (i.e. if desirable and if anyone has time left over after dealing with Baghdad Bob-esque comedy "authentic sources—many authentic sources"), that short article / explanatory setindex could be used as the basis for more explanation, thus making the article one like Bulgarian empire.
The key issue is to inform (real RS information, not fanciful OR redefinitions of "Persian empire"). -- Fullstop (talk) 10:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus is against the short article and for the full article that existed. Sorry. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Consensus" has never trumped our policies on encyclopaedic accuracy.--Folantin (talk) 14:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus always trumps minority people that claim to have "truth". See WP:FRINGE. Many sources have been put forth to show that the term Persian Empire was used in reference to the many dynasties that you tried to pretend don't exist. You still haven't been able to overcome the statement that this all comes from a Farsi term, and that the Farsi sources are against you in usage. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for that allegation of "consensus", or are you just making up that too (like everything else)? It would seem that the latter is the case since the only one who has actually said anything substantial against the short article is you. (here, "substantial" refers to volume, and does not imply that anything you say is valid). I see no evidence for "consensus" to violate every policy in the book either. Nor for claims of WP:FRINGE when in fact you haven't been able to cite any sources for your pet theory ("The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less."), but plenty of sources have been provided for the contrary.

So, it would seem that just as not having sources has not stopped you from falsely claiming protection of sources, not having consensus has not stopped you from falsely claiming to have consensus.

The false claim of consensus has in fact has been addressed before, but of course, you didn't listen to that either; just as you haven't listened to what anyone else as had to say (if, that is, you didn't twist their words around). -- Fullstop (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Do you have any evidence for that allegation of "consensus"" Six people including my self directly said that the page needed to be restored and not reduced to the stub or a redirect. I have already listed them before. Have you not bothered to read anything here? And it has already been proven that many, many sources use "Persian Empire" for the group that was defeated by the Mongols -and- the state that the Mongols took over (Mongol-Persian Empire in some works, just Persian Empire in others) in the same way that the Mongols Empire over China is a Chinese Empire Yuan Dynasty. By the way, the term "Dynasty" refers to Imperial states. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me help you out. Here is the consensus: Dekimasuよ! 05:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC), Wizardman 00:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC) , Shoemaker's Holiday Over 198 FCs served 13:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC),NW (Talk) 15:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC) and another that I can't find at the moment. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You evidently missed something, as usual. Here is what I said:

"It would seem that the latter is the case since the only one who has actually said anything substantial against the short article is you. (here, "substantial" refers to volume, and does not imply that anything you say is valid). I see no evidence for "consensus" to violate every policy in the book either. Nor for claims of WP:FRINGE when in fact you haven't been able to cite any sources for your pet theory ("The 'Persian Empire' refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less."), but plenty of sources have been provided for the contrary.

So, it would seem that just as not having sources has not stopped you from falsely claiming protection of sources, not having consensus has not stopped you from falsely claiming to have consensus. "

btw: yes, I have bothered to read everything you spew. Its great fun. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, claiming that I have no sources is a 100% lie that is proven from over 13 sources being linked directly on this page with many others linked indirectly. It has already been pointed out that you have been wrong on this matter over 7 times. Your continual denial of reality would justify that you are not here to improve the encyclopedia. This is a warning for you to stop immediately. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Protection of this article

I notice this article has been fully protected. Wow, what a triumph for the "Wikipedia way". A single, ignorant user (Ottava Rima, natch) on some kind of personal campaign has completely hijacked a civilised, intellectual discussion. Fortunately, the Encyclopedia Iranica is available online so those able to negotiate its crazy search facility will not be left in ignorance. People who rely on Wikipedia will have to make do with an article that appears to present the Persian Empire as a continuous entity from c.700 BC to 1935, when it magically disappeared because some authorities requested foreigners should start calling it by a different name. So, according to this article, the Persian Empire survived the onslaught of the Arabs, the Turks and the Mongols but was slain by a diplomatic request by Reza Shah. Highly informative. --Folantin (talk) 08:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Folatin, you're missing more inadvertent comedy. Of course you're right that the protection merely lets the axe-grinder get around WP:TEND/3RR/WP:V/WP:OR/WP:RS. But the fact that the loser had to ask for protection, rather than succeed at being convincing on the talk page, speaks volumes for itself. Sort of Baghdad Bob crying "Help! They aren't committing suicide after all!" *giggle* -- Fullstop (talk) 09:58, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, Ottava's protected a page which describes the Achaemenid to the Sassanid dynasties as Persian Empires, although "The Persian Empire is not anything pre 600 AD. How can you not understand that?" How indeed. (Talking of Baghdad Bob, I remember during the Cambodian Civil War of the early 1970s President Lon Nol had a similar information minister with the brilliant name Am Rong [10]. I don't know his subsequent fate, but maybe he escaped into exile and is now editing Wikipedia pseudonymously).--Folantin (talk) 10:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Um, yes, a single user that includes Wizardman who stated in the beginning that this was a bad move you did. Then there were four others on this page also stating it. Funny how you pretend they never said anything. There are 6 people that said the previous page needs to be restored. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Some of the inadequacies of this page ("old version")

A selective list (others will no more about the earlier periods than me):

• The first Persian Empire formed under the Median Empire (728–559 BC). Gives the impression the Medes ruled a Persian Empire. The Medes were an Iranian people closely related to, but not the same as the Persians.

• Tries to promote the idea there was some kind of political continuity in Iran (Persia) between the fall of the Sassanids and the coronation of Ismail I as Safavid shah of Iran, in other words Iran was never really ruled by foreigners. The regional Iranian dynasties which emerged in the decline of the Abbasid caliphate (the Tahirids of Khorasan, the Saffarids of Sistan and the Samanids of Bukhara/Balkh) have been promoted to the status of "Persian Empire". At a stretch, you might call the Buyids that, but IIRC they never took de jure authority away from the Abbassid caliph. Any state with a Persianate culture (Seljuks, Ghaznavids, Mongols, Timurids) is promoted to the status of a Persian empire (fortunately this page has avoided promoting Mughal India to this status).

• The Safavid section contains no mention of the Qizilbash who brought the Safavids to power. Quite an amazing omission.

• "Safavid Persia was a violent and chaotic state for the next seventy years". Not really. The first decade of Tahmasp I's reign was dogged by internal fighting (sometimes known as the "First Civil War") and there was a period of conflict between his death and the accession of Abbas (sometimes known as the "Second Civil War"). But the idea that Iran was in a "violent and chaotic state" for most of Tahmasp's long reign is pretty tendentious.

• "Abdur Razzaq was the Persian ambassador to Calicut, India, and wrote vividly of his experiences there." OK, but this fact is a bit "detailed" for an article dedicated to three millennia of the history of an entirely different region. And if we're going to deal with the relations between Iran and India at this time, how about the bit where the Mughal emperor Humayun was overthrown and fled to the Iranian court and had to be reinstalled with Safavid support.

• "However, the Safavids were severely weakened, and that same year (1722), the Afghans launched a bloody battle in response to the Safavids' attempts on trying to forcefully convert them from Sunni to Shi'a sect of Islam. The last Safavid shah was executed, and the dynasty came to an end." Shah Soltan Hosein wasn't the last Safavid shah (and he was executed in 1726, not 1722). The last Safavid shah was Abbas III, who was deposed in 1736. (Although maybe you could make an unconvincing case for the so-called Suleiman II of Persia).

• "After Nadir Shah was assassinated, the empire was ruled by the Zand dynasty." I'm afraid it was a bit more complicated than that.

• The Qajar section is way too brief and contains absolutely no mention of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, one of the most significant events in modern Iranian history.

• On the other hand, for some reason it contains a highly detailed account of World War One, a war in which Iran was officially neutral and played little active part. Instead, we are treated to a detailed description of the campaigns of the various foreign powers (Russians, Ottomans, British, Germans) who fought on Iranian territory.

• No mention of Reza Khan's 1921 coup, the real beginning of Pahlavi power in Iran. This is the date at which Ali Ansari chooses to begin his Modern Iran Since 1921: the Pahlavis and After.

• As mentioned above, stops abruptly in 1935 with a minor diplomatic event of little significance in the internal history of Iran.--Folantin (talk) 09:33, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Update Oh, look, this article can't find space to mention the Prophet Mani (of Manichaeanism fame) but it's made room for a "Persian in fiction" section. Did you know "The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux has a main character known only as 'The Persian' or 'Daroga'"? I can't wait for this page to be unprotected so I can mention that the James Bond villain Blofeld has a Persian cat.

Of course, the basic problem with this article is not its many inaccuracies and omissions, but the fact the whole thing is conceptually flawed, which is why I and other users have proposed turning it into a short article or disambiguation page. --Folantin (talk) 11:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"in other words Iran was never really ruled by foreigners" If you read the article, then you would see this is blatantly untrue, especially with the first discussion after the Sassanids being Arab conquerors. You keep revealing your extreme bias and inability to follow WP:NPOV in addition to revealing that you don't have the decency to actually read a page you are commenting on. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it grudgingly admits there was an Arab interlude after the Arab conquest but soon the good old Persians were driving them out and saving the empire: Following the advent of Islam and collapse of the Sassanid Empire, Persians came under the subjection of Arab rulers for almost two centuries before native Persian dynasties could gradually drive them out. So even this page concedes that there was no continuous Persian Empire. In fact, there was no "Persian Empire" of any description whatsoever (however it tries to wangle it) for two centuries after the Arab conquest. There was no political continuity between the Sassanid Empire and successive "Persian Empires", a point I have already made at great length on this page. --Folantin (talk) 14:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Grudgingly? At least pretend to not have a bias. Furthermore, the dynasties were still in existence. An Empire or an Emperor does not need to have complete control. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, you are the only one claiming that there should be continuity. I have never stated that the Sassanids, giving their own term, were the same as the Persian Empire that is made up of the 30 some dynasties. You and the other fringe POV proponents are the only ones claiming such so you can ignore 1200 years worth of history simply because you didn't write it and you can't stand that it exists. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:57, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"I have never stated that the Sassanids, giving their own term, were the same as the Persian Empire". That's right. You've never even admitted that the Sassanids were a Persian Empire even though your hero Gibbon contradicts you on that point. --Folantin (talk) 15:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

My dear, just because someone else claimed that does not make it true. Please do some fact checking. Here is Gibbon. As you can see "Persian Empire" does not appear. There does appear "His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,". He does eventually use the term Persian empire, with a little e, but never in saying that they were the "Persian Empire". No one is saying that the Sassanids were not an empire. No one is saying that they are not part of Persia. But there is a huge difference between the little "e" and the capital "E". Ottava Rima (talk) 16:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If the current page were to be retitled Monarchies which have ruled (Greater) Iran from the Medes to 1935 then that would be more accurate (allowing for some necessary additions). What the point of such a page would be is another matter. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, this would simply duplicate most of the History of Iran page.--Folantin (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

This is not about monarchies ruling Greater Iran. This is about Imperial states that were Persian. Persian governments were not limited to just Iran. That has been pointed out many times, and your complete ignoring of Afghanistan is extremely disturbing. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

How on earth are Graeco-Macedonians, Arabs, Turks, Mongols etc. all "Persian"? Some adopted "Persianate" culture, but that's it. "My complete ignoring of 'Afghanistan' is extremely disturbing?" It is? Why? --Folantin (talk) 15:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I have already quoted many sources that call the Mongol domination as a dynasty of the "Persian Empire" or "Mongol-Persian Empire". Furthermore, the same way they can be part of the Persian Empire is the same that they are part of the Chinese Empire. You do not have to be Persian to be a Persian Emperor. As I said, Persian Emperor is a -political- position. It is not a ethnic or geographic position. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

No, actually you have not "quoted many sources" that call the Mongols a "Persian empire". You might believe that you have though. But in reality, you haven't quoted anyone for anything.

Anyway, do you have any sources to backup "You do not have to be Persian to be a Persian Emperor. As I said, Persian Emperor is a -political- position. It is not a ethnic or geographic position." Or is that just the usual "make something up and try to get away with it"? How does this fit in with your supposition that the term "Persian empire" is comparable to the term "Roman empire"? -- Fullstop (talk) 16:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

About Ottava's arguments

I'm having a hard time getting my head round this, so maybe a quick recap of some of his statements to see if we can make sense of this:

• "The Persian Empire was the series of dynasties following 600 AD."

• "The "Persian Empire" refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less."

And when did the "Ottoman conquest" occur? In 1800 AD apparently:

• "Furthermore, as I stated above, the Persian Empire was the 30 or so dynasties between 600 AD and 1800 AD."

--Folantin (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Now you are being absurd. My "proposed version" was simply to restore the page. No more, no less. That proposal is already stated above. Are you done blatantly lying? Furthermore, you are not supposed to direct sections like that at other users. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I was referring to Dynasties that existed during that time. That does not say that the dynasties began at 600 AD or ended at 1800 AD. That is basic reading comprehension. Nor can you say that I said the Ottoman conquest happened at 1800 AD as there is no way to grammatically or logically make such claims. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Qajar dynasty - "from 1794 to 1925." 1794 is before 1800, yes? That is the last dynasty that is officially recognized as part of the Persian Empire. So, please strike your nonsense above. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

This page is called "Persian Empire". You clearly stated that "The "Persian Empire" refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less." So why do you want a page describing states before 600AD and after 1800 as "Persian empires". It's quite obvious from comparing the above statements that you imply the "Ottoman Conquest" took place in 1800. Otherwise when are you claiming the "Ottoman conquest" took place? --Folantin (talk) 16:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the "Persian Empire" falls under that. The Sassanids are called the Sassanid Empire and the rest equally so. The modern "Persian" understanding came after the Sassanids collapsed. At least, that is how it is understood in the Farsi sense of the term with the Sassanids et al being proto-Persians. Regardless, why would I want the restoration of the page? Why not? Even if the "Persian Empire" described those dynasties, it is part of Persian Empire history to know what the proto-types were along with understanding the Islamic changes that altered the whole political and philosophical landscape of the area. And I never implied the Ottoman Conquest took place in 1800. One sentence says A to B. The other says A to C. There is no logical way to then claim I was saying B = C. Talk:Persian Empire#Blanked page: "I believe that the page should be restored immediately and the shenanigans stopped. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)". That is what I proposed. No more, no less. Now stop the bs. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin, that doesn't explain why you want the whole thing deleted. The other ones stay up, such as Achaemenid Empire, because it is considered a Persian Empire in history. To remove that and others would do a disservice and would be making up history, which I'm sure neither of us want. The original page that was up, as Ottava said, is fine. Wizardman 16:14, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

To Ottava Rima: So when did the "Ottoman conquest" take place and why was it so important that you stated: "The "Persian Empire" refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less". --Folantin (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

As I stated above - Qajar dynasty - "from 1794 to 1925." Their collapse as an Empire coincided along with Ottoman conquests. They were founded before 1800, so they are a dynasty within the range 600-1800. I have already stated this. You should have been able to see that. Right now, you are just digging yourself deeper and deeper instead of just admitting that 1. you ignored my actual proposal, and 2. you completely demonstrated a lack of having actually comprehended what I wrote. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

No, they are a dynasty within the range "600 to 1925". Now the "Ottoman conquest" occurred in 1925? I can't quite make it out. The "Qajars" were "the last dynasty that is officially recognized as part of the Persian Empire". Um, the Pahlavis? --Folantin (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want to claim that 1796 is not between 600 and 1800, then you should be banned immediately, because you are a troll of the worse sort. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

What are you referring to that happened in 1796? -- Fullstop (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

He might have been referring to the coronation of Mohammad Khan Qajar. He obviously can't decide when he wants the Qajars to start. --Folantin (talk) 18:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

He might also be referring to the second Russo-Persian war, but then I have to wonder why following two Russo-Persian wars are called "Russo-Persian wars" as well.

ps: Is 600-1796 the "updated" version of the previous "600 AD to Ottoman invasion" claim? -- Fullstop (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I directly quoted the wikipedia page with a link. How can you two be lost about that? Are you unable to read links? Are you unable to understand what a quote is? Do you not have any desire to actually read? Or do you just make things up as it appears that you are doing now? Ottava Rima (talk) 20:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, how is the "The National Assembly of Iran" the "Persian Empire"? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Why should the name of a house of parliament have (or not have) something to do with "Persian empire"? Did the British empire not have a House of Commons, or the Roman Empire not have a senate? -- Fullstop (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have bothered to read anything, you would see that the Persian Empire included India, Afghanistan, parts of Iraq, etc. The "Iran" of the above does not. They are not the same thing. One is a tiny part that completely split from the past. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) "If you want to claim that 1796 is not between 600 and 1800..." Eh? Why just cover the first four years of the Qajars? Besides which, in 600 the Sassanids were in power, so why are you excluding them? Nobody has any idea why you have picked these random dates. That's the whole point. "Furthermore, how is the "The National Assembly of Iran" the 'Persian Empire'"? What are you talking about? --Folantin (talk) 17:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Because I was saying when things were established. If you don't like it, too bad. However, your arguments against it show not only a misunderstanding of logic, it shows a horrible misunderstanding of basic mathematics. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)(To clarify basic issues that will hopefully be answered together with Folantin's questions) Re: "the Farsi sense of the term [has] the Sassanids et al being proto-Persians." (13:27, 22 August). What's the "Farsi" word for "proto-Persian"? What is the English name for "Farsi"? What is the name of the ancestor languages of "Farsi"? What is the name of the language group that those languages belong to? -- Fullstop (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The English name for Farsi is Farsi. The Farsi word is فارسی . The Farsi word for Proto-Persian is شاهنشاهی_ساسانی. They spoke پارسی_میانه, which is not فارسی. The pre-Islamic Republics were heavily influenced by the language فارسی , which is not "Iranian". Furthermore, linguistic naming groups are based on the country name of origin. As was stated, the Persian Empire is not a country but a group of countries. That is what an Empire is - multiple countries. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

To Wizardman and others who support Ottava's arguments about this page: Have you read any reliable academic book about History of Iran or related subjects (something like Cambidge's history of Iran)? If no, why do you insist on participating in this content dispute? If yes, is it really hard to see how nonsense those arguments are? (arguments like [11], [12] [13] [14]) Alefbe (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have cited many reliable sources. If you can't even spell "Cambridge" correctly, how can people take you serious? Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. For getting an idea about the usage and the meaning of the term "Persian Empire" in reliable academic English texts, you can see its usage in Encyclopedia Iranica. Wikipedia and this page should reflect that, not some bizarre type of original research. Alefbe (talk) 18:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Reply to Wizardman. "Folantin, that doesn't explain why you want the whole thing deleted." I don’t want the whole thing deleted. If I did, I’d take it to AfD. I want either a short article explaining the concept "Persian Empire" or a disambiguation page. The same as Fullstop, Alefbe and Warrior (or maybe he prefers a redirect?). "The other ones stay up, such as Achaemenid Empire, because it is considered a Persian Empire in history. To remove that and others would do a disservice and would be making up history, which I'm sure neither of us want." Who's proposing removing mention of the Achaemenid Empire from this page? Not me. We have already an entire article on the Achaemenid Empire and this page should contain a link to that but not much more. "The original page that was up, as Ottava said, is fine". If it's "fine" why has it been marked for clean-up, unverified claims and original research since March/April? Or what about my list of its inadequacies? And what about the arguments Alefbe, Fullstop, Warrior, and I have made against it (maybe I could add John Kenney here too)? I’m not really seeing many arguments on the other side (I’m certainly excluding Ottava Rima’s absurdities of course). --Folantin (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer a disambig page, the redirect was a solution if the disambig page was a no-no. Warrior4321 18:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin, there is no one saying that the Achaemenid deserve no mention. However, you put up a 100% false argument by claiming that the only way to have mention of it is to delete 60k worth of information. That is completely absurd and can only be pure trolling. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Alefbe, Encyclopedia Iranica is not a reliable source. Your use of it is rather amusing. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Encyclopedia Iranica is not a reliable source". Oh my God. *Bangs head against the wall repeatedly laughing*. You really don't have a clue, do you? --Folantin (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Would you care to elaborate on that? Academic publications of Columbia University Press generally strike me as reliable sources, all other things being equal. john k (talk) 20:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you bothered to even read anything on the website? How about this little doozy - "In English, in order to make it accessible to the widest possible readership in the world, no less than to educated Iranians. A projected Persian translation is envisaged once the Encyclopædia has been published in its entirety." From here. Then there is the wonderful statement saying that it is incomplete and has errors: " The Iranica website continues in progress: it is subject to development and testing of enhanced functionality and improved presentation of the Encyclopaedia Iranica entries." It isn't from Persians. It is from people without an appropriate sensitivity. Furthermore, tertiary sources are not reliable sources on Wikipedia. Hell, their use of "Iranica" and "Iranian" are very far from standard or regular. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

WP Policy on Tertiary sources - "Our policy: Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources. Some tertiary sources may be more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others." Ottava Rima (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh my! And it is user generated like scholarpedia and literaryencyc. Priceless! "If you are an author who has submitted articles to the Encyclopaedia or are planning to submit an article, you may contact the Iranica editorial board to obtain a username and a password to be able to submit articles and check their status." From here. You guys should really check pages and do some research before grasping at straws and using such things as your defense. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You missed this page of academic reviews [15]. --Folantin (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Academic praise does not mean trustworthiness or verifiability. That should have been obvious. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Academic praise does not mean trustworthiness or verifiability". In this case it does. Know who any of those academics are? Know who the academics who write for Iranica are? You are way out of your depth here. --Folantin (talk) 21:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"In this case it does." Ahahaha. Seriously? Are you going to go with that? Yes, because those people all vetted the current version of the encyclopedia, fact checked every bit, and have verified it? Most of them were simply responding to the -concept-, and with a lack of date or publications where it could be found, it would be impossible for it to even determine if they have any kind of real authority in the matter. And yes, I could write for Iranica by simply filling out their form. There isn't an "academic" requirement. It has a rather open submission process that is simply briefly reviewed and passed along. That is no more or less than a partial FAC process, and even FAC allows for copyright, original research, and the rest to slip through. Folantin, every time you come up with an argument, it just gets exposed as being utterly ridiculous. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The irony is that her comment (like all her comments) began with "Have you bothered to read ...".

Since Ottava likes to appeal to the "authority" of Wikipedia's own articles, it was altogether strange that she "didn't bother to read" WP's own entry on the EIr.

Anyway, the "It is from people without an appropriate sensitivity." and "Hell, their use of "Iranica" and "Iranian" are very far from standard or regular." had me laughing so hard, I had to go lie down. -- Fullstop (talk) 20:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If you can't even get my gender correct, how can you expect people to think that you have any ability to read or be informed on any topic? You can laugh it up all you want, but "Iranica" doesn't even fit its model "Britannica", especially since Britain is a collection of countries and Iran is only one. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"If you can't even get my gender correct, how can you expect people to think that you have any ability to read or be informed on any topic?" The irony.--Folantin (talk) 21:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Irony? How? It is default to assume male when you don't know the individual's sex. Obviously, his assumption of female means that he had some crazy knowledge. There is no way for him to possibly derive such. Thus, he is pulling more facts from thin air. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you folks should take a break from this, and then come back when you can hold a discussion that isn't entirely focused on personal criticism? Almost every comment in the last few days has contained an insult of some sort. Do any of you imagine that an unchecked flow of disparaging remarks is somehow conducive to a resolution? Nathan ^T

+1. This is what I was trying to say in "Moving forward" above, but then things got out of hand again. Dekimasuよ! 03:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Solutions?

In reading the debate, the central question seems to be what history should be covered in which article and to what extent. The individual periods in Persian history (inclusive of Iranian history) all have their own articles, but there is quite a bit of duplicate material on Persian Empire, History of Iran and Iran. Some have argued that the Persian Empire article leaves out crucial information, or presents it inaccurately, and I think that can be addressed once the general format of the articles involved has been stabilized and supported by consensus. Solutions proposed include:

1. Preserve the status quo, which can be described as broadly inclusive articles at Iran, History of Iran and Persian Empire that outline important information but for the most part rely on subtopic articles for detailed treatment.
2. Redirect Persian Empire to History of Iran, a solution that eliminates duplicate broad treatments of coincident subjects but has the downside (as expressed by a majority) of being inaccurate - Iran != Persia.
3. Make Persian Empire a disambiguation page, with links to the subtopic articles. This solution acknowledges that Persia !=Iran, but reduces the number of articles where similar information must be developed and maintained.

Personally, I'm in favor of a mixture of 1 and 3. It's fairly common for broad topics to point readers at main articles on subtopics; this article is unusual only in scope, since essentially the entire thing consists of summaries of subtopics with separate articles. That makes it a breed of disambiguation page already. I think we can allay the concerns of most by using a slightly more summary approach, preserving the format and much of the content on the page but reducing the level of detail (and thus the chance of errors or incomplete coverage). Thoughts on this? Please limit your comments to actual discussion of this proposed solution or alternatives, replies that are combative and personal are unnecessary and should be ignored by all. Nathan ^T 23:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but articles written according to Wikipedia:Summary style are not a breed of disambiguation page (disambiguation pages are not considered articles). Yes, I agree that reducing the level of detail (and thus overlap) would be a good way to move forward. Due to the clear disputes over what should be included, I don't think a normal disambiguation page is viable; we really need something where content and citations can be used to explain these differences of opinion. Dekimasuよ! 03:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe in 1 with improvements to the page and building the article with full citations and make it worthy of GA class. It is a top and high priority page. It could easily have 40k worth more of pertinent information. I would also like it to incorporate aspects of Emperor of China (i.e. discussing how the various dynasties were different or similar, which there is quite a bit of information on that). By the way, I will be taking a short break from this discussion per the ANI recommendation. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

@Nathan: You have missed the main point of this discussion. Although redundancy is a major problem in this edition of the page, it's not its worst problem. The main issue is that most of the content of it is just wrong (like mentioning dynasties and states that ruled Iran between the Arab invasion and 1500, and calling them "Persian Empire"), or a product of some bizarre type of original research that has resulted in pure nonsense (like the section on 1914-1935 and the section on the legacy, which together imply that until 1935 there was a "Persian Empire" that all of a sudden disappeared and another political entity named"Iran" became its successor). This is just pure nonsense and is not acceptable in this page or another page of Wikipedia. Alefbe (talk) 23:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've missed it; I did note above that there were concerns about accuracy and completeness. I think that if we can agree on the status of this article (and the other two at issue) then the factual accuracy concerns can be more constructively addressed. Nathan ^T 23:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Adding on to Alefbe, most of the article's content is on History of Iran and therefore makes no sense to have another page with the same information here. Therefore, either a redirect to the page or a disambig page with links to the appropriate empires/dynasties is an appropriate solution. Warrior4321 02:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I would be willing to contemplate supporting some modified version of the status quo, if someone could explain clearly what the purpose of the two articles is - what should be at Persian Empire that is not part of History of Iran? What from History of Iran should not be part of Persian Empire? john k (talk) 03:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The difference is one of focus, to me. The Persian Empire article ought to focus on the history of the multinational state that included Iran, but also other national units - covering the history of the primary political entity as well as its impact on and relationship with its subgroups and other states. The History of Iran article should focus on the nation of Iran (a sociocultural entity that is distinct from the political "state of Iran" in any iteration). Obviously there has to be a great deal of overlap; the comparison has been made above to the British Empire and England, but you could also use the history of Hawaii vs. the history of the United States as an example. Hawaii was around before it became a state, and at a detailed level its history is distinct from that of the United States even following statehood. Interestingly, if you've read the history section on Iran it presents a much more significant structural problem - while it's presented in a facsimile of summary style, the section includes almost as much as the History of Iran article itself. Nathan ^T 03:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

History of Iran should cover the whole history (beginning from the pre-historic time) and omitting parts of its history is not acceptable. About this page, this edition of the page is so full of misinformation that it cannot be a basis for any descent article. I think a long article is not needed under this title (we have already explained why). Nonetheless, if you insist on having a large page under this title, first prepare a draft of it and then discuss it. Alefbe (talk) 04:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I am amused that many users who haven't been previously involved in any Iran-related page (or any page related to the history of Middle East and Central Asia) all of a sudden have become interested in this topic. Also, I am amused that some of you, in your effort to preserve this 60k crappy page (which you think might be useful to the reader), are ready to ruin another page which is more or less in a descent shape (i.e. History of Iran) and doesn't have any major problem. Alefbe (talk) 04:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Alefbe, actually, many of the people against you are more involved in these pages than you or any of your supporters. This is a top and high priority page that you are attempting to destroy. That upsets a lot of people. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(Unindenting) - okay, I suppose I can see that. The problem is that there's only one Persian Empire that included substantial territories outside of Greater Iran for any length of time. And we already have an article about it at Achaemenid Empire. The other states - the Arsacids (if you want to call them a Persian Empire, which is problematic, I think), the Sassanids, the dynasties from the Safavids to the Pahlavis - were more or less confined to greater Iran, or, for the Qajars and the Pahlavis, to within the modern borders of Iran. This is even true of non-Persian empires in Iran like the kingdoms of the Seljuks, the Ilkhans, and Timur - they were largely limited to Greater Iran. Analogies to the British Empire or the Roman Empire are problematic for me - these clearly included, for a very long time, many territories outside of England and Italy. john k (talk) 04:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I've already proposed a solution on the model of the Bulgarian Empire page. It is simply a short article with links to the main articles on the First Bulgarian Empire and the Second Bulgarian Empire (and there was a lot more political continuity between the two Bulgarian Empires than there was between the various "Persian Empires"). They are also both covered on the History of Bulgaria page just as the various Persian Empires are all covered on the History of Iran page. --Folantin (talk) 08:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

To summarize what has been said before re: solutions:

• Nomenclature:

The issues of terminology were addressed by me in this comment (11:32, 23 August).

• Structure:

We have, realistically speaking (and policy conform), three options (AFAICS):

1. a short article

2. a (pseudo-)setindex style short article

3. a redirect to [Achaemenid empire] + {{redirect}} hatnote there + #2 at "Persian empire (disambiguation)"

4. using #1 as a lead followed by short sections (Bulgarian empire model).

These were (to various extents) the options already on the table before the conversation was disrupted.

The approach being taken by #1 / #2 were to describe what the term "Persian empire" refers to, rather than describing the states that are known as "Persian empire". The latter approach -- examples in lieu of description -- does not inform. But this is a case where we really need to inform. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

An article with short sections on the Bulgarian Empire model would seem appropriate if that can resolve difficulties, but what should the sections be? john k (talk) 13:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with the "Bulgarian model" - it might duplicate material held at History of Iran, but that isn't a terrible sin in my mind. I think John, Dekimasu, Folantin and Fullstop have weighed in with some support for this option. It's a compromise between Ottava's opinion that the Persian Empire should be expanded and the folks who think the article should be a redirect or a disambiguation page. Since the additional content should be added to the subtopic articles, it will still be available. The comparison to imperial China that Ottava proposed could be in the "short article" section written as a lead-in to the summary sections, if its inclusion achieves consensus. Just to repeat, for the folks mentioning problems with accuracy - let's solve the structural problem first, and address the other problems second. Fair? Nathan ^T 14:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Nathan, there are 6 votes already for the page to stay as is and be improved if necessary. I have already disproven most of the claims by the above people. Furthermore, Dekimasu does not state his support of it. His only post in this section is to show where you were wrong on something. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to both his post in the "Moving forward" section and his comment in this thread on reducing the level of detail in this article in accordance with summary style. Nathan ^T 15:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Then you have misread, because he stated that the article -already- performs summary style as accordance to information that is duplicated elsewhere. He is not saying the page needed to be reduced, but was countering claims of "duplicated information". Ottava Rima (talk) 16:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. He wrote "Yes, I agree that reducing the level of detail (and thus overlap) would be a good way to move forward." That doesn't seem unclear to me, but its possible I am misunderstanding him. Maybe he'll see this and clarify? Nathan ^T 16:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

If you read his first entries and his one below, you would see that you took it the wrong way. Hell, look at the first entry in "Moving Forward" - "Upon reflection, I believe the old article is more useful to the reader." That is rather clear. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec; reply to johnk on scope):

Certainly the Achaemenians (ca. 550 BCE–330 BCE) of course, given that they are _the_ Persian empire. Then the Sasanians (ca. 224 CE–651 CE), who were unquestionably a Persian empire too.

I'm inclined to leave it at just those two, which would coincide with usage by the Encyclopedia Iranica and Cambridge History of Iran. But there is some scope for an "other uses" section that /briefly/ mentions the five monarchies between 1501-1979. As I said, I'm inclined to not have an "other uses", but I know there are RS sources that refer to the five dynasties as PEs; Folantin has referred to Newman's Safavid Iran, and there is McLean's Britain and Her Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire, 1890-1914 on the Qajars.

I'm disinclined to consider the Parthian empire a Persian empire.

-- Fullstop (talk) 14:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. "I'm disinclined to consider the Parthian empire a Persian empire." But we might put a rider in saying that the Romans sometimes called the Parthian Empire the "Persian Empire" (IIRC). We don't really need a section on the Parthians and those 1501 (or 1502)-1979 polities don't really need an extensive treatment here (do we put the Hotaki dynasty in as well? - they were crowned Shahs of Iran but they were Pashtuns and their powerbase was in Afghanistan). The realm ruled by those dynasties is usually just known as Iran (or Persia) with the name of the dynasty in front of it (e.g. Newman: Safavid Iran: the Rebirth of a Persian Empire; Roger Savory: Iran under the Safavids; Nikki Keddie: Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan 1796-1925) --Folantin (talk) 14:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Persian Empire was what the Mongols invaded. And again. These are links I already posted. There are many more like this or this. I have stated this multiple times. Your continual denial will be used as evidence for a topic ban against you. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would think that the Achaemenids, Sassanian and Safavid empires were the only Persian empires? Am I wrong? Warrior4321 15:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• I find it incredibly odd how everyone above was told to not participate in the talk page for 48 hours to allow things to cool down, and they keep going on. I have already sent out quite a bit of analysis of many of the false claims that keep being pushed. Just look at "only one Persian Empire that included substantial territories outside of Greater Iran" - not only is that ridiculously absurd (seeing as how "Greater Iran" has no meaning, it also has no academic point or matters. There are many Chinese dynasties that either lost huge portions of territory or never expanded beyond their original small areas. Are they suddenly no longer imperial? Or how about the Emperors of Japan who never expanded beyond Japan? Must not be Emperors. I think all of the people above proved that they are here not to discuss merits but merely want to ignore the request at ArbCom to stop the nonsense for a few days. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

What request at ArbCom? --Folantin (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec 3x - reply to Nathan on structure)

I think we were already pretty much leaning towards the "Bulgarian model" in one way or another before. However, because this topic is an OR magnet, its going to be very difficult to keep it clean if there "much" text. The more text there is, the greater the surface to "latch" onto.

So, here too we have a question of scope. What exactly would each section say in relation to the title of the article? -- Fullstop (talk) 15:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are still 6 votes in support of the current model. What you are doing is you are defying the request at ANI to discontinue. I will be drawing up an RfC to propose a topic ban of you and the others for this abuse. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Warrior: Personally, I'd prefer to call the realm ruled by the dynasties from 1501/2-1979 just Iran (or Persia at a stretch). But, as you can see from the titles of a couple of the books Fullstop and I quoted, some people have occasionally referred to them as the "Persian Empire" (since the rulers were Shahs of Iran). The last (Pahlavi) Shah tried to boost his power by presenting himself as the heir of the Achaemenids in the early 1970s (and he sometimes appears in quiz questions as one of the two emperors overthrown in 1979 - the other was Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Empire). But no, I don't think they need any extensive treatment here. History of Iran should cover them quite adequately. --Folantin (talk) 15:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with this approach. john k (talk) 15:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

John and Folantin, your "preferring" to calling it Iran not only is 100% historically inaccurate, but it defies the Farsi nomenclature used by the people. I even quoted quite a bit of it above and neither of you bothered to respond. Why? Because you don't know Farsi, nor do you have a clue what you are talking about. The above will be evidence that both of you are violating WP:FRINGE by posting such nonsensical views. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if your contention about Farsi usage is correct, the English language Wikipedia follows the usage of reliable sources in English, not Farsi. john k (talk) 15:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. You obviously have no experience with content creation, or you would see that many FACs are built on foreign language sources (recent notable cases - Swedish, Russian, and Spanish). They are actually required on foreign topics per "Comprehension". Ottava Rima (talk) 15:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was referring specifically to name forms, which is why I said "usage" - we use the names which are used in English language sources. Obviously foreign language sources can be used for content. john k (talk) 16:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

John, I have posted dozens of references to the Mongols invading the "Persian Empire". I have also provided many that say they were part of the "Persian Empire" and a dynasty of it. Those two facts, found in hundreds of sources, show that if you were to follow your own logic you would not be making many of the claims you are making. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how anything I said denied that various medieval states centered in modern Iran might have occasionally been referred to as the "Persian Empire," especially in older sources. My point was that you said that calling it Iran "defies the Farsi nomenclature used by the people." I don't think that is actually true, but my point was simply that the "Farsi nomenclature used by the people" is not relevant. Our usage should follow that of reliable sources in English. john k (talk) 16:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"Might have occasionally"? Is that your way of admitting that you have been horrible wrong and pushing an argument that is inconsistent and flawed without actually doing so? And you can think it is not true, but I already quoted the Farsi words. Furthermore, I have proven you wrong in both English and Farsi. We use "Persian Empire" for all of the dynasties, and their titles themselves are emperor. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This discussion really needs to focus on the article, its content and its structure. Focusing on individual editors instead of the content is where things start to go off the rails. If a user conduct RfC is necessary, then it is - but RfC's are separate specifically to avoid dragging content discussions through the conduct dispute morass. Nathan ^T 15:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

And which user has derailed the discussion again? --Folantin (talk) 15:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec - was reply to Nathan) Indeed. Perhaps we ought to move the out-of-focus stuff to a "out-of-focus" section (where it wouldn't be in the way of discussion on the article, its content and its structure)? As we just saw, my reply to Nathan on structure (15:13, 25 August) went under. -- Fullstop (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Bulgarian model proposal

Should the Persian Empire article follow what has been described as the "Bulgarian model" of structural design? (Referring to the format of the Bulgarian Empire article). This entails a format similar to the current PE article, but with a reduced level of detail in a version of the summary style. I'd like to ask the folks who have weighed in on this subject in the past to come back and comment specifically on the Bulgarian model proposal. If we don't hear from them in a couple of days, we should go back to them and ask them for their opinion (if any). Nathan ^T 15:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I think some clarification is needed here–the article is already in summary style. Dekimasuよ! 16:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Should say "adheres more closely to summary style" - my wording above can be read as saying the article isn't currently in that style, but my understanding is that it roughly matches the guideline but includes a greater range of detailed coverage than is normal. Is that accurate?Nathan ^T 16:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I would classify the current level of coverage as abnormal, but as an article in summary style, the intent here should be to adequately explain the political developments that led to each successive group coming to power in the region in order to provide internal continuity. I would consider most of the other information to be expendable (e.g. the list of Median kings, Zoroaster, the Sassanid caste structure, poetry in the 1100s), in light of the fact that we are already linking the articles that deal more specifically with each ruling entity. Dekimasuよ! 17:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(repost from 15:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC); may have been missed)

I think we were already pretty much leaning towards the "Bulgarian model" in one way or another before already. However, because this topic is an OR magnet, its going to be very difficult to keep it clean if there "much" text. The more text there is, the greater the surface to "latch" onto.

So, here too we have a question of scope. What exactly would each section say in relation to the title of the article? -- Fullstop (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• Six votes above say to keep the structure of the page as is. As I have already demonstrated, there are many, many uses of Persian Empire which those like Folantin claim do not exist. I also emailed you with a list of such uses. Your posting of the above is dishonest because you have already been given proof that a reduction of the page cannot happen as it would destroy a lot of necessary content and would ignore 90% of the uses of the term. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I take your points (OR and Fullstop) - there are issues with the content of the model, but discussion seems to be leaning towards that as a solution. I think we should solidify the consensus on the concept before hashing out the section titles and specific content. Ottava, I think that folks were primarily opposing the idea of a redirect or disambiguation page. I think those items are mostly off the table, but in order to definitely resolve this question I'd like to see thoughts by the folks who have participated previously on the Bulgarian model specifically. I did get your e-mail and I understand your position, but I think it's mostly separate from the problem of the structure of the article. Nathan ^T 16:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think that the "Bulgarian model" overestimates the amount of content that would need to be added/removed/rewritten in order to satisfy (or equally dissatisfy) all parties to this discussion. While retaining the current framework, part of the focus in the article could be given to the variety of ways in which the term is applied in different contexts (with citations). Dekimasuよ! 16:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Dekimasu - that would work as long as it was a beginning section (prefixed to what is currently there) that discusses the "imperial" structure and the use of "shah" as a translation of emperor from Farsi to English. It would also have to discuss that Persia includes Afghanistan, parts of India, and parts of Iraq whereas Iran does not. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Where are you getting this from? "Farsi"? --Folantin (talk) 16:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The word شاهنشاه translates as emperor. Do you need a dictionary to verify this? Ottava Rima (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes,شاهنشاه "Shahanshah" (King of Kings) translates as emperor. Your point being? --Folantin (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as how the title was used by most of the dynasties, and seeing as how I have provided English sources which acknowledge this and calls them the "Persian Empire", the point is that you have no grounds to stand on. You have been exposed as wrong in sources, logic, and in language itself. I am very serious about a user RfC requesting a topic ban and you have given me over 40 links as evidence against you. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Since you're so fixated on "Farsi" usage, could you transliterate the title of the linked page on Wikipedia for us? Just out of interest ("Farsi" usage has a different semantic field from English). Here it is شاهنشاهی ایران . That's transliterate, not translate. --Folantin (talk) 16:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Farsi, like Japanese (see: Romanji) would not have a standard transliteration, so there is no real reason for you to request such. But we both know that the official translation is "Persian Empire", so there is no point to such a game. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you read Farsi, Ottava? john k (talk) 17:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Me? No. I have friends in on of the largest Syriac departments in the US that are providing me with the technical information to paste here. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Your evasion of the question is noted. Since you claim that you couldn't provide a transliteration because Persian (allegedly) "would not have a standard transliteration", would you be so good as to provide an approximate transliteration of the Perso-Arabic script then?

While you are at it, could you please approximately transliterate the Perso-Arabic script in your comment from 20:07, 24 August: "The Farsi word for Proto-Persian is شاهنشاهی_ساسانی.. Thanks. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) To Ottava: I'll transliterate the first word for you using one system (it doesn't really matter which): شاهنشاهی = Shahanshahi-(ye) meaning "Empire (of)". The second word (ایران) shouldn't cause too much trouble. --Folantin (talk) 18:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure this test is relevant to this discussion. Ottava stipulates that he doesn't read Farsi. This does seem somewhat at odds with his criticism of others for not speaking Farsi, but the whole line of debate around whether the Farsi term translates as "emperor" seems tangential at best. Nathan ^T 18:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Ottava has been going on about the "Farsi" version of this page so he obviously thinks it's relevant. "John and Folantin, your "preferring" to calling it Iran not only is 100% historically inaccurate, but it defies the Farsi nomenclature used by the people. I even quoted quite a bit of it above and neither of you bothered to respond. Why? Because you don't know Farsi, nor do you have a clue what you are talking about." (And it's not about the "debate around whether the Farsi term translates as 'emperor'"). --Folantin (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I have actually consulted people that do know Farsi. Folantin, you don't know Farsi and your above claims show that you don't have a clue about transliteration, as that demand not only doesn't reflect standard knowledge that there is no official way to transliterate (with dozens of variations just from simple, short names) but it also shows that you are trying to make some sort of claim about knowledge that you just don't have. The mere fact that you would ask the question is the very definition of trolling. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There aren't many ways of transliterating ایران , one of the most common words in Persian (and one of the shortest). It looks very like a common English word. I'll give you a clue: four letters, begins with "I", ends with "n". --Folantin (talk) 18:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

And now you are exposed as a fraud, as you are trying to claim that the term is "Iran" while ignoring that the term is used to describe the dynasties that you pretend aren't imperial. شاهنشاهی ایران do you know what that second word means? Imperial. Way to go, while trying to claim that they are "Iranian" and not "Persian", you have only admitted that they are imperial, which contradicts every single argument you wanted to make. Thus, your post right there is an admittance that you were wrong everywhere else. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Go to Empire then click on the link to the "Farsi" version. Recognise the word there? Now go to Iran and click on the link to the "Farsi" version there. Recognise the word you see there? (Remember that Persian is written from right to left).--Folantin (talk) 19:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you still trying to dodge the fact that you negated all of your claims that the dynasties were not empires? Even though the term they use translates as "imperial"? Ottava Rima (talk) 19:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

شاهنشاهی ایران = "Shahanshahi-ye Iran". Someone's trying to dodge something here, but I don't think it's me. (I never propsed using the Persian Wikipedia in the first place) --Folantin (talk) 19:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Lets see, you went from saying "these were not imperial" to now saying "they are Iranian and not Persian"? It looks like the main argument, which is about if the dynasties are imperial are not, was now just agreed to. Thank you. After providing hundreds of references and trying to get you to admit this, you are now accepting that you were horribly wrong. It is nice of you to do that. I take it that you wont be trying to reject all of those imperial dynasties now, right? Ottava Rima (talk) 19:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. This is not only at odds with his criticism of others for not speaking Persian, it is also at odds with

• his other various assertions on "correct" nomenclature; e.g. "Hell, their use of "Iranica" and "Iranian" are very far from standard or regular." (20:17, 24 August)
• his claims about Iranian linguistics, e.g. "it was different from the modern Farsi that Iran comes from. Linguistically, there is no chance for you to even make that claim." (13:18, 22 August),
• his claim "the Persian Empire was the 30 or so dynasties between 600 AD and 1800 AD. Mentioning the Sassanids at all shows that you don't understand what you are talking about.",
• his claim that this page "was also a direct translation of the Farsi version" (16:09, 23 August),
• "The Sassanids are called the Sassanid Empire and the rest equally so. The modern "Persian" understanding came after the Sassanids collapsed. At least, that is how it is understood in the Farsi sense of the term with the Sassanids et al being proto-Persians." (13:27, 22 August)
• "we both know that the official translation [of the title of the .fa wiki page] is "Persian Empire"" (17:39, 25 August)

and so on and so forth. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, please show where the term "Iranica" appears in Farsi? And there is a huge difference between old Farsi and modern Farsi. If you want to claim otherwise, then there is nothing that can really be said to you except that you should be quickly banned. And if you don't understand that the page was based on the Farsi version, then you haven't actually bothered to look. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Folks, at this rate the article will never be unprotected. Would it work better if everyone stuck to proposing very specific changes to the article (that is, the language inserted and the language removed specifically)? The tit-for-tat bullshit is preventing any progress, and is (per Ottava's talkpage) poisoning editing on other articles. Nathan ^T 19:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

What section on Ottava Rima's talk page? --Folantin (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Ottava Rima#Manual of Style, I assume. See also User talk:John Kenney#MoS and the history to Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone. john k (talk) 19:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

So he's been following you around too? --Folantin (talk) 07:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

"Persia in fiction"

I believe that this section is unnecessary (and mostly inapplicable to the topic of the "Persian Empire"), and that the removal of this section can be agreed upon by everyone. I'd like to treat this as an uncontroversial change (i.e., something that we can move forward with while the page is still being protected for dispute resolution). Does anyone object? Dekimasuよ! 16:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Nope. Go ahead. --Folantin (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There are fictional accounts of various Persian Emperors and imperial governments. However, they are probably best discussed on individual dynasty pages. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Scope

I don't think the real issue of disagreement here is structure, so much as it is scope. How much of the history currently covered here should be? I think we can virtually all agree that the Achaemenids and the Sassanids should be covered. There also seems to be a general sense that the Arsacids and the dynasties since 1500 could be included, at least in some limited sense. But that leaves us with a whole ton of other material that we really don't agree on. Specifically, the current article includes the Medes, the Seleucids, and a group of dynasties which ruled between the fall of the Sassanids and the rise of the Safavids. To get any consensus on how to proceed, the question of whether those dynasties should be included needs to be addressed. john k (talk) 17:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I have already provided many, many sources that say the Mongols invaded the Persian Empire and that the Mongol dynasty was a dynasty of the Persian Empire. The fact that you don't even acknowledge that above can only be seen as trolling, as it was brought to your attention many, many times. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so, as I see it, to see what the scope should be, we should follow a process for each given dynasty or state currently listed in the article. Basically, there should be three questions.

First, we look at each dynasty and ask "are there any sources which call the state ruled by that dynasty 'the Persian Empire?'" If there are not, the dynasty should not be included on this page.

Secondly, for those that do have sources which call them the Persian Empire, we then ask "Is it common and standard for the state ruled by this dynasty to be called 'the Persian Empire'?" If the answer is yes, then that dynasty should be included in the page.

The third question is more difficult - "in cases where we can find sources to refer to it as the Persian Empire, but that usage is only intermittent, rare, or possibly archaic, should we discuss it in this article?"

Thoughts? john k (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Folantin above has now admitted that they do use the term "imperial" when referring to themselves in the dynasties, so there is now no more questioning if they are imperial or not. This discussion is effectively over, with 6 people wanting to keep the page and one of the main opponents to it agreeing that the dynasties are imperial. I believe we can now officially archive this discussion and move on. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima: please stop putting words in people's mouths. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Surely the issue is not whether the Ilkhans or Timur or the Seljuks were an empire, but whether it is appropriate to call that empire Persian? john k (talk) 19:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I already provided sources in which the Mongol conquest was still called the Persian Empire or giving the title Mongol-Persian. This is true for conquests in China and other imperial states. Thus, "Persian" doesn't deal with an ethnicity but a generalized structure and a connection (in terms of the Mongols, they still acknowledged a unity with the past and appointed many Persians in the bureaucratic structure). Ottava Rima (talk) 19:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

johnk: Yep, that's it. As with everything else, RS (sans OR or intepolation of course) is the way to go. I would even limit it what authoritative sources say. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Sources already presented

These are the references that have already been linked on the page, with summaries (I am including books on the first page of results in the links to Google Book searches done by Ottava Rima):

• The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5, which covers the Seljuk and Mongol periods: none of the listed examples call the Seljuks or the Ilkhans "the Persian Empire". The terms "Persian" and "empire" both appear frequently, however.
• The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, which covers the Median and Achaemenid periods:Several references to the Achaemenids as the Persian Empire
• Pierre Bryant, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire; Amélie Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources for the Achaemenids; A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire - all books which refer to the Achaemenids as the Persian Empire.
• Andrew J. Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, a work which refers to the Safavids as a Persian Empire.
• Robert L Canfield, ed., Turko-Persia in Historical Persective - apparently calls the Mughal Empire "an Islamic and Persianate imperial power."
• The 1911 Britannica, which refers to the Ilkhans as "the Persian Empire."
• The Lonely Planet guide to Iran, which refers to the Safavids as the "third Persian Empire".
• The International Dictionary of Historic Places: Middle East and Africa, which refers to the Buyids as "the Persian Empire"
• Arnold Toynbee, who calls the Achaemenids the Persian Empire.
• Encyclopedia Americana from 1918, which refers to the Sassanids as the Persian Empire
• Daily Life in the Mongol Empire, by George Lane, which refers to the Ilkhans as the Persian Empire
• The Middle East, from Greenwood Press, referring to the Achaemenids as the Persian Empire
• Nature, the journal, from 1880, which seems to be referring to the Achaemenids and/or Sassanids as the "ancient Persian Empire."
• Afghanistan, by Mary Englar - refers to the Achaemenids as the Persian Empire
• Ancient India and Indian Civilization, which uses the term to refer to the Achaemenids

If I've missed any let me know. So far, what I see is:

1. A lot of references to the Achaemenids
2. Some instances that refer to the Sassanids
3. A couple of usages to refer to the Safavids
4. A couple of usages (one of them a century old) to refer to the Ilkhans
5. One usage referring to the Buyids.

Anything further? john k (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You forgot that many of the above refer to the Mongols take over as the Persian Empire or as the Mongol-Persian empire (I see, you call them Ilkhans above, even though that term wasn't the whole of the conquest). There are others that were indirectly linked. Most of the sources deal only with one specific group (i.e. a group between 600 and 1500) as proof that the term was used between them. If you want, I can provide other uses for the others. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Note - if you add Timurid dynasty, it would cover both ends of the Mongol conquest and its dynasty/imperial state. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Ottava, feel free to add links to any references you feel I missed, along with a neutral summary of what they say. Looking through the sources linked, I didn't see any using the term "Mongol-Persian empire," or any referring to the area conquered by the Mongols as the Persian Empire, but it's certainly possible I missed something. The two medieval references to "Persian Empire" that I found in your sources were a reference to the Buyids, who were conquered by the Seljuk Turks, and references to the Mongol state founded by Hulagu, which is normally called the Ilkhanate. (after edit conflict:) Do you have any sources that call the Timurid state "the Persian Empire"? If so, please add it. john k (talk) 20:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll add links later - I'm just pointing out some of the ones mentioned above in the links. See below for some more uses of Seljuk as "Persian" (along with them being the defeated "Persian Empire" in the Mongol sources). Ottava Rima (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Add the Seljuk Empire, the "Persian Empire" the Mongols invaded and conquered. The sources refering to Ilkhans would be referring to them also. The Great Seljuq Empire has six references to it being a Persian imperial state (with some calling it Turko/Turkish-Persian and others just calling it Persian when used on its own). Ottava Rima (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This source talks about the dynasties around the 900s seeing themselves as successors of an empire and wanting to have the imperial title over Persia. You can add Buyid dynasty based on the elaborate explanation (an interesting read). I'll add more but people are edit conflicting quite a bit. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I found the same source at the same time. It is quite interesting, and notes such tendencies among Ziyarids, Buyids, and Samanids. I don't know that they are being described as actually being "the Persian Empire," though, but rather having archaizing tendencies that call back upon the traditions of the Persian Empire. john k (talk) 20:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This discusses the Seljuq doing the same as the Buyid. This one is an interesting read for how the different empires operated and how they were similar (or different of course). Ottava Rima (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, for the Seljuks. The second reference is interesting, but seems to be referring to medieval European understandings of the various peoples of the middle east, rather than a modern scholarly understanding. john k (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, this, on page 7, discusses how people described the early groups as "Proto-Iranian". Although the book is going against the idea, it does mention the way I was using the term above. There are other sources, but I am linking this so people can have a fuller sense of the discussion on the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be referring to the groups which migrated into what is now Iran in the late 2nd/early first millennium BC, and eventually became the Medes and Persians. My understanding was always that the Medes and Persians themselves had already become fully Iranian by the mid-first millennium BC. john k (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was taught to view them in the same way as the Anglo-Saxons in England. There is some ethnic continuity but "Englishness" came after the Norman Conquest along with the transition between Old and Middle English. The Arab-Muslim conquests changed not only the religion and culture, but also the way people thought about language as a whole. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This refers to the Ghaznavid as an Indo Persian empire. It would be easier to get more sources if google had more limited views so that others could verify content. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

@John Kenny: These sources support what I had previously mentioned [16]: "Persian empire" is a term that mostly refers to "Achaemenid empire" and to a lesser extent to the "Sassanid empire" and also occasionally is used by some authors to refer to "Persia" (in the sense of "Historic Iran"). I should also mention that the occasional usage of the term for eras after Sassanids is not comparable with the common usage of the term (which is primarily used to refer to "Achaemenid Empire and "Sassanid Empire"). It's fine to mention that occasional usage in a disambiguation page, but it's not OK to write a rehash of "History of Iran" based on those rare occasional instances of the usage which is not common in English texts and academic sources. Alefbe (talk) 20:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking into this a little further, I did a google books search on "Buyid" and "Persian Empire," and came upon some interesting material from the Cambridge History of Iran here. It does not call the Buyids the Persian Empire, but refers to the ruler of the Ziyarid dynasty having a desire to "recreate the former Persian empire and assume the title of Shahanshah." Apparently the Ziyarid ruler Mardavij did a lot of consciously archaic hearkening back to the Sassanid period. It also mentions that the Samanids also wanted to "restore an Iranian monarchy." I'm not sure this qualifies either the Ziyarids or the Samanids as being "the Persian Empire," but their interest in reviving Sassanid traditions is interesting, and perhaps worth discussing. john k (talk) 20:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you would be willing to look at this in a manner similar to China? There are different dynasties, with many people trying to recreate the imperial system and the imperial bureaucracies throughout. Some are consciously going back, and some are consciously going forward. There is little discussion on Wikipedia on the larger political continuity if this page is to be removed. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) Looking at some of this material from the Cambridge History, and thinking also on stuff like the way that medieval and modern rulers took on the title of Shahanshah and drew on traditions of the Achaemenid and Sassanid monarchies, culminating, perhaps, with the last Shah's 2500 year celebration at Persepolis, I was thinking that perhaps the best way to deal with the article is to a) have a fairly straight, and brief, discussion of the Achaemenids and Sassanids; and then b) discuss the legacy of the pre-Islamic Persian Empires in post-Islamic Iran, and in particular the way that numerous rulers and dynasties, whether Arab, Iranian, Turkic, or Mongol, drew on these pre-Islamic traditions. We wouldn't have to call any particular post-Sassanid state "the Persian Empire," but could discuss them in context of the idea of the Persian Empire. john k (talk) 20:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be fine, but not necessarily under this title (what you mean is actually about the "Idea of Iran" or "Iranian Identity", see [17] [18] [19] [20]). "Persian empire" is essentially an English term, rather than a common Persian term (In Persian, they were using terms such as "Iran", "Iranshahr", "Shahanshahi-e Iran" instead of that, even during Sassanids) and this page should be about the common usage of the term "Persian empire" in English reliable sources. Nonetheless, having a separate section on the legacy of the two Persian empires (and linking to the related pages) should be fine, though it can be better done in the two pages of Achaemenid Empire and Sassanid Empire. Alefbe (talk) 21:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The Persians called themselves Persian in English, so it is not a problem to use the term. And Alefbe, are you not reading any of the above which demonstrates that there is more than those? Even Folantin was willing to state that there was a Persian empire after 1500. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I've already mentioned that the occasional usage of the term for eras after Sassanids is not comparable with the common usage of the term (which is primarily used to refer to "Achaemenid Empire and "Sassanid Empire"). It's fine to mention that occasional usage in a disambiguation page, but it's not OK to write a rehash of "History of Iran" based on those rare occasional instances of the usage which is not common in English texts and academic sources. Alefbe (talk) 21:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The "Iranian Identity" article seems to be largely cultural, though. I was thinking that because the pre-Islamic Iranian political heritage is so closely tied to the Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, talking about the idea of that political heritage in this article would seem sensible. Sometimes we can't get exactly what we want - and it doesn't look like there's a consensus for this article to only talk about the Achaemenids and Sassanids. As such, talking about later history of the "Persian Empire" largely in the context of the legacy of those earlier empires after the Islamic conquest would seem like a way where we might be able to get an article that is acceptable to everyone. john k (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, prepare a draft of it. Anyway, preserving the current 56k version (which is full of misinformation and nonsense), and exposing it to the reader, is not acceptable. If anyone insists on having a large article under this title, he/she should first prepare a descent draft of it. Alefbe (talk) 21:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

John, the article you are looking for is probably Persianate society (although it's a bit of a mess). --Folantin (talk) 08:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Alefbe, your actions towards the page (constant blanking of the page, pushing for deletion of information, making vast claims without sources, etc) make your actions now even more inappropriate. You can keep calling it nonsense and misinformation, but making such claims only verifies that you are a POV warrior and that you don't understand WP:V, WP:FRINGE, or the rest. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

More:

• Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart: Birth of the Persian Empire (Achaemenids)
• J.E. Curtis and Nigel Tallis Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (Achaemenids)
• Touraj Daryaee: Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (Sassanids) --Folantin (talk) 07:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

As for the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids etc., Wikipedia's History of Iran article has them down more accurately as "Iranian semi-independent governments". They were regional dynasties under the Abbasid caliphate. As Michael Axworthy explains (Iran p.87): "The first of the regional dynasties to establish itself as a real rival to central authority was that of the Taherids of Khorasan, followed by the Saffarids of Sistan and the Samanids - all dynasties of Iranian origin. The Samanids were based on Bokhara and the region around Balkh, claiming descent from the Sassanid prince Bahram Chubin. Each of these dynasties (especially the Samanids), and those that followed (notably the Ghaznavids and the Buyids), tended to set up courts adorned with Persian bureaucrats, scholars, astrologers and poets in imitation of the great caliphal court of Baghdad, as enhancements of their prestige, and as a disguise for their tenure of power, which otherwise might have appeared as more nakedly dependent on brute military force." --Folantin (talk) 07:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Regional dynasties, are by definition, still imperial systems and operate as empires. That is why the Mongol Empire also allowed for a dynasty and the continuation of the Chinese Empire. This is similar to the Kings of Great Britain also being Kings of Ireland. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet more obfuscation via specious analogy. Next you'll be bringing in the Hackney Empire. I suppose Burgundy was by your definition an empire too. --Folantin (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC) Forget it.

(Updated version) OK, you keep bringing up Chinese Empire as a model. Now follow that link and look at the page it brings you to. --Folantin (talk) 20:12, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

My dear, I would follow that model if we would then expand the page enough to warrant splitting it into the model of Early Imperial China, Mid-Imperial China, and Late Imperial China. If you notice, there are -three- Chinese Empire pages. I am sure tripling the amount would be 100% opposite of your original intention of destroying this page. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, if you want to be cute and say something like "oh, but those pages are so small", I would direct you down to the bottom where it labels them a stub and requires them to be expanded before they are actually worth something to the encyclopedia. Thus, they are intended to be fully developed pages. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Intended by whom? Those articles were created a few months ago. They are arguably forks, and certainly expansion would be likely to turn them into forks. john k (talk) 00:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

John, notice the "stub" note at the bottom? That is a sign that the article is supposed to be expanded. Stubs are not encyclopedic articles but a temporary section to be filled in and expanded. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

These are fairly recent articles that have not been developed. I don't see how they can be used as examples of anything one way or another. I suppose it's possible they could end up containing useful information provided in neither the History of China nor the individual dynasty articles, but color me dubious. I think they're content forks. john k (talk) 02:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If they are content forks (which is appropriate per WP:SIZE and WP:Summary style), then they would only further verify that the Chinese Empire page was supposed to be much larger, thus negating Folantin's assertion above. Regardless of the way you cut the issue, it comes out the same. Ottava Rima (talk) 12:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

General point

I'm not sure why the argument about "content being removed" is still being made. Yes, it's being removed from this article. The point is it's all available elsewhere on Wikipedia. This page will contain links to that content. Why do we have to have yet another page like this one duplicating that material at great length (and doing a bad job of it into the bargain?).--Folantin (talk) 08:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a list nor would it be appropriate. Summary style demands that you summarize what is on other articles. Otherwise, there would be no need to have an article on the Roman Empire, since its various parts are out there. This is a top priority article for a reason. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not a list nor would it be appropriate." Funny, I thought we had lists. Some of them are even "Featured". There already is a page which gives a summary account of every state in this article, it's called History of Iran. --Folantin (talk) 19:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It's worth comparing our Chinese Empire search which redirects to the Imperial China disambiguation page. The top link "Imperial era of Chinese history" takes you to the relevant section of the History of China page.--Folantin (talk) 20:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

List pages follow "list of" format, and featured lists have a higher level of description than what you would want. The fact that you make the same failed argument twice about the Chinese Empire page (which has -three- separate pages for the Chinese Empire splitting from one page) shows that you didn't bother to even look once again. This means that you aren't here for the better of the encyclopedia. One would think that you would take the hint and leave, but it seems like you would rather be blocked before voluntarily ending your disruption campaign. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet more goalpost-changing. I imagine this will go on indefinitely. And another personal attack. OK, you keep telling me what I am or not here for. Apparently, I'm here to run a "disruption campaign" and I'm not here for "the better (sic) of the encyclopaedia." I've helped to expand, create and/or reference at least a dozen articles on early modern Iranian history over the past couple of years. I don't think that's particularly disruptive. I'm not claiming any academic expertise here but I have some familiarity with the subject and I've read a few books on the topic. As far as I'm aware, you have shown no great previous interest in the history of Iran and judging from some of the absurd statements you have made on this page you know little or nothing about the subject. So could you tell us why exactly you are here and why this sudden enthusiasm for matters Iranian? I suppose it has nothing to do with my vote in your failed Request for Adminship this April. --Folantin (talk) 07:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

A personal attack would be about your real life identity - your weight, calling you stupid, etc. It would not be a response to your actions. NPA makes it clear to comment on actions. Saying that you are being disruptive is clearly a critique of actions. Your misunderstanding of NPA is representative of your generalized misunderstanding of Wikipedia processes. Your whole response above is just further disruption and misunderstandings. The fact that you would try to claim as if your vote mattered, or if I even cared about something in an RfA where I made it clear that I didn't actually want the ops and only ran because people asked me to run on April 1st, is just verification that you are, indeed, a troll. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Somehow, I don't think your interpretation of the "personal attack" policy will stick. "The fact that you would try to claim as if your vote mattered, or if I even cared about something in an RfA...". Well, I've used a sub-page to provide clear and extensive evidence to the contrary and an insight into the real reason you are so concerned about this page. --Folantin (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there is more evidence to suggest that you came here after Wizardman reverted and that you only sided with the revert because I pointed out you were using the term wrong at the 18th century page. Therefore, all of your evidence only proves that you came here to troll. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It begins with her incorrectly changing a page that I have spent a lot of time with and that she knows I spent a lot of time with. Reversion of her incorrect POV pushing. 15:52, 21 August 2009. To dodge the fact that she was wrong, she came and blanked the page here at 16:03, 21 August 2009 . Thus, her whole purpose here was to edit war and blank in order to try and win an argument that she started based on trolling at another page. This is enough to warrant a long term block and possibly even a ban. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Wrong - and the chronology proves you wrong too. I made my first comment about the revision here on August 15 [21]. That's six days before Wizardman arrived (August 21). I only reverted him because he had given no reason in the talk page discussion. "Persian Empire" has long been known as a page with multiple problems among editors on the subject of Iranian history (including myself). August 21 is also the date you first appeared. (Who's "she" anyhow? I've told you several times I'm a "he". Do you think you could remember it now, please) --Folantin (talk) 15:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, you might want to look at where Persia redirects to. --Folantin (talk) 15:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, lets see. You just provided proof that there was no consensus to blank the page nor revert someone following standard BRD if the blanking was even justified (which it clearly was not). Thus, you are even more exposed as purposefully violating multiple policies. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, that post there proves that you are a POV based edit warrer who made a comment and started reverting dozens of pages without any shred of consensus. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Look at what I found, a blatant dissent against yours and Alefbe's position. 2 people does not make a consensus, especially when one person already makes it clear that it was wrong and another makes it clear by reverting the blanking vandalism. At that point, you should have immediately stopped instead of edit warring across multiple pages. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Intervention

Right, this dispute is becoming unnecessarily heated. You should be arguing about the merits of the different approaches, but the preceding conversation is all about playing the man, not the ball. I can see there is some argument to remove content from this page, and an argument in favour of keeping it here. What are the arguments, and who supports what position? Fritzpoll (talk) 16:00, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

We've already been through the arguments at great length. Every time we were getting somewhere, one particular user has derailed the discussion. --Folantin (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, looking over the past discussions on this page, it seems that as recently as two days ago, multiple editors were arguing on both sides, so characterising this as many-against-one seems unfair and is the kind of hyperbole that won't get us very far. Ottava is...passionate, but doesn't appear to be alone. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Some of us are "passionate" because we know about Iranian history. I don't think that could be said about Ottava. --Folantin (talk) 16:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Persian Empire#Scope Seems to contradict what you claimed above, Folantin... that is, of course, unless you were speaking of yourself. It is obvious that John was working with me to establish the scope based on the use within sources to get a sense of how broad is necessary. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Um, lets see what Ottava Rima has said about scope...

• "The Persian Empire does not refer to Sassanids or Arsacids or anyone else." (22:34, 21 August)
• "The "Persian Empire" refers to a series of dynasties between 600 AD until the Ottoman Conquest. No more, no less." (23:56, 21 August)
• "This page claims that the "Persian Empire" are two different empires that existed before the "Persian Empire" existed. The Persian Empire was the series of dynasties following 600 AD." (02:43, 22 August)
• "[550 BC-640 AD were] pre-Persian Empire empires, not the dynasties that made up the Persian Empire. Please get your terms correct." (15:25, 22 August)
• (link to "Persian" OR "Empire") "[1968 Cambridge History of Iran] - as you can see, it is all +600 AD Muslim governments." (15:41, 22 August)
• "Not only are the two pages [i.e. Achaemenid and Sassanid] that are linked -not- the Persian Empire, you are completely ignoring the 30 dynasties that are." (13:18, 22 August)
• "[This page] covered the 30 or so dynasties that were labelled the "Persian Empire" for hundreds of years. These dynasties spanned from 600 AD to 1800 AD." (13:27, 22 August)
• "The Persian Empire is not anything pre 600 AD. How can you not understand that? Gibbon sure as hell didn't use the term for those [Achaemenid and Sassanid] Empires. He used the term for Dynasties, just like every other historian for the past 400 years!" (14:24, 22 August)
• "'But you are saying that the Achaemenids and the Sassanids are not the Persian Empire.' Correct." (03:30, 23 August)

And, here is the one from the "Scope" section (supposedly "obvious that John was working with me")

• "I have already provided many, many sources that say the Mongols invaded the Persian Empire and that the Mongol dynasty was a dynasty of the Persian Empire. The fact that you don't even acknowledge that above can only be seen as trolling, as it was brought to your attention many, many times." (17:41, 25 August)

On "working" together ...

• we have the lovely ad-hominem attacks in virtually every comment he makes (but also asserting that NPA allows him to do so)
• the claims that everyone but him is trolling while repeatedly making value judgments about other editors (and their contributions), and repeatedly accusing others of impropriety (also provoking editors to accuse other editors of impropriety).
• ad-nauseum recitation the "blanking" mantra, which is not only a misrepresentation of the facts, but has also been repeatedly addressed.
• accusing others of "not bothering to read", but then either not listening to what others have to say, or twisting their words around to mean something that they did not say.
• derailing every effort to move forwards, either by spewing something apropos of nothing, and/or with abuse, and/or by twisting people's words around so they are compelled to address it.

Ottava Rima is not only alone, he/she is desperately alone. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Fullstop, you do realize that you can be blocked for directly spreading such falsehoods, right? From your first claim to the very last, you are contributing nothing but falsehood. Hell, the claim that you say I am alone yet consensus is clearly on my side and very few people accept your view is only proof that you lack any support here. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)