User talk:Gun Powder Ma/Archive 03

my removal of that thing on your user page

wikipedia is NOT a sopabox, see WB:SOAP, it applies to USER PAGES TOO. your user page was clearly advocating propaganda.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 23:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You do not have a right to remove anything from my Wikipedia:User page, especially since the flag is actually part of Wikipedia articles! Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

its not the FLAG thats the problem, its the ONE WORLD ONE DREAM FREE TIBET thats the problem,... and you might want to read the rules yourself......no soapoxing anywhere on hereㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

WB:SOAP read it....ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 18:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

International reaction to 2008 Tibetan unrest: "In San Francisco, California on April 7, 2008, two days prior to the actual torch relay, three activists carrying Tibetan flags scaled the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl two banners, one saying "One World, One Dream. Free Tibet"', and the other, "Free Tibet '08". So why should I remove content which appears elsewhere without a problem? If this were outright political propaganda, it would not even appear over there, would it ? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Talks at List of Chinese inventions

Hello, I believe there were discussion over these matters before, anyway I had added new materials on the talks page over your responses that you had raised before. Thank you Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Templates on List of Chinese inventions

Hello Gun Powder Ma, although I agreed some of the question you raised, but I don't think the templates should be treated over the articles, plus there are in fact too much of it. Thanks! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute

Why haven't you quoted Sarton's article yet? Do you not even have access to it?! Please, prove me wrong, and show me that you actually read his article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

That coming from someone who allows for weeks the unread Osprey quote on his pet page is a bit rich. Look, buddy, I do not call the library of Alexandria my own, and unlike some nerd, I actually have a life which keeps me busy. If you want it, I can provide it to you in some time, but only if I am sure that it won't shake your quasi-religious belief in Needham's 50-year-old-'findings'. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, did I strike a nerve? I knew it! You hadn't read Sarton's article, and by removing gimbal from the article, you jumped to conclusions faster than Needham!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:24, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't disappoint me and tell me that you have understood that I read the article, but do not have it at home. Is that in Nerd world really such a difficult concept to grasp? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, I think this is misundertsanding, we should calm down over the discussion. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, who are you calling a nerd, I hope that's not me. Lol. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Below, this is so turth for me, I meant I have a life which keep me busy. And I rarely edit other articles. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma said on Talk: List of Chinese inventions:

Btw Sarton's is a book from 1970. I gave you the pages, look it up, if you are interested in the truth

I am going to my university library to rent out a book by the late George Sarton (1884–1956). I just read a really sweet memorial journal article dedicated to him on JSTOR...written in 1957. It commemorated him as a true scholar, so apparently the guy wasn't a hack. His book I will be renting out is called Ancient science and modern civilization, and was published posthumously in 1959. Hopefully he deals with the gimbals. Are we satisfied now, Gun Powder Ma?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that, that book was unavailable during Summer Renovation at my library. However, I found one work of his (1970) that is availble. He died in 1956, by the way.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Personal attack

Please be rational when discussing [1], I already told you not to make discussion over personal than content. See Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This was no personal attack as you well know. You tried to discredit me as being a vandal. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't, this is both personal attack and Ad hominem attack. Not to mention, you 're refering me earlier to as a nerd who have no life [2] Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Anpersonalaccount claimed Gun Powder Ma's edit here was vandalism when it was a content dispute. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 20:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

His edit summary actually said see talk page for earlier specimen, but I do not found any new argument at that time over the talk page, so I thought it was a vandalism. This is clearly personal attack, not matter what you do, don't make any attack on others. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, this was never a content dispute, his removal came to me as vadalism, despite what he said over the edit summary, I only realised it was a mistake when he provide this explains over the talk later. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 21:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Questioning on my edits on List of Chinese inventions

Hello Gun Powder Ma, could you mind don't makes any questions over my edits, I cited Needham and Li Shou-hua is a dated research already. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:12, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice division of labour on List of Chinese inventions

Well said, of course I am not his labour, so mind you. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

But it is not the other's fault that you give that impression, is it? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

What impression anyway, is all according to you! Thus your fault for having such impression. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

But speaking of which impression, in fact what you give on others was a distorted man, probably aged around 40s, who likes to pick on articles you hate and removes the entires. It is not just me who have such impression, some anon had said that too previously. So it is not the other's and mine fault that you give that impression. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You could lies as long you like, but you can't cheat on other's human instinct! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 22:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Li Shua-hua

Hello, actually Li Shua-hua is indeed dated, take a look at the source, it was published in 1954. Anpersonalaccount (talk)

Stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial, median under the List of Chinese inventions bullet suggestion

Gun Powder Ma says

In the meanwhile can explain why would like a short defintion rather than a correct definition

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I think this is rather long for the bullet, do you have any other suggestions? Or shall we just stick to the "rudder" still? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, are you willing to address the question of rudder or not? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

"No mentions of a magnet" has been added in List of Chinese inventions

Hey Gun Powder Ma, I changed the the quotes as I found out another source of Li Shu-hua, I guess we rest on here with this. Thanks! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Needham's page on gimbal that you ask for on 18:34, 19 August 2008

Hello Gun Powder Ma, in case you're not aware of it, I just quoted the page from Needham you asked for. Take a look at it! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 00:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

World's largest domes

I believe the Kingdome is the only record holder on the list that no longer exists.

The title of each category is not the largest ever built... it is specifically domes "...that have held the title of the largest dome..." (in a place, by type, etc.). Does the Kingdome still hold the title of the largest concrete dome? It held the title of the largest dome built in its category, but as it does not exist, it cannot hold any title at this moment.

Is the tallest building in New York City still the WTC? Not according to Wikipedia... it isn't even on the List of tallest buildings in the world... because it(tragically) doesn't exist. Do you think Wikipedia should change that list?

If someone comes to the site and asks...where is the world's largest concrete dome... the article says... at present... it is the Kingdome... unless you check the notes.

By putting the word "demolished" in the place of "present", the Kingdome can still hold the record by being last in line, since Scope's claim on the chart will have terminated in 1976. Ruedetocqueville (talk) 01:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

In my understanding the demolished Kingdome holds the record just as much as the deceased Florence Griffith Joyner holds the World records in 100 m and 200 m. Since a decased can be a record holder by universal agreement, there is no reason to suppose that a demolished building cannot be a record holder, either. Do you think we should change the international understanding of what a record is? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

So we must change the Wikipedia tallest buildings list to add the WTC. Is this correct? Is it still the largest building in NYC?

List of tallest buildings in the world excludes the WTC correctly, because the list is concerned with the largest building in the world, which the WTC cannot be, since it does not exist any longer. List of the world's largest dome, however, is concerned with the record holder, and that can include demolished buildings, if their diameter has been unsurpassed, which is the case with Kingdome. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

List of tallest freestanding structures in the world still features the WTC. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

So does List of tallest structures in the world. I think that should settle the matter. The record willchange in a few years anyway. ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The Kingdome still holds "...the title of the largest dome in terms of (its) structure...". It is still the largest dome of its structure, according to the words on the chart. Thanks for the discussion. I bow to your interpretation.

Just FYI, today's edit of Norfolk Scope was not mine. Regards, Ruedetocqueville (talk) 21:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Gradation of architectural components in standard dimensions

I don't know much about the Roman De architectura of Vitruvius, and I was hoping that you know a thing or two about its content, given that you have an interest in all things Greco-Roman. This is in regards to an entry I want to add to List of Chinese inventions, but I am unsure if there was a precedent.

In the early 12th century Song Dynasty architectural treatise Yingzao Fashi, there is a graded system of architectural timber components in standard dimensions called caifen (材份制). Each of its eight grades were assigned to a different-sized timber hall in progressive order from smallest to largest. This is not simply a system of measurement, but a graded system of components meant to fit in structures of different sizes. In other words, it was a module system, which the free dictionary defines as thus:

Architecture The dimensions of a structural component, such as the base of a column, used as a unit of measurement or standard for determining the proportions of the rest of the construction.

Did such a system exist in Vitruvius' book? Or even any of the Indian Vastu Shastra? If not, I believe the Chinese were the first to establish such a system; correct me if I am wrong.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of modules in Vitruv's book, but the existence of such systems can be easily established by archaeological means. The Pyramids featured different sizes of stone, as do the Greek temples. Such a system, where a single component defines the rest of the structure, can be also found in Greek and Roman torsion artillery, where the diameter of the springs determines the size of the machines, which come in different categories from small to large. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, just to be safe, I have asserted the Chinese were the first to create an eight-graded modular system, with each grade assigned to a different type and size of timber hall.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

WP AH

This user wants you to join
WikiProject
Alternate History.

Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 12:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a Thought

You really don't like giving any credit to the Chinese and Muslims do you? I can understand the former as that fire is liberally stoked by a spate of Chinese Nationalism (but I don’t want to pay lip service to idiots). However the latter is harder to argue against 'cos you can't deny their contributions despite the fact, as it has already been said (much to the disgrace of Robert Kilroy Silk [bastard nevertheless]) that they haven't done much in the past 500 years, but neither too have the Greeks though for at least twice as long. I think though that they had a civil war at some point in the past century. You ought to learn to accept that western society and modern society as it has now been established de facto internationally is the germination of seeds planted many a year ago in India, Persia, Middle East, Egypt and of course Greece and Rome. Indeed if one were to draw a real historical line between East and West I would go far as to put it at the border between India and China (Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan nations respectively) if not that at least Persia or the Middle East. Aarandir (talk) 15:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Islamic Golden Age

I agree with you that the article needs further tagging.

You may want to know that I requested a peer-review on it here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Islamic Golden Age/archive1.

Cesar Tort 21:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replying about the peer-review on the Islamic science article.

Alas, I am going for a very, very long wikibreak tomorrow (it's still Monday here in Mexico) and won't be able to contibute in the near future.

At any event, you still can copy what you just told me and paste it in Talk:Islamic Golden Age. I really think that the article needs some balancing, especially about the issue I took here.

Cheers,

—Cesar Tort 04:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Roman bridges

Yes, I'd certainly be interested. I'm a bit busy in real life at the moment, but I'll do them. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 10:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

You are my man. You work at Sangarius Bridge was truly good. Take your time. Kind regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I have finished the Eurymedon Bridge, and I think I'll do the Limyra Bridge next. As for translating it into Greek, I'm certainly willing do it, after I've done the English article. Thanks for your kind words, and best regards, Constantine ✍ 12:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Great work! Simple as that. Again, no hurry, just take your time. Kind regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello! As you have seen, I've begun work on the Limyra Bridge. Working on it, I remembered that I wanted to ask you something. Do you have the exact dimensions of all the arches of the Eurymedon Bridge? It would be nice if we could include them into the article, because mentioning only the outer ones and the three central ones is a bit odd. Also, I've downloaded the journal, and it is a great help to writing the article, esp. the sketches and the map, in properly conceiving the layout of the bridge. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 08:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello again and a Happy New Year to you, too ! Yes, I am certainly still on. It's just that for the duration of the holidays, I did not have access (or time to find access) to the internet, and once back, real life came down hard... I'll try to finish the Limyra bridge over the next days, and then I'll take on the others. Also, I've seen the new images, very well done, congrats! Best regards, Constantine ✍ 23:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Glad to hear you are still on. I did not want to sound pushy, just curious, because I saw the tag removed. Kind regards. PS: I just created List of medieval bridges in France, they have a lot of interesting bridges, too! Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello again! I've sent you an email, but I'd like to ask you here what you think of the article structure. Wandalstouring raises some legitimate points in his objections, but I'd like the opinion of others before engaging in so drastic changes. Best regards, Constantine ✍ 12:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

My strong advice is: keep the article structure. Why? To be sure, Wandalstouring is not completely off the mark when he deems it somewhat "boring" reading the history section en bloque without, say, the distraction of another topic. I read 1.1 and 1.2 and, even though your prose was close to superb, I have to admit I experienced finally a similar feeling. But this is only to be expected from such a comprehensive topic and such a large article. The point is most reader won't read the article that way, en bloque, from top to end, on one day. Only few are likely to do that. The large majority swarms in, surfs as quick as possible to the points of interests and leaves the rest alone. And for this user behaviour, which IMO is the norm, the current basic structure is much better than the fragmented one proposed by WT, because it keeps related things together and allows user a swift access to the material of their liking. And this is exactly what an encyclopaedic article is made for, isn't it? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that's pretty much what my objections sum up to. I did a very rough preliminary reorganization of the article based on Wandalstouring's proposals, and, aside from a massive effort of rewriting that will be required (and about which, obviously, I am not very enthusiastic), the article structure becomes just too messy, in comparison to the current clean and orderly overview by theme and then by chronology. BTW, thanks for your additions! If you find anything else, just add it! Regards, Constantine ✍ 17:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

PS. Danke und nochmals danke für die Artikel! Einiges davon hatte ich zwar schon, aber wow! Meine Erwartungen wurden um ein vielfaches übertroffen! Constantine ✍ 17:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Turtle Ship

You've got to be kidding me. LOL. The evidences are QUOTED in the text right now without your personal commentary NOR mine. Your reverts are in violation of WP:NOT#OR so take your original research elsewhere and leave the article as it is.Melonbarmonster2 (talk) 00:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

History of Coal Mining

Thanks, Do you have a source to support the Hadrian's Wall claim made by another contributor? 62.56.99.2 (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Gimme your email address, and I send you the source rightaway. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop stalking my edits

You've shadowed my edits to continue your disruptive editing. Please stop. If you continue to shadow my edits I will have to file an incidents' report. Thanks.Melonbarmonster2 (talk) 16:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you stop undoing my quoted references with this pseudo rule citing. The rules you cite have nothing whatsoever to do with my edits. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Look there are genuine disagreement and edit issues that can be discussed with the japanese sea lion article. But claiming that rehab efforts are in Sea of Japan is false. You wouldn't know this because you have no genuine interest in this article and on the topic and are not aware of facts cited in all the other references in that article. Stop stalking my edits. You're taking our disagreement in the turtle ship article to another level of childishness and pettiness.Melonbarmonster2 (talk) 04:44, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Why the heck do you constantly remove a referenced source? Do you get an allergic reaction by the name Sea of Japan? The article is for people interested in marine life, not a playground for your transparent political agenda. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:03, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

re:

SOME people THINK the turtleship had iron armor. That isn't good enough for you?

And I'm done here. You and melonbarmonster and all the people who is still yelling all over can keep whacking each other like you've done since the beginning of the big bang. This place is such nonsense now, I don't know why I stuck my head in here just to see whats been happening so far. Whats the point of fighting over this? Theres nothing at stake here and nothing in the real world will change regardless of whatever stuff we scribble in this place. And whatever you people write here isn't going to persuade anyone who reads these articles. If someone thinks the turtleship had iron then thats that and if someone thinks the turtleship had nothing then thats that. Nobody should care whether kimchee is made with nappa or chinese or american cabbage. Its still korean food and thats that.

I have chemistry homework and other things to do. so GOODBYE and do whatever you want with the turtle ship article only to have it reverted by melonbarmonster and vice versa.

Good friend100 (talk) 18:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

You know, GoodFriend, that was one of the best rants I have read on Wikipedia, and I am not ironic at all. In a way you are right, of course. I guess we are all human, all too human. Good luck with your work. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Übersetzungswunsch

Hi Gun Powder Ma, I'm currently translating your Maliakos Gulf Tsunami article (no sorrows about the autographic faults in the lemma, please), but I actually don't know about the correct German Lemma. If you do: tell me (in de.wikipedia or here)! Greetings,--Fecchi (talk) 20:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Gadara Aqueduct

I was very interested by and with this article, being both familiar with the area and the science behind the technology. I was wondering if you were aware on an existing English translation of the main ref. If not, I'll have to hit up one of my local German-speaking friends to develop one. Regards,CasualObserver'48 (talk) 15:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I am glad you interested in the subject. Have you downloaded the article here? The only English source Döring gave me was Mathias Döring: "Roman Water Systems in Northern Jordan", Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region (Ephesus, Okt. 2004), Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Sonderschriften, Vol. 42 (Leuven, 2006), pp. 237–243, most probably a translation more or less true to his other articles (Sonderschriften = special issue). In case, you are going to write a comprehensive article, I would offer to ask him whether he can provide some pics as he kindly did with Pont d'Aël which he also investigated. Kind regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the downloaded link was what caused my question, because of my inability to read it with comprehension. I am not that interested in doing much on the article, but I will print the download and pass it on to a friend (.de) who can answer some questions; these relate to some specific things in the area, which overlap with my knowledge of the area. Thanks, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Jagged85

What other oddities has he produced. I must say that articles like that on that topic are all too common, YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Timeline of modern Muslim scientists and engineers Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Inventions_in_the_modern_Islamic_world. Nommed YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Some very similar articles, potentially with similar problems: Science in medieval Islam, Islamic golden age, Muslim Agricultural Revolution, Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world, and List of Muslim scientists. Dialectric (talk) 15:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Mostly spin-offs and/or of the same author. The topics as such are interesting and notable, but the articles repeat the same inflated views. Frankly, I do not know what to do with these. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Islamic Inventions

Hello. Sorry, saw your entry on my talk page just now. Do not know about any other articles such as these two, but I have seen that user now for over a year copying and pasting badly researched and consistently one-sided material in all kinds of articles. He has over 40,000 edits, so you know...I think his consistent misquotation and overinterpretation of sources has brought POV to a new level in Wikipedia, because people tend to believe in assertions more if thez are backed up by a footnote. They are less prone to assume that the information is taken out of context or subtly modified to suit fix preconceptions. Thats why it has been so hard to come this new method. It needs hundreds of footnotes to be checked and most third party observers do not have the time, nor the interest to completely rewrite articles which were written wrongly from the scratch. A case in point is Talk:Inventions of the Islamic Golden Age. The net result is that, while many believe the article to be POV and have tried to improve it, many dubious assertions are still there and spread their message.

PS: Just checked again Timeline of historic inventions. It is hard to find a single uncontested invention there. Too many lists just lack information to the contrary. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know. The only feasible way of stopping "devotee" POV is to have some guy tagging them all day, and the number of "devotees" of anything far outweighs the number of any would-be obssessive opponent. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts - and my experience. It is very difficult to come by this mass production of NPOV articles and entries. I feel this begins to affect Wikipedia. A more rigorous application of deleting policy may have a deterring effect. I find it frustating when people vote for keep, but then nothing ever happens in improving these articles, what needs a HUGE amount of time and patience. Better delete and give somebody other a new chance to do it better from the outset. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently looking into one particular source used in one of the above afd articles, and over 100 other articles, which seems to follow this same trend of non-neutral/revisionist history of invention: "Rocket Technology in Turkish history". I've posted it on the sources discussion board (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Rocket_Technology_in_Turkish_history) and wonder how to approach cleaning up an unreliable source that has been used in so many articles. Dialectric (talk) 15:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

1. If it has been found unreliable, post your reference on some relevant talk page along with your reasoning.

2. Then use the search engine and delete all references by linking to your talk page in the edit summary. IMO the only way to effectively deal with this copy & pasting method, unless you want to spend a life-time on countless talk pages. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Ritten

Hi Gun Power Ma, I'm really confused what you are doing on the Ritten page. hehe The article is Province of Bolzano-Bozen, we don't switch it from Bolzano-Bozen to Bozen-Bolzano on certain pages. Also, English usage for Bolzano, is, well, Bolzano. We don't call Milan, Milano on Italian-focused pages, nor do we switch Munich, to Munchen on German-focused pages. Thanks, Icsunonove (talk) 21:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, dude, can you please put back all those articles how they were? The convention we've been using across Italian towns is to have national language (Italian) first, followed by the primary local language/dialect. The article locations were placed at the primary local language usage, if there wasn't an English name to be used (at least this was done for Bolzano/Bozen). You going in and making redirects from Bozen-Bolzano to Bolzano-Bozen is nuts and is actually very poor Wikipedia practise. Icsunonove (talk) 21:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Can you stop wreaking havoc on the Bolzano-Bozen pages? You are making grand statements that are simply not true. Icsunonove (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The naming convention follows the listing order of the box on the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol commune visible in each article. It follows exactly the pattern established at today. If you want to make changes, please give your rationale first. I am happy to particpate in any discussion. Your 'convention' you claim is certainly not correct, because Wikipedia names of the Aosta valley are routinely in French, such as Pont-Saint-Martin, Italy. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Dude, why the heck did you revert my edit on Steinerner Steg? It had nothing to do with any naming convention. @_@ You trying to drive us nuts, right? :P Did you read the edits I made first? I spent a lot of time to summarize the three citations as they read. It is not up to us to interpret them. Your edit was misleading, because you are using the feelings of editors on here to make statements which we are simply not allowed to do on Wikipedia (i.e. original research). Wikipedia policy is to use sourced material and to cite as is. You can't say O'Connor has a misconception, or that the mayor of Merano is correct. Re-read the edits I made, and discuss them on the discussion page if you have issues with them. Simply reverting other editor's good faith edits is really bad practice. Regarding the conventions, I've been working on these pages for a long time. The only conventions we've developed was on the page location. I can not believe that editors were replacing the links to Bolzano with Bozen and moving Bolzano-Bozen to Bozen-Bolzano on select pages. That is ridiculous. The only part you have correct is that the page locations do indeed follow how things are located in the T-AA/ST commune list. But that is simply the location of the pages, it doesn't mean that is how we are listing the Commune, Gemeinde, etc. in the body of the article. So please, before going and re-arranging things, discuss. AND please, do not revert edits like that... A'ight? :) Icsunonove (talk) 01:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• I tried even more to make the article nice, see if it passes your muster. :P And please help me get the citations not to double up like they do now. Icsunonove (talk) 02:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Steinerner Steg

You say, " can't believe that you do a dozen edits on a short article about a simple bridge just to get your political point across. I was really not invloved in your petty naming guerrilla war, but some others and you repeatedly invading the article have got me a bit pissed now. So now we really have to talk the naming conventions through, I guess. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)"

How dare you. You come on my talk page and spout these amazingly stupid accusations. My "political point across"? You have issues dude, what political point am I trying to get across about a BRIDGE? I'm trying to summarize citations as clearly and in a neutral fashion as possible. You on the other hand seem to have some political theory made up and are here enthusiastically playing Wiki-soldier. Grow the heck up. And my "petty naming guerilla war"? Are you smoking something? Please show me my naming war. I've been at the forefront of making sure that all names are included and respected in this province. How about you?? If I make an incorrect edit, you can point it out politely and at least try to be civilized. Invading the article?!?! I didn't know that this article was your kingdom! You have got some major issues Gun Powder Ma, and I don't need your regards. You should evaluate the BS you just spewed on my talk page, and then check yourself. You obviously are a bit too much into "military history" with all your tired ways to accuse someone. holy beejeesuz! Icsunonove (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ok, and I'll go as far as apologizing for coming off harsh to you, but you should re-read the accusations and assumptions you make, and see how a fellow editor might feel by such things. Fair enough? Icsunonove (talk) 08:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Naming conventions

I have a sense of déjà vu... Don't you remember this and this?--Supparluca 13:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't understand what you don't understand. The third point of the naming conventions says that when you refer to a city in the body of an article you have to use the same name you see in the title of the article about the city (by the way, it is just common sense, you don't need to check the conventions to know this). Of course this is true also for provinces. For example, you shouldn't write "Nueva York is a cool city" or "New York (Nueva York) is a cool city": you should write "New York is a cool city".--Supparluca 14:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Edits like this (2007, sigh...) explain everything. I never tried to implement double standards. Just remember that English use is the first rule. But why do you continue to use the name "South Tyrol"?--Supparluca 18:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want my personal opinion, no problem: I think we should use the Italian names, for many reasons. The most important is that it's clear that in English the Italian names are preferred for the communes of this province (no surprise, since they are in Italy). For many communes you can't prove it simply because nobody talks about them (again, no surprise). Other reasons derive from the naming conventions, etc.. But my personal opinions don't count, so apply the naming conventions as I explained.--Supparluca 08:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Deja vu is right Supparluca, deja vu is right. Gun Powder Ma, if you want to start discussing this region in a way that you may learn a thing or two, I think we'd all appreciate it. If you want to continue down the narrow-minded tunnel you are in now, you are the only one who loses. Up to you dude, but if you believe statements that have been made such as the names were only German before 1919, you are gravely mistaken and lose the majority of the richness of this region. Likewise, you added unreferenced statements on the Bolzano page saying it was originally an ethnic German city. First of all, language spoken does not mean ethnicity. My mother tongue is English, I am not English. Second, Bolzano has such a rich and multicultural history for centuries, what you say is not only misleading but degrades this history massively, don't you think? Lastly, I can see more and more that you see this in a binary fashion where you simply believe everything was German and just Italianized post-1919. You don't realize that the original inhabitants of Trentino-Alto Adige speak Ladin. It is spoken in both provinces (contrary to what is often said). Most of the names in BZ in fact come to us via Latin, from Ladin, and then inherited by German and Italian. Meran, for example is not a German word, anymore than Milan is an English word (it is French, by the way). The Ladin language for this region is what Sicilian is to Sicily, Sardinian is to Sardinia, etc. Throughout the last few centuries, the people of this region have obviously taken on the languages of the larger governments surrounding them. If you go to both Trento and Bolzano you will how similar the people look. Of course there was also significant German migrations and you will see some towns where people are very blond and blue eyed. But, I'll tell you, that is not the norm. So, you can certainly go on believing that it is black and white, yet, I'm afraid it isn't nowhere that simple. :) Icsunonove (talk) 09:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• case in point, Kaltern an der Weinstraße. Italian is Caldaro, Ladin I believe is Caldar. Going back as far as 800 BC AD the city has been called Caldare. The German usage of Kaltern came much later, and you can imagine it being inherited and a variation of the original Ladin/Italic name. A lot of times in Standard Italian (Tuscan) it follows the structure to have a vowel on the word.. hence Ladin is Trent, Italian is Trento, etc., etc., on and on. Now, look at people's surnames from that city, like Seppi, Benin, Palla, Rainer, Sandrini. Two of the members of their own local government are Dieter Sandrini and Werner Palla, I bet both their family's mother tongues have been German for a long time. But, do you think it is so simple to call them simply ethnic Germans? No, it is not, and like many people in this region it is a centuries long mix of the cultures that came through these mountains. Do you think it is correct to simply say that Caldaro is a 1919 invention? No, again. Now, you may come to realize how this throws a giant wrench into the works of people who would like to claim any extreme that this region (including Trentino) is purely Italian or purely German. So, as I said before, you can fall into this man-made trap of division, or you might actually look at some of the information I just spent a few minutes to share with you. Icsunonove (talk) 09:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Bozen was a ethinic German city 95,52% German in 1910.
• You think names prove something? Wonderful have a look at this: a list with the 120 most common names in the province of Bolzano 2004 - to make it easier for you I highlighted the 2 Italian and the 4 Ladin ones in Green and Blue: - and saved myself the work to highlight the 114 German ones!
• "taken on the languages of the larger governments" that is a most absurd statement! the area was settled by the Germanic Bajuwaren tribe around 600 AD and the dialect spoken up to this day is a Bavarian dialect
• the people look not "similar" You have actually never been to Alto Adige!?? Doing some Original research here? can you verify that? Show me a reference!
• "back as far as 800BC" BC?? whoa - during the Pre-Etruscan period the name was already Latin? What amazing place Kaltern must be!
• what arbitrary selection of names: ah yeah, right Germanic names don't exist: BUT: there is only 1 Italian city councilor and a whooping 19 German city councilors; from the ethnic German party SVP: Ambach Christian, Ambach Dr. Ing. Helmuth, Andergassen Ambach Annelies, Andergassen Erwin, Atz Dr. Werner, Battisti Matscher Wilfried, Benin Bernard Gertrud, Fill Dr. Raimund, Heidegger Günther, Palla Dr. Werner, Rainer Arthur, Rainer Sighard, Schullian Dr. Manfred, Sinn Robert, von Stefenelli DDr. Arnold - 3 councilors are from the Village List: Egger Dr. Heidelinde Dorfliste, Hell Dr. Irene, Weis Harald, 1 from the right wing German Union für Südtirol Sandrini Dieter and the lonely Italian Seppi Lino for Insieme per Caldaro - isn't it suprising how un-Italian the city council becomes, when you do not omit the 15 councilors with the most Germanic names?
• "is so simple to call them simply ethnic Germans" if you define ethnicity by family name: fine! in that case Seppi & Sandrini are Italian, Palla is Ladin, Benin- born Bernard and married to a Benin- is German as is Ambach C., Ambach H., Andergassen A., Andergassen E., Atz, Fill, Heidegger, Rainer A., Rainer S., Schullian, Sinn, Egger, Hell, Weis - all ethnic Germans; von Stefenelli - a nobleman - and Battisti Matscher could be either. wow stong German majority - we should do that more often; makes it so much easier! especially as I have the ASTAT book "Names in South Tyrol" - Oh yeah! do you have a single book about the history of South Tyrol? in case you do, you will need it! as I'm just around the corner of the Tessmann and the UBIBK - and will reference the hell out of these two biggest libraries in the Alps! --noclador (talk) 11:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, I meant to say 800 AD. Bolzano has been ethnically mixed for centuries upon centuries. No where did I state German names do not exist, they most certainly do (and we are all the richer for it). Noclador, when you intend to speak in a more civilized and calm manner, I'd love to discuss this history. At this point, it just seems as if I've placed a dent in your "pure" view of the history, and you are losing your cool. I know many so-called "Italians" in Trentino that look more Germanic than many so-called "Germans" in Alto Adige. You fail to understand that the actual ethnic makeup across this region is shared, and language spoken is a strong artifact of who was in control. I'm a bit curious about yourself, are you blonde and blue eyed with a jaw like Michael Schumacher? Somehow, I'm guessing not. :) I still suggest that you make an aweful mistake to believe things are so black-and-white, but if that reinforces your sense of cultural inclusion-- so be it; you end up losing out on the true richness of this region. :) ps. I have spent so much time all over Trentino-Alto Adige while growing up, you can not imagine! I'm not adding my experiences, observations and studies to the articles, I'm making a discussion. Icsunonove (talk) 20:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

History of Alto Adige-South Tyrol

"clear arranged tables with correct quotation marks; box; historical sequence"

I would have expected more of an explanation after you reverted 70% of the changes I made. To make it short:

• The box with the Wilson quote: useless, you want it emphasized, you use bold text
• the infobox with the linguistic groups: not pertinent, it's unrelated to the history
• the tables: no idea why you did that

For now I reverted only the section title "Demographics of South Tyrol" to "Demographic history". I know that when an article is about South Tyrol it's hard to assume good faith, but honestly, South Tyrol is not Bosnia or Rwanda.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, before I reverted 70% of your edit, you actually reverted 70% of mine - without leaving any explanations. Briefly:

• Please point me to the WP rule concerning the uses of boxes and bold text. Otherwise the historical relevance of Point Nine of the Fourteen Points in that context is self-evident.
• does not strike me logical, certainly, the history of Alto Adige-South Tyrol does not stop in 2000
• no idea why you reverted my table without any explanation. And you still give no reason above. Although I am not perfectly happy with the large space of 'my' table, I found 'your' table, namely the mix between absolutes and percentages, not clearly arranged. At least 'my' table reflects accurately the arrangement of the source. If there is a way to put them both next to one another, that would be fine.

The upshot is: We both agree that the article lefts wanting. That is a good basis. But you did the reverts, so it would be nice if you explain your reasons first. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that I did. In the edit summary.

• (→London Pact vs. Fourteen Points: the box looks kind of useless) (undo)
• (→Today: rem decorative icons, smaller banner) (undo)
• (→Time of nationalism: this image seems more relevant to the context. also reduced images size) (undo)
• (→Annexation by Italy: this should be part of "time of nationalism") (undo)
• (→Fascist Italianization: corrected link to redirect) (undo)
• (→Demographics of South Tyrol: merged the two tables, new title, rem map) (undo)
• …

Also I don't think that answering questions with questions is a good basis for discussions, but I will answer first, because otherwise it would never end.

• I did not revert your edit, I assumed the box was just a leftover of a smaller section later expanded (was I wrong?)
• sheer common sense should suffice, as I never contested its relevance (as you can see, I was right above when I talked about assuming good faith and South Tyrol), I just don't believe anything can be important enough to be written twice centimetres away in the same paragraph
• you're right, but that kind of argument would justify copying the entire content of South Tyrol to the history page, as it's all political, economic, (or as in this case) demographic, recent history. We could do that, but would that ameliorate Wikipedia in any way?
• I hope this is enough to clarify the question, but if this is not the case, be the first to ask, and I'll be the first to answer.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Fine. I still don't quite understand that merely stating that something is "useless" or "more relevant" without giving further reasons, constitutes an explanation, but anyway. Actually, I intended the box and the table to be the first elements for improving and enlarging the article. It was just so, that I had these pertinent sources, so I began with them.

• The quote box: that seems to me the nature of the box, that something is so important that it needs to be dealt with two times. You would agree that writing something terribly important in the box, but failing to address it in the text, would be contradictory, wouldn't you? Just for your information: as soon as I find something from the London treaty or the Paris conference, reflecting the Allied/Italian position I intend to put it in a box it as well
• The language diagram: I did not argue for copying the entire content of South Tyrol to that page, I just advocate using a table for the second time in the whole of Wikipeda. Is more than once already one too many? There is myriad of images which are used twice, even thrice and four times. It is a kind of compliment.
• The table: To put in a nutshell: If there is a good way to arrange the absolute and percentage numbers in one table, or one next to another, I am fine with it. You may want to check other tables for that; particularly using different colours, and other means of formatting would help. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Just trying make wikipedia a better place

My edits are mostly reverting chinese nationalists. I really don't think we'll have a problem. Akkies (talk) 00:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Stop editing Korean topics without expert knowledge. --Korsentry 00:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

Re: Notification

• Replied. → AA ^(talk) — 23:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

enough with the personal attacks

I've got an idea for you Gun Powder Ma. Instead of keeping up your constant personal attacks against your so-called "usual suspects", how about you try and tone it down and start discussing things in a civilized manner. First of all, I don't like how you trivialize Alto Adige as a fascist invention -- it is not. The fascists abused this term, that is for certain, but you have no right to permanently blacken it and unilaterally discard it. Second, that is highly offensive that you go to a discussion about a category-keep/delete and use it as a soap box to make accusations towards others. I find an invite on my talk page to contribute to this discussion, and the first thing I find is accusations towards me, and discussions of how we biased the naming and you are going to fix everything. Then anyone wonders why people get tired of contributing on Wikipedia? You think that is good wiki etiquette to come here and treat people you don't even know like that? You have no comprehension of how lopsided the pages and page locations were at one point, and how there was constant (and I mean constant) fighting on here for over two years. It was finally a group of us, including me and Supparluca -- and many others -- who helped hammer out this compromise. The arguing has all but gone down to zero. So, while you may think you've entered this arena and have these brilliant ideas to re-write everything and make things as they should... you completely disrespect what we went through. Lastly, trivial items that you guys are fighting over on the pages like the website locations, etc. Man, get over it, either one is fine. We had used a certain format to be consistent with all Italian provincial pages, you don't have to dream up that there is some grand conspiracy. I'm curious if realize also that Standard Italian (Tuscan) is simply the Chinese Mandarin of Italy. Each and every province and valley have their local languages, and German happens to be one of those in Bolzano. Anyway..... so, let me suggest this: start over, shake hands with everyone, stop with the usual suspects b.s. and accusations, and lets pick a page to discuss things here like educated people. Is that fair enough? Icsunonove (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• Would appreciate at least a reply Gun Powder Ma to my attempt to make the discussions here a bit more civilized...  :) Icsunonove (talk) 00:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Turtle ships

I'm afraid I can't really help. I have no particular views about turtle ships and no access to any evidence about them. Nor do I really have time to get involved with the disagreement. Can I suggest you mention the issues at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force and/or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships; that will hopefully attract some uninvolved editors to the article. The Land (talk) 18:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Muslim Science

Hello Gunpowder Ma. I just read your comment about the Muslim science/debate page. It's a disaster really. Wikipedia can't become a propaganda site. Listing a history of invention/scientists should be pretty easy, just go by well-sourced, region, and time period. Its only when people make wild claims and try to tie it to religion that it becomes a problem (in my opinion brought on by massive personal insecurities, but...) At best there was a unified Muslim state to 750, after that it fractured. Most of this science was based on Greek, Persian, and Roman work, some of it was done by Jews, some by Zoroasterians, most by Persians. Slugging through that article will be a mess but its got to be done. Has a consensus been reached on it? Gunslinger1812 (talk) 05:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gunslinger1812 (talk • contribs) 05:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello. Which article do you mean? Two have been now deleted, several others are still around (see section "Jagged85" above). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Comparison between Roman and Han Empires

Hello, a newly created article which IMO sounds like synthesis - and trouble: I used to follow the debates on various history forums and they almost always ended along the line 'my dad is stronger than yours'. What do you think, is this article and topic WP conform or not? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, but the article survived a recent AFD. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Saw that later, too. Predictably, they now try to link their close-to-deletion-OR on the main page of the Roman Empire - as if not two dozen other articles would rather deserve there a place. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi - I was just looking at your recent edits. The 'continuation' section does, I'm afraid, look very much like OR. I've been complaining all along that we need reliable sources that discuss both of these empires. dougweller (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, for all I care the whole article should be deleted, since, in fact, only a single source makes an explicit comparison, and only in economic terms (Scheidel). But for the standards of the article I am not sure which parts of mine you refer to are OR. Could you go into details? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It was this whole bit [3] - but that section and the language section are now heavily trimmed. Trying to compare what happened long after the two empires were gone doesn't seem a good idea to me. I've asked my library to get Scheidel for me. dougweller (talk) 18:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

New article

History of the Han Dynasty; I included some info about the empires of Rome, Parthia, and Kushan in this article that you might be interested in. Also, I have a neat picture in User:PericlesofAthens/Draft for Economy of the Han Dynasty that you might like, a classic example of Roman gilded silverware (comparable to Roman pieces found in Han Chinese tomb sites, as illustrated by Harper, 2002).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You still alive? Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Lao Baixing

Since Lao Baixing is created, I think most of the English word Chinese in all of these history articles such as Qing, Ming and Song, Ming can be replaced with Qing Lao Baixing, Ming Lao Baixing, and Song Lao Baixing. What you think? Arilang ^talk 23:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Please do not push your own POV

Please do not push your own POV. Just because you do not like the article does not mean you should not put a link to it in the Roman Empire article; the point of the see also section is so the reader can access information about the Roman Empire. Just because an article has been nominated for deletion means nothing; the fact it survived means that the community believed it was an article that should stay on wikipedia. Also, please do not edit the article when you do not have correct information; your edits are completely absurd(Persian empire larger than both), as Han Empire includes basically all of modern day China except a few remote regions in Tibet and Dongbei, while Roman Empire covered all the Mediterrenean. I welcome constructive change to teh article, but Do not edit with your own POV. As to OR allegations, there are at least four sources comparing the two empires in the article, and in the sections where there are not such sources, the info is listed seperately, so there is no OR. I know its difficult to put your anti-chinese POV under control, but you must do so if you want to become a contributie editor.Teeninvestor (talk) 23:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Please be only aware that your whole article rests on a single source which actually does a comparison - Walter Scheidel (the China Institute is no reliable third party source). As long as this remains, there is absolutely no reason to link this 'article' to main page of the Roman Empire. As for the Persian empire, I meant that is was bigger than each of them. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Princeton University, Monetary systems of the Roman and Han Empires, <http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/020803.pdf> (Accessed December 27, 2008)

Comparing two classical civilizations, China Institute in America, [1] (accessed December 26, 2008)

Scheidel, Walter (ed.) 2008 Rome and China: comparative perspectives on ancient world empires (Oxford University Press) 9780195336900

Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag (eds.), Conceiving the Empire: China and Rome Compared, Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 0199214646 (Google books preview)

Chapter 7 summary of W.W. Norton & Company, Worlds apart, Worlds together, A History of the world, second edition. http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worlds2/contents/summary/ch7.asp

There are 5 sources, thank you very much. and as to size of both empires, it would depend on your view. Like, Han did not have commandries over Mongolia. But did they control it after expulsion of Huns? that answer could very easily be yes. Also, would you count central asia in Han empire?(Ban Chao had bases on caspian sea). It all depends on which historians you quote. In my case, the one I quoted merely stated that both empires were quite large.Teeninvestor (talk) 23:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Wording of references (3. request)

Could you point me to the relevant guidelines? What does the first user who put the reference have to do with this?--Supparluca 13:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

A couple of reasons:

• every Italian province has a website with an URL like "http://www.provincia.xx.it", where xx is the province code: it makes sense to use that URL for consistency
• the English name "province" is more similar to "provincia" than to "provinz", so, if an URL with "province" isn't available, it makes sense to use an URL with "provincia" for English readers
• when I changed the URL, I made also useful edits, for example I fixed wikilinks and redirect templates; you didn't (note the first line, lol).

It's your turn.--Supparluca 14:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• people dont read on every Italian province, they read that particular article at hand. therefore, consistency is better achieved by conforming with the naming convention in the rest of the article
• OR, NPOV and irrelevant.
• which edits of yours would you call useful?

In sum, the URLs in the municipalities should follow the naming conventions applied in the rest of the article. Which means in Ritten, there is little place for a provincia URl. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(3)As I wrote, I fixed wikilinks and redirect templates, while you just made mistakes.

What does "provinz/provincia" have to do with "Ritten" in terms of consistency? You wrote that both URLs work, and that you had to give at least one reason for using one particular URL. I gave you three reasons for using www.provincia..., do you have a reason to use the other URL?--Supparluca 16:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

(3) With other words: You pushed your POV and hid it behind the comment fixed wikilinks, or should I really assume good faith after your uncontroversial request [4]? The reasons for changing the URLs are not convincing. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 17:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Supparluca, consistency within the article should have priority over the consistency over an imagined range of articles you postulate. Why? Because the readers reads this article, and not those others several clicks away. And anyway, I fail to see why the "Gemeinde" URLs should be less Italian than the "commune" ones - both have the .it, haven't they? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested Move A. N. Wilson (writer) > A. N. Wilson

You deleted the request for this move without comment while moving the passer river request from one section to another. Can you please restore the request or explain your actions if this was done intentionally? Thanks. Kjaer (talk) 04:22, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, totally unintentionally. I shall restore it. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:55, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I would already have done it myself but am not an admin, let me know if there's any trouble, it should be a rather uncontroversial revert to the original name. Thanks.Kjaer (talk) 18:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

done Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of Trentino (because we all love linguistics)

I saw you just created a new "etymology" section in the Province of Trento page. The reference you used is self-published, in a foreign language, and partial (you don't need to know German to understand "Totengräber"). If you can fix this, I would suggest moving this piece to Trentino-Südtirol or Trento, as Trentino is not used officially for the province itself.--Le Petit Modificateur Laborieux (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Trentino is in my view the right place for an etymology of "Trentino". However, I agree that the source may be viewed by some as problematic, but I don't think they made this up, because, since Trentino is today the common name even in German and Welschtirol anachronistic, they simply have no reason to. Let's wait what other say, Checco seemed to have no objections so far. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't worried about Checco (what made you think that?!) but anyway, it looks like I didn't need to worry in the first place, as the page is stable. But should anyone contest the section's content in the future, we'll be needing another reference.--Le Petit Modificateur Laborieux (talk) 03:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yin-Yang RfC

I've opened an RfC with a proper set of links for comparison, and left a statement of my own. you might want to make a statement as well. --Ludwigs2 03:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

naming conventions

I understand that the right wording of naming conventions is extremely important for sensitive topics. NCs should be edited with care, and reflect consensus. This being said, if you could formulate your arguments in a more calm way, this would certainly speed up the process. Your posts on the talk page show a certain anger, which, while maybe understandable, does not benefit the discussion. WP can be happy that Kotniski reacts in a calm manner; there are several of your words which not every editor would have had the patience to ignore. Cheers Jasy jatere (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your invitation. Kotniski reacted in a calm manner, but nonetheless reverted my edits in a sensitive page without giving reasons wholesale. I, as I am sure other editors, would have preferred it the other eay. I will post a link on the respective South Tyrol page to draw attention to the debate, and later I will post myself links to the debates, now deeply archived, which refer to the South Tyrol consensus on place names. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

South Tyrol disambiguation

You recently created a dab for South Tyrol, and in the process you made "South Tyrol" a redirect to the dab. In the case this wasn't just an oversight: we can't have that, South Tyrol is a very popular redirect, receiving about one seventh the total hits of "Province of Bolzano-Bozen". It needs to stay the way it is. I also removed the third section of the disambiguation page: no one is going to type "South Tyrol" looking specifically for the history of Tyrol.--Le Petit Modificateur Laborieux (talk) 03:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi. You did not explain why it needs to stay like that. In fact, I followed an old suggestion which has been described as "informative, balanced and reasonably neutral": User talk:PhJ#South Tyrol disambiguation Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

what??

Please tell me someone hacked your account. Or something the like. I mean first you remove categories I added minutes earlier and you call them "reverts", then you alter you own messages rendering mine senseless, and last you use misleading edit summaries when you revert, such as in South Tyrol. You didn't behave like this yesterday. What's making you change your attitude this much?!--Le Petit Modificateur Laborieux (talk) 16:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Gordium

From where was the text plagiarized? Opensensestep (talk) 10:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I have put a new page up here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gordium/Temp
Opensensestep (talk) 18:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

A small hint. The original author told me that he would have no objection against the plagiarism if somebody made a request. It is not the first time that www.livius.org waspractically copied & pasted in WP. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Byzantine Navy

Can you help to write more about the introduction of the lateen sail in Byzantine navy. It's a major technological change enabling better cruising and the article doesn't currently quite cover that. Thanks a lot. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		For very good contributions in elevating the Byzantine navy article to Featured status, for providing tons of material on it and related issues, and for pure enthusiasm. With the best regards, Constantine ✍ 10:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking forward to continued collaboration. :) Constantine ✍ 10:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

i traced your ip bitch, im reporting it to the CCP

Lookup IP Address: 218.20.25.39

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Hostname: 39.25.20.218.broad.gz.gd.dynamic.163data.com.cn ISP: ChinaNet Guangdong Province Network Organization: ChinaNet Guangdong Province Network Proxy: None detected Type: Cable/DSL Blacklist:

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Country: China State/Region: 30 City: Guangzhou Latitude: 23.1167 Longitude: 113.25 Area Code:

History of the Han Dynasty FAC

In regards to the tribute thing, it's not a matter of what you or I believe, it is a matter of what sources say. In this case, the source I used, Rafe de Crespigny's A Biographical Dictionary of the Eastern Han to Three Kingdoms (2007), does not explicitly say "tribute" but rather "gifts" that the Romans presented (he speculates they are merchants, not diplomats). I will use the term "gifts" instead, just to be safe on this matter. Sound better?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is the passage in full from Crespigny's work:

Page 600: QUOTE: "Most spectacularly, it is recorded that a mission from Daqin 大秦, identified as the empire of Rome, came to Luoyang from the south in 166. The envoys claimed that they had been sent by their king Andun 安敦, presumably the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus [reg. 161–180], and the gifts they brought, including ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoise shell, had evidently been gathered on their journey. There was and still is some suspicion that these men were enterprising traders rather than accredited officials, but their visit provided valuable prestige to the emperor at a time of political difficulty. [It may be only chance, but the date of this visit coincided with the outbreak of the Antonine plague which ravaged the Roman empire from the middle 160s: the question of epidemics is discussed in the entry for Liu Hong, Emperor Ling.]"

--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Now, if you're serious about improving the article, exactly what contents in the article seem extraneous enough to you that they would need to be removed or further summarized? Keep in mind, I don't want to water down the article or take out so much detail that it confuses or misleads the reader, or forces them to ask more questions about the subject instead of answering them. Also, where (in exactly which sections) does the article need more scholarly analysis? Please be specific.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I see little reason to warrant speculation of a single author a place in the lead of an FAC. Apart from that, the tentative contacts does not feature prominent enough in the history of the Han anyway. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

??? From the passage you provided, he does not mention tribute, but I never made an assertion about Pulleyblank's work, nor have I cited him in the article. As for the Han people's conception about what Rome was (or rather, misconceptions based on mythology of the far west), I believe Michael Loewe is the authority (can't remember off the top of my head which one of his books covers this in detail). Now, is your main qualm merely with the fact that Rome is mentioned in the introduction to this article? Since this occurence is described in greater detail in the body of the article, I would argue that a quick mentioning in the introduction is not unjustified (as WP:LEAD notes, a lead summarizes what is found in the body), but perhaps you're right. After all, the Han interactions with Parthia and Kushan were much more substantial.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, it's not a single author. I merely used Crespigny as a credible example, as he is an old, respected scholar in the field (see his Wiki article).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

To beef up the crediblity, I recently added a citation (page 460–461) from this source:

Yü, Ying-shih. (1986). "Han Foreign Relations," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 377-462. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521243270.

...who also uses the word "gift", not tribute. However, Yu notes that nothing is entirely confirmed in regards to the occurrence of this alleged visit to Huan's court by Romans.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

So, are you going to lay out any specific points on where you think the article should be reduced in size? I'm all ears for suggestions, but I would ask that they be constructive ones that take into account the need for comprehensiveness (i.e. I don't want to cut anything that is vital to the understanding of this subject).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

My criticism is not that you "made an assertion about Pulleyblank's work", but that you made an assertion about Sino-Roman contacts which is not supported, ex silentium, by Pulleyblank (among others).

And this is not the only example. Your account does also mispresent the Seres by equating them simply with the Chinese, although, in fact, the term was used, in the course of several centuries, for a number of peoples and tribes in Central Asia, including the Indians. The story about the Romans allegedly praising Chinese iron has been long refuted on good grounds:

Although in Pliny's "Natural History" there are several references to the Seres and a very full account of the mining and smelting of iron in all parts of the world that were in communication with Rome, there is no other passage in that work in which the Seres and iron are brought together, nor is there in any other work that survives to us from the Roman and Greek period anything to connect the people known as the Seres with the production of or trade in iron. Yet upon this slender authority rests the assumption that steel was brought overland to imperial Rome from far-away China.

The various referenees to the Seres in the Roman writers cannot be harmonized for any one people, and it is certainly an unneceessary interpretation to identify them with the Chinese, or to transfer the "Serie iron" to China. I have already indieated that the Indian steel, although mainly an Andhra produet, was attributed by the Romans to tbe Chöra Tamils, and then eonfused with the Seres of Turkestan; and I will elose with a further identifieation of one of these ubiquitous Seros, not heretofore made, so far as I am aware.

Wilfried Schoff: The Eastern Iron Trade of the Roman Empire, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 35 (1915), 224-239 (224, 237)

I have read some articles of yours and IMHO they all suffer from the same problem. You are content with the first source you find, to quickly move on to the GA or FAC nomination, without sufficiently taking the time to look for contrary stances. IMO it could be expected from a FAC that the author is aware that Chinese 'knowledge' of Da Qian (Roman Empire) had strong mythological connotations, or that the Seres should never be lightly equated with the Chinese. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I have read (once again, can't remember the source, perhaps I still have it in my sandbox notes) that the "Seres" was most likely not in reference to China proper, but rather to the people of the Tarim Basin states, the most western extreme of the Han Empire.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you showed me Wilfried Schoff's passage; despite it's age, his account is thorough enough to override the source I used for this specific statement by Morton & Lewis (2005), page 70. Consider the statement in the article about the "Seres" stricken from the article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

From FAC page: Is this meant to be a snarky comment? For one, there is not sufficient room in this article to explain the Chinese conceptions of the far west and the various mythological ideas about lands of immortals therein (although covered briefly in Society and culture of the Han Dynasty; well ahead of you). Even if I tried to make room, it would be irrelevant, and you would certainly complain, given that you already have issues with the size of the article (as you stated, one of the main reasons why you oppose it). In any case, I already removed the Seres comment in the article due to the fact that you shared Wilfried Schoff's source on your talk page with me already. So how exactly is it relevant anymore? So far it seems you have seized on two statements involving Rome (which I've amended according to your suggestions), and haven't really offered much in regards to improving the rest of the article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:22, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What can I do for you? These two points were obviously meant to be only exemplary. I do not expect you to expand on the mythological character of Da Qian, but to be aware of it, so as not to commit easy interpretation mistakes. I checked two points with which I am familiar with and I immediately found two misrepresentations. This did not raise faith in the rest of the article. Do you expect me to countercheck any single fact of yours? This should actually be your job as a nominator. And one more thing: as far as I am aware I am the only one here who actually points you straight away to the relevant source plus page number plus quote (not only here, but elsewhere, too). I don't need to do this, I could just limit myself to giving the source and let you do the walk to the library. So don't try to insinuate that I am not willing to improve these articles. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, of course they're exemplary, but the point is you are opposing the article, meaning you should at least lay out all the specific, detailed concerns with the article which I can address (point by point) in order for you to at least repeal your opposition as a neutral comment, or at best support the article. This is normal for an FAC process. Saying thing's are a bit too "anecdotal" in certain (unnamed) places really doesn't address anything specific, it's a generality that's hard to address. Saying the article size is too large is also a strange statement, given that the prose size is within acceptable limits according to WP:SIZE. That's hardly grounds to outright oppose an article if all's it needs is a little more trimming with the suggestions of an FAC reviewer. If you think there is a problem with any of my sources, well, I took heavy-duty detailed notes from all of them at User:PericlesofAthens/Sandbox, feel free to navigate and see the page number info I cited for everything in these articles (about half of them involve direct quotes, the other half paraphrasing material found on those pages).

And what made you think I was totally unaware that the Chinese attached mythological ideas to Daqin? Was it the mentioning of the alleged embassy? The Book of Later Han description of Rome's government, postal network, and cities that I briefly mentioned in a foreign affairs section? I'm all ears, because I don't know where you got this idea (given the sparse amount of attention I gave to Rome in the article to begin with).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I am taking a look into some of the sources you relied on and then I come back to the nomination page. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Great! Feel free to use my sandbox pages (the link I provided directs you to all other sandbox pages). I know where everything is located, so if you have any questions on where something might be, feel free to ask.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I recently commented on the FAC page after I removed the mentioning of Japan and Rome from the lead (an issue which seems like your biggest concern since it comprises two of your three points), and I recently added this, QUOTE: As promised, I added a bit of analysis on why Han involved itself in the Western Regions:

The Eastern-Han court periodically reasserted the Chinese military presence in the Western Regions only as a means to combat the Northern Xiongnu. Han forces were expelled from the Western Regions first by the Xiongnu between 77–90 CE and then by the Qiang between 107–122 CE. In both of these periods, the financial burdens of reestablishing and expanding western colonies, as well as the liability of sending financial aid requested by Tarim-Basin tributary states, were viewed by the court as reasons to forestall the reopening of foreign relations in the region.

I hope you find this sufficient, especially since the issue of the article's size does not allow me to add much more. In the next paragraph, the comparison of the cost of putting down the Liangzhou rebellion (24 million cash coins) to the average annual amount of minted coins (220 million) should demonstrate just how the court's finances were suffering and why they could not commit their forces to far-flung campaigns of conquest and settlement. What do you think?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

GA

Limyra Bridge has been promoted to GA. Please see the comments about improving the article. Spevw (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tang Dynasty

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tang Dynasty/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tang Dynasty/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Mailer Diablo 14:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

April 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, adding content without citing a reliable source, as you did to Helm (mountain), is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources, please take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Eeekster (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh thank you so much, I am only editing here for over two years, so it is a real revelation what you just said. Don't feel in no way obstructed to continue tagging the remaining hundred thousand articles which do not cite sources, either. I guess you don't want to hear that basic facts such as that New York lies in the USA, or that the Mount Evest is 8848 m high, don't warrant this template, particularly in stubs. I will have to protect myself from your senseless stub templating by adding a source...any source. Just a joke...perhaps. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Han Dynasty FAC opposition

I have responded and provided further evidence for my claims, as well as reworded some sentences in regards to your suggestions (some of which were good, some of which, however, I find unhelpful to say the least).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

As for your claim of the dearth of Chinese architecture dated before Tang, I would not mind adding such a statement in the structural engineering sub-section, but none of my sources make such an explicit statement (outside of wooden architecture). Perhaps you have a source that does. If so, I would be happy to utilize it if you can produce a quote on the FAC page with proper page numbers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Aside from Han-era aboveground ruins of walls and beacon towers which you've acknowledged exist, I'm surprised you've never read anything about Han-era stone pillar-gate towers (闕) which still stand intact, some in very good condition (such as the one seen in the Liu Xujie source that I provided a link for on the FAC page; it still stands 6 m / 20 ft tall). Moreover, you must not have read much of the article at all and not even scanned over other parts besides the Science, Tech, and Engineering section, since I provide a picture of a Han-era stone pillar gate in the article! I find it odd that you would strongly oppose the article after reading one section (AFAIK, the only section you've mentioned in your objection).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, Gun Powder Ma, in addition to all your other points of concern which I've now addressed in the article (i.e. sparse evidence of arch bridges, no vaults and domes above ground, the absence of watermills for grinding, the "firsts" in China or world, and Thorp's input on archaeological scarcity of architectural remains), I am proud to say much of the "Mechanical and hydraulic engineering" sub-section has been reworded and given a true narrative form, as you desired to see. Here is the newly-reworded part:

Literary evidence of Han-era mechanical engineering rests largely on the choice observations of sometimes disinterested Confucian scholars, since professional artisan-engineers (jiang 匠) did not leave behind detailed writings of their work.[377] Han scholars who had little or no expertise in mechanical engineering sometimes provided insufficient information on the various technologies they described.[378] Nevertheless, some Han literary sources provide crucial information. For example, in 15 BCE the philosopher Yang Xiong described the invention of the belt drive for a quilling machine, which was of great importance to early textile manufacturing.[379] The inventions of the artisan Ding Huan (丁緩) are mentioned in the Book of Later Han. Around 180 CE, Ding created a manually-operated rotary fan used for air conditioning within palace buildings.[380] Ding also used gimbals as pivotal supports for one of his incense burners and invented the world's first known zoetrope lamp.[381][382]

The discovery of Han artwork through modern archaeology has brought to light inventions which were otherwise absent in Han literary sources. As observed in Han miniature tomb models but not in literary sources, the crank handle was used to operate the fans of winnowing machines that separated grain from chaff.[383][384] The odometer cart, invented during Han, measured journey lengths, using mechanical figures banging drums and gongs to indicate each distance traveled.[385] This invention is depicted in Han artwork by the 2nd century CE, yet detailed written descriptions are not offered until the 3rd century CE.[386] Modern archaeologists have also unearthed actual specimens of devices used during Han. For example, Han-era sliding metal calipers used by craftsmen for making minute measurements were found to have inscriptions of the exact day and year they were manufactured, yet this tool does not appear in Han literatary sources.[387][388]

Isn't she pretty! (lol) I'm glad you nudged me a bit to rewrite this section, because it sounds much better now. What do you think?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello? You still around? I believe I have addressed all of your concerns. Please let me know otherwise.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I need a bit more time to review some points before I can give a substantiated response. Hopefully tomorrow I will show up. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm going out to the bar with friends (perhaps a bad idea to drink a lot of beer after eating a huge dinner, but hey, it's Saturday!). In the words of Ron Burgundy: you stay classy Köln. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! That's excellent news. I'm glad that you like all of the changes. If you don't mind, I will place our conversation within a collapsible text box. It's perhaps the longest single conversation on Han's FAC page thus far, so I would like to be kind to other reviewers who don't want to scroll through a jungle of text to find their comments (plus, I've already done this with two other editors with long conversations). Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Tags

I removed Greenman2020's tags on your (and a few others people's) articles and asked him to strike these warnings. He is simply wrong. Yintaɳ  23:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I already saw your much appreciated intervention and pointed Greenman2020 towards it. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't take Greenman the wrong way :) He is fairly new. I'm his adopter and working to better his skills. Sorry for any trouble... ZooFari 03:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Sella (whatever)

Hi - Sella towers (in lower case) just looks really peculiar as the name of mountains / a mountain, which as a proper name would take a capital letter on the second element. But I am not sure that in any case in English it would be "Sella towers/Towers", which sounds like a block of flats. Have you some sources for the name in English? HeartofaDog (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Gothic architecture

I don't mind your removals. The late date of the Spanish pic possibly was misleading. I searched for one that illustrated the theory. Do you mind backing up the various remaining sentences with references that you consider appropriate? Are you having an anti-anti-Western-World-propaganda blitz, or what? Amandajm (talk) 08:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I have provided sources as you requested. Some time ago, there was a certain user who copied and pasted material of the said site all over WP, without really understanding what it means. Two of his articles have been deleted, but his material is still scattered around. There are indeed two theories proposed on the origin of the pointed arch, one diffusionist, the other independent invention, and it is not up to us to decide which is correct, which the quoted site however pretty much did. This is what I tried to rectify. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I get just a tad sick of info of that sort (not to mentioned Leonardo's blessed fingerprint) being employed continually to push the point that Western Europe has never thought of anything for itself. Amandajm (talk) 03:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. As you know yourself quite qell, judging from your impressive list of contributions in the field, the revolutionary character of Gothic architecture lay anyway not so much in its individual components, which all have also been present in late Romanesque architecture (save the buttress), but in the unique combination of them, which practically put stone masonry to its absolute limits. In Islamic architecture, in contrast, the structural potential of the pointed arch was never fully exploited, far from it. This is, inter alia, clearly evident from bridge building, where medieval pointed arch bridges reach spans easily twice of those of North Africa and the Middle East (see for example the eccentric Puente del Diablo (Martorell). Kind regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

3RR Warning

You seem to be edging towards 3RR in edit warring in that section into the Sonia Sotomayor‎. Please stop and discuss on the talk page and gain a consensus before attempting to put it back into the lead. Brothejr (talk) 13:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I was already on the talk page when you were still content with removing the entry. Way to go, boy. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian literature

Hi Gun. Long time, no see. At least since that FAC page for Government of the Han Dynasty, which is now a featured article, btw.

Every once in a while I choose to focus on non-Chinese history articles. My featured articles on Augustus and Giovanni Villani come to mind. Recently I've set my sights on Ancient Egyptian literature, which is still quite a small article for such an important topic.

I've started compiling notes from several scholarly sources on the subject. I know that you are mostly interested in Greco-Roman subjects, but I was wondering if you knew of any good (as well as easily-accessible) sources on Egyptian literature (perhaps a journal article online that you are familiar with). Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am not of much help for Ancient Egyptian literature. I once read works of Gardiner which are now outdated, however, and, of course, the Story of Sinuhe is of timeless facination. My personal advice is to include a small section on papryus and its high chances of preservation in the uniquely dry climate and soil of Egypt (that is outside the fertile alluvial land, at the fringes of the desert, where the dead were buried) thanks to which we know more of AE literature and administrative records than for practically all other ancient regions. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. You can take a look at User:PericlesofAthens/Draft for Ancient Egyptian literature to view the draft, which is thus far a skeleton outline in the making. I'm sure more sub-sections can be added and inserted as I learn more about the scope of this topic. As for the present organization of sections, I'd like to hear your input on priorities and which sections should perhaps come before others (I've placed "Historical timeline" at the end, which comes before "Writing mediums and scripts," "Social, administrative, and religious functions," and "Literary genres").--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Although dated, the work of Adolf Erman (of the "Berlin School" of Egyptology) is still rather impressive and I intend to utilize it; have a look.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

List of the largest cannon by caliber

Hi, as you may have noted, I am linking only those artillery pieces to the list which are listed there (plus those lists which include this artillery). Please elaborate why do you feel that this is "unencyclopedic". Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Reason is that connecting things just by size is meaningless. A 16 inch howitzer has nothing in common with a 16 inch naval gun, has nothing in common with a 16 inch coast defence gun. etc. Different mission, ballistics, ammo, use.. that's why it's unencyclopedic to lump them together. You wouldn't link goats to dogs because they're of a similar size. To be encyclopedic the grouping needs a logical grounding e.g. naval guns of 12-16 inches were used for similar roles on battleships in a timeframe 1900-1945 - their mission, trajectory, ammo etc was fairly similar. A 12 inch muzzle-loader of 1700 had nothing in common but its size - its role, trajectory, ammo etc was totally different. You need to group and compare like with like for it to be encyclopedic. regards. Rod Rcbutcher (talk) 16:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I even tend to agree, but then again many of those articles just use those superlatives themselves, along the line 'this is the largest howitzer of all time', 'the second largest gun used in actual combat', 'largest naval gun by bore, though not by projectile size' etc. Since howitzer are mounted on trains, naval guns dismounted to be employed in land warfare, bombards also used on war ships, etc. the borders between the different types are actually rather blurred. It is not like the links dominate the article, they are as low-key as they can be, without interferring with the article text as such. Therefore, I still think that an entry among "see also" is justified as a minimum statement of its size by caliber. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

fair enough, I suppose the see also links can point to other interesting info. Another thought - for at least the British, the increase in size of naval guns was to increase range rather than for the sake of size itself. They never got the hang of building large high-velocity guns, unlike the Germans, and found it much easier to just use a bigger caliber at low velocity to achieve distance, through the principle of less air resistance. For land use they found it pointless to go above 12 inches for howitzers in WWI, and by WWII 7.2 inches was as high as they found useful for a how. The gun needs to be no more than is required for its mission, and a lot of the really big stuff of the past was for national prestige rather than any combat value. THe German navy did massive damage at Jutland with its 11 inch guns, primarily through excellent shell quality. Rcbutcher (talk) 16:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Merry Christmas! I think it was you who opposed in summer the creation of this article of mine on the grounds that it compares apples with oranges. I believe you are right. Grouping together all these different kinds of cannon is close to WP:Synthesis.

I propose to split the list into three smaller ones (on the same page). The criteria would be the kind of of projectiles used:

1. stone balls (14-16th century)
2. iron balls (15th to 19th century)
3. explosive shells (beginning with Henri-Joseph Paixhans to this day)

What do you think? Do these subdivisions make sense? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

You are still here? ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Reason for my delay in replying is that I'm not really sure what my suggestion is yet... a simple list as such really does not tell any story or help people understand the topic. The real story is in why the gun was that size, whether it managed to carry out its intended function, and whether it influenced history in any way. In military terms that is "fitness for purpose". If the purpose was to induce fear in enemies by its sheer size and the noise it made, then it didn't really have to actually be technically efficient. However, if it was intended to destroy castle walls or sink the enemy's battleships, then the enormous investment in manufacturing and transport resources needs to be measured against whether it actually worked in action. Modern military doctrine holds that a gun should be no bigger than necessary for its purpose. Britain built large naval guns primarily to increase range as it was deficient in steel technology needed to make smaller high-velocity guns. Britain (when it had a global Empire to defend) also preferred guns that were cheap to manufacture because it needed large quantities, and it would have gone bankrupt trying to build huge numbers of state-of-the art naval guns. Germany (which was only a Baltic and North Atlantic power) had the necessary technology and its guns tended to be smaller than the British but fire heavier shells at a higher velocity. German naval guns were in fact typically more effective than their larger British equivalents, and Germany could afford the higher unit costs because it needed far fewer. Similarly, the US 16-inch guns were far ahead in military effectiveness of any other country's guns of similar size due to their technological superiority, and the USA could easily afford the higher costs while Britain and Japan really couldn't. But the real killer in the US Navy's use of its 16-inch guns was radar fire-control, not the sheer size of the gun or shell. What I'm saying is that the actual gun bore size is really meaningless in military terms : the weight of shell, velocity, accuracy, mobility of the gun, rate of fire, cost of manufacture and its ability to win or avoid wars are the factors which determine whether the gun is "fit for purpose". I think many of the earlier "monster cannons" were constructed simply because gunpowder was something of a novelty and just so a king could have a bigger gun than his rival next door - really just status symbols rather than serious military equipment.

My guess is that, in hindsight, large naval guns were a waste of money.. better results were obtained by torpedoes and mines and finally by airpower. Britain achieved its great naval success largely with smaller guns, before WWI. On land, monster guns were so slow in movement that I believe they hindered rather than aided military campaigns. In the Boer War Britain discovered its "siege train" was too slow in movement to be usable. In WWI Germany did use a few Big Berthas and 30.5 cm Austrian howitzers to destroy the Belgian forts but the delay in bringing them up arguably contributed to losing the Battle of the Marne. The huge resources invested in the Gustavs could not really be justified by Germany in WWII in return for Sevastapol, which would have been eventually captured by infantry with mortars anyway. Germany under Hitler failed to grasp that strategic bombers had long ago replaced monster guns... the "Adolf guns" were able to fire across the Channel and strike England but were strategically irrelevant. In contrast, a proper German strategic heavy bomber force would have won the Battle Of Britain. regards, Rod. Rcbutcher (talk) 04:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep up the good work

		The Original Barnstar
		There is a lot more to be done please dont stop. J8079s (talk) 19:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Reverted Abbas Ibn Firnas Work

I reverted some of the good work you did on this page; some redaction of content seemed highly subjective and counter purpose- every bit as much as its presence! Of course, we still have your edit's history; my concern was that with such a single, heavy edit, an onerous burden is placed on subsequent editors to revise, adjust, contribute. You might consider editing sections individually. I would care to discuss the mater in detail, as time allows.Mavigogun (talk) 10:30, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Escapement

That washstand in Philo of Byzantium's article is pretty cool! I've never read Lewis's article, but since it was published in 2000, I'm surprised you haven't gotten a hold of it already. Good work. I've already made note of it in List of Chinese inventions.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Please note though that Philo also fairly clear speaks of the escapement mechanism already used in clocks (i.e. water clocks): "The device is of particular interest in that Philo specifically says that "its construction is similar to that of clocks," and because the tipping spoon is the earliest instance of an escapement such as mechanical clocks ultimately acquired." (Lewis 357)

Hmm. That's a very interesting comment by Philo! I'd like to hear more about this, actually; is this the only instance where Philo mentions the correlation between his washstand escapement and that of water clocks? Lewis obviously finds the comment interesting in regards to the tipping spoon of later clockworks, but does he try to build the case that ancient Greek water clocks employed the escapement? Does he mention other sources besides Philo's work which might hint at this as well? If something substantial can be found, the List of Chinese inventions passage on the escapement might have to be amended.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

From the passage cited above, it is IMO clear enough that Lewis believes that Philo referred to an escapement mechanism in clocks. I can contact him, but don't expect further ancient sources, only more interpretation. He is a genius, he found the earliest evidence for wheelbarrows and trip-hammers in ancient technology when no-one else believed it. He also pointed me to Roman cranks. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of changing that article, I recently removed star catalogues as an original Chinese invention. I knew that astronomy was one of strong points of ancient Babylonian civilization, but I was not aware until recently that they actually compiled Babylonian star catalogues. Therefore, I have also amended the article on star catalogues by using John North (1995).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Me neither. Sounds interesting. I knew, however, that the attribution to the Chinese was less than certain: "Starmaps and catalogues are a natural product of systematic observation, and Needham points to a lengthy succession of these in China. There is good evidence for star-maps in the fourth century A.D., and probably also in the second century A.D. The history of star-co-ordinate lists on which such maps might be based is more complex. Material attributed to two rather shadowy figures (Shih Shen and Kan Te) who may have flourished during the fourth century B.C. is extant in a number of later works." (Christopher Cullen, “Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy”, Past and Present, No. 87 (May, 1980), pp. 39-53 (46f.) Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, by the Western Han, the separate "schools" of Gan De and Shi Shen already existed, but we don't know much about the two men (if they existed at all), let alone have contemporary records about them. The Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian mentions both men and their different astronomical "schools", along with that of Wu Xian (astronomer). What Cullen doesn't mention in this passage here (much to my surprise) is the catalogue of stars found in Sima Qian's very own Records of the Grand Historian (in the chapter Tianguan shu), which is obviously a work of the late 2nd century BC (see page 21-22 of Sun, Xiaochun and Jacob Kistemaker. (1997). The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society. Leiden, New York, Köln: Koninklijke Brill. ISBN 9004107371.). When Cullen says 2nd century AD, he is most certainly speaking of Zhang Heng's later (and much larger) star catalogue.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:23, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Just curious, but is there any rationale for providing the Chinese characters apart from Pinyin for names of books etc.? I did not see that often with other scripts. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:20, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language). For any Chinese person/place/thing that doesn't have an article already, they should have their Chinese character name provided. For any Chinese person/place/thing that already has an article, no characters are needed in separate articles. Notice how I did not provide the characters for Records of the Grand Historian, yet I did for Zhang Heng's Ling Xian, which has no article as of yet. That's pretty much the gist of it. Providing the characters is a hospitable way of allowing others to create articles on said persons/places/things; once that is done, the characters can be removed from other articles.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Gun Powder Ma. Thanks for your message. Just thoughts really, but what I am trying to say is that language should not determine policy and justify a certain cultural outlook or bias. It is true for any language, but even more so with English, which is used more as an international language than a country-specific language nowadays, and is in effect a sort of "Esperanto", to your point, for contributors from around the world. Best regards Phg (talk) 11:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Move request for Meran

There is a request that Meran be moved to Merano, at Talk:Meran#Requested move to Merano (5 July 2009) Ian Spackman (talk) 14:35, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Fascinating work on 15th century cannons! Do you plan to consolidate these under a larger article? I will try to incorporate them in the template Template:Artillery of the Middle Ages. Regarding Taccola, I do not have much time to expand the article at this point. Cheers. Phg (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your e-mail. Let's keep in touch.Phg (talk) 19:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Armen Firman

After our discussion at AfD, it seemed the one thing we did agree on was that the article could be merged, so I've done that, it's now at Abbas Ibn Firnas#Armen Firman --Beeblebrox (talk) 08:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the removal of Firman from the Early Flying Machines article: it is not in our purview to establish fact- only to furnish material supported by reference. To point: our judgment of likelihood is not a factor for inclusion- this includes the area of folk tales and legend. The role of the editor is not that of arbiter of truth. Any argument for deletion of the Firman event would, in kind, hold for the material merger discussed here; as with the Flying Machine article, "I think it was probably not true" is not the metric to be used; if there are conflicting sources, cite both.Mavigogun (talk) 05:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with your view for several reasons, but I couldn't care less to argue lengthy about an entry in a list on which it has been anyway agreed that it needs heavy modifying. However, it should be stressed that a list is not meant to be a dumping place for unverified claims. Your judgement for inclusion is certainly subjective in that it rests on a single source the author of which has himself partially withdrawn the assertion and pointed to its possible flaws, while it seems to wholly ignore the indirect evidence from several reputable references against Firman's existence. PS: How can you cite both in a list? That is actually the problem with lists, that they make things appear as facts, since there is no space for interpretation. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Taccola

I have responded to s:la:Vicifons:Scriptorium#Taccola. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Since you showed interest in the past

A stone-carved pillar-gate, or que (闕), 6 m (20 ft) in total height, located at the tomb of Gao Yi in Ya'an, Sichuan province, Eastern Han Dynasty

The ruins of a Han-dynasty watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, Gansu province, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road

Here are two Han architecture ruins I've added to the Han Dynasty article recently. A while back you wanted me to show you the remnants of Han architecture; here are two types. The first is a stone pillar-gate in Sichuan located at the tomb of Gao Yi, who lived during the Eastern Han period. If you look at the rest of the images uploaded by User:Zeus1234 for the latter structure, you can see the detail of the relief-carvings of human figures, animals, and wooden building components such as dougong brackets and roof tiles. This pillar-gate image looks much better than the early-20th-century black-and-white image I was using for an Eastern Han pillar gate at the Wu Family Shrine in Shandong province. The second is a ruin of a rammed earth Han watchtower in Gansu province (plenty of those still around, some in better condition than this if you snoop around online). Enjoy.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:07, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I've got that draft outline for Ancient Egyptian literature pretty fleshed out now: User:PericlesofAthens/Draft for Ancient Egyptian literature. In three different sandbox pages (1, 2, 3), I've got about 700 KB worth of notes taken from various books and journal articles. That should be enough to write a new article and several others! I think you would particularly enjoy the stuff by Parkinson (2002) as well as Forman and Quirke (1996). Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

It's finished: Ancient Egyptian literature is rewritten! Take a look.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:28, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you had a chance to look at the article yet?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Cataphract

Your changes to the article are not only completely without merit (as well as explanation to larger a degree, as you seem to remove highly relevant and sourced information for no good reason), they are also in violation of WP:CAT as you have little grasp of the relevant heirachy needed in an article like Cataphract. My information which you removed twice predates your additions regarding "Early Armored Riders" and sets up the chronological basis of the article. Moreover, you fail to properly cite your new additions and write in an entirely encyclopaedic sytle, in total contrast to the rest of the article.

Please, let's stop the childish revert war and try to actually improve this burgeoning but very, very important article into something much better. I'd be happy to work with you to gradually, piece-by-piece reintroduce your information as long as we discuss it prior.

Thankyou Gamer112(Aus) (talk) 10:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

As long as you do full-scale reverts of my well-referenced entries, as you do now, as you have done before (1 and 2), there is not the slightest reasons why I should take your offer to work in harmony on the article seriously. Forgive me, if I am very much happy to write in an "entirely encyclopaedic sytle" in an encyclopedia....Your effort to attribute the rise of the cataphracts to the "Iranian people" is too transparent; actually, a number of ancient horse-riding peoples were instrumental in the development of the cataphract. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I have attempted to better integrate your section on Assyrian & Central Asian Cataphracts within the article by adding some more background information and rewording a lot of it to conform with a more readable & easily-understandable style. Please refer back to me and tell me what you think on the talk page; I have also outlined a list of problems I see with the inclusion of your information here: [5]

Gamer112(Aus) (talk) 06:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Dude!

According to a new archaeological discovery in Rome, Nero apparently had a water-powered revolving restaurant! Read here. If you can find out any more about this, please share an article! Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the info. Being apparently a brand new discovery, it may well take years though before full publication of the find and I believe we at Wiki should refrain from referring to newspaper articles as much as possible. Also, my gf would kill me if I start getting too busy here, so I guess yours must be more forgiving. ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

She certainly is! But if you've seen my talk page lately, you would have noticed the semi-retired banner. ;) She rather likes that. And yes, I am aware of Wiki's rules that any subject must have considerable coverage before it can be added to the encyclopedia, especially if it is something about an ancient archaeological find. Obviously one breaking news story is not enough to fully confirm a fact or even form a consensus on the issue. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I know that you know. :-) I was just looking for some excuse to not create an article...just kiddin'. ;-) No, seriously, there has been lately a new revolutionary find which confirmed that the Romans employed the crank and connecting rod in their water-powered sawmills. On that I am going to make a small article. Enjoy your time with your gf, because, unlike WP, a partner is rewarding and pays back what you have given her. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Menzies

Hi, there's a note basically addressed to you right now on the 1421 talk page. Please have a look, I think we'll agree on a solution rather easily. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, regards the footnoting of Finlay and Wade, since the two sources are to journal articles, generally I wouldn't bother putting in a separate sources section and using the harvard referencing - I've always seen journal articles as sufficiently short that there's no need to cite to each page. Normally I only do the footnotes/reference split with link-to-references when there are multiple citations to multiple pages in a single book. I guess the argument could be made that direct quotations need page refs, but I see it as an unnecessary and confusing step to have to click twice on two different links when it's just an article. That was why I collapsed them and used only a single citation. Right now Wade is used as a reference only once, and is still in the sources section. Seems odd to me, and unnecessary, particularly since it's not attached to a quote. Finlay I also see as unnecessary - it's used only twice, and if it wasn't for the second citation being to a footnote, I'd only use it once with the ref name tag. Is there a strong reason to have it the way it is now?

Oh, and the NPOV tag seems unnecessary to me - it's very, very easy to demonstrate that the reaction has been mostly critical, and therefore the appropriate NPOV action is to give the most weight to the criticisms. But I'm guessing there's a lot of tedious talk page stuff happening that I should review before removing it. Sigh. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I always work that way, see e.g. List of ancient watermills. Looks neat and is easy to navigate. We can use the Harvard system for all journals, if you like to have a consistent lay-out. As for the tag, we can remove it, if you like. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, hateful, awkward and ugly in my mind, but it's an aesthetic choice. I doubt we can remove the tag without more discussion, seems others will object and have done so in the past. We could always try it but I don't hold much hope. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I've another point which is aesthetic, but I hope you'll see some merit in it. It concerns your addition of the citations to the lead. On a purely technical level, there are now two sets of redundant citation templates, so if the article keeps them in the lead the second set should be removed. However, that depends on what we do with WP:LEADCITE. Admittedly it's perhaps a contentious article (we'll see regards the {{NPOV}}) but I just rewrote the lead (twice!) and there's nothing in there that's not cited in the body. Having one general sentence followed by four citations, when there are no others in the lead really adds nothing substantive to it, and introduces that big gap in the sentence. I deliberately left the 1421exposed.com site in because it's the sole general reference that addresses essentially the whole hypothesis (and I'm thinking of embedding that one in the body as well). If no-one challenges the need for citations in the lead, they're not necessary and I think their removal makes for a more visually pleasing lead. Certainly before when the body lacked the extensive and detailed criticisms they were necessary, but I don't think they are now. Please let me know what you think or if you see an important reason to keep them that I've missed. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I reintroduced the four citations, because, having followed the article for more than two years, I know that there has been considerable debate in the past whether a single refutation can justified the line "dismissed by professional historians". To avoid fruitless quantitative debates about "some", "a few", "all" historians, I therefore hold the four quotes to be very important, since they proved to be a stable solution. To address your concerns, though, I am going to combine them in one footnote. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:00, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

How about we bring it up on the talk page and look for consensus to just remove? Combining to a single citation still leaves a single, unnecessary footnote and I think it's pretty clear on the main page that professional historians don't like it; I've also adjusted the wording so it's no longer a question of "many", "all", "most" or any other number (for some reason the diff isn't showing up in the history yet but the changes have appeared in the lead). I'll start a section on the talk page and it's probably more fruitful to discuss this there. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:15, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Cranes

17th & 18th century, so what? Congratulations BTW for at least checking out one of the cites - which was it, Ayres or Lindsay?

Kitchen cranes use leverage, sometimes screws, to lift things. SO WTF is you problem with them appearing in the crane article? Your obsession with them need for pulleys is just plain, simple wrong.

Secondly, why should the fact they are surviving from the 17th century matter at all (there's some indication they're earlier too, but not by a huge amount)? That's still post-Roman, pre-most other sorts of crane. What difference does it make?

Finally your claim to have deleted text because of a claimed image problem is just wriggling because you know you've no answer to the real question. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Glad that you now have actually read the article you have been long defending. As I earlier said, I am viewing things from a historical perspective and there the difference between crane providing mechanical advantage and other lifting devices providing none is paramount for the discussion. But, anyway, I limited my edit to removing all unsupported claims by your source and I don't see what can be wrong with that. If kitchen 'cranes' are older than the 17th c., just provide references. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:33, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Stop lying and wheedling. You've deleted a whole section four times now, all of them wrong.

Kitchen cranes (I can't believe I'm writing this) are simple machines used to gain a mechanical advantage when lifting things. Some smaller ones are merely jibs and fixed positioners, not lifters, most of the larger ones lifted by levers. Their non-use of pulleys (quite probably because of proximity to fire) is irrelevant.

I can't claim to understand your agenda. Your past history suggests that you simply do crazy edits. Congratulations, you've won. Welcome to Wikipedia, it's yours. Enjoy. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hang on. Do you simply not _realise_ that some kitchen cranes had lever-based mechanisms for raising their loads, they weren't just fixed jibs? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:40, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be the type of editor who likes to argue endlessly on talk pages, wasting everybody's time, rather than go to the trouble and provide evidence for your position. Bugger off here. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Result of the 3RR case

Please see the result of WP:AN3#User:Gamer112 reported by User:Gun Powder Ma (Result: Both warned), which ended with warnings to both parties. Let me know if you have any questions on how to use the WP:Dispute resolution policy. Since there are only two disputants, you might consider requesting a WP:Third opinion. EdJohnston (talk) 03:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Proserpina Dam

Do you have co-ordinates for this dam? Josh Parris 13:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not, only its position in a crude map of Spain. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Stamp mill

Great expansion. Thanks. Could you provide the full reference for Wilson? Materialscientist (talk) 00:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Treadwheel crane

You may be interested in the Treadwheel crane article which was created yesterday. The list of historical harbour cranes which you created also covers the subject, but not all treadwheel cranes were used in harbours - Guildford is alongside a canal. Mjroots (talk) 07:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Limyra Brücke

Hallo! Nach (zu) langer Zeit hab ich mich endlich damit befasst, Deinen Artikel zur Brücke von Limyra ins Griechische zu übersetzen! Hier kannst Du es finden. Ich habe einige Probleme mit den Fachwörtern, die sehr oft stark von den entsprechenden deutschen und englischen Wörtern abweichen, aber es wird schon. Ich hoffe, den Artikel bis Ende dieser Woche vollkommen übersetzt zu haben! Machs gut! Constantine ✍ 17:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Copernicus

Gun Powder Ma, the Copernicus page has the invisible text which says "no assertion of nationality here! see section on his nationality, the discussion page and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view". It has this invisible text for a reason - the long and sordid history of the edit wars on that article over whether Copernicus was Polish or German or something else. The point of that invisible text is to prevent the recurrence of these pointless edit wars. This injunction applies to indirect "hints" at Copernicus' supposed nationality as well as to outright assertions of it. Now, I know that the German version of the name can be referenced, just like the Polish one can, but it's best if BOTH are kept out of the lead. Otherwise, pretty soon editors are going to start competing on # of sources for each, adding additional versions, including info from other encyclopedias as to nationality etc. That way lies madness and it's not worth. It's best to just state "Nicolaus Copernicus" and leave it at that. A similar thing applies to the assertion that "Copernicus spoke German as native tongue and everyday language" - yes you can find a couple (German) sources which claim that. You can also find sources which claim that Copernicus spoke Polish (quick example of such a English lang source [6] - Polish lang sources would be even easier to find). And this is also something that's been debated and fought over a hundred times already (that's not hyperbole) so why refight it again? Really, these kinds of edits are just going to provoke people and stoke the ambers. It's much better to treat the matter carefully, leave the matter as it is now - ambiguously phrased that Copernicus was sort of German sort of Polish. As far as the images go, a few of them can probably be removed, but it should be discussed on talk first.

Thanks.radek (talk) 23:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I very much agree that the scope and tone of the article should be open-minded and always remindful that attributing nationality to Copernicus is very likely committing an anachronism. But what me makes sceptical is that

• you reinserted all these links to modern Polish statues. What would you think if people start linking to Walhalla temple?
• you only acted when the German name was introduced in the lead, but was content with it as long as only the Polish name was given
• from what I take there actually does not seem to be any substantial evidence of NC having had a command of Polish, because if there were I am sure it would have been long ago made explicit in the article. I find that noteworthy. Why not provide evidence of NC's command of Polish comparable to Nicolaus' German letter?

As a aside, I am happy to be read many times in the article that Thorn was Poland then (via Prussia), but to balance that I believe it is worth noting at least once that the city was actually inhabited predominantly by cultural Germans. Generally, I would prefer not to waste much time on the article, but the tons of retrospective Polish memorabilia (coins, bill, statues), which, being invariably of modern date, actually have no bearing whatsoever on the question of Copernicus's 'nationality', are too a gross attempt to appropiate NC for the Polish point of view to be ignored. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• PS: The whole unholy nationalistic reception from both sides is covered here fairly neutrally: http://www.2iceshs.cyfronet.pl/2ICESHS_Proceedings/Chapter_12/R-4_Kuehne.pdf Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Sure, include a link to the Walhalla temple or any other Copernicus monument you know of. 2. I didn't see the Polish name till I got around to editing - note I took out BOTH. 3. I gave a source above and there's more. The reason why it's not in the article is because it was removed, along with similar assertions about "German being his native tongue". The honest truth is we don't know what his "native tongue" was or what he spoke at home or whatever, though various sources speculate variously. The point is that including EITHER will just encourage pointless fightin' on the article.

Some of the images can probably be removed, but it's probably something that should be brought up on talk page first. Actually, pretty much ANYTHING to do with the man's ethnicity should be brought up on talk first. You also restored Goethicus' word "anachronistically" which is a straight up POV pushing since it's not in the sources and is just that guy's opinion (he tries to sneak it in about once a month or so. Much like the banned Polish user Serafin occasionally tries to insert "Copernicus was a Polish astronomer!" into the lede every once in awhile (though he's been quiet lately)).radek (talk) 00:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Fustiballus

Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Airplaneman ^talk 15:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's been kept :). Airplaneman ^talk 17:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Taijitu

I have made some edits to this page to rduce the undue prominence of the Roman shield design section- there would need to be some much better WP:RS covering the Roman material to justofy its previous length in an article about the Taoist symbol (rather than a design). I see from the Discussion page that you have previously reverted such changes but I think the article lacked balance. Martinlc (talk) 14:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I am all for balance, but reducing the well-referenced Celtic and Roman part to highlight the Taoist part is the wrong approach. Why don't you expand the Taoist section instead of cutting out well-refenced material?. The Taijitu, just like the Swastika, is a universal symbol and not owned by one religion/region/nation/whatever. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the Roman stuff is well-referenced - for a start, it is possible that the images are craeetd by the medieval copyist. It appears to me that underlying the emphasis on that evidence is an assumption there is, or might be, some connection between Rome and China at the relevant date. If tehre were a strong tradition of using the symbol in Roman art there should be some good maisnteam RSs that say so - to base a substantial section of the article on a single web source of unknown scholarly validity is mistaken. perhaps we should ask the RS noticeboard for opinions?Martinlc (talk) 11:52, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Arapsu Bridge

I'll check there and may take photos, thanks. OnurMore 22:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It would be also nice to know whether the bridge features a semi-circular, segmental or pointed arch. It is difficult to tell due to the high watermark. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Roman and Han empire comparisons

I'm asking you to cool it and to drop 'delete' comments. You must have seen that Teeninvestor is using your edits in a way you probably would prefer them not to be used. I'm going to warn him about his language. Let's let Nev1 and others work on the articles without a sideshow, ok? No offense meant, just trying to cool this down. Dougweller (talk) 21:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/July 2009 Ürümqi riots/archive1.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Urumqi riots

I have made some changes to the article based on your comments at the FAC. When you have a moment, would you care to comment again? Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for revisiting the FAC. I'm not sure if you noticed Ohconfucius' recent edit before you left your statement, and I think it addresses some of your concerns so I left a note of it there below your last comment. (If you have already noticed his edit, you may ignore this message.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I saw it later and, yes, it fully addressed my concern. But, as I said, for a FA it is of utmost importance for the reader to have faith that the main author knows how to select and summarize the cited references. That faith has been shaken a bit by the way you reverted without checking the source. I will stay in the background and look how things in the FAC evolve. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I did check the source and was always aware of what I was in it. The reason I reverted was because your edit, suggesting that only Chinese analysts said X, was simply wrong—while mine might have been less detailed than what the actual source said, you can't say it was outright wrong, and I was keeping things simple for the sake of brevity (and for the sake of not focusing too long on an allegation which I don't think deserves a lot of weight, although it still does need to be at least mentioned). And I was hesitant to bother mentioning Gunaratna by name because I consider him a crook and didn't want to give more weight to his view—although, in retrospect, I think naming him specifically might actually give it less weight, and readers inclined to click his name might have the good fortune of finding Rohan Gunaratna#Questionable Credibility.

Anyway, in short, we may have had a content disagreement over how best to present the unsavory information in a couple references, but I can assure you I have never edited that article without knowing what the references say, if that's what you're worried about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you with this again, but I've found some stuff that makes me re-evaluate my earlier edits and think we should perhaps remove the Gunaratna stuff altogether; I started a section here suggesting that we take him out of the article. If you're interested, you may want to comment. Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

list of empires by time afd (closed)

thanks for your extremely well written argument for deletion here. i wish i had written what you wrote. and i wish more editors had a better understanding of the subtleties of what makes some superficially acceptable lists ("who could argue with this list? its a list, its about notable things, its interesting, its subject has been discussed, so it must be ok!") often wildly inappropriate. I'll see an article like this and my mind will just warp, trying to put into words exactly why i sense its inappropriate here.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 20:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. Actually I found the topic quite interesting, but a closer look quickly revealed how pointless the whole exercise actually was. Next time, if you lack words to put it properly, you can just voice your agreement by writing "as per user xyz". :-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

rfc on taijitu

I've started the RfC. I'm trying out a new discussion template - please put your statement in the s2 parameter of the inbrief template - it will display your position and mine side by side. we can debate the issue below the template.

also, I totally screwed up and originally pointed to the wrong editor. it's fixed now, so don't laugh at me. --Ludwigs2 00:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

just as an FYI, the template would work better if you just put your arguments on your side, and put your responses to me in the discussion section below. would you mind making that change? --Ludwigs2 18:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Source of some kind for this

Hello, thanks for your contributions to the History of the alphabet article. I am trying to find some source or inline citation for the bit you contributed to the Prehistory section. If you could add the citation yourself or tell me where you got that info I would gladly add the citations for you. andyzweb (talk) 22:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Ping

I have sent an e-mail to you. --Tenmei (talk) 23:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, your time and your consideration. As a gesture of appreciation, may I share a rhetorical question from the Analects of Confucius: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" --Tenmei (talk) 00:16, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Limyra Bridge

Done! Sorry, I hadn't seen your earlier message :) Cheers, Constantine ✍ 16:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Pre-Industrial Armored Warships

Gunpowder Ma, I noticed you deleted Song dynasty armored warships because, according to you:

"remove Needham (mere speculation not followed up by other authors); establish chronology: possible Japanese iron-cladding (1578) :precedes possible Korean iron-armour (1592)".

Minus the fact that Needham made the claim as a statement, not as speculation, I wonder what your sentence implies. Do you mean that if I did give a list of other authors who "followed up", you would undo your removal of the existence of Song iron-plated warships, and add the deleted information back into the page? Or would you delete the new information as well? Please list the conditions you would require in order for the information to be added back into the page. I am also not aware of any Wikipedia rule that states any source must be "followed up" by other authors or else the claim is deleted. If it exists, do you mind telling me where you got that rule from? Much appreciated. Gnip 8:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Gnip. I took the trouble to look up the reference (Needham, IV.4, 688) again and, interestingly, Needham fails to give a primary source. He just asserts that Chhin Shih-Fu's ship was covered at its sides with iron. In that light, I would find it much more convincing if someone could dig up a real scholarly discussion of the purported iron armour, with direct quotation from the historical sources and a sound line of reasoning. After all, we are interested in how things then actually were, not just what some modern authors made of it, don't we? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

So are you saying that if Needham does give a primary source, with direct quotation from that very source, you would undo your deletion? And thanks for your timely response. Gnip (talk) 1:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I am very much interested in following up Needham's attribution, because frankly I don't buy it. If there were real evidence that this ship had been covered with armour, he would have devoted much more than a single line to it, and trumpeted it like the second coming of sliced bread. In any case, a direct quotation from that very source is only useful when the author has done some philological research, since the translation of the original Chinese is obviously the crucial part. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

So, if you will, I must repeat my question. If Needham DID provide first-hand evidence, and a direct quotation from that very source, with the exact "translation of the original Chinese", you would undo your deletes? Gnip 7:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

So, I guess you have already something up your sleeves. :-) Bring it on then, I am curious. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Most likely :) However, from our past history, it'll probably end up as an edit war unless you yourself give a direct statement of your requirements. No offence, but I'm afraid it's likely you will just change the requirements if I bring my information. So lets not drag this on, shall we? Please answer my previous question. I really don't want to ask the same question a third time. Cheers. Gnip 8:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Shall I carve it into stone for you that I won't object to you citing from reliable references? It would be helpful if you could post the relevant paragraph also on the discussion page, so that other users can form an opinion of their own. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No offence, but anyone can tell you have been evading my question. Something tells me this is on purpose, yes? Looks like I have to ask again. For your definition of "reliable reference", does it mean 'first-hand evidence, and a direct quotation from that very source, with the exact "translation of the original Chinese""? If the answer is no, please give a list of your requirements for something to be counted as "reliable" (within wiki standards, of course). C'mon now. It's a yes or no answer, it shouldn't be that hard. I've asked you thrice, this is the fourth time. I promise you, if my information does not match your definition of a "reliable reference", I will gladly drop the subject. However, if you continue evading a simple yes or no question, I'm afraid I could only assume the worst: you had your mind set against my information even before reading whatever information(or lack thereof) I currently have at hand. So yes, please "carve it in stone" for me. If you haven't noticed, it's what I've been asking all along. That way, we can avoid any future misunderstandings, correct? There's no reason for you to avoid such a question unless my worst assumption is true. But if you are genuine in your historic interests, then such a request shouldn't be a problem. This way, it's for the best. Once you have listed your basic requirements "in stone", neither of us would have any wiggle room to make up excuses later on. Everyone will be satisfied. I want to avoid a fight, not start one. This is why I'm letting you "carve it into stone", as you say. But please, use wiki standards, that's all I ask. Gnip 8:04, 27 February 2010.

Gun Powder Ma, should I assume that you won't be giving your exact standards for a "reliable reference"? Should I assume you give them after I give my sources? Gnip 10:14, 03 March 2010.

Gnip, this is getting tiresome. Why don't you just go ahead and post your piece of information. The last thing I want is to be engaged in an edit war in an article of secondary importance on a topic of tertiary importance. Obviously, I cannot give you a carte blanche for your edits, but if it complies with WP rules, which should not be too hard, I am more than happy and won't object, of course. It would be helpful if you post the entire translation or whatever you have up your sleeve at the talk page. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 04:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma, I already told you that, and I quote, "if my information does not match your definition of a "reliable reference", I will gladly drop the subject". I also said the reason I'm doing this, and I quote: "I'm afraid it's likely you will just change the requirements if I bring my information". This is from past experience. Let's not pretend that you yourself haven't broken Wikipedia rules in the past, or had ever-changing "requirements" depending on whether the information suits your opinion. Because of that, there's very little reason for me to trust you in this. What I don't understand is why you won't fullfill such a simple task of stating your exact requirements, unless you really plan to reject my information before I reveal it? Is there a better reason? From your past history, and your persistance in changing articles your way, I'm sure you have way more time to do this than I. Gnip 12:09, 04 March 2010

Gnip, you are funny man, really. So, no, I won't remove anything never ever there (unless I have your consensus) even if you post a picture of a fat-grinning Micky Mouse. :-D Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma, perhaps I wasn't being clear. But I thought it was very well implied that I would give out whatever information I had once you list your criteria for a "reliable source". If I'm asking you to give out your criteria first, then of course I'm obligated to give out my information. If it fits your criteria, we change what you deleted. If it does not, I'll still give you the information for your amusement, but I'll gladly drop the subject. However, from past experience, I'm know for sure what will happen if I give out my information first. That's why I'm asking you to give out your basic criteria. As I said, this way neither of us will have any "wiggle room". Whether the information is put on wikipedia or not is completely based on whatever criteria you gave. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. Gnip 2:14, 4 March 2010

Gun Powder Ma, I think I've made my statements quite clear. In summary, my proposal was that you list your requirements for a "reliable source", in which I would then give out my information. If that information fits, then we would add your deleted information back onto the page. If it doesn't, I would drop the subject. If you are further silent on the matter, then I'm going to assume that your definition for a reliable source would be, in your own quotes:

a)" I took the trouble to look up the reference (Needham, IV.4, 688) again and, interestingly, Needham fails to give a primary source. He just asserts that Chhin Shih-Fu's ship was covered at its sides with iron. In that light, I would find it much more convincing if someone could dig up a real scholarly discussion of the purported iron armour" -the original historical source.

b) "In any case, a direct quotation from that very source is only useful when the author has done some philological research, since the translation of the original Chinese is obviously the crucial part. " -the original Chinese translation.

c) "mere speculation not followed up by other authors" - Something that's followed up by other authors besides Needham

d) ""Personally, I am very much interested in following up Needham's attribution, because frankly I don't buy it. If there were real evidence that this ship had been covered with armour, he would have devoted much more than a single line to it, and trumpeted it like the second coming of sliced bread. " - Needham trumpeting the case like the second coming of sliced bread.

Does these standards sound reasonable to you? Gnip (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Gnip, just go ahead. I won't object to anything you post there. I would appreciate if you could include the entire section on which you rely on the talk page, so that I can form an opinion of my own. C'est tout. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I post a reply at talk page, but could we agree to put the Japanese boats before the Korean ones, since, while the Korean turtle ships as ship type were older, their possible plating occurred later than that of the Atakebune. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Bruce Lee

You do realise that as the nominator of the AFD you have a right to withdraw your nomination? What the heck is the point in prolonging it? It is your right to withdraw your own nomination and remove the AFD tag. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 18:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You had your chance with the FIght history article. Now its looks as if it will be kept, even after I took the effort to redirect it and clean it up.. Good one. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 14:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Three-revert rule

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Bruce Lee. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Undefeatedcooler (talk) 05:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:ANI#Racism accusation

Just a notice, I moved your report to the ANI board which is a more appropriate location for discussions of an editor's misconduct requiring administrator action. I've also notified Undefeatedcooler of the report, which is required at noticeboards. -- Atama頭 02:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyediting Taijitu

The translation from French seems fine to me. The one issue I have with the section:Geometric figure is the phrase "most recognized pattern." The issue is: most recognized by whom? Was a poll taken? Who conducted the poll? I recommend avoiding such claims. It is easier to say, "In one pattern, the two ...."

I request that you change the introduction to read at the end: The patterns of the taijitu form part of Celtic, Etruscan, and Roman iconography. After "iconography," I would stop. I hope these comments help. PYRRHON  talk   19:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Please excuse my inconstancy but, on re-reading the article, I came up with some ideas for change. I propose that the section=Geometric figure be changed to read only as follows:

To make the classical Taoist symbol, which speakers of English may know as the yin yang symbol, one draws on the diameter of a circle two non-overlapping circles each of which has a diameter equal to the radius of the outer circle. One keeps the line that forms an "S," and one erases or obscures the other line. Nature may draw yin yang symbols; see the image at the right.

I propose the change because:

• the current version describes the taijitu as a geometric figure 3 times (including the heading) despite the taijitu having been been defined as a pattern (a geometric figure) in the introduction. Delete!
• the article needs to make the point that (for the article's purposes) the classical Taoist symbol = the yin yang symbol (as far as Westerners are concerned).
• the quotation is written in the passive voice; does not make the point that the inner circles must not overlap; says we should see the symbol as revolving leaves, but I would rather decide for myself what I am seeing.
• the use of the term "anthropogenic" is too esoteric; an "average reader" should be able to understand the article.
• the sentence about the "most recognized pattern" is superfluous if the section makes clear the classical Taoist symbol = the yin yang symbol

Congratulations on finding the image with Nature's handiwork.

I also recommend that the line under Celts about the La Tène culture be removed. If the section I suggest above is used, that line is otiose.

On the whole, I like what you have done to the place. You have a fine article. Thank you for introducing me to "apotropaic". PYRRHON  talk   23:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I rewrote the section on the gemetric figure based on your proposal, but I'd like to keep the references to the yin yang terminology in the lead and the Celtic section, because that has exactly been the long-standing issue between Ludwigs and me, that he misunderstood references to Western yin yangs consistently as suggestions that the symbol was somehow transferred between the cultures; a notion I do not maintain, nor believe, nor have found supporting evidence for.

Replaced "anthropogenic" with "product of human imagination", but I am not entirely happy with it, either. Perhaps "product of human mind", "artifact" or "product of art" would be better. What do you think? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

If you do not amend the references to the yin yang terminology in the lead and the Celtic section, Ludwigs2 and Machine Elf 1735 and others are likely to complain; but I will defer to your preference. I like your change to "nestling fishes" rather than "revolving leaves." PYRRHON  talk   23:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2010

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Bruce Lee. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Nate^t/_c 14:14, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Gun Powder Ma. You have new messages at Crusio's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Parthian Empire

Hi Gun. It seems you are a bit busy with Bruce Lee and other topics as of late, but I was hoping if you wouldn't mind suggesting a few (good) sources on a recent project I am pursuing: rewriting Parthian Empire. From the library, I've picked up the two-part volume for Parthia in the Cambridge History of Iran (1983), as well as Maria Brosius' The Persians: An Introduction (although she is an established academic, the book is not from a credible university press, i.e. published by Routledge, 2006). I was hoping, given your interest in ancient Rome, if you knew of any good recent academic sources on Parthia or even Roman-Parthian relations that I could utilize (from articles that aren't already found at JSTOR, I've already scoured those). So far I've started a new sandbox on the matter: User:PericlesofAthens/Sandbox Parthian Empire if you want to check it out.

Regards,

--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatsup, statesman? Has your gf turned her back on you? I looked the Parthians up (Carrhae boo), and to my own surprise there is more than I thought. Drop me a pm. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't have to spend every waking minute with her; in fact, it's great to have a lot of breathing space so I can gladly pursue (in my spare time from work) reclusive, almost hermit-like scholarly shit like this. Lol. Yes, any true Roman (but perhaps not Crassus' contemporary political enemies) would rather the carrion birds feast upon a slain general Surena and his Parthian troops in the aftermath of Carrhae. But alas, in this particular battle, the Parthians simply had the better tactics and better overall strategy whereas Crassus made a series of very poor decisions where he underestimated the smaller, yet more mobile Parthian force. But anywho, if you can find some decent sources let me know. I will be going to the library again today to pick up a few more books which I think are worthy (i.e. at least published by university presses, not publishing companies looking for a buck with more public-oriented, popular books).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

One more thing before I go: I will say that I think the most interesting aspect of Roman-Parthian relations was not so much their direct conflicts and counter-invasions, but rather the nuanced diplomatic game played with the Kingdom of Armenia as the center piece.

Agreed. Fascinating tug of war. To balance things out, I have a very good scholarly source on how Ventidius restored Rome's glory soon after which is often overlooked. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps often overlooked by modern historians, but certainly not by the Parthians! The death of Pacorus, heir to the throne, was a huge blow to the Parthian court because it sparked a succession crisis. Brosius describes this in some detail but the Cambridge History of Iran no doubt will provide much richer info on the matter. When I start writing the article, perhaps you can contribute something on Ventidius with the source you have. Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I have it here. You can have it right away. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure! If it's a book you need to return to the library soon, feel free to share now. But if it's something you own, feel free to take your time; there's no rush on this. I'm still in the initial stage of note-taking as you might tell from looking at my sandbox, so I'm shooting for maybe the end of March or early April as the time when a draft article should be finished and ready to display at Parthian Empire. If you want, you can even create your own section in my sandbox (linked above) where you can take notes or even make drafts of cited statements that can be placed in the article. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi again Gun Powder Ma. I have a working draft over at User:PericlesofAthens/Draft for Parthian Empire. Have a look! I've got the introduction and first subsection fleshed out. I don't have too much information on Rome just yet (in fact, only in the intro so far), but I wouldn't mind if you consulted me on Roman issues as I move along. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Italicizing title of Four Inventions

I'm wondering why you italicized the title of Four Great Inventions of ancient China, as it is not a book or other work of art. Since it doesn't appear to be in any of the categories mentioned in the documentation of [Template:Italic title]] ("species and genera that use binomial nomenclatures, ... certain mathematical symbols, .... book, movie, or other media titles"), I have reverted the change. Thanks LK (talk) 04:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

You are right, my mistake. I thought its use would also extend to terms which were coined by specific authors and are not in general usage. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk Page

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Bruce Lee. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Undefeatedcooler (talk) 16:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Renaissance technology

HI - thanks for the invitation to review that article. I took the liberty of brushing up a bit of the wording. You are to be commended for your substantial efforts to improve and amplify wikipedia content. By the way, your talk page is getting a bit out of control; you might consider archiving it (suggestions on how to accomplish that appear at the top of your page when you select "edit this page"). Thanks again. Raymondwinn (talk) 02:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Universities and madrassas

Hello, could you please not change the word "university" to "madrassa" in articles like Al-Azhar University and University of Al-Karaouine? Sources routinely call these two places universities, in fact I have never seen the phrase Madrasa al-Karaouine. nableezy - 21:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, then you are free to cite these sources. I t is logical enough to avoid calling an institution which is not a university a university. Why don't you take a heart and call a madrasa....a madrasa? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Madrassa (مدرسة) just means school, these arent just schools. nableezy - 22:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Universities were a institution very different from the madrasa, with a different history, please see medieval university. So could you provide a source that the University of Al-Karaouine has at least today the status of a university in Morocco? That would be a start. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:08, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

[7]. nableezy - 22:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Al-Azhar is called a university or college in many sources. See [8]: in 989 it acquired the status of a college with the appointment of thirty-five scholars to teach the Ismaili Shia theology to which the Fatimids adhered. ... After the Ottoman conquest, when the Mamluk colleges (madrasa) were in decline, al-Azhar become the center of Islamic scholarship in Egypt and one of the principal theological universities in the Muslim world. There are many more. Could you please explain why you are segregating Islamic universities from the list of oldest universities and why you intent on calling these places "madrassas"? nableezy - 22:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can. There are in fact two "universities". One is the general unspecified term which can apply to a wide range of ancient centres of higher learning - not only to Islamic madrasas, but also to Buddhist religious schools, Greek philosphical academies, Korean, Chinese and other learning institutions. However, in all theses cases the term university is applied only retrospectively to these schools, none of them ever went by that name nor by that concept while it existed. The reason why we name these institutions "universities" is because of the world-wide success of the real university, the medieval university which, as any specialist author you consult will confirm you, was an institution peculiar to Europe. Today, the concept of the university is adopted all over the world to the point that its name has become a household name. But that does not mean that Islamic mosque schools like the Al Azhar ever were actually one before they were founded as a university. That's the difference.

Only because we today, influenced by the global success of Coca Cola, call any Coke beverage a "Cola" does not mean that those vaguely similar beverages which had been introduced at the same time or even earlier should be called or viewed as Cola, too. Just like the so-called ancient extra-European "universities", they only got that name in hindsight because of the all overriding success of the later concept. But in history, we should keep the concepts apart as they originally were and evolved, otherwise the term "university" would become limitless and applicable to every school beginning with the days of Buddha and Socrates. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Bruce Lee

Don't edit war with that guy. The next time you make a change that was agreed to by consensus, etc and he reverts, take it to the Admin Noticeboard on Edit Warring. I'm tired of playing games with him.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 13:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I have been there more times because of him than Michael Jordan had been at Jay Leno. If some of the other people on the talk page would revert, too, he would have long been blocked. But now it just looks like a one on one game for the admins and in these cases they prefer to not interfere and just sit out the thing. If there is a consensus on talk page, people alos have to do something for its implementation in the article, otherwise the consensus will be lost on the admins. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing those diffs, I thought I might have hosed one or two up.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 19:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

At this point, I would recommend setting up a WP:RFC for Undefeatedcooler (talk · contribs · logs). This will create a point of reference for any future disputes with this user, and allow for more timely admin action. — Myasuda (talk) 13:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Islamic propaganda

Hello Gun Powder Ma.I´m really worried about a user called Jagged 85 and all the awful edits he´s making in wikipeda.He has a political and religious agenda and he´s trying to distort history.For example,he even wrote that Da Vinci was of arabic origin!!! Seriously,this guy is problematic.We must do something. --Knight1993 (talk) 19:01, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has not yet established the means and guidelines to get to grips with an edit pattern which is consistently one-sided and even inventive in its interpretation of scholarly sources. I am sorry, I am bothered too. Saludos a Montevideo. ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok,thanks for answering.I´ll try to keep an eye on his moves.Muchas gracias ;-) --Knight1993 (talk) 17:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Dealing with problem editors

Although the proposed changes at WP:Verifiability will clarify the policy issues, in the long run an uncooperative editor must be dealt with by the appropriate dispute resolution processes. These are time-consuming and will be especially difficult to resolve in this case. Dispute resolution procedures deal very well with clear-cut violations of policy; they are not so well suited to deal with subtle misinterpretation of specialized scholarly sources by a "productive" editor.

I've already been the lead on two clearly defined cases and don't want to undertake that again. I will gladly provide comments if someone is willing to undertake the months of effort to document the problematic edits for an RFC/U to make him aware of a community consensus on his problem edits. If these don't improve his edits, subsequent administrative action at AN may even be necessary to resolve this problem. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Great work,Gun Powder Ma!! you have exposed all those lies and manipulations made by Jagged.Truly,this man has an obssesion with proving Islam has contruibuted to mankind,but as history is not on his side his distorts it in a blatant way.Poor guy,I almost feel sorry for him--Knight1993 (talk) 16:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Larens Janszoon Coster

I provided complete reference to a reliabe written source. You can go to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in The Hague and look in the newspaper in cosideration. You can go to the archive Tresoar, Frysk Histoarysk en Letterkundich Sintrum (Treasure Chest, Fisian Historic and Literary Centre) in Leeuwarden and read the newspaper. At 1 May, internet access will be available again under the new name www.dekrantvantoen.nl (you can read that at the website of Tresoar http://www.tresoar.nl). The auction was mentioned in a series of (Dutch) newspapers. However, those newspapers are not searchable via internet. Therefore I gave the date, so that people can search other newspapers from just before or after the date of the auction. The article in the Fisian newspaper mentions also that an unknown Dutch businessman bought the piece of paper for a price of more than hunderd thousand guilders (I guess in those days more than 30.000 dollars), I do not remember the exact price. Your removal denies people access to interesting information and I was hoping that someone can provide a better description from an auction catalogue, by removal you make that impossible. By the way, on your website is an error in the name of a German person of Dutch (Flemish) descent. Funny, again a Dutch-German connection. His name is "Van Beethoven" and not "Beethoven". I hope you will be so civilized too restore the information. I want to avoid an "editing war". I have no objection if you move the information to be restored into a note. Robvhoorn (talk) 17:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I am not interested in any edit war, either. But I believe it is important that the claim you make - that there are earlier prints by Coster than JG - would of the utmost importance for the history of printing, if true. Basically, this is like claiming that CC did not discover the New World, but some other explorer a few years earlier.

Therefore, for such an utter revolutionary claim, a complete reference which allows the reader to follow up the cited sources is not asked too much and absolutely in accordance with Wikipedia:RS. If the auction was mentioned in Dutch newspaper, why don't you cite a couple of them with the precise date, page number, etc.? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You have to read carefully. It is not a claim taht Coster is teh inventor. Up to now nobody van proof in it. However, it is a curious support to the people who claim that Coster is the inventor. That piece of paper, apparently confirmed by Sotheby's as dating from that period, seems to indicate that a way of printing already existed. As I told you, most newspapers do not have a public electronic archive (did all newspapers in the United States scan all their editions and make them public?). I mentioned the date of the auction, and I mentioned the date of an article in the newspaper Leeuwarder Courant that has a reliable record since the year 1754 (I guess that is older than the United States and older than nearly all newspapers in the United States), that should be sufficient. In no article in Wikipedia a whole series of newspapers bringing the same information is cited. As soon as the Websites reopens, I will add page number and title of the article. If you wish I can add the position on the page (in centimeters or inches?) and a complete translation. Regards. Robvhoorn (talk) 21:55, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I have no problem with a full citation if it complies to Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability ("This policy requires that a reliable source in the form of an inline citation be supplied for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, or the material may be removed"). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Charles University

Hi, your statement "the earliest German-language university" is not supported by the sources you have provided:

Pope Eugenius: "The university of Vienna, the oldest German university (not considering the university of Prague)..."

German realities: "The university of Leipzig was founded in 1408 when professors and students from Prague (the oldest German university) fled from religious persecution." There was no religious persecution, the university was founded in 1409 etc. This source is laughable.

The German Myth: "Prague university, the oldest German university, was divided into German and Czech sections in 1882."

History of Education: "The oldest German university is Prague, founded in 1348." This book is over 100 years old and was written at the time when Bohemia was still part of the A-H empire and was considered part of the German Mitteleuropa.

None of these sources elaborate the German character of the university and especially not the language or ethnic issue. They only repeat the German nationalistic POV which is based on the fact that Bohemia was part of the HRE and was according to them eo ipso German. They see HRE as the German "First Reich" omitting the fact that it was a supranational entity which could be hardly described as German or as an empire. Bohemia itself was a very special member of this conglomerate, a fully sovereign country with only a few formal obligations between the King and the Emperor and with an overwhelming non-German majority. The only true fact is that the majority of students and probably also the staff were German-speakers during the first 60 years of the university simply because it was the only institution of its kind in this part of Europe at that time and there was no university in any of the German states until 1365 when the University of Vienna was founded. This is however already mentioned in the article. The language of instructions was of course Latin. I am going to remove it from the lead and add this POV into the proper section. Qertis (talk) 10:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you can call yourself lucky that I went for the more restrained German-language university instead of the full "German university" which all these sources actually say. I can add another dozen or more sources to the same effect, but I went with WP policy that says if a fact is well established no more references should be added. Needless to say that your attempt to nullify these references, part of which are English, as "nationalistic bias" is your POV and thus irrelevant. So what was your argument again? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:19, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

My point is that this "fact" should be supported by some more reliable sources which would explain what exactly means "German university" here. I have provided my own explanation of this strange phenomenon and I would be grateful if you do the same, because I really don't know what is your point. In short, the only thing that makes Charles University German is that in the first decades of its existence it had German-speaking majority among students. Does it mean that, according to you, lets say UCLA will become Spanish or Chinese university if the number of Spanish or Chinese students exceeds the English-speaking US students? You should explain it in the article because the vague sentence you have added is simply not enough. Qertis (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

My point is that Prague university was the first German university, not Vienna nor Heidelberg which are still in German-speaking area; to deny Prague University this status only on the grounds of its Czech character today would mean to commit a historical anachronism. I will look for further sources but I can't follow your argument that "only the students were German in the first decades". Can you provide sources for that view? The fact that the university almost ceased functioning altogether after the exodus of the German personnel and students in the early 15th century clearly indicates that it was until then a German-dominated institution. Also, Prague University was split in the 1880s into a German and Czech department, so clear proof again that the German element was there. We should keep in mind that the city of Prague was a city with a "near-majority" of Germans inhabitants until the mid-19th century; only when Czech peasants flocked into the town in the industrial revolution, becoming factory workers, it changed its ethnic character. So what is so unhistoric about the Prague University being German? And even if you still dispute this, it does not change the fact that it was founded as a German institution which is all what the phrase "the earliest German-language university" actually says. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call Bohemia a German-speaking area, it was rather Czech-speaking country with small German minority. Prague was an important city, one of the largest in this part of Europe, and had also a significant and influential German-speaking minority (aside from Jews, Italians etc.). I am not denying the German element in the university, but while the 18th and 19th century Charles-Ferdinand university, namely after German replaced Latin as the language of instructions in 1784, could really be seen as German institution (and even more so the explicitly German part after the split), the 14th century school was a Latin-language institution where, due to its unique status of the only university in Central Europe, students from German-speaking countries formed a majority (since there have always been more Germans than Czechs). The university wasn't founded as German institution. It isn't a fact, its a complete nonsense. If you are really so keen to emphasize its German character, you should explain it in the article, because that simple sentence is vague and misleading.

Btw, Prague, just like the rest of the country, faced the long-lasting process of Germanization (which was strongest in the cities and among the upper classes of the society) since the 17th century so it shouldn't be a big surprise that the city was largely German in the mid-19th century. Qertis (talk) 19:02, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I never called Bohemia a German-speaking area, it was clearly a mixed area with a Czech majority, but with a sizable German minority of 25% before their forcible expulsion by the Czechs in 1945 (the Sudetenland). About the language of instruction which I am trusting you was Latin for the longest time: if that is the criteria, then we should not talk about the earliest Spanish, Italian, English, French, and Polish universities, either, since Latin was the lingua franca of education and learning throughout medieval Europe. However, since it is perfectly accepted usage to refer to these universities by nationality, I fail to see why we should make an exception for the German ones. You agree that this would be a lack of consistency, woldn't you? Btw, I am not keen to emphasize the German character of the university, you will find me use the term Holy Roman Empire quite consistently and with conviction here all over in the Wikipedia, for example in printing press. But I believe we should take history as it developed: The fact that Prague University is the national Czech university since 1991, does not determine its character at the time of its founding. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, thats it. I am pretty sure that when talking about Spanish, Italian etc. universities most people refer to the country where the university is situated, not to the nationality of its students. Its somehow complicated when the present-day country didn't exist at that time, like Germany, Spain or Italy which were unified only centuries after the foundations of their earliest universities. In this case the alternative or substitutionary concepts of present-day territory or ethnic majority in these areas could be taken into account. But labeling some university German or Spanish only because the majority of its students are of German or Spanish origin is really strange and very unusual, so if you really insist on this, you IMHO should thoroughly explain it in the article. Qertis (talk) 08:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I am open to any suggestion to how else paraphrase the short sentence in the lead, but I think to further elaborate on the nationality thing in the continuous text will only backfire in that it may attract patriotic/nationalistic sentiments which would unnecessarily inflate the history section. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

University

Hello Gun Powder Ma!! Just wanted to remark your excellent work in the university article,eliminating the bias there used to be.Congratulations!! And by the way,happy Easter!!--Knight1993 (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability

Many thanks for your comments on my talk page and even more for opening the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability. My discomfort with the current situation is probably very obvious, as is my difficulty in knowing what might be the best way to approach it.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Bimaristan

Hello Gun Powder Ma.I´ve been reading the article "Bimaristan",about medical institutions in medieval Islam.Could you tell me what you think about it and the claims it makes?What I find extremely weird is the claim that they had medical degrees for physicians,when we clearly know from the university-madrasa controversy that those "degrees" were only for religious studies.So please tell me your opinion.--Knight1993 (talk) 17:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

It's either bull or a minority view. From what I read, there were only ever degrees in Islamic law, and even these were often given without final exams, but on the grounds of attentive attendance, so only vaguely similar to modern ones which derive from the medieval ones. The lead about the earliest public hospitals "in the modern sense" is definitely bull. The problem is always the same: the single user who introduces these notions reads and interprets sources through his/her rose-tinted agenda coloured glasses. The reason why this material permeates WP is because it takes much less time to make up such claims than to double-check and dispose them. Since the article has a low priority, people are more inclined to let things slip there than in high importance articles. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I had this as a seperate section, but should have looked to see that there was already a discussion. I've seen that you have made a number of edits clarifying a distinction between universities and Madrasahs in history. The distinction may have been previously intentionally blurred by other editors to support the thesis of origin in the Islamic world, and I wonder if the same sort of intentional glossing is going on with the origin of medical schools. These claims are currently in numerous articles including Islamic Golden Age. Dialectric (talk) 19:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Caliphate

This is a confusing term - it is by no means "conventionally dated" to any period without a dynastic prefix. As our article says, in full it runs from the 630s to 1924 or whenever. It is completely unsuitable to use here. Please do not revert my improvements to the picture caption. Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, but fine, let's not impair your utterly groundbreaking improvements to the picture caption. ;-) However, you should be aware that this one-sided Islamic material is consistently introduced by a single user. What has the PA to do with "Islam in England"? Does an article on the Chinese in England begin with paper and gunpowder? The PA, irrespective of whether it was invented independently by English Romanesque architects or adopted via Sicily/Spain, is very much out of Wikipedia:Scope. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Medieval art etc

I understand, and I agree that the influence of Islam is often given excessive credit on Wikipedia (and good luck trying to argue that Europe had a heavy influence on anything Islamic...), but I still think it is useful to see what was going on elsewhere in the world, especially since North Africa and the Middle East are so closely connected to ancient and medieval Europe. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree as far as extra-European developments are concerned which have had a historical impact on the medieval world. The rest, though, is just one click away, so I wonder where this obsession comes from to squeeze in unrelated material in the medieval articles. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:16, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit war

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Medieval art. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Modernist (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Your 4 edits there are already over the limit...Modernist (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually made three reverts, I did not revert first, but Johnbod did, and you are not a neutral party but happy to be used by him to be send ahead. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I see four reverts and I am not being used by anyone, I am alerting you to the fact that you are currently engaged in an edit war and you on the brink...Modernist (talk) 21:49, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Greek fire flame-throwers

Hello! I'll certainly write something. As you can see however, I'm rather busy ;), so this may take a few days... Cheers, Constantine ✍ 11:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion: Comparison of roman and han empires

Hello, Gun Powder Ma. You have new messages at Laurinavicius's talk page.
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Reply

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House of the Tiles

It's a proper name, so it's called "House of the Tiles" not "House of the tiles". A requested move needs to be made because BOTijo made another edit to the redirect, preventing non-admins from moving it. Viriditas (talk) 21:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Feel free to go ahead. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll go ahead and make the request now. From what I can tell, you had the name correct when you created the article. Viriditas (talk) 01:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

[9] Viriditas (talk) 01:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Chronology

What is going on here, the turtle ships were from the 1400s, the Atabakune were from the 1570s, at this point no one knows if they were iron plated. There are on and off mentions of iron in the 1400 ships and the Japanese ships but we don't know to what extent. Hideyoshi states he needs to counter the Korean iron-clad ship, so we know something with iron was happening in the 1590s. If in the 1570s Japanese ships already had iron plates why would Hideyoshi state this in the 1590s. And no one is sure how much iron was in the Korean ships of the 1400s. Everything is cloudy, but the turtle ships were from the 1400s. We need to put this in chronological order and let the readers decide on when/how much iron plates were used. --199.91.34.33 (talk) 00:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Since the topic is ship armour, the chronology is established by the first possible appearance of the iron plates which is 1578 for the Atakebune and 1592 for the turtle ship.

There is a quote from that I put in which show that Koreans really loved admiral Yi, but the ship was truely designed in the 1400s. No evidence that Admiral Yi actually came up with new design, other than Koreans wanting to give him credit because of his achievements in war. So as it stands the iron were from the 1400s.--199.91.34.33 (talk) 00:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

When you edit, because you disagree with me that is fine but please don't delete the quotes for references, thanks --199.91.34.33 (talk) 00:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Cathedral Schools

FYI, I've started a draft revision at User:SteveMcCluskey/Cathedral schools. At the moment its in shabby shape, but give it a week or two. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

STOP WITH THE EDIT WAR

Stop blaming others with issues as it is clearly for fault. you even attacked an admin. Get yourself together man. Don't loose your mind. You take things to seriously, just go one at a time and not try to get it all done at once with the Bruce lee Article. AM I Wrong about this??

Don't hyperventilate. The edits just follow the broad consensus achieved on talk page and all references are well-sourced down to the individual page number. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Poor sourcing

To avoid duplication of effort, you should probably keep an eye on this page.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 16:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thx. I am afraid, though, there will be more than enough of this. ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

When real men wore long hair...

XD I'm guessing you're a long-haired dude. Lol. My hair was once grown past my shoulders; it was at a perfect length for headbanging to metal. Hah.

Anyways, the real reason I'm bugging you is so you can have a look at Parthian Empire, which is being fleshed out at the moment. I have already mentioned the exploits of Publius Ventidius Bassus in the history section, although I have yet to cite the source you shared via email. I will do that in a moment, but for the meantime check things out.

Regards, --Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I recently cited the Strugnell source you shared with me. Her article was very useful to the sub-section on Rome and Armenia. Thanks!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You are by now much more knowledgable than me about the Romano-Parthian relations. But I noticed some things you may want to check again: First, did the historical records really speak of the Parthians using the Parthian shot at Carrhae? This was mainly done against pursuing enemy cavalry, but IMO unnecessary against pinned down infantry. AFAIK, at Carrhae, the Parthian mounted archers simply kept shooting volleys out of range of the legionaries' gladius which was enough. Second, Hatra, while independent, was under strong Roman cultural influence, and that arched gate, allegedly Parthian, looks much more Roman in that it is constructed with ashlar blocks, while Parthian architecture generally followed the age-old Mesopotamian tradition of using unbaked bricks, like in Ctesiphon. So, you may actually depict Roman architecture there. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi again. You have posed two very excellent questions. In my sandbox notes, I unfortunately did not copy Bivar (1983) verbatim in regards to the Carrhae episode, but I do have an exact quotation from Brosius (2006) who explicitly mentions use of the Parthian shot during Carrhae. Although Brosius doesn't mention it, Bivar does describe a futile charge into the main Parthian lines by Publius Licinius Crassus (son of triumvir), which is probably where the Parthian shot was employed as a harassing tactic to draw the detachment inward and surround them. This was, of course, different from the larger main force under the elder Crassus which ultimately retreated under constant fire. As for the Hatra image, the uploader of the photograph alleges that it is an entrance to an iwan, the barrel-vaulted audience hall of Parthian times. It is quite possible, given the proximity to the Roman East, that the entrance facade to this particular Hatran iwan was deliberately built in the Roman style. Brosius (2006) and Schlumberger (1983) both describe the iwans of Hatra as rich examples of Parthian architecture; they do not, however, mention the influence of Roman architecture. However, you may well be right about the use of ashlar blocks in this photograph. Moreover, do you have a scholarly source on Roman architecture which might cover influence on ancient Hatra? Here are some pictures from Wikimedia Common's page on Hatra:

• 
• 

The first image clearly looks Roman, especially with the columns following the Corinthian order. However, Schlumberger writes (pp. 1037-1040) that the Parthians were using the Greek Ionic order at the top of columns as far back as the construction of the capital Nisa, Turkmenistan (i.e. during the reign of Mithridates I of Parthia). It is quite possible that the use of Greek architectural elements in Hatra had little to do with the expanding power of Rome, and more to do with the Hellenistic period ushered in by Alexander's Asian conquests.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Aside from construction materials, there is also the issue of functionality. The barrel vault of the iwan was supposed to replace columns as a roof support. Indeed, the columns in the front entrance of the picture used in the article are seemingly there for decorative purposes, not as real supports. This is most certainly influenced by Parthian architecture; the facade, I grant you, though, looks particularly Roman.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I remember the break-out attempt by the Romans at Carrhae. This would have been indeed a tactical scenario where the Parthian shot made sense.

Studying the photos, I am still fairly certain that this entrance arch is not Parthian; definitely not typically Parthian architecture, but most probably not even a singular exception, but Roman-inspired. First, while Hellenistic builders already knew the above-ground barrel vault made out voussoirs, their spans were still rather small. Spans raching the order of 10 m like the one depicted were Roman and only of Roman origin. I found a quote which may provide a starting point:

Early Mesopotamian vaults have several distinct characteristics. Normally, of course, they are made of unbaked mud brick. The bricks are not shaped specially, since they do not have the expected wedge shape, the curvature being achieved by the appropriate packing of the interstices with mud and stone. The first few courses of the spring are gradually corbelled outwards, and thereafter the voussoirs are tuned at an angle which permits each to be supported by its predecessor and the adhesion of the mud mortar until the gap has narrowed to approximately half its original span, with the result that only the crown of the vault needs the support of scaffolding. Baked brick was used by the sixth century Be when arch and vault achieved something approximate to the classical semicircular profile; examples exist in the 'Hanging Gardens' at Babylon, but they still clearly used mortar packing.'2 The wedge-shaped voussoir, then, does not seem to be a part of Mesopotamian building technique. Related techniques are still employed in the vaulted structures of Hatra of the second century AD: here stone voussoirs are used but they are not fully wedge-shaped, but still fitted together with packing mortar. Footnote: I am grateful to H. S. Issa, who is studying the architecture of Hatra for a Ph.D. under my supervision, for information on Hatra's vaulting techniques.

R. A. Tomlinson: "The Architectural Context of the Macedonian Vaulted Tombs," The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 82 (1987), pp. 305-312 (310)

Nothing specific about Roman influence, but you already get the idea of how the influence mixed in the Syria-Mesopotamian contact zone: voussoir barrel vault = Hellenistic/Roman; mudbrick barrel vault = indigenous Mesopotamian/Iranian tradition. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This is excellent! A very useful excerpt indeed. If possible, I would even like to include information about Roman influence on Mesopotamian architecture during the Parthian period. If you could find a decent source for this it would be enlightening, since architecture is not my forte (but, judging from your work on Roman arches, bridges, domes, etc. it certainly seems to be your area of interest). Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

When I stumble upon something useful, I'll remember to add it your article. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Just make sure that when you do, please follow the Harvard citation system I chose for the article. Use this template here --> {{harvnb|||}} and fill it out as so (here's an example) --> {{harvnb|Strugnell|2006|p. 239-240}}. There's also a matching formula for the reference section, which will become apparent when you look at a few examples. Thanks.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC discussion of User:Jagged 85

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Jagged 85 (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. -- Syncategoremata (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)