User talk:Dbachmann

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If you want to discuss an encyclopedic topic, feel free to attract my attention by using article talkpages. I usually do react to e-mails, but as a rule I prefer to keep my interactions regarding Wikipedia above-the-board and up for everyone to see. This is also the reason for which I do not think highly of IRC admin discussions, and why I am unsure about the merit of the Wikipedia mailing-list. Decisions regarding the administration of Wikipedia in my opinion should be made on-wiki, not off.

Archives:

archive1: 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) – 10 Nov 2004 (UTC) / 2: – 25 Nov 04 / 3: – 19 Dec 04 / 4: – 11 Jan 05 / 5: – 8 Mar 05 / 6: – 6 May 05 / 7: – 1 Jul 05 / 8: – 12 Aug 05 / 9: – 7 Nov 05 / A: – 13 Dec 05 / B: – 16 Jan 06 C: – 22 Feb 06 / D: – 21 March 06 / E: – 19 May 06 / F: – 5 Jul 06 / 10 – 9 Aug 06 / <11: – 9 Sep 06 / 12: – 2 Oct 06 / 13: – 23 Oct 06 / 14: – 30 Nov 06 / 15: – 17:53, 4 Jan 07 / 16 – 05:16, 16 Feb 07 / 17: – 08:28, 19 Mar 07 / 18: – 02:43, 11 Apr 07 / 19: – 00:26, 16 May 07 / 1A – 19:35, 18 Jul 07 / 1B – 07:47, 21 Aug 07 / 1C – 07:34, 5 Oct 07 / 1D – 09:10, 21 Nov 07 / 1E – 09:19, 26 Feb 08 / 1F – 06:35, 3 Jun 08 / 20 – 15:15, 18 Nov 08 / [1] 14:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC) [reply]

WPMILHIST Template

Hi! Just wondering if you can do me a little favour.......can you please add a place for the Pakistani military history task force on the Template:WPMILHIST? (just like how the other country task forces have their additioned to it)........apparently, I need an admin for it. I'd really appreciate if you help out....Thanks Teckgeek (talk) 14:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Marie-Rose

I gave him a 24 hour block as a sock. Did you notice my Viking question a bit above? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 10:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

a sock of whom? was Rose-Marie banned? I don't understand why you would block a sock for a day: either it is an abusive sock of another account, and as such should be banned indefinitely, or it is just a user behaving disruptively, deserving a temporal block or misbehaviour, not for being a sock. --dab (𒁳) 12:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Rose-mary (talk · contribs) is effectively permabanned. In this case, we can just slap the socks with blocks as they show up, no need to waste time over this. --dab (𒁳) 14:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I've added Glotz but also Robinson to the main article. I agree, no need to waste time, delete and block. I didn't want to put a long block on an IP address, although if this continues we may need a range block which I've never done. Dougweller (talk) 15:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have just done a range-block, see my log. Unless it is really necessary, you should avoid rangeblocks of more than 10 bit or so (numbers smaller than /26); short blocks of /24 (8 bit) and below shouldn't be a problem unless you hit AOL or similar. --dab (𒁳) 15:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:JeanVinelorde

Hello Dab, User:JeanVinelorde has recently been changing everything once again, just look at his history and you will see everything that he is changing. Also I am pretty sure that he is a puppet, how can we make sure that we do not have a puppet in our hands? Malik Danno (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

look, I cannot babysit all the world's Assyrians or Syriacs indefinitely. Can you please try and enforce WP:CONSENSUS on these articles? --dab (𒁳) 18:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We clearly have seen that many don't respect consensuses ... hence the existence of the Syriac people page, if you are unwilling to help out, can you please direct me to an admin who would. Thank-you. Malik Danno (talk) 18:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what I am saying is that you do not need an admin to revert the recreation of the Syriac people cfork. Just do it. --dab (𒁳) 18:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

but won't that lead to edit wars and other immature bullshit like that? Malik Danno (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:3RR should take care of that. Talk about "immature bullshit", this is what the Syriac/Assyrian topics have been like for years. We now have a chance to get some stability by sticking to an awkward but extremely neutral compromise. --dab (𒁳) 05:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yoga

Could you please comment on a proposal to more strongly present the position that Harappan seals are figures in yogic positions at Talk:Yoga#Proposed_rewrite_of_archeological_evidence? Thanks, Mitsube (talk) 05:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Oghuz turkish

Doesn't it seem like User:Wayiran? Alefbe (talk) 18:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Look at his recent edits. Shouldn't he be stopped? Alefbe (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AE

For your information: [2] Grandmaster 05:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Movses Khorenatsi

There is an ongoing discussion among those pesky Armenian editors and their ugly Movses Khorenatsi article that you might want to check out. Or has the damage been done? TA-ME (talk) 21:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure your tone is bound to make them more amenable to reason, but yes, they are being silly. --dab (𒁳) 21:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Armenian transliteration

Hi. I noticed you're the one starting the Romanization of Armenian article. Now, I was wondering where did you get the transliteration values for Hubschmann-Meillet system? Particularly, that է = ê, ռ = r̄ and օ = ô? I could not find Antoine Meillet and Heinrich Hübschmann, Altarmenisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg, 1913 online, which is the primary source, but the ones I did find, e.g this or this or this claim է = ē, ռ = ṙ and օ = ō. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 21:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had the printed 1913 source in front of me when I wrote this. I am confident it is correct (but perhaps there are minor differeces between editions?). But the differences are minimal, and your online source states they are "following the Huebschmann-Meillet (HM) tradition as closely as possible". I don't know why it wasn't "possible" to follow them exactly, but there you are. --dab (𒁳) 21:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oghuz turkish

I have blocked Oghuz turkish (talk · contribs) as a sockpuppet of Spider 2200 (talk · contribs). This has been confirmed through CheckUser by Dominic. If you want, he can give an on-wiki confirmation, but he is unrelated to Wayiran (talk · contribs). Khoikhoi 04:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the edit history, it's quite obvious that spider_2200 is a sock-puppet itself. Alefbe (talk) 05:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

we are looking at a swamp of combined sock and meatpuppery. It is impossible to say how many distinct people there are, but I say is isn't relevant, since in effect there is little difference between operating socks, or conspiring with other people off-wiki and have them operate your socks for you. This is the regular crazy nationalist tag-team effort, nothing new. I'm not sure it is worth anyone's while figuring out who is whose sock exactly - WP:DENY. --dab (𒁳) 06:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reverts

I've undone your reverts on Germanic Europe and Germanic peoples - since those edits are isolated from the current move discussion. On that note, I've left a reply on the Germanic peoples talk page. Lingamondo (talk) 13:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well you certainly have a cheek. You tell me that I'm edit warring, after I've reverted you once, and you've reverted me twice? If anyone is edit warring, it's you.

You're not listening to me. The things that you reverted aren't anything to do with the move discussion. The edits I made moved a chunk of text from Germanic Europe to Germanic peoples (since that was what the paragraph was describing).

The map is another issue, and if you wish to discuss that, revert that alone. For this reason, I'm reverting you, and if you wish to, remove the map until we have discussed further. Lingamondo (talk) 13:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you are the one trying to introduce weird changes to long standing articles. I am not defending "my version", I am reverting your nonsense to the standing consensus revisions. You obviously have no idea how things work here, in spite of your apparent experience at simple:. I ask you again to read up on the introductory pages which you were pointed to on your talkpage. You obviously do not have the first clue about the topics you are trying to edit. This may not matter much at simple-wiki, but it certainly does on en-wiki, on article with a history of expert attention such as Germanic peoples. At this point I may also point you to WP:DISRUPT and warn you that the sort of show you are giving at the moment may quickly lead to WP:BLOCKs. --dab (𒁳) 13:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh* you're not exactly the civil user I'd hoped you'd be. I have taken the effort upon me to remove the map which you disagree with. Now can you explicitly state why you wanted it removed, so we can proceed with discussion. Lingamondo (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

look, I do not wish to invest any time in "disputes" as groundless as this one. I am not going to "explain" why the map of current Germanic languages is misplaced at the head of the Germanic peoples article just because you ask me to. I will also not "explain" why I will not be enthusiastic about a picture of a penguin, or the Taj Mahal. Ok? Try WP:3O. If you can convince any user that what you are trying to do makes sense, there may be a debate in this. I just happened to be the first user to revert your antics. I have no doubt that others will do the job for me if I let this lie for the time being. --dab (𒁳) 14:05, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hellenic languages

Hi, I think we could do with your input at Talk:Hellenic languages, especially its relation to your old Proto-Greek article. Cheers, -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackiestud (talk • contribs) 15:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

?

How on earth did you come to the conclusion that I am a partisan?--Yannismarou (talk) 12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not "a partisan" -- "partisan (adj.)" I don't suppose you want to declare you aren't?

User:JeanVinelorde

Need help blocking? I can of course easily see that he's a tendentious POV-pushing account, but the sock claim is a bit difficult to test for an outsider. But if you can give me a bit of a pointer showing the link to the sockmaster, he's gone. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:49, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am convinced that JeanVinelorde is a sock of banned user AramaeanSyriac (talk · contribs). The main clue is his signature stupidity of failing to oppose the numerically stronger Assyrianist faction within Wikipedia policy, which would actually have a good chance of success, and just creating random pov-forks instead. I do not assume that two independent supporters of the Arameanist pov would be likely to show the exact same type of dense-headedness. --dab (𒁳) 14:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. Confirmed as "likely" by Checkuser too, so: blocked. Send a package of Swiss chocolates to Dmcdevit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yeah. once I receive my huge shipping of sweets from the various Syriac patriarchs for my pains in babysitting their youngsters. --dab (𒁳) 16:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Too much syrup in their stuff. Swiss chocolates are better. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Category of Anti-(Nationality) in this case Anti-Turkism, Anti-Armenianism etc...

The Category Anti-Turkism page is relevant as the "organizations" (some of whom are listed as terrorits organizations by the U.S. and the E.U.) and people who fought, fought the Turkish state and/or individuals for ideological/nationalistic/political purposes as the Turkish state was an obstacle for thier goals. In case of nationalism Anti-Turkism is totally relevant and applicable as their nationalisms and actions clashed or still clashes with Turkish nationalism and the Turkish state, and vice versa. The same applies for the Category Anti-Armenianism. So for the sake of partiality either these two categories should be erased or should stay. The same applies for the other Anti-(Nationality) Categories as well. But not one or the other.

P.S. I am neither Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian or Greek; I am Iranian if anybody was curious about me. But I don't think that is relevant either.

Saguamundi —Preceding undated comment added 09:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Your nationality is indeed irrelevant. What matters is the bias in your edits. If your interest is in exposing anti-Turkish sentiment wherever possible, that is fair enough, but you will have to hold yourself answerable to the strictest application of WP:RS. This means, you can insert a discussion of "anti-Turkism" wherever you like, provided you can produce an academic reference discussing the topic in terms of anti-Turkism, but not otherwise. Simple, isn't it. --dab (𒁳) 09:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's better to discuss this at CfD where I have proposed the category for deletion [3]. --Folantin (talk) 10:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Putting an academician and other persons who did not participate in any violent acts, in this category was excessive, I agree, but for the organizations some of whom are listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and the E.U. and some of the individuals who are/were leaders or members of these organizations and are branded as terrorists, and did order or participate in violent acts (such as assinations or bombings) is entirely appropriate. --Saguamundi —Preceding undated comment added 10:52, 16 April 2009 (UTC).[reply]

the point is that it isn't enough if the categorization is "appropriate". The condition is that you have proven it to be appropriate, before you add the category. In other words, the burden of proof lies with you. You cannot add the category and leave it to others to provide the references substantiating it even if there are such references. You provide these references, and then you add the category, for each article seprarately. --dab (𒁳) 11:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient history

Yet again, Reddi wants to include prehistory in this, I don't understand why as he doesn't discuss it - I reverted giving a reason, he replaced it with no reason. Dougweller (talk) 11:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reddi is ready for a long ban. He simply isn't helping the project in any way at this point. --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Map

Hi Dbachmann, I hope you are doing fine. I have a question regarding this map, because it contains a small mistake. The reference to "Turkic tribes" in it is historically not correct, because the first Turkic tribe - the Ashina - was mentioned 500 years later. Maybe you should replace the expression with "Altaic tribes". See also de:Türk (Stamm). Thank you. Tajik (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes, that would properly be "Proto-Turkic" tribes, Xiongnu or similar. --dab (𒁳) 06:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. However, I think that "Proto-Turkic" is still not correct. The Xiongnu were not "proto-Turkic" either, though they may have contained some proto-Turkic tribes. The geographical location suggests settlements of Altaic tribes (proto-Turkic & proto-Mongolic, such as Xianbey). But at ca. 200 AD, the region might also have been Indo-European Tokharian (Kushan?!). Anyway, I think it's the safest to remove the word "Turkic" and replace it with "Altaic" or simply "Inner Asian tribes". Tajik (talk) 07:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes. You see, the Turkic or Tocharian question isn't the point of the map. The "Yuezhi" are supposed to represent the Tocharians. I agree "Altaic tribes" would be a good solution, but I don't know if I can still find the layered .xcf file to easily modify this map I uploaded three years ago. It's not a big enough deal to me to invest two hours in fixing it. --dab (𒁳) 07:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

re: Assyrian page move

I have replied on my talk page; I prefer to keep discussions in one place. Parsecboy (talk) 12:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

The pages on the early Safavid shahs are pretty inadequate. I'm not particularly a specialist in this field but there again I haven't seen any real experts editing there. Unsurprisingly, the biggest draw is the Safavid dynasty article - check out the ten talk page archives full of the usual ethnic bitchery (of the Iranic versus Turkic kind). So I appreciate being able to make a few improvements without some little <valued editor> throwing rocks at me. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not have the time to grok this atm. But we both know it is time for a solid, biting "ethnic bitchery gets you blocked" policy. --dab (𒁳) 18:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. That's the main thing. This is just one example. (Although it's obvious that ANI is completely hopeless at dealing with any of this). --Folantin (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

let me tell you that getting no reaction from ANI is one of the better experiences you can have. You are rather more likely to get some admin doing something completely stupid along the lines of Wikipedia:Anti-elitism. --dab (𒁳) 19:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, maybe. I think my report was just a tad complicated for the average IRC admin. From what I've seen over the past year, ANI is only for dealing with pre-teens emptying their potties over one another, fake suicide threats, Wiki-politicians trying to prove how "nice" they are by unblocking noted jackasses and the eternal Giano Wars. --Folantin (talk) 19:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moses of Choren

Hi. Could you please check the latest edits to that article? They just returned the article to its original state, claiming the 5th century dating as a fact. Grandmaster 05:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I rolled back the last bunch of edits by Marshal Bagramyan, which basically returned the article to its original state and removed most of the criticism of the 5th century dating. I find it strange that after such a long discussion and tons of sources provided he can come and just suppress the info about the later dating, as if it does not even exist or it is something not worthy of any attention. Grandmaster 05:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sure, this is just "ethnic bitchery" as Folantin calls it in the section above this one. Before I edited Wikipedia, I never guessed how many people there are with an obsession over their ethnic identity. And these aren't rural yokels as a rule, mostly these are alienated tech students trying to compensate for feeling lost. You would never have guessed that technological institutes would turn out to be breeding irrationality and ethnic hatemongery, but then the human soul isn't linear and the planners often end up with the opposite of what they bargained for because they do not take that into account. --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah. I don't know about the educational background of the people involved in this discussion, but they are all young. The thing is that in many places where the ethnic conflicts take place history is just a tool for justification of claims for a certain territory. It's like, we came here first, and the place is ours, as if history really matters when the international community looks into the territorial disputes. Historical figures are often also seen not as real persons, but as symbols. Therefore every nation has its own patriotic interpretation of history, and questioning such interpretations often causes hostile reaction. Younger people are usually more zealous. With regard to the article in question, something needs to be done to get certain people to see that Moses of Chorene is not seen by majority of serious experts as a 5th century figure. Not that they cannot see it, they just don't want to see. --Grandmaster 15:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article protected. All our edits have been removed. I'll try to follow the DR procedures, to get the issue resolved. Grandmaster 16:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I asked for a third party opinion to resolve the dispute, please see here: [4] Grandmaster 05:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fertile Crescent

Thanks for the message, please be sure not to remove any non-subcats while you revert. Izzedine (talk) 15:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hindu-Arabic numeral system etc.

Hello, thanks for taking a look at the Hindu-Arabic numeral system article. I've been wary of editing it because it seems to stir up pointless regionalism each time. I think all the articles should be merged into Arabic numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals (I don't care what it's called); I suspect the distinction between the "numerals" and the "numeral system", although sensible, is something created on Wikipedia to broker peace. ([5]) What do you think should be done about these? Shreevatsa (talk) 17:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you are right. The articles Hindu-Arabic numeral system, Arabic numerals and Indian numerals have been kept separate in order to appease the angry young Hindu editors. But it's not a problem. While it may be weird to treat the "system" apart from its glyphs, the important thing is to keep the information factual and to the point. Merging and splitting considerations are secondary.

This is all less than obvious at first glance, but upon consideration, it becomes clear that the "system" is the combination of algorism plus a set of glyphs. Take away algorism/positional notation, 0 (number) and Arabic numerals/Indian numerals from the "system" article and you are left with nothing. But it can always discuss the history of these things, which is why I think History of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system at least should be merged. --dab (𒁳) 17:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. The "system" is what is called "positional notation" today. It's not a name for something else; it's the same thing (and "algorism" is also the same thing), and the names "Hindu-Arabic" or "Arabic" are used for distinguishing it from "Roman numerals" (again, no one finds it useful to talk about the Roman numerals by themselves and not the system, or vice-versa). Keeping several articles about the same topic is not a good thing; it misrepresents and confuses the issue. I agree with you that the only point of having a separate article would be to discuss the history. Since it seems you have more experience dealing with "angry young editors" than I do (I used to mostly edit mathematics articles), you probably have some insight on what's the cleanest way of doing this. :) Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 19:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dharmacakra

There is a nationalist troll there denying that it is the symbol of Buddhism. Mitsube (talk) 07:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And also Ashoka Chakra. Mitsube (talk) 19:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ásatrúarfélagið

This may interest you. Haukur (talk) 17:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Subhash Kak

Just noting - I replied to you a week or two ago, waiting for your reply. NittyG (talk) 17:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another sock

User:Emperor of world seems to be new sock. Alefbe (talk) 22:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

noinclude tags

In Template:History of Kosovo you should put the template like this:

Otherwise, every article transcluding the template is getting tagged with that tag POV. I can't change it myself because it's protected. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

stunningly, this was precisely my intention. We're locking down a template because it is disputed? Then there should bloody well be an npov warning in every place this template appears. --dab (𒁳) 15:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, lol, I don't quite agree with that philosophy, but if you think it's necessary.... (Anyways, I can't avoid feeling very amused when I imagine all the confused editors that will be left puzzling over why their Kosovo article has now a POV tag whose addition doesn't appear on the article article) --Enric Naval (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yeah, I think I have fixed it by removing any images from the template, and requiring anyone wishing to insert any image to get some sort of consensus first. We can't waste time and energy into such thumbnail-wars. Navigation templates are for nagivation, not for games of "capture the flag". You want to put a flag there, explain why and then get a consensus. --dab (𒁳) 20:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Armenian origins

At the moment, my main interest is in making some sense of this and getting rid of the nonsense (like an idea in an 1841 book being thirty years ago). I'm not bothered with where it is until that's done, then I think will be the time to see if there is justification for a separate article. What I hope I have done is sort out the GFDL problem. Shall we just leave it where it is for the nonce? Dougweller (talk) 08:47, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Etruscan origins

Do you still support merging this article? --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 12:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would support you in turning your attention to some topic where you can claim to have some hazy half-clue. --dab (𒁳) 12:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying the information in the article is wrong, cause if you think that your wrong! Don't be mean.... --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 12:46, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

please speak English. That doesn't even parse. I've seen you prancing around with the Etruscan topics yesterday[6]. Please stop it. We are trying to write an encyclopedia here. From your talkpage, it appears you get into trouble even when editing a pop culture topic like "Stargate". Now you are attacking an academic topic with in same style that annoyed the people watching the Stargate topics. I am frankly unsurprised this doesn't seem to be going well. --dab (𒁳) 12:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with having an article about Etruscan origins. To make one thing clear i didn't write the article so stop blaming me for the articles bad shape. Have you heard of WP:CIVIL? I've cleaned up the Etruscan origins page today and expanded it, would you denie that? The reason for me coming into an arguement with the Stargate film was that he didn't agree with the "plot" section which i didn't even write. The other users backed me up saying the article was "much better and longer" alb "even if it had some mistakes". --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 12:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Barnstar

		100,000 Edits
		I, Bugboy52.4, award you for reaching 100,000 edits according to the List of Wikipedians by number of edits generated 11:45 pm, 24 February 2009. Keep up the good work!________________________________________________________________

Exciting news...yawn

Another incarnation of Ararat Arev has been back spamming that "Armenian Highland" site[7]. Just thought you might want to know. --Folantin (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

pathetic. Does he ever leave Richardson, TX? He might at least make some half-assed attempt to conceal his identity by using some bogus account or identity. It seems his heart isn't really in it any more. --dab (𒁳) 07:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Ararat Arev might be back - but so is Moreschi.--Folantin (talk) 08:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information needed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Supriyya

Hello. Thank you for filing Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Supriyya. This is an automated notice to inform you that the case is currently missing a code letter, which indicates to checkusers why a check is valid. Please revisit the page and add this. Sincerely, SPCUClerkbot (talk) 09:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ron Wyatt

The trouble with people like Wyatt is that, if you do delete the article, a true-believer will come along and start if all over again, but telling us why he's so right. Better to have it out there where we can all see it. PiCo (talk) 23:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

that's not a valid reason. We can easily WP:SALT or redirect-protect the title if we decide this is what should be done. --dab (𒁳) 08:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scottish inventions and discoveries

Since you started this, perhaps you would like to contribute to the discussion. Uncle G (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Occupation of the Baltic states

This article could probably use a couple more eyes. You may find some of the comments on Hiberniantears' talk page related to this subject interesting as well. John Carter (talk) 00:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Elamite cuneiform

Hey dab,

I've added the syllabic glyphs to Achaemenid Elamite cuneiform. However, I cannot identify qa/ka4 and tu4 with the materials I have available. Could you help out?

Thanks, kwami (talk) 00:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kurdish people

Hi I plan to contribute and write portions for the article soon. I would appreciate your oversight of the article, review of my edits and anything you might think is not scholarly. Thank you--Nepaheshgar (talk) 19:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, probably the most comprehensive article on origin of Kurds is Encyclopedia of Islam. There is also an article on Kurdish languages in Iranica as well as some other articles I have collected. I will send you these privately and I hope you can help me edit these articles. Thanks. --Nepaheshgar (talk) 07:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

template:lang

Hi. I was looking through Common.css and suddenly noticed the definitions for CSS pseudo class :lang. I dawned on me that these seem to be doing nothing atm. IE6 doesn't support :lang, and for every other browser, it is resetting what is being set (the inherit is a trick to make something IE6 specific). I want on quest to find where this came from :D

As you may note, an IP user recently added the same objection to the original discussion. I think the reasoning behind this error is that the Unicode and IPA classes above there had to be IE specific. Your original proposal was probably build on what was written in those classes, but unfortunately fails. However, if i were to correct this... the question comes to mind. Are these font-selections for languages useful on any other platform but IE ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hm, I seem to remember that I thought this wasn't going to work for any browser but wanted to put this down because it could work in principle, or with future browsers. Seeing that this is something I did two years ago, I may be excused if my recollection is a bit hazy. If you have an idea how to make this work, please do go ahead! --dab (𒁳) 18:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are these all fonts that need to be manually installed for scripts not supported by current operating systems ? Or is it only useful on Windows ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

the general idea is to give, for rarely supported scripts, a list of fonts supporting them, so that the browser will be able to pick them if by happy chance they are installed on the system. This is an approach that was pursued in various "language support templates" across Wikipedia. My role was to try and stash that into the css in the context of the move of all language markup to the {{lang}} template. There are some leftovers, such as Template:Script/Nastaliq (see {{script}}). The general idea is that the html should only give a xml:lang tag -- possibly including a script specification such as "sux-Xsux" for Sumerian cuneiform, "hit-Xsux" for Hittite cuneiform, but "sux-Latn", "hit-Latn" for Romanizations -- and font recommendations for the browser based on the xml:lang tag should be left to the css. If you have an idea how to implement this properly, please help out.

Obviously, the fonts supported by "current" operating systems is variable over time. I did not invest too much effort in this because of the hopefully not completely misguided expectation that in a few years, all major operating systems will come with full Unicode fonts, including the most obscure codepages, out-of-the-box. Our css tweaks are only relevant as long as this happy age hasn't quite arrived. --dab (𒁳) 19:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK I think I understand. In that light. Since the CSS is not supported by all browsers, and requires the lang attribute, which is only set by our lang templates, I think it is best to remove it all together. The style's are also defined in the lang templates, and those definitions work in all browsers. Where widely used, we can use classes (as we already have the Unicode/IPA classes) and use those in the lang templates instead of the style definitions they have. The idea is fun, but when it doesn't work for many of our users, but does add a lot of KBs to every pageview, then we need to cut our losses :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you have a point. But I do not understand "the style's are also defined in the lang templates". My concern is that I do not want font definitions at the level of Wikipedia templates. It may be best to take the position that Unicode is Unicode, and proper rendering of properly formatted Unicode is none of our concern but must be fixed at the user's end. We can compile Help: pages for that, but we shouldn't go out of our way to produce workarounds for browser issues. --dab (𒁳) 20:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But remember that all CSS that is in Common.css is downloaded/cached for each page that is viewed. As such any CSS that is only used in a limited set of wikipedia pages (for a limited set of browsers, has hardly any benefit to using inline CSS. When this styling is only used/useful combined with a specific template (because it needs the "lang" tag, added by the template), then there is also little cause for concern in terms of maintainability (the other reason to use a centralized stylesheet). Even more so, if we need to KEEP the template specific CSS because the centralized CSS is not recognized by IE6, then there is no benefit at all. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you should worry about traffic issues too much. This stuff is cached, and downloaed once per session at most, if even that. --dab (𒁳) 21:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New findings

Shouldn't we be doing something about [8] and [9]? Let me know. Thanks. [[::User:Sudharsansn|Sudharsansn]] (talk · contribs) 23:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you check the Indus script article, you will find this recentism already covered. Of course it sounds more exciting if you pipe it through the tabloid press first.

I am a bit disappointed with Mahadevan's reaction. It is correct that "there is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian)." This doesn't mean that there is any chance of ever deciphering it with confidence, there simply isn't sufficient data. He admits that he has no idea what the study tried to do, yet he is up in arms against the study being denounced as garbage. Well, there is a good chance that it is garbage, and it is irrational to take criticism of a crappy 2009 study as an attack on the dignity of the Indus script. There may or may not be linguistic content in the inscriptions. We're not going to be able to tell. Consider the Luwian hieroglyphs: they are mostly logographic, but they do contain some linguistic data. It would have been completely hopeless to figure this out based on a bunch of seal impressions, yet this is the task faced with the Indus script. The Luwian hieroglyphs have only been deciphered because there were bilinguals. As long as there is no Indus bilingual, people should just forget about breakthroughs in decipherment. --dab (𒁳) 06:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, your reaction seems strange and expected. In Wikipedia pages, thanks to the Voice-of-India mafia and others like you, the IVC script was sidelined as a non-script, then it was sidelined as being non-Dravidian and what now? You are going to show one seal and claim that it does not look like linguistic information? So you evaluate claims based on how good they look to you, eh? When I see Chinese pictograms, I cannot possible imagine them standing for anything, but they do, right? Not to mention that we haven't had a chance to look at the actual paper owing to the fact that it is a paid-subscription issue. So you haven't checked the methodology, data, findings, etc but you are simply not convinced. Well, cannot really help it. I am going to write it up with these findings under decipherment claims. Thanks [[::User:Sudharsansn|Sudharsansn]] (talk · contribs) 19:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You obviously didn't read a word of the above. How on earth do you conclude from "paid subscription" that "we haven't had a chance to look at it"? Was that the royal we or something? If you haven't even looked at the paper, why are you telling me what to think about it? Also, the seal I showed you isn't even IVC. It is an example of a deciphered script containing linguistic information. I included it to illustrate my point about the Luwian hieroglyphs. Perhaps you want to spend another two minutes trying to figure out what this is even about.

The Indus script is, of course, a "script". Nobody disputes the signs "stand for something", wth are you even talking about. It may or may not be fully logographic. The entire point at the moment is that the recent study is worthless. Learn to defend studies based on their merit, and not based on whether they happen to say what you like to hear.

Sheesh. I am not looking for a feud here, ok? You asked me a question in good faith, and I gave you an informed answer. You are free to learn something or to leave it. No need to lash out at me, ok? Go do something else now. --dab (𒁳) 19:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I too read the paper and the supplementary material (which is much more informative) and here is my 2c FWIW: There is nothing wrong with using information theoretic measures like entropy, conditional entropy in an exploratory study to see if one can use them to distinguish non-linguistic and linguistic systems, and different kinds of linguistic systems. However, the main and glaring problem with the paper is the two non-linguistic systems (labeled Type 1 and Type 2) that the authors chose to show that their metrics of choice are useful. One can, in fact analytically compute the conditional entropies for their non-linguistic systems and it seems that their choices are designed to be as far from the linguistic systems as possible; it is easy to tweak the non-linguistic systems symbol probability distribution slightly such that their conditional entropies would have been indistinguishable from the linguistic systems. This, of course, invalidates any conclusion the authors draw from their graph,^§ and should have been apparent to any informed reviewer. (§ : To be clear, the conclusion can, of course, still be true; its just that the paper's evidence is worthless)
PS: The linguistic symbols of the seal from Troy are trivial to decipher; starting from 3 o'clock it says, "When the Moon pulls on the tides, the bodyless deer and the fish with the detached extra head use the telephone with the antenna". I'm shocked that no one has understood this till now; should I send my results to Science or Nature ? :) Abecedare (talk) 20:25, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

indeed. "non-linguistic dataset" indeed. Hey, my Teddy bear looks more like a dolphin than like a neutron star. Ergo, bears are dolphins, quick, call Nature!

Dab, I am not lashing out at you, it is still in good faith. I am just expressing my opinion of how you have "interpreted" it. That's all. I am still disappointed of how you find it worthless. Well, as I said, never mind. [[::User:Sudharsansn|Sudharsansn]] (talk · contribs) 05:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're on Jimbo's talk page!

See [10] Dougweller (talk) 17:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

banned trolls ranting to Jimbo? Hardly a novelty. Now Jimbo on my talkpage, that would be a "first" even after half a decade on Wikipedia, but the converse doesn't really raise eyebrows. --dab (𒁳) 18:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality enforcement: a proposal

I've started a proposal to enforce neutral editing on Israel-Palestine articles, which could be extended to other intractable disputes if it works. See Wikipedia:Neutrality enforcement. I'd very much appreciate your input, if you have time. Best, SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 08:12, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like some dualism with your pantheism?

I've added some quotes on beliefs. The whole article is very close to home so I'd appreciate someone looking over my shoulder and telling me if I'm wandering into obsessive detail. The main thing I have yet to add is an expanded section on rituals. (But I also have a lot of work left tidying up the references and improving coherency.) Haukur (talk) 09:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biblical rulers categories

And we have [[Category:14th-century BC Biblical rulers]], [[Category:13th-century BC Biblical rulers]], [[Category:12th-century BC Biblical rulers]] etc, sub-categories of [[Category:Biblical rulers by century]]. Dougweller (talk) 12:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

are you telling me this because I have just blanked them? I would cfd them but I frankly cannae be bothered. --dab (𒁳) 13:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ah, I see they have a guardian, Carlaude (talk · contribs). --dab (𒁳) 13:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

of course there is an internal chronology of OT genealogy. But Wikipedia cannot use that for its categorization, that would be {{in-universe}}. We don't list Seth under 39th century BC births. The "source" behind this stuff appears to be kingscalendar.com,a website expounding (sigh) R.P.BenDedek's Research results into the Chronological Synchronisms found in the Biblical Books of Kings and Chronicles and linked from many of these articles. --dab (𒁳) 13:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You hadn't blanked them when I posted. Kingscalendar is linked [11] and we even have an article on it King's Calendar which should probably go to AfD. But is there any reason not to just remove the links? Do they meet WP:EL? Dougweller (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did blank them, but I was reverted by Carlaude (talk · contribs). I also removed the EL from a bunch of articles. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So now? Carlaude seems to be claiming they have to stay in the category while the category exists. This is all nonsense. Dougweller (talk) 16:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot delete a category and empty the category. "Please do not remove the category from pages before the community has made a decision." It circumvents all procedures. Please do one. If you still want to do the other, then wait a week or so. --Carlaude ^(talk) 17:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

nonsense. I removed articles from categories since their inclusion was completely unsubstantiated by anything in the article. As a result we are left with a bunch of empty categories. These empty categories can hang around for a week if you insist, but I can already tell you that there won't be any articles that would fit in them. Our categorization guidelines also tell you that you should only create a category if there are at least a couple of possible entries. --dab (𒁳) 20:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.

It looked to me rather that you tried to REDIRECT all the categories, and then once they were semi-invisible you began to empty them. I dought I will fight these but I want other editors to be able object on even ground if they wish.--Carlaude ^(talk) 21:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These categories in particular can be seen as problematic because there is at best minimal evidence to support inclusion of articles in them. Most of the potential entries have no real certain timing, and may even be said to be of dubious factuality, so it can't be said with any particular certainty that any articles included in most of them necessarily belong there. John Carter (talk) 20:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The ghost of languages past

Hello. Re this edit, please note that the following dictionaries say:

Oxford American Dictionary:

early 19th cent.:, from Dutch, of unknown origin

American Heritage Dictionary:

Dutch, from Middle Dutch spooc

Merriam-Webster Collegiate:

Dutch; akin to Middle Low German spōk ghost

Date: 1801

I don't have online access to the full OED. Rivertorch (talk) 15:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

East West dichotomy

Good faith. Disagreement about 'East West dichotomy' re-directed to 'Cultural hemispheres'. It deserves its own entry, since it is a philosophical concept (see quotes, references, books etc.). Otherwise, nice work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sakura china (talk • contribs) 04:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have not so much redirected as moved it because I thought that was a less clunky title, but you can also move it back, it's not a big deal. --dab (𒁳) 06:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Katha Upanishad

I think the article needs to be semi-protected. There have been multiple anons vandalizing there. Mitsube (talk) 08:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to keep an eye on it. --dab (𒁳) 09:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your cat of Essence-Energies distinction

You made a very incorrect addition to the article dab. You added the very thing that the argument opposes as being what the argument is for. [12] The distinction is made between the created world and the energies that make up the created world and the being of God because of the West making God's creation and God's being equal to one and another and yet two forms of being -aka a dichotomy. The argument states that the energy of the created world, that energy as is all energy is "uncreated". All that is uncreated has the essence of God but can also be a reality of God. Hence there is no dichotomy between God the Father and God the Son. Or God the Spirit and the essence of God. Distinction can be make without the components of distinction being in opposition or equal. But something in order for it to be a dichotomy has to by definition be divided into two parts. That's why the distinction is made between dab being a mankind thing (ousia) and dab being a individual or person. That's a set of distinctions that does not indicate a [[[dichotomy]] or division. That's why the argument is called the Essence-Energies distinction and not the Essence-Energies dichotomy. Why because one can make a distinction in explaining something without cutting it into pieces and thereby destroying it as it is. As Mether shows here it is not a dichotomy its a.....distinction.[13] Distinction in to acknowledge but not to separate or divide to cut or asunder. This is the argument of energy. That argument has caused many of the conflicts in world. To the East for example atheism, nihilism, gnosticism (pagan sophistry or nihilism) is a denial of the existence of the uncreated aka a denial of energy. Since here is made of dunamis (potential energy or power or force) or energeia (action activity). It is the argument of energy that caused the whole philosophy movement, against sophistry (the denial of the existence of energy or a thing in itself). The Orthodox East don't really call it Metaphysics as much as Ontology. Uncreated and supernatural are meta-scientific to the Orthodox as in gnosiology you can't get gnosis from gnosis. Energy is the validation for Orthodox of the uncreated(supernatural) in the created as the metaphysical(supernatural) in the physical(natural). Both complimentary to one another not separate. As knowledge is created(by experience) gnosis as knowledge (is created) by the experience of the uncreated. LoveMonkey (talk) 16:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am struggling to follow your highly abstract dichotomy, or distinction, between dichotomy and distinction. I hope you realize that the tomos in diochotomy is purely metaphorical, in the sense of "drawing a line (or distinction) between two concepts". Fwiiw, the etymological meaning of dichotomy is "to cut apart", and the etymological meaning of distinction is "to pluck apart". No divine powers were either cut or plucked in this mental operation. --dab (𒁳) 16:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

dab it has never been called a dichotomy in Eastern Orthodoxy theology. You can find no source that I know of as Eastern Orthodox that will call it the Essence-Energies dichotomy. Barlaam accused Palamas of that very thing at the councils about the teaching and it was the Greek church with it's Greek word dichotomy who chooses distinction and who names the teaching and repeats the teaching as they have formulated it. This is an encyclopedia not dab struggling. What you have done is introduce a different and openly opposed label onto a teaching. It you want you can change the cat from dichotomy to distinction. Your categorization of it as such implies that it is a duality or that Palamas is teaching polytheism under the heading of pantheism or henotheism. If you can find a better English word for distintion without division I can almost guarantee that the teaching can get renamed to that word over distinction. Please remove the misleading characterization of the article that your addition implies.

LoveMonkey (talk) 16:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry LoveMonkey, but describing creation in terms of energies vs. essences is a dichotomy. The dichotomy is of course due to the humans describing creation, and not to the creator. I find your implied suggestion that we need a Category:Distinctions besides Category:Dichotomies rather pointless. --dab (𒁳) 18:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry but that is your interpretion and your categorization and it can not be sourced. According to the teaching itself it is explicitly not a dichotomy. "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts" Daniel Moynihan

LoveMonkey (talk) 18:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, I am not going to have a prolongued correspondence with you on this point, so I guess I won't revert you if you remove the category. --dab (𒁳) 18:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for understanding. I think very highly of you and would not revert without discussion. LoveMonkey (talk) 18:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indefinite semi-protections

With regards to Odin, would you have a problem setting an expiry to the semi-protection? Yes there has been a recent spat of IP vandalism, but in the last 2 months I also see some good faith edits from anons. Indefinite seems a bit of a jump for a non-BLP. Perhaps 30 days? I also note that your talk page itself is has been semi-protected since Nov '08. You may wish to review the recent addition in the protection policy here: Wikipedia:PROT#User pages. –xeno ^talk 16:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with an expiry after 30 days. In my experience, "indefinite" semiprotections as often as not last for less long than that. --dab (𒁳) 18:19, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well in the present case, Odin had been protected five months before I came across it... And in a recent partial cleaning of WP:INDEFSEMI I found articles that had been protected for upwards of 2 years! (Albeit, this dates back to the days before we could set expiries - nonetheless...) cheers, –xeno ^talk 18:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I recognize that it is possible to disagree on this, but I have no poblem with well-developed articles being semiprotected indefinitely. Admins doing "cleaning of WP:INDEFSEMI" mostly just create work for other admins doing the reprotection after a short while. If there are anons who really have an important point they want to make can always use the talkpage.--dab (𒁳) 18:35, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ITN for Venus of Schelklingen

On 14 May, 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Venus of Schelklingen, which you created. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the In the news candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 01:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Triple Goddess

You might be interested in this as you've edited Ronald Hutton and know about Max Dashu. We have an IP editing here and making multiple PAs on the talk page (and on me inside the article [14]) from various IP addresses, making it hard to keep track of warnings, etc. Not sure what to do about the PAs, but the article could use some help. It needed improvement anyway. Dougweller (talk) 07:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mask of la Roche-Cotard

Hi. I have removed the {{hoax}} tag you put on this article, and added to it a BBC News item which I think is a good enough source - the primary source is evidently an article in "Antiquity", but that's not available on-line without a password. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 13:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good, I was just reading through the "antiquity" article to see how definite they actually were. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thorsten J. Pattberg

Your PROD was deleted by an IP without any improvements to the article, so I have taken the liberty of bringing this to Afd. Cheers. — CactusWriter | ^needles 19:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming of Articles

Two Articles Mahavira and Parsva were moved to Lord Mahavira and Lord Parsva by a user. This move may not be appropriate. Can you check on this.--Anish (talk) 22:02, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

no it is not appropriate. These two individuals to the best of my knowledge are not members of the British peerage system. --dab (𒁳) 08:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Serbia

Sorry to keep hasseling you, but your the only administrator I've come across so far. Here goes, in the interest of maintaining a neutral point of view, the Serbia article should have a shaded or otherwise highlighted area on the map to feature Kosovo. There is no consensus on the Serbian talk pages and the only way forward is to either: seek consensus again or an admin to insert a proper, more neutral map. Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are entirely correct. If Kosovo has a map with Serbia shaded, Serbia needs a map with Kosovo shaded. Until this is implemented there is nothing for it but to tag Serbia with {{NPOV}}. --dab (𒁳) 06:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

Hi -- could you take a look at the discussion? This is an awful article, misleading, confused, etc. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

vandalism on nasrani articles

Dear Dbachmann,

A new editor engaging in vandalism has come with the name user:student7 and creating new pages with his own version of personal opinion of Syrian Malabar Nasrani history. The new page created by the vandal is History of the Saint Thomas Christians.

The page he has created is a duplication of a page and information that already exists in wikipedia articles (Saint Thomas Christian tradition and Syrian Malabar Nasrani). BUT he has removed references and passages that he does not agree with. He has created an entire new page only to put his POV on the topic. He uses different I.P. addresses and creates new ids and presents himself as a decent editor while only using anonymous I.P. address to engage in vandalism. He claims in the talk pages that he has created the new page only as a new stand alone page. He says that he has only copied passages from other wikipedia pages. But actually he has inserted a tremendous amount of his own views into the referenced passages and has removed passages that he does not agree with personally.

His true purpose of creating the the page and vandalism is to remove passages with references that refer to Jewish tradition of the Syrian malabar nasrani people of kerala. He is a vandal involved in gross vandalism but masquerading as an editor. I had initially redirected the page to the older page that was edited by several hundreds of editors over several years but he has reverted that. You can read the talk page Talk:History of the Saint Thomas Christians. He has been vandalising pages, especially those concerned with nasrani people for a long time. But no editor seems to bother. This would lead to the destruction of wikipedia. Please help to fight this vandalism. Vagab (talk) 01:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss Nationality

Hey, you recently removed the cleanup tag I added to the Swiss (nationality) page. I put it there because there is currently a bunching problem with the page. Since I don't understand how to fix it myself I wished to call it to the attention of more experienced editors who could deal with the problem. Although a fixbunching template has been added, the problem still seems to occur in both the Opera and Firefox webbrowsers when using a resolution of 1280x1024. Is there a better tag I should have used better describe the problem?AlexTG (talk) 09:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{cleanup}} should refer to article content and structure, not minor layout issues. It is silly to slap giant warning tags on articles drawing attention to layout problems. If layout is broken, people will see layout is broken, and if they don't notice, no harm is done. The article looks fine on my laptop, at lower resolution. It is even more silly to distract the reader with "layout warnings" when there may or may not be a layout problem for them. --dab (𒁳) 09:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proto-Indo-European to Dacian sound changes

Is this stuff encyclopaedic? I'd like to know your opinion. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

oh dear. I'm sure there is a lot of valid stuff in there, but it belongs merged to Dacian language and needs to be trimmed for irrelevant material and checked for WP:SYN and WP:OR. --dab (𒁳) 18:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's odd that nobody has voiced any objections to the page since 2006. --Ghirla^-трёп- 19:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, strange. I think I've come across it before but couldn't be bothered to clean it up. It isn't terrible. Well, the formatting is terrible of course, but the content is probably pretty much ok. This could just be converted into a concise list or table of known Thracian words with plausible etymologies. --dab (𒁳) 22:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prehistoric art

I'm uncertain what all of the intent of this edit to Prehistoric art was, but you left at least one glaring grammatical error (now suitably adorned by some smartass anon vandal; check the edit history). Can you fix? Magic♪piano 23:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ah yes, sorry. --dab (𒁳) 12:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mitrovica

Please have a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kosovo towards the bottom under Place Names. I have had a discussion with EV and I believe my rationale has prevaield. The Article should redirect Kosovska Mitrovica to Mitrovica, as I explained in the talkpage, it is the most common spelling and usage to refer to the city. Interestedinfairness (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mitrovica is a disambiguation page. You could arguably ask for a move of Kosovska Mitrovica to Mitrovica, Kosovo, which is pretty much what "Kosovska Mitrovica" means in the first place. I don't think it supports any sort of "pov" to state that this particular Mitrovica is located in Kosovo. --dab (𒁳) 21:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Upon clicking on Mitrovica, Kosovo, you reach a page called Kosovska Mitrovica, which is not the most recognizable name for the city. I'm proposing renaming that article, to read just Mitrovica as apposed to Kosovska Mitrovica. Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interestedinfairness, we can only have one page called "Mitrovica", and that is already a disambiguation page. Please read WP:DAB. If you want to move Kosovska Mitrovica to Mitrovica, Kosovo you should make the proposal on Talk:Kosovska Mitrovica. --dab (𒁳) 07:44, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, dab. Just thanking you for fixing the Mitrovica cut-and-paste moves and attempting to start a rational discussion at Talk:Kosovska Mitrovica (something I delayed doing yesterday for some unrelated reasons). - Best, Ev (talk) 17:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History of the Saint Thomas Christians

I was interested in getting approval to merge the History of the Saint Thomas Christians into the Saint Thomas Christian tradition. I have an idea on how to do that and meet the goals of all parties. I request making the actual move myself! It will be a credible move, however. No switches in text! :) I wanted to wait until everybody is ready so they won't feel forced to make a lot of changes all at once.

I think it is a pretty good article. Lots of facts. Still needs a lot more. But we will pick up some when the next three or four churches are merged.

I pretty much kept what was there in St. Thomas..tradition. The rough chronology was integrated and some dropped that didn't seem germane to the WP:TOPIC. It was helpful. I found myself deleting a lot of what I had in favor of the new material. Usually I can't really tell the difference since I didn't write either! This is only a history through Koonan Cross. So what is in your history from the later period will remain as is, particularly including the rough chronology.

As I mentioned earlier, I am neutral here, so have little "ownership" issues that various people seem to have.

Do you think that Anthony on Stilts be interested?Student7 (talk) 21:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kabul

Take a look at the recent changes and edits like this (removing useful info about the sister cities and the metropolitan population and moving irrelevant stuff to the lead, without a proper justification). I think this page should be semi-protected. Alefbe (talk) 02:44, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AfD

I'm nominating an article you have worked on for deletion. Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian cult (2nd nomination). Borock (talk) 05:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Articles for deletion nomination of Raptio

I have nominated Raptio, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raptio. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Powers ^T 23:56, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration

Hi. Please be aware of this request for arbitration: [15] Unfortunately, I had to take it to the arbitration, as any attempts at dispute resolution were unsuccessful. Grandmaster 06:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a depressing feeling this Youtube video might explain what's been going on some of the Armenian pages [16]. Apparently, any scholars who disagree that Armenia is the homeland of the Indo-Europeans must be part of a Turkish conspiracy. --Folantin (talk) 09:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this isn't a case that can usefully be resolved by the arbcom. They'll just tell everyone to be nice. The Moses of Chorene article is being trolled, and Grandmaster is given the full Wikipedia:Experts are scum treatment. This should just be resolved at admin level.

Thanks for the "Turkish conspiracy" youtube link, Folantin :) I agree that there is a direct link to the Ararat arev hilarity we used to have on WP. It seems that Aa has discovered youtube as a more rewarding platform for his activities, and cheers to him for that insight (after less than two years of fruitless trolling). --dab (𒁳) 11:33, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mitrovica

Dab, will you please change the name of the Kosovska Mitrovica article to Mitrovica. I have explained in the talk page what Wikipedia required for a place name, and I have conducted the tests Wikipedia has outlines as necessery for determining the name for an article. The silence on the part of the other users seems to suggest that Mitrovica should be used as correct name for the article. I don't know how to change it personally, so if you can take the initiative. Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have already explained that Mitrovica is a disambiguation page. If you think you have a reasonable consensus for a move to Mitrovica, Kosovo, you should post a request for review at WP:RM. --dab (𒁳) 11:35, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ev now seems to agree with my point that Mitrovica is more recognizable than Kosovska Mitrovica here: [17] What happens now? Interestedinfairness (talk) 20:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen it. We should give those opposing the move a chance to react, but I think we are pretty close to implementig the move at this point. You need some patience. Progress in content disputes is slow, a matter of weeks, not days or hours. --dab (𒁳) 20:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion review

I have posted a question at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Hindu_terrorism which you may be able to answer. Can you please return to that discussion to answer it? Stifle (talk) 08:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

International Recognition of Kosovo

I would like to show my strong objection of your recent move of the article without discussion or support from the wiki-community. About three months ago, there was a big discussion on the name of the article, consensus resulted in "International recognition of Kosovo". Here is the archived discussion [18] (Ironically it is hard to find the archive now that you have moved the article). In this discussion, the name "International recognition of the Republic of Kosovo" was rejected. I know that you are an administrator, however that does not give you the right to use your powers against the views and consensus of the wiki-community. If you thought the name of the article should have been changed, you should have done it via WP:RM. Please move the article back to it's former name and gain consensus before you move an article in future and move the article via the policies of WP:RM. Ijanderson (talk) 08:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Been an admin does not give you the right to ignore WP:RM. Ijanderson (talk) 08:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware of this debate. The move suggested itself to me as a simple matter of accuracy. If you object for some reason (although I fail to understand what reason this may be), feel free to revert me. It is literally beyond me how this move can be considered controversial, but this wouldn't be the first time that wikidrama transcends the limits of my imagination.

I see that the move debate you link concerns the move of "international reaction to the declaration of independence of Kosovo" to "international recognition of Kosovo". That move was a good idea, of course, I have simply made the title yet more accurate, I did not revert to the original title of "international reaction". --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We should keep a wary eye on this admin and even ask for de-admin when he continues to act this way. --Tubesship (talk) 01:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it always heartening to see such explicit failure to assume good faith, and to threaten to de-admin you for such actions, particularly after you yourself have seemingly reverted your own action. Sorry, I didn't check the article myself to verify. Of course, anyone is free to ask the ArbCom to take away the bit from any admin, and, in fact, ArbCom has on occasion. I cannot imagine that they would do anything in this situation, however, except, potentially, admonish people like the editor above for their own actions. Keep up the good work, dab. John Carter (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thanks. Tubesship is just a nationalist troll though. He would de-admin anyone and install a stoutly patriotic Albanian admin caste in our place. This would of course be the end of Wikipedia, and the beginning of Albanopedia. This sort of trolling is best met with WP:DENY. If it goes on for too long, the editors in question can also be banned, of course, but most of the time dealing with their sock armies is more trouble than to just let them stick around and ignore them. --dab (𒁳) 13:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly concur with Ijanderson. Whilst I was not involved in the discussion 3 months ago, I can see from your reply that you have acted in honest error. Cheers batobatobato (talk) 09:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason I am unable to revert the name chance Ijanderson (talk) 09:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for moving it back. Regards Ijanderson (talk) 09:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kosovo ≠ Republic of Kosovo

dab, the problem is more complex than it seems. There's a whole list of articles and templates pretending that "Kosovo" is short for "Republic of Kosovo" and using RoK insognia as representative, hence prejudicing the whole dispute and ignoring the Serbian enclaves in the region. Only the Kosovo article recognizes this, the rest completely ignore WP:NPOV. I doubt all those guys trying to keep the Kosovo article neutral even noticed this gross infraction of policy. This issue must be raised properly. Whenever I try to fix the problem I get attacked by ten pro-Albanian users and 10 neutral users who don't understand the situation. More users need to be alerted to this problem. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 14:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how do you mean "more complex"? This is exactly what I was complaining about. The constant Wikipedia-wide implication that "Kosovo"="Republic of Kosovo" (including the rejection of a standalone Republic of Kosovo article even at the cost of the infobox issue) is an obvious attempt at pushing a pro-independence pov. I have nothing against independent Kosovo, in fact I wish the UN would go ahead and pass a resolution already to save us all this hassle, but I cannot accept such blatant violation of WP:NPOV as long as the jury is still out on Kosovo's independence.

I guess this could be a case for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts although I am not sure raising it there will help much. --dab (𒁳) 14:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I say "more complex", I mean there's a dozen articles and templates out there that should be addressed all at once.

All these articles need to be addressed at once, since the issue is essentially the same (though I'd forget about the seperate RoK article if I were you). It makes little sense to go about discussing each article individually, since there's too many of them and it'd probably take a month or more... Therefore: it is necessary to find a proper place to start the all-encompassing discussion.
It is necessary to notify other users currently engaged in the Kosovo issue, to avoid spamming by the "pro-Albanian side" of the dispute, which appears to be the only one paying attention to these articles. Therefore: a way must be found to notify all involved users.

--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just got an idea: why not simply post the discussion on Talk:Kosovo?! --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Kosovo is too spammy already. It should be reserved for discussion of the Kosovo article itself. I do suggest we lay this out at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts. Even if we don't get any useful reactions immediately, there'll be at least a central place to discuss this. --dab (𒁳) 05:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do they want to drive me away from Wikipedia?

So, after the latest controversy my enthusiasm for Wikipedia was partly restored. For example, I had borrowed a book Die Runenkunde im Dritten Reich and was about to expand the article religious aspects of Nazism with the material from it. But - then I came into another discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert I. Sherman. I did my best to convey my view of the issue, but I failed completely, and I honestly don't know if this is my fault or that of Wikipedia. I am not so much having a problem with the possibility that I might be wrong; But I am having a problem when I don't even get a chance do bring my arguments forward. If you take a look at the discussion: I think I have pointed out that there is a good chance that this person could be notable. How can someone then close the discussion without this possibility first being refuted. if Wikipedia is governed by consensus (which is something different from a majority wrote), I can not understand why the discussion was closed. If it is a tyranny of some administrators, who are not bound to justify their actions by arguments, well, then I can understand it, but then, again, I could not participate in this project. Actually, the issue left me speechless for a few days. I have now written something at the deletion review: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 31 and I would greatly appreciate your opinion. Zara1709 (talk) 05:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you know how this works by now, Zara. Deletion debates sometimes misfire, but getting entrenched over a specific deletion is a bad idea most of the time. There is almost always a way to include the material into an existing article ("mergism"). And believe me, there is no "tyranny of some administrators, who are not bound to justify their actions by arguments". If there is any tyranny, it is the tyranny of the arbcom, since they are really not bound to justify their extremely poor judgement to anyone, but their approach to "tyranny" is mostly indifference and failure to grok what is going on. Sort of a cabal where those pulling the strings are too stoned to look a the strings individually so that they just decide to give the entire bunch a tug evey now and again.

I honestly don't know if Robert I. Sherman should have a bio article, but there is nothing to stop you from referencing him in the various articles discussing atheism in the US. The deleted article consisted of a ToC of "Alleged George H. W.Bush quote on atheists" and "Monique Davis Controversy". You have to admit that this isn't directly biographical material and can probably be discussed with greater relevance elsewhere. If you like I can userify the deleted content for you so that you can look for a new home for it. --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am still thinking of some concluding remarks for the deletion review. If you really could userefy the deleted content for me, that would be great. I've asked for exactly that at the deletion review, but they don't appear to concede this to me.

But anyway, it has become apparent that I better should not continue to edit Wikipedia the way I used to. Even if can I get myself together after these controversies, each of them is too much distress. My approach until now was to take a look at a problematic article, and see what to to with the material. That sometimes worked (and resulted in the articles Christian debate on persecution and toleration and National Socialism and Occultism) but more often others editors worked against my efforts until I gave up on the article. To me it appears as if there a simply different approaches to what "writing an encyclopaedia" can mean. I would say that this, as an academic task, would require a lot of discussions, because obviously no one could claim that he is aware of all the relevant viewpoints if he refused to listen to other people (this does not apply to the usual vandals and POV-Pushers). Many other editors and administrators seem to follow a different approach. Take a look at this deletion debate: We didn't even look what there is on sources about this 'Robert I. Sherman'. So we don't actually know that he is non-notable, so how come that we closed the discussion already? Surely, everyone but me voted for a deletion, but then, if this was only an issue of votes, what do we have the guideline Wikipedia:Notability (people) for? And anyway Wikiepdia is not a democracy: "Its primary but not exclusive method of determining consensus is through editing and discussion, not voting." If we would go by the "primary method" here, then we would have to exchange arguments pertaining to the notability of Robert I. Sherman before we could speak of a consensus. And several of those other editors were administrators, it shouldn't be necessary to explain this to them. So, how do these people understand what "writing an encyclopaedia" means? I am not sure, but in my opinion there view doesn't allow for a the necessary discussion. If you close a discussion with the argument "consensus" when the essential points weren't even discussed yet, then obviously the majority can decide over the minority without any reasoning. That is why I referred to this style of procedure as tyranny, a tyranny of the majority probably, but still a tyranny.

Now, there were actually two intelligent comments in the deletion review. However, I don't think that I can actually get a discussion about notability started. Btw, of course you are right when you write that the material can probably be accommodated elsewhere. The thing is, however, that I my evaluation of the sources I so far have the impression that Sherman as person is notable. And anyway, I would prefer not to have articles with titles like Discrimination against atheists. Of course, I could actually go ahead with an article Situation of atheists in the United States. There is even one academic source on the topic, so it certainly is better justifiable than an article Discrimination against Neopagans. But I am most likely not going to do this. Such an article would be an easy target for attacks, I am not sure whether I can emotionally survive another 'debate' like this one. Zara1709 (talk) 05:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Medes

Thanks, that needed attention. I really need to spend time on some ordinary un-fought over articles like Prehistoric Britain which just need a lot of improvement, but all this other junk gets in the way. Dougweller (talk) 09:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

we get the occasional Brit (or Irishman) on a trip of "ancient Celtick ancestry" but I agree that this is nothing against our ethnic crackpot customers from the wider "second world", apparently a region including anything between the Balkans and Sri Lanka. --dab (𒁳) 09:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Iranid race

Thank you very much for moving the article Irano-Afghan race to Iranid race. That is certainly the more common expression in scientific works. I tried to clean up the article a little bit. I do not think that further information is needed, safe for maybe one or two sentences regarding genetics. Tajik (talk) 18:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am decidedly opposed to linking historical scientific racism to contemporary studies in archaeogenetics unless we cite a source that explicitly links the two. WP:SYN. --dab (𒁳) 20:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please watch this. An anon IP is restoring the POV article on Irano-Afghan. Tajik (talk) 15:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dbachmann. Once again, an IP has restored the POV article at Irano-Afghan. I think that a (semi-)protection is needed for the redirect page. Tajik (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Illyria

Hiya dab,

The Albanian editors are still at it in Illyrians and will stop at nothing to have their way. They have now started doing it to other articles as well [19] and are resorting to ridiculous wikilawyer-type arguments [20] to stall the debate. I've outlined my thought in Talk:Illyrians#Sources, but arguing with them is a waste of time. The main problem is that this is an obscure subject and not enough neutral users are aware of it. I've posted on some other wikiproject pages in the hope of getting a meaningful community debate started. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. Regards. --Athenean (talk) 07:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I needed a break from this, but I'll be back. It is true that debating these people is wasted breath. The trick is to find some way to mention their precious ethnicity, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice encyclopedicity. I've tried to do that at Illyrians, but of course dry encyclopedic mention isn't enough for them. They want tall statements of WP:TRUTH, and they want it in the WP:LEAD. Well, they can't have that. --dab (𒁳) 07:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah sure your clear NPOV in this matter, still no historians for your claims just your POV in this matter. If you have anything to be discussed make it in the relevant talk page. What you are doing right now is imposing your POV in the article (and we are all waiting for your historians:)) as clearly you don't have them (you should have bringed them by now) but only your POV. Aigest (talk) 09:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what "claim"? It is unclear what you claim I am claiming, beyond my "claim" that the Illyrian articles are being trolled by Albanian patriots. Gods, I would like to see a Wikipedia where people interested in Albanian, Armenian or Iranian nationalism would just edit Albanian nationalism, Armenian nationalism and Iranian nationalism and people interested in (gasp) Illyrians editing Illyrians. --dab (𒁳) 10:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since it seems that you don't remember your claim, I am offering this link [21] wher your claims have been explained and your OR here [22] from scholars to Albanians is very NPOV indeed.Aigest (talk) 10:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

instead of giving me random links to endless circular debates with Albanian patriots, it may be more helpful for you to actually just tell me what it is you want to discuss with me. At the moment you are just giving me what Athenean calls "ridiculous wikilawyer-type arguments to stall the debate" above. Except hat I fail to see any debate that could be stalled. If you object to the characterization of the "descent" stuff in the lead of your diff, that paragraph has been gone for days, and I agree that it should not be restored. --dab (𒁳) 10:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't regret anything except my wasted time here talking to the peoples who don't want to listen. Apparently attack the sources not the author it is not one of your methods used for your contributions in this article. If smth don't fit with your claim that is "ridiculous wikilawyer-type arguments". Excuse me, first if you don't understand the necesity of laws I might gave you one periphrase "They are ment to stop the abuse of power of the authority" does it ring a bell? Secondly they form the enviroment in which we could collaborate here, if you don't follow them, it is not my fault. And third could you PLEASE BRING THE HISTORIANS FOR YOU EDITS, or this is another "ridiculous wikilawyer-type arguments"? Aigest (talk) 11:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I have told Athenean above, I do not expect to make any progress in trying to talk to you. If there is anything you want, raise a specific issue, and try discussing it constructively (you may want to look that one up in a dictionary). If you feel any specific claim in article space is OR or unreferenced, use {{cn}}. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 11:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Usually no progress is made where there are no arguments, such in Athenean and your case. From the begining I am refering the sources and cited them, while and you just make up your unreferenced POV, OR. sentences. No surpise we are in different leves of reasoning, that's why the useless talk.

One more thing COULD YOU PLEASE BRING THE HISTORIANS FOR YOU EDITS, in Illyrian article? Aigest (talk) 12:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

wow, you are just using copy-paste now, aren't you. I have asked you about four times to identify the "claim" you consider OR, but all you do is repeat "PLEASE BRING THE HISTORIANS FOR YOU EDITS" back at me (ever reproducing the typo each time). I don't know if you care to not look like a moron, but this does make you look like a moron. Aigest, after five years on Wikipedia I have learned that people like you don't last here. Why don't you put your time to better use and write a patriotic blog somewhere. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That means YOU HAVE NO SOURCES for your edits. Too bad for a five year contributor, no wonder why wiki is not considered reliable. Aigest (talk) 12:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i am not aware of having made any unsourced edits. If I have, do tag them with {{fact}}, but please keep off my talkpage from now on. --dab (𒁳) 12:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dab, I believe that the people editing the Illyrians page should not be form any ethnicity that has any "claims" whatsoever on that part of the history. I would bring forward though, that it does not contribute to neutrality of this matter, the fact that most of the citations on the Illyrians page are from the same author John Wilkes. I recently added some other sources, they were all deleted!!! Aleksander Stipcevic and Encyclopedia Britannica are legitimate sources, as they are both non-biased. AnnaFabiano (talk) 17:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unacceptable

"I needed a break from this, but I'll be back. It is true that debating these people is wasted breath. The trick is to find some way to mention their precious ethnicity, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice encyclopedicity"

Your comment is offensive to me and I believe it is verging on racism. I hope you will do the right thing and we can resolve this issue here (as suggested by Wikipedia). I would rather that, than having to take this further. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 00:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

it is "verging on racism" to maintain that Wikipedia is WP:NOT the place for you to parade around your patriotic sensibilities? Give me a break. You edit Wikipedia, so you are expected to leave your bias at the door. You failed to do that. If you cannot for the life of you forget your petty patriotic bias, you should not edit, it's as simple as that. It is not "racist" for me to not give a damn about your ethincity. If I was a racist, I would be interested in your origins and decide what I think of you based on that. But, to the very contrary, I do not give a damn about your gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual preferences as long as you keep them out of my face when you edit Wikipedia. Is that sufficiently clear for you? Read WP:ENC. If you can bring yourself to help building an encyclopedia, you are welcome. If you are just here for your pathetic ethnocentric stunts, you have come to the wrong project. --dab (𒁳) 08:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is time to topic-ban Interestedinfairness from the mainspace of the Kosovo-related articles for a very long time and to revert the article to a stable state, which is even more important because lately it has been nearly impossible to track their indiscriminate deletions of crucial pieces of sourced material. He and another user have already breached 3RR. It is incredible that this has been allowed to happen on an article under probation. While some of his concerns have some merit, he is clearly unable to contribute to the mainspace constructively. I can't consider his edits POV-pushing, as he cannot even push any POV coherently. I don't see any patriotic sensibilities or ethnocentricity there. Only some very personal inarticulate bursts. He is absolutely harmful in the mainspace. Colchicum (talk) 11:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the late response:

In the country where I reside, it is not considered proper or polite to refer to a certain ethnic group as these people. We all have names, we do not need to be referred to by our "precious ethnicity". Please reconsider your initial response, I do not think your comments were either necessary or proper conduct.

Regarding the other user who commented on here...talk about very personal inarticulate bursts! Who asked for your opinion, Sir?

(Interestedinfairness (talk) 23:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

Origins of the name Afghan

Hi Dbachmann. Once again, I need your help. A new user is pushing for POV in the respected article. He is selectively quoting unreliable medieval writers and now even uses their collection of legends as a source for his claim that "Afghans are descendants of Egyptian Pharaos". So far, he has been ignoring the talk page. Tajik (talk) 07:24, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tajik, you want to post such things to WP:FTN. I will see it there, but others will too. --dab (𒁳) 07:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Irano-Afghan

Stop deleting this page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrus111 (talk • contribs)

please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 11:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This fellow is currently starring on the 3RR noticeboard. Life is very difficult when you can't log out and use your extra IP sock puppet to help you in your edit-warring. --Folantin (talk) 11:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this fellow is just a troll. 3RR blocks are too kind on him, since they seem to be implying that he is a Wikipedian in good standing who just reverted once too often. He should just be smacked with a block for adding nonsense. --dab (𒁳) 11:24, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but we need an "uninvolved" admin to do that. The new Arbcom party line seems to be: ignorance will save us. --Folantin (talk) 11:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

we don't need the arbcom to block trolls. The arbcom is for reasonable disputes where each party is aware of Wikipedia's goals and editing in good faith. Cases where one party doesn't know what Wikipedia is, or doesn't care to respect the rules should never even be put before the arbcom. --dab (𒁳) 11:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure anything but the most face-slappingly obvious cases should be put before ArbCom any more, given that Future Perfect and ChrisO's admin rights are currently hanging in the balance in the latest Macedonia RFAR. Anyway, old Cyrus will be absent for the next 24 hours (Irano-Afghan needs converting back to a disambiguation page). --Folantin (talk) 11:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, complicated cases shouldn't be put to the arbcom because of their consistent inability to deal with them -- simple cases shouldn't be put before the arbcom because they can be resolved at admin level. It follows that no cases should be put to the arbcom. The arbcom should be routed around on the part of the community. Every time a case does end up with the arbcom, something has gone wrong. --dab (𒁳) 11:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, although it would help if the "community" didn't follow the ArbCom attitude that content problems can be solved by conduct policies. I mean, if we started taking policies on soapboxing, reliability of sources and bias as seriously as "civility" we might actually get somewhere as an encyclopaedia. Well, enough ranting for now (got to save some for after the Macedonia decision). --Folantin (talk) 12:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, we are getting somewhere, if not thanks to the arbcom then in spite of it. It is well known that humans have the irritating property of acting stupidly when grouped in large communities, sort of the inverse of ants that are stupid individually but intelligent as a community. Wikipedia being a human enterprise, we'll just have to deal with that. All human communities need individual sanity to counterbalance groupthink stupidity. This applies to Wikipedia, and sanity tends to get the upper hand in the long run, even if it takes some time. The arbcom could be a great asset to short-cut that process, but it seems that individual sanity doesn't survive in committees being put in office by the community. Individual sanity always has to come from selfless and honest nobodies. There is no way you can buy people to act sanely. regards, --dab (𒁳) 12:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Afghan (name)

Please do not re-add the ending "formed in 18th century". Because look at the bottom here ---- The term "Afghanistan", meaning the "Land of Afghans", was mentioned by the 16th century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs, referring to the territories south of Kabul that were inhabited by Pashtuns (called "Afghans" by Babur). If Afghanistan was formed in 18th century then how did Mughal Emperor Babur mention it in 16th century?------Mullaji (talk) 12:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes, this was a mistake. It should have said "16th century". Thanks for the correction. --dab (𒁳) 12:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was not a mistake. "Afghanistan" means "Land of Pashtuns", and as such, Babur was only refering to the Pashtun-inhabited territories. The country today known as "Afghanistan" did not bear this name till the 19th century. It was variously known as "Kingdom of Kabul", "Durrani Kingdom", etc. The name "Afghanistan" was established in the Anglo-Afghan treaties, securing the border with India. Because the kings of that kingdom were of Pashtun ethnicity, the nation became internationally known as "Afghanistan" - "Land of the Afghans". Babur's "Afghanistan" had nothing to do with modern "Afghanistan". Tajik (talk) 17:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Babur's "Afghanistan" is refering to a Nation (A nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, who typically inhabit a particular country or territory...) and the country today known as "Afghanistan" is a Sovereign state (A sovereign state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area and representing a population...).--Mullaji (talk) 23:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes. The term s from the 16th century (or earlier), its present meaning dates to the 18th. One does not have "nothing to do" with the other, but the later meaning is rather derived from the earlier. --dab (𒁳) 18:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hinduism

Please see my arguments on the Talk page of Hinduism. Cygnus_hansa (talk) 15:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phaistos Disc decipherment claims

You've edited this article, isn't it now just a poor version of Phaistos Disc with added OR on the game board thing? I think it should either go to AfD or become a redirect. Dougweller (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the Albanians

The patriots are at it again, this time removing whole sections [23] that they don't like. --Athenean (talk) 17:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Athenean, it is truly sad that you are unable to discuss an issue. I even opened a section in the talkpage of the article where I explained why I removed the section, and then you reverted it back and I stopped there to discuss the issue. Someone else removed the section, clearly agreeing with my arguments. And now I find you, trying to label other editors, in order to achieve your goals. This is truly sad. --Sarandioti (talk) 18:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The patriots are on an unstoppable revert spree. I think the only solution is to fully-protect the article, as with Illyrians. They are tag-team reverting and there is nothing I can do. --Athenean (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Christian cult/Christian new religious movements

It has come to my attention that you recently moved the article entitled "Christian cult" to Christian new religious movements without discussion, despite having previously initiated such a move request and the fact that the move request you initiated was unsuccessful. Although I myself have no particular preference here, it does appear that User:Milomedes has a legitimate complaint as regards the article's title. Given the lack of evidence of consensus to support such a change (and since there is some evidence to the contrary), I'd like to ask that you revert this move and open a new move discussion at Wikipedia:Requested moves if you'd still like the page to be titled "Christian new religious movements". Thanks for your time. Dekimasuよ! 18:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what do you mean "without discussion"? There was a full-blown AfD on this. --dab (𒁳) 07:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've replied to you on my talk page. I'd like to make it clear, if I haven't already, that I personally don't want to argue with anyone about the content of the article or which terms are pejorative. I do think it is reasonable to request that everyone follow the usual procedure (and I agree that Milomedes should have contacted you and not me). In this case, it seems to me that a fair procedure would be to move the page back and start a standard move request. Starting a move request from the new title is an acceptable but uncomfortable alternative. Dekimasuよ! 08:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think you appreciate the points I have made. However, my move was a purely editorial, not admin, action. If you decide that you need to revert me, as an editor, that's fine. If you feel that you need to move the article as an administrative action, that's fine too. If you're going to take action as an editor, you will be forced to argue content. If you're going to take admin action, you will be forced to argue user conduct. I am happy to do both. In your position as uninvolved admin not interested in content, I would take the approach of telling Milomedes to calm down and try to resolve this with the application of some wikiquette and good faith. If this user manages to discuss the issue as opposed to wikilawyering about due procedure, I will be happy to interact with them.

Regarding your edit here, I take it you do want to become involved as an editor in arguing WP:NAME. It appears to be your opinion that the Christian new religious movements is the primary referent of the Christian cult redirect. I disagree. But if you're going to revert me no that, you should at least place a {{redirect}} on the target article. In order to defend your redirect, I am afraid that you will be forced to "argue about the content of the article or which terms are pejorative", because you have just taken a position on that. --dab (𒁳) 12:46, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My intent in editing the redirect was twofold, and unrelated to content. First, I wanted to make sure that the disambiguation page would not remain malplaced during discussion of the article's location, which would result in the disambiguation page being moved again by an unsuspecting admin. Second, I wanted to make sure that the links in other articles were pointed at the intended article (see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, point 1; you are correct that I should have placed a hatnote). Links are only one indicator of the correct target of a redirect, but the links that are actually in existence intend the article that's at Christian new religious movements now. If you are willing to help pipe the redirect links, that's great. Otherwise the page will show up at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links and then we'll have to go through this there as well, or even worse, through RfD. I think we can both agree that this would best be dealt with in a single venue rather than several.

I do believe that I would be justified in reverting your move as an administrative action. I would not have brought this subject up with you if I felt the question was only one of due procedure. I would have told Milomedes at that time that the intent of the rules is more important than the procedure itself. However, I feel that the conclusion you reached is in conflict with available evidence of what the consensus view may be.

Rather than "forcing me to argue user conduct", a simple move request under the conditions mentioned above seems like a more constructive approach. I am inclined to open a move request at Talk:Christian new religious movements to have it moved back to the old title, while remaining neutral myself. As mentioned previously, a "no consensus" result there would result in a move to the old title. If there is indeed a consensus for the current title as you suggest, that shouldn't be a problem. I'd just like to know that you are willing to abide by the result. I would, of course, expect the same of Milomedes. Dekimasuよ! 14:07, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have initiated such a title discussion at Talk:Christian new religious movements. Dekimasuよ! 14:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thank you. --dab (𒁳) 07:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Izzedine

This user keeps adding "Iraqi" to the biographies of ancient and medieval personalities who lived before the establishment of Iraq the nation. I am not sure what to do about this, I reverted these edits once and tried to explain to him that there was no Iraqi nationality at the time, to no avail. --Kurdo777 (talk) 00:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This user has been told before he has no consensus for such edits. What do we do with nationalist editors who persist after they have been politely asked to stop? We warn and then block them. --dab (𒁳) 07:21, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Several need to be removed from this [[Category:Iraqi people]] (I must learn how to show categories properly), eg Sargon, I'll probably remove them soon. Dougweller (talk) 16:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And when I removed the Iraqi people categroy from Sargon of Arkad, it was replaced back with this edit summary: [24] - I don't know what we do about this if anything. Dougweller (talk) 08:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Enough is enough

I'm getting sick to the back teeth of dealing with Babakexorramdin (talk · contribs). He's just gone on a war against virtually every Iranian article I've edited. See my talk page and Talk:Abbas I of Persia to see what it's like having to deal with this relentless POV-pusher. --Folantin (talk) 19:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I second this, I am also sick and tired of cleaning up after this guy. His obsession with silly issues like whose grandmother or grandfather was a Georgian, his general incivility, his long rants, all lead me to be believe that he is unable to distinguish Wikipedia from an online discussion forum. Therefore, he is simply not suited to be a Wikipedia editor. Rightly put, enough is enough, he should be shown the door.--Kurdo777 (talk) 19:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Listen carefully. I do not change everything Folantin says. In fact i do see his edits as an asset. At some point his sources do not seem to be accurate and I always bring mine. It is remarkable how the so called Kurdo appears when I revrted Tajik or Alefbe. And his hostility towards me, without a history, sounds very similar to that of Alefbe. And how can one look in the mirror when he atacks me and agrees with the map in Durrani empire. For a Kurd is the user Kurdo too much concerned with Afghan articles. And I D DEMAND an appology from him calling me Silly. This is ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Babakexorramdin, you need to understand that on Wikipedia, patriotism is not an "asset". You are welcome to being a proud patriot in real life, but while editing Wikipedia, you need to accept that you need to forget about your bias. Being a patriot is embracing bias, and being proud of it. We have no use for that here. You are welcome to your biases if you can abstract from them while you are here, but strangely enough people who insist on decorating their user page with userboxes expressing pride in their biases rarely ever manage that trick, or even understand why they should even try. Please stick to editing topics to which you do not feel emotionally attached. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 07:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This guy's been on my case for over a year. He gets a bee in his bonnet about some marginal issue relating to Iranian history which he finds "offensive" then he's off on the warpath. Here he is ranting about Nader Shah's hat on my talk page last March [25]. He thinks WP:IDONTLIKEIT is our main policy. Any scholar who contradicts his world view is liable to be branded "Orientalist" or "Eurocentric" (for claiming, for example, that Shah Abbas' mother was Iranian not Georgian!) or treated to some random libel (Andrew Newman is "an arrogant Anglo-Saxon" - Babak really doesn't like Anglo-Saxons; maybe Alfred the Great burnt his ancestor's cakes or something). Though he's occasionally hilarious (he accused me of being "obsessed with ethnicity" and "intolerant of primary sources"), I find it wearying to deal with such an editor day in day out. I'm not sure what he contributes to Wikipedia beyond starting talk page fights. --Folantin (talk) 07:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not patriotic r anything like that. You see it in my standoff against nationalist editors like Kurdo7777. The thing is that Manytimes Folantin writes things which are contradictory to the primary sources (historical books written in that time usually 17th or 18th century). TIf I raise these issues he says in wikipedia primary sources are not allowed. When I bring additional sources, he attacks me personally. It is not fair!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 09:36, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mullaji (talk · contribs)

I just realized that he has been blocked as the sock-puppet of a banned user. WP:Ban#Enforcement_by_reverting_edits is in order here. --Kurdo777 (talk) 08:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Kurdo777

See this edit that appears as purely vandalism. And why am I referred to as Mullaji? Massa Getae (talk) 08:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ffs guys, this is not a noticeboard. At least stick to using a single section. How about we take it to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts since this is clearly about the popular Wikipedia hobby of ethnic bickering. --dab (𒁳) 09:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

should I bring evidence that kurdo777 and Alefbe are also sockpoppets of banned user(s)?--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC) And please can you tell Folantin that he does not insult me any more?--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the agressive mode of conduct of Folantin--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bad faith edit

I wish to knwo, why you reverted my edits in Origin of the Albanians, without discussing it first. There is a discussion ongoing on this issue, and is terribly against wikirules, to add a disputed part, which most of all is full of WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and misciting authors. Please, discuss it. Thanks, Balkanian`s word (talk) 20:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In this instance, the patriots are hiding behind one minor issue to blank a whole setion. As the last edit shows, nothing short of locking down the article will stop them. --Athenean (talk) 20:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is worth keeping in mind that the Greek patriots are not exactly champions of neutrality, too. For whatever reason in this particular case. The issue of OR and misrepresentation of sources is not minor, AFAIK. Colchicum (talk) 20:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, just remove the offending paragraph. Why remove the whole section? It shows an ulterior motive. --Athenean (talk) 20:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the facts in the section in question are referenced, but the analysis, the reasoning that the facts "pose another problem" is not. Without additional sources (which may or may not exist elsewhere) the entire section is mostly blatant synthesis. Colchicum (talk) 20:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The whole section was SYNTH, OR, POV. And the references were outdated and unreliable. Athenian is known for his "patriotic" behaviour. He constantly reverts sourced sections in Konitsa just because he does not like the presence of the albanian name. He also keeps adding medieval names in Paramythia, in contrast to WP:Use of Modern Names, and greek names in no-substancial-greek-population cities like Gjirokaster. He also doesnt like the movement of modified versions of fustanella in a lower sections of the article and explains his vandalism by saying things like :rv because this is one ugly ass picture. When he sees that his vandalisms cannot prevail he seeks for patrons and protectors, like now. He has been warned several times by many editors, but still he continues. I think that good faith really does not work with this particular editor. --Sarandioti (talk) 20:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Still, Athenean's edits are clearly not vandalism. Vandalism is a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Please be more civil. Colchicum (talk) 20:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also lame edit-warring over really minor issues such as the names mentioned in the lead is not helpful at all. I assure you that nobody cares except for the edit-warriors themselves. Colchicum (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am, but tell me friend how would you react to those comments by Athenian rv because this is one ugly ass picture". And he is always warned, but never listens to anyone. Look at Himare talkpage, I have presented sources that are clearly in contrast to his claims and he reverted the article again by saying "these are *your* sources. What were my sources? Byzantine authors, greek authors, and other historians. Just because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, he acted like that. And he is no new user.--Sarandioti (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to get mixed into this, sorry. My advise is to be more calm, however difficult it may be with a Balkan temperament. There is no pressing need to react immediately. Wikipedia is a work in progress, and most of our readers are not idiots. Colchicum (talk) 21:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, thank you for your time. Best Regards --Sarandioti (talk) 21:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:I Pakapshem asked me to add his message here, as he is not an established user yet. His message: Editor Athenian is clearly trolling and insisting stubbornly or reverting unreliable and unusalbe sources in articles such as Himara and Saranda. Editor is unable to discuss his reverts. Editor resorts to labeling other editors who don't agree with his opinion as nationalist vandals when reverting him.--Sarandioti (talk) 21:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Byzas

If you want to look into an etymological mystery (?) in your spare time, there is the etymology of Byzas. I've seen two etymologies (I don't have the sources for either at the moment, but I'll track them down): one is a derivation from PIE *beu-,"to swell", and the meaning of Byzas in this scenario is deduced to be the same as the Norwegian name Bugge ("large man"? Bugge is also derived from PIE *beu- apparently), and the form is linked inthis scenario to Thracian and Illyrian examples (Beuzas etc.), and to the Albanian/Romanian substrate word for lip, Buzë, Buză ("lip(s)" being interpreted as "a swelling, a bulge", PIE *beu-). The other etymology [26] for Byzas that I've seen also links it to Thracian, but derives it from PIE *bhugo-, "goat, ram" . Alex (talk) 05:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined towarss the *beu-, etymology, "to swell, bubble out". In the Byzas article there is this info: "This son, Byzas the Megarian, in time became the founder of Byzantium and named the Golden Horn (Greek Χρυσοκέρας (Khrysokeras or Chrysoceras) after his mother. Some sources say that Byzas was brought up by the naiad Byzia and married Phidaleia, daughter of King Barbyzos."--A naiad of a spring, Byzia? In Thracian it is known that Bussa meant "spring, water source", based on the variants Saldaecaput (Latin caput, "head, (water)source"), Σαλδοκελα (kela is another Thracian word for "spring, water source") and Σαλδοβυσσα (I posted the link on Talk:Byzas discussing that, but it's not in English). This Byzas guy gave his name to Byzantium, so clarifying the etymology is worthwhile :) Alex (talk) 06:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the situation with the etymology of Byzas is complicated because I can't locate the sources I need, and as you said given the state of the evidence, a definite answer may not be possible. I want to find out the attestations of the name and its accepted variants (Byzas, Byzes, etc.) and see whether the *bhugo- (goat, ram) etymology has any evidence for it. Other etymologies I'm looking into is whether any sources have made a connection between the Illyrian Parthini and the Persian Parthians, and Partha was also another name for Sanskrit Arjuna, whose name means "bright"; did Partha also mean "bright" I wonder, because I've seen literature discussing whether the Illyrian Parthini and Parthenon may not derive from a Thracic or Illyrian word for "white" or "bright": Parth-, similar to Albanian bardhe. Alex (talk) 07:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Afghan name

Hi Dbachmann
IWould appreciate your continued involvement on the Afghan name discussion where you have commented recently .
Cheers
Intothefire (talk) 06:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ghazne (talk · contribs)

Another one of those "Persian Imperialist" throwaway single-purpose accounts is at it again (moving Afsharid dynasty for one thing). I'd be surprised if this user has made a single contribution that hasn't been/won't be reverted. --Folantin (talk) 12:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Almost certainly a sock of Spider 2200 (talk · contribs) and Chae jung (talk · contribs). I'm sure there are others. --Folantin (talk) 13:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Long, tedious sub-section of limited relevance to the above

Since Folantin has accused me of the same things before I have to say something. I do not know what Folantin means by Persian Imperialist. But edits of Ghazne are not very supportive of Iranian interest if that is something that Folantin means. Ghazne is a city in Afghanistan by the way, where the Turkic Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi came from. Who allegedly killed Ferdowsi, the patriotic Iranian poet. What I see is that this user is more interested in changing the adjective Iranian to persian and also had vandalized the ethnic composition of iran, which I corected now. It seems that every Iranian is accused by Folantin of being nationalist, imperialist, chauvinist etc... even if these editors have diverse and opposing agendas. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Persian Imperialist" = joke term for editor who does little but add the phrase "Persian Empire" to every possible article. Get it? "It seems that every Iranian is accused by Folantin of being nationalist". No, if you exclude Ghazne and his possible socks, I can narrow it down to two or three chauvinists who contribute little beyond edit-warring and ignorance to this encyclopaedia. That's actually pretty good compared with some areas of Wikipedia (e.g. the Balkans). But they still need dealing with. "even if these editors have diverse and opposing agendas". Because this is irrelevant to me. I go by whether users can follow policy, know their stuff and edit objectively. And I'm sure I'm "anti-Iranian" for writing that Shah Abbas' mother was ... Iranian. --Folantin (talk) 14:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No shah Abbas's mother's issue is a different thing. My problem with you in that regard is your obsession with the words Slaves. You insist to call Royal family members and high ranking generals as Slaves. It might be according to Savory, but Savory is a known orientalist. I am not here to reveal personal identities, but also I see this obsession in your professional academic publications. But talking about these troublemakers: These "persian-instead-Iranians" Are a group around such users as Pejam (Akbarzadeh) and Man1 (parsa). Time by time they become troublesome in the Iranian pages too. There was a big stand off against them wehen they wanted to change the name Iran to persia and wanted to remove the recognized regional languages from the list. On the other hand there are the category that I call ethnic enthusiasts: you might call me an Iranian oriented ethnic enthusiast, then you have one issue ethnic enthusiasts these are people who only edit about their own city and ethnic group and tend to exaggerate their importance. I might say innocent. Then there are ethnic enthusiasts who fall within the category of Pan-this or Pan-that and have an ideology of racial and ethnic supremacy. the above mentioned group falls within this category. Also users such as Azturkk or merendoghlu are in this category. They havean agenda of Panturkic supremacy. But since you probably pointed to me: I did not say that there shouldn't be Azerbaijani names in Iranian-related pages but that these names should be written in its standard Alphabet, which is based on Perso-Arabica alphabet. Moreover Azeris in Iran are not a minority. The concept minority is clearly defined in Iran and Azeris are by no means a minority.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 15:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"My problem with you in that regard is your obsession with the words Slaves." Eh????!!!!. --Folantin (talk) 15:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

your wordings is always in such a manner that belittles the Iranian Georgian ethnic group. you might say I cite the western sources, but still these sources are orientalist. A Safavid Royal Gholam was not a slave, nor were the Circassian wives of the Shah. These were in fact royal proteges. Slaves were those who worked in the Gardens or Kitchens of rich merchants and stood in the lower steps of social hierarchy.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Blah de blah. You have no idea of the concept of the "slave army" in the Islamic world then? Never heard of the janissaries, for instance? Guess what? In some Muslim states the rulers were technically slaves. These weren't skivvies doing menial jobs, they were elite soldiers and governors. The same applies to the ghulams of Safavid Iran. The word means "slave", though their slavery was purely nominal and they enjoyed wealth and power beyond the imagination of any slave in the West. Likewise, I believe the Safavid Shahs were permitted four official wives by law, the rest were "concubines" and some were of slave origin. But obviously this is just part of a big conspiracy to insult Iranian Georgians. --Folantin (talk) 15:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

then if you know the concept of Slave army and acknowledge that this does not mean the same thing as "slave"in the western context, why do you use that word? To belitle the Caucasian element in Iran! Moreover you better read the Shiite marriage law. It is not true what you said. It might be true in the Ottoman and Mughal empire, but does not apply to the Safavid empire. Moreover women of low social status could never rise in the heirarchy that fast. These wre the sons of higher ranked women who could be elligible for becoming shah. Of course I used the source of Katryn Babayan too but please note that Babayan is an Armenian and she and her co-author are feminists and their only aiam is to show how male-dominated were Iranian empires, and you know the Armenian aversion against Georgians as well. It is interesting that in one of your publications (off wiki) I read that in the Indian Mughal empire there were many Shiite Persian slaves. obviously these slaves were not the same Slave army as you now mention!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, every book I've ever read about the subject of slave armies was composed solely with the purpose of belittling "the Caucasian element in Iran". And Armenian feminists are part of the conspiracy too. There's no fooling you, Babak. --Folantin (talk) 16:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not say aevery book you read. And my name is Kamran. I am a Georgian Mazandarani and Seyed. Something which cannot happen according to your sources!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yawn. I think you've already proved at great length what kind of editor you are. --Folantin (talk) 16:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

not really relevant. Your tactic is to attack people personally to intimidate them. I am not going to respond to these tactics.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ahem. This is my talkpage. "You" is supposed to refer to me on this page. If you want to address other people, they have their own talkpages. This section is about Folantin drawing my attention to Ghazne (talk · contribs). I do not see what your slave armies or Babakexorramdin's nationality has got to do with it. --dab (𒁳) 07:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The reason was that Folantinmakes accusations and personal attacks and removes my response on his page. In addition he is in mistake about the Persian imperialists, I diversified the situation. All and all this thing came to happen when the user Kurdo777, who does not speak Kurdish at all, and edits about Afghanistan, happened to support some Pashtun chauvinist POV and asked you to ban me. I asked to ban him. He accused another editor of being a sockpoppet of abanned user and I questioned if it is not the case with himslef and people close to him. He did a mistake in antagonizng me, so did the user Alefbe. Because I was not at odd with them. But being vicious they thought they can do everything and go on with their business if they divert the admins'attention to me. So babakexorramdin gets punished and becomes the bad guy and they ofcourse will be labelled as good guys. This was their mistake, a very bad mistake!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moses of Chorene

Hi. This article has now been unprotected, so if you are interested in editing, you can do so. Since the socks and their masters are gone now, the editing environment should be much healthier. In particular, I'm interested in other editors' opinion whether it is OK to call the 19th century western scholarship on Moses of Chorene a "Hypercritical phase", just because Topchyan says so. I believe the usage of the term should be based on its general acceptance in the scholarly literature, which does not seem to be the case here. Grandmaster 10:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sri

Any advice? Mitsube (talk) 06:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noticed this?

Nordic-Iranian looks like a recreate of Irano-Afghan under a new title. --Folantin (talk) 17:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Black (hieroglyphic 'km')

This article has had the attention of someone who knows their hieroglyphics but is the subject of some editwarring by one editor (not by the IP) since you last saw it. They are now at 4RR and reported, but I don't want to hit 3RR. Dougweller (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but why did you lose the crocodile skin bit? As in this version? [27] - that seems to have been a bone of contention. Dougweller (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And see [28] who comments on it. Not sure who this is. Dougweller (talk) 21:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Aramaic language

If you're interested, see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Aramaic language. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Truth only truth (talk · contribs)

IIRC, it was you who had noted that an editor with "truth" in his username is usually interested in anything but. This latest example reconfirms the observation; btw, no action is required or requested. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have been nominated for membership of the Established Editors Association

The Established editors association will be a kind of union of who have made substantial and enduring contributions to the encyclopedia for a period of time (say, two years or more). The proposed articles of association are here - suggestions welcome.

If you wish to be elected, please notify me here. If you know of someone else who may be eligible, please nominate them here

Please put all discussion here.Peter Damian (talk) 10:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Iranid race

Hi Dbachmann. The article has been moved once again, this time to the double-titled article Irano-Afghan/Nordic-Iranian. It is a recreation of the deleted POV-article Irano-Afghan race. Do you think that a semi-protection of the articles and redirects could help? Tajik (talk) 18:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

reverted/sprotected. It is beyond me how blatantly racialist editors such as this one are allowed to edit for any period of time. If it was plain old Stormfront-style racialism, Half a dozen admins would be falling over themselves to permaban the account after five minutes. --dab (𒁳) 18:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pakthas

Hi Dbachmann , please see my post on Talk:Pakthas
Cheers
Intothefire (talk) 03:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cyrus cylinder

Given your prior interest in Cyrus cylinder, you may wish to be aware of the discussion taking place at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Cyrus cylinder about the disputed claim that the cylinder is a charter of human rights. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This has been fully discussed. This "human rights" thing belongs in a separate section on "in modern politics". This is a non-issue, and any prancing around about this is just a case for admin rollback in my book. --dab (𒁳) 08:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing has actually been added yet. It's about content that Nepaheshgar wants to add and is refusing to let a content dispute tag be removed until it's added. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, what can I say. You and I both know what this is about. The real question is whether users like "Nepaheshgar", who will always be around, should be allowed to stall the editing proces like that. This is purely a question of user conduct and sanctions associated with user conduct rather than in any way content-related. The content side is crystal clear. --dab (𒁳) 08:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you an citizen of the U.S.A

I was wondering if you even were a citizen of the U.S.A--Antiedman (talk) 15:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

no. European. And frankly I have no idea what "race" or "subrace" you would put me into, or if I would qualify as "multiracial European" in your book. Chances are that I would, since Switzerland is at the boundary of the "Nordic" vs "Alpine" areals. If you are a disciple of Grant's, that is. Whatever your opinion on this, it has no place in article namespace unless you can back it up with some kind of quotable source. This is Wikipedia basics (WP:RS), and there is really no point in discussing it. --dab (𒁳) 15:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be very helpful in an etiquette stand point if you would place some kind of big noticeable userbox that tells everyone else that you are an admin. --Antiedman (talk) 15:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see you are genuinely unaware of how Wikipedia works. This doesn't speak against you, but that you should exhibit a belligerent attitude before you have even familiarized yourself with the project's basics does.

Admins on Wikipedia are also editors. I am not acting in the capacity of an admin in this, and I have not made use of any of my admin privileges. I am just another editor, albeit a veteran one. If I tell you that you stand no chance of having any effect on article content unless you provide some sort of reference, you can take my word for it. --dab (𒁳) 15:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

talk with antiedman regarding section Multiracial American

Go here for a lesson on Multiracial Identity http://www.multiracialsky.com/identity.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antiedman (talk • contribs) 15:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC) --Antiedman (talk) 15:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you do not understand. I am not asking for lessons, I am asking for references. If you really cannot get yourself to appreciate the difference, please take 20 minutes and carefully review the guidelines at WP:RS.

If you want to learn more about "race" as the term is used in the US census, read Race and ethnicity in the United States Census. You will learn that the 2000 census distinguishes exactly five races, viz. white, black, native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, plus an option "some other race", plus the option "two or more races". If for some reason you dislike this choice of options, your gripe is with the US authorities, not with Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 16:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Make me a case on how being whit of color is a race.--Antiedman (talk) 11:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. You know why not? Because I am not employed as your personal tutor. Pull your own weight and read Race in the United States and Race and ethnicity in the United States Census if you are interested in the subject. --dab (𒁳) 11:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:ISOtranslit

Template:ISOtranslit has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 01:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page move

Do you know how to move Islamic republic to Islamic Republic? The wiki software not letting me do it. --Kurdo777 (talk) 12:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note

I went looking for a little extra informal input on the Ancient Egyptians at ArbCom here. Topic bans look to be the way to go, but as you have noted, what's to stop a whole new batch of socks from changing the article six months down the road... I'm thinking, run an RfC right now on which version of the article is correct. While the RfC is running, the article stays locked. Not a perfect solution, but at least an RfC plus the article probation would prevent this from being framed as a content dispute. Hiberniantears (talk) 13:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

as you wish -- I am glad to have an admin take a fresh interest in this in any case. I do not see how the RfC is going to look any different than the four year's worth of talkpage archives we have already collected, but maybe I am being too pessimistic.

the trick is to get enough editors involved who would not naturally be interested in the topic. These will tend to tilt the odds in favour of neutrality. The hopes of the ideological trolls is to make interaction so difficult that only people who already have an axe to grind will bother to stick around, who will then come up with their own, ideological, "consensus". As long as you can keep the number of members of the wider community following the topic above the number of trolls active at any time, the article will be fine. As soon as the, well, uninterested users lose interest, the trolling will again start to carry weight.

so, if you can get an RfC rolling that gets us more or five people or so who genuinely dig into the subject matter (as opposed to those just posting a few general reminders of policy "whomever it may concern" without bothering to find what is going on), things will start to improve. --dab (𒁳) 14:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This conceptual issue -trying to contain "skilled POV-pushing", as I saw it phrased recently- is central to a lot of my recent activity here. Personally, I think if ArbCom took a more active role in content disputes, rather than just punishing behavior, we'd be in a better place. Without that transpiring, as you're well aware at the moment, we as admins become "involved" and then can't act as admins. I understand the need to avoid arbitrating "the truth" or allowing admins to storm into an article and use the mop to make an article into our preferred vision, but in cases like this, where you and Moreschi have acted to enforce neutrality as well as keep the article centered on it's topic, we need an ArbCom that allows us not to be viewed as involved editors in such a case. After all, you've really just been enforcing what the article is about, rather than proclaiming what the specific content should be.

However, in the absence of that, I'll try to help with getting a strong RfC out. My schedule is occupied by a wedding this weekend, so I'm a bit tied up until Monday. Likewise, maybe RfC isn't exactly the thing, but we need something that allows us to enforce the ArbCom sanctions, while also having the authority to say "we won't say what the correct version of this article is, but we are saying that the current version is plainly wrong". As you note, no matter how many people we block or ban, new socks or meat puppets will always be hovering around waiting for us to take our eye off the ball, or to engage us to the point that we could be viewed by ArbCom as "involved". Unfortunately, it looks like those of us admins who feel this way are becoming an increasingly rare breed around here lately (Moreschie, Fut. Perf., ChrisO, etc). No need to rush an RfC, if we want to take a few days and think about a better way to go about things. We need to establish a framework where an admin like you, who actually understands the subject matter of an article, should be allowed to use the mop in that article when obvious groups of skilled POV-pushers start moving the subject matter to an obviously different subject or unbalanced POV. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

responsibility as an admin

Hi it is your responsibility as an admin to warn people who use racial attacks [29]. --Nepaheshgar (talk) 15:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you want WP:ANI. --dab (𒁳) 15:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

White people

Hello! You might be inrerested in tha fact that some users are trying to re-add pictures to White people. Thsnks! The Ogre (talk) 16:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The matter of The Ogre's disruptive canvassing is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Disruptive_canvassing_on_the_White_people_article. Erik9 (talk) 17:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment of Erast Fandorin

I am conducting a reassessment as part of the GA sweeps process. I have found come concerns which need addressing if this article is to keep its GA status, which may be found at Talk:Erast Fandorin/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, my opinion of the "GA" bureaucracy and all attached "processes" is rather low, and I consequently do not really care which articles are granted "GA" status and for which reasons. --dab (𒁳) 21:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you block user:168.7.241.58 ?

Hi, thanks for helping out with this user on Early Cyrillic alphabet and Glagolitic alphabet. Could you block them? They don't appear at all interested in talking to anyone, just reverting all attempts to undo their fringe work.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. He was doing my head in. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but we have 168.7.242.100 (talk) now. Balkan Fever 06:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sure, this is just block evasion now. Why am I not surprised. I'll issue a rangeblock. --dab (𒁳) 06:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

for the record, these are IPs of Rice University, Texas. For some reason, we often get expatriate ethnic cranks located in Texas, I am not sure why. --dab (𒁳) 07:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Federal Police (Swiss)

It is my understanding of Wikipedi Naming Conventions that English names are by name and function. IE as the Federal Office of Police could be tranliterated as Federal Police Office, they would become the Swiss Federal Police, which is in essence, what they are. Hence the move.--Degen Earthfast (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

that doesn't make any sense. What is being "transliterated"? How do you explain the "(Swiss)"? You want to read Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles. The bracketed bit is for disambiguation. You would be justified in moving Federal Office of Police to Federal Office of Police (Swiss) if and only if you have other entities known as Federal Office of Police that require Federal Office of Police to be made into a disambiguation page. Your move to the disambiguated title without making the non-disambiguated title a disambiguation page is completely pointless.

I hope I am making myself clear. It appears that you are either confused about our naming guidelines, or about the nature of the topic addressed by the Federal Office of Police article, or both. --dab (𒁳) 15:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Two things

One, I noticed that you have 123456 edits, as of right now. That's going to change, but I found that funny. Two, I noticed your talk page has been protected for 7 months, and I unprotected it as an old protection (and of course talk pages shouldn't be protected, generally). Prodego ^talk 07:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the note, but now you make me edit away form my magic number to tell you I am annoyed, and I'll give you this to read since I cannot be bothered to reiterate this discussion.

But you may be right. The page can well be unprotected for some time and it can always be reprotected if the trolls return. No problem. --dab (𒁳) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed

Hiya dab,

I think I need your help. Yesterday I removed this nationalist gibberish from Illyrians [30], as you suggested a while back in the talk page [31]. User:Balkanian`s word then kept re-inserting the same fringe Albanian authors, one of whom is from 1969. The Albanian patriots have now ganged up on me and reported me at WP:AN3 in bad faith. I know you're busy with other things, but any help in dealing with this would be greatly appreciated. While we're at it, they've also turned the Origin of the Albanians article into their playground. You might want to check that out as well. Regards. --Athenean (talk) 18:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Articles for deletion nomination of Azzi

I have nominated Azzi, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Azzi. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Eli + 20:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kosova

I was inclined to revert your edit but have decided to confront you first. The source I used for the information in the article refers to the province as Kosov(a). I don't think a lengthy discussion which will undoubtedly turn into a nationalist tit-for-tat edits is necessary. In any sense, the name helps distinguish the Ottoman province from the current territory under the same name.

(Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

I am really tired of your pranks. Can you please begin to absorb WP:NAME and try to build an argument on that. I am not interested in anything but evidence of most common usage in English language sources. There was a move discussion for the move to the present title, Kosovo Province, Ottoman Empire. If you think that should be Kosova Province, Ottoman Empire, kindly present your sources and start a new move discussion based on them. --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Iranian peoples

Hi. Could you please take a look at Iranian peoples (FA) and its discussion? Due to recent edits which rather destroy the quality of the article (i.e. by misinterpreting scientific papers and pushing for POV), I have suggested to restore this version (see diff.). Thank you. Tajik (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Call for opinion on a neutrality accusation in a human genetics related article

As a fellow member of the WikiProject HGH may I ask for opinions on this accusation?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:08, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Celtic article sexual practices

I responded to your comment on my talk page.

You are incorrect on several points:

1) Contemporary authors are actually not in agreement on this subject, as I pointed out. Tacitus and Caesar, our most comprehensive contemporary Classical sources on the Celts do not mention these practices, though they do mention other things like aggressive women, head hunting and human sacrifice.

2) Celts in Classical antiquity included the Celtiberians in Spain, the Gallatians (who invaded Greece and later settled in what is today Turkey... these were the people depicted in the famous statue of the Dying Gaul), the Belgians, the Britons the Irish and the Gauls. They also used the term Keltoi, Gallatian, Gaul, Gallati more or less interchangably.

3) The same authors may not have described Jazz music, but they did describe things like cyclopses in Lybia and men with one foot in Central Asia, which we do not emphasize as being real in articles describing the history of the people in these parts of the world. I was simply that pointing out that the insular literature and legal records of the people in question contradict this particular Greek claim.

4) I do not believe there is really a distinction between pedophilia and pederasty, that was Pauls assertion.

5) You misunderstand Rankin, this is a good example of why lay people don't always interpret primary source data as well as experts. Bonding rituals do not necessarily include sexual practices or even homoeroticism at all. In the Irish Sagas for example Chieftains are described as laying their head in the lap of St. Patrick during greeting. There is nothing sexual about it in that context, it is a sign of submission because he was deemed a Holy Man. Similarly, sleeping in the same bed did not necessarily mean having sex, it may have more to do with a shortage of beds. In insular literature of cultures where men openly had sex with boys or other men, it was prominently described in the literature. This is true of the Classical Greeks, the Romans, the Samurai, the medieval Arabs, the Ottomans etc. In cultures where there was less openness about such practices (say in the Icelandic sagas) it was not discussed, except in the form of insults. That is the point I was making.

6) I am advocating reporting what the experts make of this, but the article currently implies the expert it cites is incorrect and places a personal emphasis this expert himself does not make. Drifter bob (talk) 15:53, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Drifter bob (talk) 15:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

tell you what, instead of my replying to this point by point, why don't we take it to Talk:Celts and seek for a specific improvement of the current revision directly. This boils down to your claiming that Rankin, p.78 is being misrepresented. How about you give us the verbatim quote and we try to establish whether you have a point. --dab (𒁳) 21:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RE: SVG map of EU

Hi there. I've taken the liberty of updating the EU locator map showing internal member borders, but there seems to be ... resistance to exhibiting them. Having noticed that you were previously involved in a related discussion, I invite you to weigh in again. Thanks! Bosonic dressing (talk) 21:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vaimanika Shastra

Can you take a look at the recent POV pushing edits at this page ? Example: [32]. Abecedare (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hm, why? It is obvious enough that they should just be reverted. --dab (𒁳) 07:55, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barack redirect

Fair enough, I've unprotected it. I seem to remember there was a thread on the administrators' noticeboard (during the US election, when lots of people would be searching for Obama) that it could be hijacked for BLP vandalism and that it was protected as a result. Hut 8.5 18:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

full protection would have made sense during the election. we can still leave it semiprotected, as anons will be unlikely to have any business fiddling with it. --dab (𒁳) 20:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Çatalhöyük and Potnia Theron

Just found this [33] - I was going to delete the Potnia Theron text as I could see no source, is there one? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I understand what you would like to see referenced. That the thing was found in Catalhoyuk? --dab (𒁳) 19:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. No, I don't know why you called it a Potnia Theron style figure. Dougweller (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

socionics AN/I discussion

you may wish to comment on the newly created administrator's noticeboard incident discussion regarding the conduct of User:Tcaudilllg and User:Rmcnew in relation to the page socionics, located here. Thanks. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 03:12, 4 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mitrovica

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#section name and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Interestedinfairness (talk • contribs) 10:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

so I am involved in an arbitration case known as "section name". That is good to know. --dab (𒁳) 19:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry dab, not as knowledgable as you in wiki just yet. Mitrovica naming dispute, request to move page is where You wanna be. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

Category:Outlines

Sorry, I didn't see what on commons it actually linked to but, if you'd read my reply at Wikipedia talk:Outlines, you would know I helped build the outlines and I am certainly of the opinion they are a worthwile form of list and core topic, worthy of being in both categories Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 11:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

they may ormay not be worthwhile, but they are most certainly not a "core topic". They are an index. You are welcome to building a good index to Wikipedia's content, but please refrain from touting it in all possible and impossible places.--dab (𒁳) 11:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, maybe they are not a core topic but they are a list, perhaps, since I think this debate is about more than the category iself, I could redirect you to WP:WPOOK where you may debate to your heart's content, but please don't remove the list category until after you have visited, at which point I will be happy, if you are still unhappy, to let you remove it Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 11:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And can you stop moving content as it is, in my opinion, vandalism, and I think your more intellegant than that, so why not discuss it first Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 11:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I discuss it, months ago. To very little effect. You want to be careful with the vandalism calls. Why, do you suppose, is the Portal:Contents/Outline_of_knowledge page a subpage of Portal:Contents? Because your "outlines" are part of the WP Content index. Your outlines aren't list articles, or they would be called "list of". They are, basically, lists of Wikipedia articles. That's fine, but it is fine as an article index, not an encyclopedic topic.

Could you please accept this obvious state of affairs and assist me in moving misplaced pages out of article namespace? I do assume you are more interestedn in working on your project than entering a protracted dispute over namespace issues. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm interested in is avoiding an edit war Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 12:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

great. Then why don't we settle on the resolution that your efforts of compiling "topic outlines" are highly appreciated, as a project within Portal:Contents. --dab (𒁳) 12:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indead it would be great to do that but it is not the case. I tell you what, instead of just moving outlines, why don't you post something on the talkpage, if you get a consensus to move them then do, if not, dont. I think that is a perfectly reasonable request, as all of my requests for you to stop and discuss have been. Do you not agree? Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 12:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And I won't be reverting any more of your edits because, as I say, I don't want to start an edit war and we will soon be approaching the 3RR on kosovo in particular. Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 12:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

why would you want to revert my edits? Do you, or do you not agree with me that these "outlines" are article indices, not encyclopedic articles in their own right? This is really perfectly obvious in my book, and I am not really sure what we are discussing here. It is regrettable that so many of them have been placed in artilenamespace already, but it will be easy to move them all to Portal: namespace using a bot. --dab (𒁳) 12:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to read Wikipedia:Editing policy#Be cautious with major changes: discuss because, forgive me if I'm wrong, but you either haven't already read it, have read it but forgotten it or have read it but just decided to be ignorant. Yes they may be 'article indices' or 'lists' or even Outlines but they still belong in the mainspace. We have a little saying at WP:WPOOK; Wikipedia's goal is to provide knowledge. But knowledge is only useful if you can find it. The main limitation of a search box is that it can only look for what you already know exists. Our mission is to show what exists and provide easy access to that knowledge, that can't be done in the portal space. And despite what you seem to think, I see and understand your argument, but fail to see it's validity. Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 12:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might also like WP:OLWHY, It states: Outlines are a form of list, and lists are easier and faster to browse than the text (prose) in articles. Links take longer to identify and click on in articles (they're spread out more). Articles are intended for explaining, while outlines are a type of tree structure optimized for navigating and depicting taxonomic information rapidly. Outlines are more effective at covering the entire scope of a subject, and outlines are not limited by the size restrictions that the see also sections of articles are. It is awkward to present as many links in an article, and embedded links tend to be arranged much more chaotically or even randomly throughout an article's prose. The links in an outline are much more organized for ease of understanding.

In addition to being a type of article, outlines are also an important part of Wikipedia's contents system, and serve as tables of contents or site maps for their respective subjects Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 12:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ok, you are wasting my time now. You are quoting WP:WPOOK at me as if it was some sort of guideline. The reality is that your WikiProject is in acute need of guidance. You somehow contrive to claim that presentation of content indices cannot be done in Portal: space? This is a complete non sequitur, to use a polite euphemism for "incoherent nonsense". My argument is WP:CFORK. We cannot keep two articles with the same scope, ok? You completely fail to point out how the scope of outline of Switzerland is supposed to be different from that of Switzerland if both are to be considered encyclopedic articles. Our articles already are "outlines of knowledge", alright? As opposed to handbooks or primers. Our articles are kept below 100k precisely because they are brief summaries, not in-depth textbooks. WP:SS says details go to sub-articles. If 100k is too long for an "outline" for you, we have WP:LEAD which says that the first paragraph of each article in turn summarizes the summary. Your "outlines" are completely different. They are collections of wikilinks to Wikipedia articles. I'll say again that I don't have a problem with that, just keep them out of article namespace. If you really insist to play games over this very simple point, I will have no choice but to submit the whole shebang to WP:AfD for the simple reason that these pages reside in article namespace without actually being articles. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 12:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*applause* - These 'outlines' are a waste of time, energy, and server space. → ROUX ₪ 20:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in that case, to avoid you or someone else blocking me for what I'm about to say, I bid you farewell and give you notice that you can do whatever the hell you like, I won't stop you. Good day Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 13:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

that is fair enough.

I point out, however, that I have politely invited you to continue your project in peace and with my blessings, in Portal: namespace. If you are going to insist that no, this belongs in main article namespace, you should not be surprised that the pages in question are also scrutinized on exactly the same terms as any other encyclopedia article. --dab (𒁳) 20:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They don't belong in the portal namespace. This has been discussed before, with the consensus that these pages be kept in the main namespace. The top-level nav pages were moved to portal space because they had very flashy graphics and didn't look like normal lists, they in fact matched the formatting of nav pages already in the portal namespace (like the Portal:List of portals and Portal:Contents/Categorical index; complete with the icon menus at the top). It was felt that the other menu-like pages that matched these should be in portal space. But that's as far as it went. The list articles listed on those lists remained in article space. The Transhumanist 22:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where exactly was this consensus generated? And while the answer is obvious I'll ask anyway: did anyone who doesn't support these ridiculous 'outlines' get to have a say in the discussion? → ROUX ₪ 00:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus to move outlines, or lists of any kind, to portal space was never generated. If it had been, they'd be in portal space already. The current consensus, the de facto situation, is that lists, including outlines, are in article space because that's where they were built, since that's where articles go, including list articles (which are covered in WP:LISTS and WP:STAND). That's more significant than the discussions mentioned above, which you can find for yourself, 'cuz I don't remember exactly where they are - probably in the archives of Portal talk:Contents or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Contents, prior to the existence of the OOK project. What I do remember is that we changed the names of certain lists to "Outline of", and then you guys showed up. :) The Transhumanist 20:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People who understand the difference between outlines and portals well enough would have a clear understanding of why portals are not outlines. If you're not familiar with the difference, don't be in an all-out campaign to delete them. -- penubag (talk) 07:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please look up the word 'tautology.' And I note that your statement didn't actually answer the question. → ROUX ₪ 07:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where exactly was consensus gained to move outlines to Portal namespace? Where was consensus gained for more half the stuff on Wikipedia? -- penubag (talk) 07:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not the member of a project that claims there is a consensus. Could you please show me where it is? → ROUX ₪ 07:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outlines have been around since 2005. If you can show me some consensus as to why we have Portals, indexes, and lists, (which you won't) then I'll be confident that it exists for outlines as well.-- penubag (talk) 08:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you don't know the answer to my question. You could have just said so. → ROUX ₪ 08:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

who the hell claimed that "portals are outlines"? The point is that "outlines" aren't encyclopedia articles, they are indices to content, not content. Such indices happen to be kept under Portal:Contents specifically, where I beg to observe the "Contents" following the namespace marker "Portal:". If people feel that a separate "Contents:" namespace is needed for these things, that's fine with me, my entire point is that they certainly have no place in main namespace. --dab (𒁳) 07:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are moving outlines into portal namespace which suggests they are the same. "Index of" articles don't have their own namespace nor is the any reason to. As you said, outlines are indices, so they shouldn't be in portal namespace either. -- penubag (talk) 07:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

of course they should be. Unless we delete them altogether that is. In main namespace, they pose as articles, and are subject to content policies and liable to be AfD'd. We have to be strict about this. Disambiguation pages (and "Main Page") are the only exceptions to the rule that each page in namespace must be a valid encyclopedic article. This includes "list articles" as is unambiguosly pointed out at WP:STAND. There is no need for this antagonism. Nobody is trying to prevent you from compiling your indicies, you are just asked politely to please do it out of article namespace. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 14:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You suggest outlines to be in portal namespace because you think they are closer to portals than articles. I disagree because of the fact that indexes are one of the many exceptions (as you noted above) that are allowed in article space. If indexes etc are included in article space, then outlines are more suited to be their as well. -- penubag (talk) 09:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a reply to the thread at Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists#sneak addition of various other "types of lists" which answers many of the above questions. There are further answers in the other thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#Please consider this: you might be wrong. Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed some misconceptions in the discussion above, and this calls for some clarification...

Outlines aren't indexes (which are alphabetical listings), and while outlines can be used as tables of contents, they are more than that. They meet all the qualifications of lists set by the list guideline, and like other lists, they can and do include entries and other information that isn't linkified. So they aren't "article indexes" as Dbachmann portrays them, as they can and do include topics and other material that aren't article links.

Speaking of articles, lists don't pose as articles, they are articles. Lists are a type of article. And outlines are a type of list. These have been in article space since the beginning, though they haven't been called "outlines" that long (they've been referred to in the list guideline as "structured lists").

And yes, outlines are subject to content policies. The application of content policies upon outlines, and upon lists in general, will only make them better. Something I welcome with open arms. If you find inaccuracies or other problems in the outlines, please point them out and we'll be glad to fix them (or explain your misconceptions). :)

Outlines are subject to AfD, just like other lists, and several "Outline of" articles have been nominated for deletion. Only one got deleted (back in 2005), and that was resurrected at DRV (in 2009).

Note that WP:VER applies to verifiability, not actual verification. I tried to clarify (modify) the policy to specify mandatory verification - that is, mandatory inclusion of citations - and the community wouldn't have it. I asked what was to prevent a person from citation-tagging everything non-referenced in sight (90% of the encyclopedia is unreferenced), and I was told that the editor would wind up at RfC for being disruptive - it turns out you have to be reasonably certain that a fact is unverifiable before you tag it, otherwise you're not being honest (civil) or you are trying to make a point. Makes sense.

I welcome you to keep up your constructive criticisms. The harder you push, the more motivated editors will become to improve the outlines. The more people who will become involved with discussing their nature and their purposes, and the better those will be articulated. And the greater the awareness of outlines will become. These are all good things. And I'll be the first to thank you for your efforts.

By the way, I'll do my best to keep things cordial from this end. And we might as well start (or end) this debate right now....

I've posted the reasons why a wholesale move of outlines to portal space isn't a good idea over at Wikipedia talk:Outlines.

The Transhumanist 20:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We do not need to keep this "cordial", we just need to keep it civil and focussed on the issue. The point is that your outlines have no place in mainspace. This is all I am saying, and no challenge to this point has been presented. I am supremely indifferent as to what you do with them, you may delete them, move them to Portal: space, to User: space, or even propose and seek consensus for a new Outline: space, this is up to you. Just stop making a fuss about their being misplaced in main namespace. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 09:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've replied to the thread at Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists#sneak addition of various other "types of lists", which will hopefully clarify a few points. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 07:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I see that there's a thread about you at ~~WP:ANI~~ (now archived), and nobody has informed you yet, which I believe is the correct procedure. Please read my reply at Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists first though, much more rationality there! -- Quiddity (talk) 07:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

request for input

I was hoping you'd give some more input/feedback at one of the ongoing threads about this (1, 2, and/or 3 (now archived)), so that it doesn't get repeated again in another 2 months. Much thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:02, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder bump. We really would value your responses. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:40, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for getting back to us. I've replied to your comments at Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists#Outline namespace issues. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Irano-Afghan race

Hi dab. Could you please check Irano-Afghan race again. Cyrus111 has not only restored the disputed (and factually wrong) article, but is also deleting the "factual accuracy disputed" tag. Thanks. Tajik (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Urgent: Interestedinfairness

As this edit shows, Interestedinfairness (talk · contribs) has changed the description of Kosovo to a country, despite the fact that there was NO consensus about it in previous discussions and that people were already getting tired of his continuous POV pushing. Since there is zero tolerance on this article, I propose a permanent Kosovo-related topic ban to the above mentioned user. There is just no use discussing with someone who refuses to take all different POVs into account and, in the end, just edits how he wants on this article that is under probation. --Cinéma C 02:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He also did the same thing in Kosovo [34], which is even worse. Basically, he couldn't have his way on the talk page (which was mostly him pretending not to hear), so he decided to have his way anyway. He has also been extremely disruptive in Illyrians, edit-warring and inanely filibustering on the talkpage, and got blocked as a result. I second the motion for a topic-ban, and propose it be extended to topics such as Illyrians as well. --Athenean (talk) 04:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sure, I also support a topic ban. Which for a one-topic-editor like this one amounts to a de facto ban. This user has had his chance, we do not need to prance around them forever. So where are community bans discussed these days? I think last time I checked it was WP:ANI, so perhaps you should drop a note there. --dab (𒁳) 09:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know that I have reported Interestedinfairness here. --Cinéma C 18:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Change of user name

How do I change my user name in Wikipedia? --Anish (talk) 11:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK I found it. But thanks anyway.

Pistis

I fixed the redirect on the pistis term. I redirected to it's English equivilent which is faith. LoveMonkey (talk) 18:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assyrian people

Dab, I saw that your reverted my move of History of the Assyrian people with the note "no such consensus. Stop moving stuff around without discussion." I have reverted this, as your summary is quite inaccurate. The issue was quite thoroughly discussed at Talk:Assyrian_people#Requested_move, which resulted in the move of that article, over your objections. Then, it was discussed at Talk:History_of_the_Assyrian_people#Requested_move_.28third.29, which resulted in the moving of the History article to match the title of the main article. If you want this group of articles to be called something different than "Assyrian people", go to Talk:Assyrian people and get a consensus to do so. Otherwise, please stop reverting my moves.--Aervanath (talk) 19:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was indeed a thorough discussion, lasting for more than a year, and at no point was there anything like a consensus, in spite of the claim of certain partisans. Also, WP:WHEEL has nothing do do with it as moving articles isn't the privilege of administrators. I can only assume that you are not familiar with the history and the particulars of this issue. --dab (𒁳) 19:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, it is not wheel-warring, strictly speaking, as you have not used admin tools. However, I consider it only one step removed from wheel-warring. When an uninvolved administrator evaluates the consensus of a discussion, and you disagree with the evaluation, you don't just unilaterally revert. If I had closed an AfD as delete, would you unilaterally restore the article without discussion? No, you would take it to deletion review, after discussing it with me. In this case, you didn't even make an attempt to discuss it with me, nor solicit any outside opinion; you just did it. You have not gained a consensus on Talk:Assyrian people to move it to another title. If you can gather a consensus to do so, great. I will help you move the pages of the subarticles so they match. But please gain the consensus first. Best, --Aervanath (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, I used to be that uninvolved administrator. If you are here to replace me, I do hope you are prepared to invest some time in babysitting the nationalists over then next year. Just stepping in and "evaluating" a 3:2 vote as "consensus", move things about and leave again isn't solid admining. I have explained in great detail why I hold that there is nothing close to a consensus here. I hope that you are at least aware of the points I have made, or I fail to see how you can talk of "evaluation". In that case, I would appreciate if you could present some sort of rationale why you disagree. --dab (𒁳) 07:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi dab, looking through the talk pages, I can see that you've done a lot of good work on the page, and have tried, to the best of your ability, to maintain NPOV there. However, I think that over time you have lost your impartiality on this issue. The page was essentially stable at Assyrian people from its creation up until December 3, 2009, when somebody, with no consensus whatsoever, moved it to Assyrian and Neo-Aramaic people. Then, you moved it to Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people the next day. However, looking at the talk page, I can't find a consensus for that move, either; the page should have just been reverted to Assyrian people. Talk:Assyrian_people/Archive_8#Article_name.2C_strawpoll was started by you on November 21, 2008, but that certainly didn't lead to a consensus to move the page, although this seems to be what you based your move decision on. Then, on November 27, 2008, User:HD86 started a competing proposal, which led to (if possible) even less consensus. Then, I see Archive_8#Move_change_to_Assyrian_People, started on Dec. 13, 2008, which seemed to establish a clear majority in favor of reverting back to Assyrian people, but this was never implemented, I don't know why. The next naming discussion that led anywhere was the requested move started at Talk:Assyrian_people#Requested_move by User:Chaldean. This also resulted in a consensus to move the article back to Assyrian people. So, to sum up, this is what I see from the history of the article:

It starts at Assyrian people. There were many attempts to move it away, but all of them were reverted within a day, meaning that the title was essential stable at that title for five years, with no consensus to move it away.
Many move discussions happened, but nothing actually stuck, until you moved it to Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people, with no consensus. It stayed there for five months, anyway.
A move request is filed in April, 2009 to revert the move, which reaches a clear consensus to move the page back to Assyrian people.

So, the moral of the story is: there has never been consensus to have the article at any other title besides Assyrian people. Given that, I see no justification for insisting that History of the Assyrian people be anywhere other than it currently is.--Aervanath (talk) 16:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are way off here. You don't take all the other variables in account. E.g. there have been other articles about the Syriac group over time, though they have been all considered forks and they've been moved to the "main article" (Aramean-Syriac people, Syriacs and Syriac people). So while it seems as the Assyrian people article was stable, in fact other articles indirect involving it have not been stable (also Chaldean Christians). This conflict has been on-going for many years now, and we who have been involved in it knows that is has been hijacked by Assyrian nationalists. Please, just read some of the old discussions, check for example user:Garzo's talkpage archives (e.g. User_talk:Garzo/archive/2005-11-23-2006-05-23#Assyrians_move and read his comments). The last so called vote you mention was wrongly formatted and the so called consensus maninly consisted of Assyrian nationalists. The latter vote also clearly showed that the previous consensus for a move back to Assyrian people, was in fact not a real consensus (Talk:Assyrian_people#properly_formatted_opinion_poll_on_article_title). So please, don't come to conclusions based on only one side of the coin, you must see the whole picture here.

To Dab, your insight in this matter and opinions are needed. Please comment here Talk:Assyrian/Syriac_diaspora#Request_Move. The TriZ (talk) 02:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template of South Asian history

Hi,

This template is set as protected by you, but a wiki user called User:Dewan357 continues to change it to 'Indian History', this is clearly not correct, neutral or appropriate, could you please monitor this template as my reverts have been changed by the mentioned user. Thanks. Khokhar (talk) 22:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That old topic

Hey Dab, thought you might enjoy this: Medieval Matters: Modern European Nationalism and the Fight to Control the Past (Patrick Geary). Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I WILL have my Irano-Afghan article

This is just desperate now. What does this even mean in English? --Folantin (talk) 19:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

to save this gem from oblivion,

The elementia from East Africa residing mainly in Ethiopia, but also Somalia and Eritrea are metrically very similar to the Corded and Irano-Afghans. The two groups could be combined without loss of homogeneity. In Mesopotamia, they may be favorably compared with the three dynastic skulls from Ur. The term for East African populations falls under the category Aethiopid. Aethiopids are dolichocephalic, of tall stature, with generally narrow features. The nose is high and narrow, and not seldom convex, and the chin is often strong. In the past they were considered a type of dark caucasoid due to their bone structure. Whether these arguably Europoid features of the Aethiopid physique are the result of significant Europid influence, or of divergence within the Negrid stock, is a much debated and so far unresolved issue.

text released under GFDL by Cyrus111 (talk · contribs). --dab (𒁳) 06:18, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Hohle Fels update

You might want to check this page as there is quite some work waiting for you. Best, --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 22:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sub-Saharan DNA

Hi. I saw this edit. Your doubts about the relevance of this material makes it interesting to ask your opinion about whether anything in that Wikipedia article is really clearly relevant and sourced. I've raised some issues on the talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, there is nothing wrong with the topic in principle, except maybe the awkward phrasing of "Sub-Saharan DNA". DNA isn't "Sub-Saharan" as DNA isn't part of geology. But this is a quibble. The question is that of prehistoric diffusion of populations across the Sahara, south to north.

but I agree the article as it stands isn't adequately sourced. It suffers from WP:DUE and WP:SYNTH. It isn't made clear that the question is of any relevance in academy, or whether it was just picked at random. Until this is addressed, the topic should be merged into Genetic history of Europe. --dab (𒁳) 06:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I have explained on the talk page, I could imagine that the subject could be handled by discussing any genes that might come under the heading, with a neutral explanation of each. But as the talkpage shows, in practice this has never functioned because nearly all editors interested in this subject believe their way is the right way. Everybody accuses everybody else of OR. For example my attempt to add an introductory paragraph about the fact that we need to keep definition problems in mind was called OR. And indeed any source I could find for this would have required some interpretation, so if editors insist that these comments are not common sense, what can you say? So the lack of clear definitions in sources becomes a big problem. There are really very few sources that treat this subject seriously. Anyway, perhaps you would care to post something here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sub-Saharan_DNA_admixture_in_Europe_(2nd_nomination)#Sub-Saharan_DNA_admixture_in_Europe--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sockpuppetry case against interestedinfairness

I've opened a case here [35], as this is starting to become extremely disruptive. Feel free to add any evidence of your own. Regards, --Athenean (talk) 07:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

for the record, I do not think it is necessary to establish abusive sockpuppetry in order to show that Interestedinfairness is a disruptive editor.

Also, I do not feel he has an "obsession" against me in particular. He just has an obsession about Kosovo, and will jump at anyone upholding npov at that article. The user who did have an obsession about my person in particular was Tubesship (talk · contribs).[36] I think it is more likely that the recent trolling is due to this user, but of course I don't know, and do not really care either. --dab (𒁳) 08:01, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nostalgia not popular?

Pls see discussion page at Nostalgia. Thx SoCoColl (talk) 08:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reddi moving half of Ancient history to what was the dab page Ancient civilization

I've raised the issue here [37]. Dougweller (talk) 18:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aryan invasion theory

Hi, asking you because you seem to be the person who'll know best. :-) What's the history of articles on this topic etc.? Before I go editing anything I'd like to know what to avoid. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 22:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind; after reading a bit further, the whole thing seems to be a big mess, and I guess I'll stay away from it for now. I did slightly reword the disambiguation page, since I recall it was very confusing, and not at all disambiguating, to me when I had first read it. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 14:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request for higher administration

I have submitted a request for arbitration to have your RFC and User:Ice_Cold_Beer removed from administrating the article Ancient_egyptian_race_controversy and to rescind the bans placed. I have also requested that User:Dbachmann's request be reviewed to be removed. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification. I understand this will take a while, but I am patient. I also expect some unilateral action to have me banned from contributing in general or something extreme in order to prevent the process from making a resolute conclusion that is fair, but I've already accounted for that possibility, without sockpuppeting, so no need to use that excuse. --Panehesy (talk) 01:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

in other words, you have decided to go on wikilawyering until you get your way. Have fun. --dab (𒁳) 09:17, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tag

Your unilateral action is beyond belief considering you always "tell me off" for the same thing. Stop removing the tags on the Kosovo page as a consensus has clearly not been reached on anythign substantive since Feb, and thus the page remains full of non neutral statements and dubious citations. If I were to tag everything on the page, it would look ridiculous. Thus, the tags at the top o the page are necessary. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 10:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

I have long ceased to take you as an editor in good standing, you know this, so I really don't see what you want from me. I would ask you to please stay off my talkpage. Your behaviour would have bought you a topic ban several times over already if somebody could be bothered to push for it. As it happens, I do not intend to campaign for your being banned, as patriotic trolls are a dime a dozen, and in my view it is giving them too much attention to even bother to ban them individually. --dab (𒁳) 11:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attacks again, and refusing to answer my questions. Why don't you do your job then and block User:A Balanced View, or is he part of your groups trolls?(Interestedinfairness (talk) 12:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

I did not attack you personally, nor will I ever attack you personally, because I remain completely uninterested in your person. I am criticizing your on-wiki behaviour, and with justification, because it is appalling. I will also not answer any further "questions" you may have, and I repeat my request that you stay off my talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 12:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, refusing to answer my initial question. Why have you - as an administrator who oft quotes Wiki rules - removed the tags on the Kosovo article - possibly one of the most contested pages on Wikipedia?

Your refusal to answer questions directly suggests you don't care about Wikipedia, only your opinion of what Wikipedia should be. You have personally attacked my "wiki person" numerous times and thus invigorated the users on here who disagree with my point of view.

Why have you removed the tags without discussion? Even Admins have to discuss, don't they?

P.S. user:A balanced view is distrupting pages, please do something about it. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 12:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)).[reply]

I will ask you one final time to keep off my talkpage. If you have a comment on my edits to an article, use the article talkpage and I will reply there if appropriate. I will roll back your future edits to this page. --dab (𒁳) 13:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gayatri Mantra

Hi dab, I've been making some changes at Gayatri Mantra, I hope for the better, and noticed you've been there for awhile trying to keep things in line. I also asked Abecedare to look at the article and posed a few questions on the talk page. If you have time, please add your two cents. Based on what I've seen in some other Hinduism related articles, I think that with good reliable sources and some re-organizing it will become more stable. Thanks, Priyanath ^talk 00:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just common courtesy

~~Don't shoot the messenger, but there is an AN/I thread here that you may be interested in.~~ — Ched : ? 00:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind ... didn't realize it was posted in thread above. — Ched : ? 00:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Muhammad images

I appreciate your thoughtful points made at Talk:Muhammad/images. In reaction, I would just like to point you to

the American Muslim quote shown at Depictions_of_Muhammad#Wikipedia_article, which would seem to amount more or less to what you described.
the fact that the images objected to in the online petition are Islamic art, not Western cartoons. If, as you claim, there are people in good faith concluding that the purpose of the image _is_ to intentionally upset them, you would expect them to object to the section at Depictions_of_Muhammad#Depiction_by_non-Muslims, not to the Muhammad article.

I conclude that the "complaints" we get aren't by any stretch made by bona fide religious Muslims. They are the product of teenage Muslims hanging out at political blogs who are trying to draw attention to themselves. The noise surrounding this is purely political and has nothing to do with acutual religious piety. --dab (𒁳) 12:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The American Muslim piece is nice, but it's more scholarly and defensive than I would like. Not that there's anything wrong with it-- like I said, I'm not doing a very good job of it either. I would like some piece of text that somehow, someway, takes people who are hostile to the images and, through honest explanation, transforms them into people who are glad the images are there. That's a very tall order, impossible in lots of cases, and would require a truly great one-in-a-million communicator-- so it's alright that we don't have one, I was mostly thinking aloud.

Of course, this is all just a sub-project of my overall attempts to communicate this same concept to people in general. "Wikipedia is not censored" is just one particular instance of "The world is not censored". And trying to explain to people why it's not is a life-long endeavor, and I'm always seeking out ways to help explain that concept to people (and sometimes, to myself).

It's funny the demographics guesses you make about the people who have objected to the images, just because they're so different from the guesses I had made, but of course, I'm completely just guessing. I always imagine that the citizens of muslims nations who complain to Wikipedia are the rough analogs of the citizens of western nations to fret and protest over the things you can find online. So, for example, I imagine that the youth populations of muslim nations tend to "get it"-- they love the internet, they like English and video games and twitter. In contrast, I imagine the "parenthood" or "elder" demographic that is getting the most upset by Wikipedia.

I guess I base that on the english-language proficiency and the technological unsophistication of some of the posters. Anyone familiar with the internet sites like this should know that an online petition, for example, is pointless because Wikipedia isn't going to change anything no matter how many signatures it supposedly gets. That's just not how things work online or in the west, and to imagine otherwise suggests to me that the people we're seeing crop up on our talk pages are having some of their first brushes with the internet world/the western world.

In contrast, my (admittedly limited) impression of youth in the muslim nations are that they are less likely to be offended, less likely to post here if they were offended, and least of all likely to exhibit the kind of misunderstandings that we've seen. (For example, the poster who speculated that the images were unconstitutional due to the US Constitution's freedom of religion-- my guess is people who hang out on blogs and watch western movies would be less likely to make that sort of error).

Most of all though, I guess I just see the people who post there as acting 100% in good faith. They don't get why we would have the images if the images are upsetting to Muslims. And so they reiterate for us that the images are extremely offensive. Some take the "hardliner" route that the images are inherently immoral for anyone to view, others have the more nuanced view that the images are offensive to Muslims and therefore shouldn't be on a site like Wikipedia that is likely to be viewed by Muslims. But I feel like both are sort of confused about why anyone would ever have information up that is so inflammatory-- sufficiently confused that they somehow think if they could just explain to us in the right way how upsetting it is, a light bulb would go off in our heads and we'd understand, so they make their pitch and then disappear.

But, as long as we have them here, it's a sort of interesting opportunity for amateur diplomacy, and maybe we can get good, over time, at crafting replies that they actually find persuasive. --Alecmconroy (talk) 01:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, I think the fallacy here is the assumption that these people are really "hostile to the images". I do not think this is the case. They don't care about the images, most likely they haven't even seen them. The images are just a pretext for making political noise. About the age question, while your elderly US redneck will have internet access and will be able to find Wikipedia to exasperate people with their medieval mindset, in Islamic countries, chances are you need to be young to even go on the internet and bother with forums and online petitions. Islamism and Islamist jihad appeals to young people. These countries are full of angry young men, and some of them have internet access. --dab (𒁳) 07:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

fresh vandalism on nasrani topics

Hi Dbachmann,

there is fresh round of vandalism on pages Syrian Malabar Nasrani and Saint Thomas Christian tradition. It is done by User_talk:Mtjayaraj. He deletes passages with references and inserts his own pov. There is no one reverting the vandalism done by him. Why is there so much apathy on wikipedia. please help. Vagab (talk) 19:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Dbachmann,

there seems to be either a team of vandals, vandalizing the pages dealing with Nasranis or one person using many different user id or creating new id. In either way the vandalism on nasrani related pages is unchecked. Please help the pages Syrian Malabar Nasrani and Saint Thomas Christian tradition. Vagab (talk) 22:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Topic ban

Please topic ban Interestedinfairness. He has once again acted without a consensus by unilaterally adding the tags once again while discussion was taking place and was even heavily leaning in favour of NOT having the tags simply because that user won't give up his POV pushing and keeps adding them out of spite, and this is the last straw. No more Kosovo-related articles for him. Athenean and others agree. --Cinéma C 03:47, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Just noticed he's edit warring on Adem Jashari again (history).. Enough. --Cinéma C 03:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interestedinfairness should have been topic-banned long ago, but the place to propose this is WP:ANI, not my talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 06:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Parthava

Take a look at his edits in Mazandarani language. I haven't seen any constructive edit from him and it seems that he totally neglects the talk page. Alefbe (talk) 22:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pressure point

Thanks for starting the clean-up --Nate 14 81 15:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Admin needed

An admin protected the Epirotes article correctly but to the wrong version as shown by FutPerf here [38]. The correct version was a consensus reached by me, Factuarious and Andreas. Could you revert to this [39]?--Sarandioti (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

note

I see you just protected ritual abuse, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Extreme_abuse_surveys. --WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, would you mind protecting this page as well, for the same reasons? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy note

This is a courtesy note to inform you that the set of five recent Ancient Egyptian race controversy topic bans by Ice Cold Beer (talk · contribs) has been raised at arbitration enforcement for review: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Ancient Egyptian race controversy ban review. I am informing you because you are an involved party or commented at the arbitration clarification request. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to leave me a talk page message. --Vassyana (talk) 00:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

why is this still an issue? this is an unbelievable case of wikilawyering. I would expect any admin involved to have the sense to see through this and remember WP:DENY. --dab (𒁳) 11:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your allegations

Before you make false allegations like that again, please do some research. I will have to report you for falsely suggesting that I am a sock puppet of someone else. This is a serious allegation and an offense and I want an explanation for it. You can't just paste a link on my userpage without giving any proof, leave alone state even a lame argument in favour of your silly statement. TroubledTraveler (talk) 13:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

please don't bother. But feel free to "report" me if you must. --dab (𒁳) 16:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Peace

Brother Dbachmann, First of all I forgive you for saying the harsh words on me and my work (Carp, Silly games, clueless antagonism... etc). I'm really sad that you didn't appreciate the hours I wasted digging for more information just to improve and extend the Iraqi related articles with "sources". Despite that you said those harsh words and actually you broke the 3RR in Iraq’s article but I won't tag the 3RR to block you, You are a veteran member and I like your works (except few disputed matters :D). I know both of us are proud of our backgrounds and sometimes you think that you are right and I’m wrong just like me but please it’s not necessary to cross the lines. If you have personal issues with me just say it on my discussion page but don't say those harsh words in the articles' discussion pages because It will remain forever unless you delete it by yourself. I don't expect you to apologize to me but please at least don't do it next time, Thanks in advance wa Al-Salam Alikum. Your brother Mussav - Peace. Mussav (talk) 18:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User talk page deletion

Hi. First off, please review the information before making accusations. I did not move the page as you said over on Hersfold's page. The page was moved by a bureaucrat after the user was renamed. Second, it isn't a matter of GFDL or any licensing. The user has left the project and said he left permanently. WP:RTV explains the process. I received a reasonable request and acted. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion has been noted however I disagree with you. You're right; the page does say that talk pages are rarely deleted. However, it does not expressly prohibit doing so thus I had no problem fulfilling the request. It doesn't matter how I was informed of the request, however. Looking at the deleted history it is fairly obvious that the user requested the deletion. Regards. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the user requested deletion. This is not under dispute. The point is that while we always honour requests for the deletion of user pages, we almost never honour requests for the deletion of user talkpages, for the simple reason that users are not the primary contributors to their own talkpages. User talkpages are for other people addressing the user, hence their content isn't in any way licenced to the user "owning" the talkpage.

As I said, I am not going to give you further grief over this, but it may be worthwhile pointing this out with greater clarity at WP:RTV to prevent this sort of thing from happening more often. --dab (𒁳) 16:11, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hersfold's reply

I objected quite firmly to the deletion of the 0kmck(etc...) page for precisely those reasons, as the deleted revisions should show; the discussion got dragged onto the help channel on IRC as well, where I very nearly kickbanned the user in question. I didn't see any reason to keep the redirect though, since that account no longer exists, and it was the presence of the old username which seemed to be causing him the most concern. As for the renaming, not being a crat, that's not my line of work. :-) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, if you objected to the deletion even before Rjd0060 took it upon himself to delete the page, I am even more irritated at Rjd0060's idea of "uncontroversial deletions". This is disconcerting. This kind of thing should not be decided on IRC. IRC may be an okay place to fish for admin attention, but the actual decision needs to be made on-wiki. This would have been a case for WP:MfD. --dab (𒁳) 08:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In his defense, there were at least half a dozen admins discussing this, and Rjd was not the only one who felt it could be deleted. The user in question probably would have been entirely intolerable had we recommended AfD; as I mentioned above, his conduct was severe enough to merit me taking operator action, including thinly veiled legal threats and personal attacks. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 17:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this is why I believe such discussions do not belong on IRC. As soon as there is controversy among two or more admins, the thing should be put on WP:ANI. If a discussion took place on IRC, for all practical purposes it did not take place. It's the same as private email or a phone call, it doesn't count as "this has been discussed" on-wiki.

I am talking in terms of general principle though. I must admit that probably no harm has been done in getting rid of Bstone's talkpage. It was mostly full of the kind of exasperating behaviour you just described anyway. --dab (𒁳) 18:31, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Forcing scripts in Wikipedia

Are there script templates forcing correct fonts like wikt:Template:Xpeo or wikt:Template:Armn we have on Wiktionary? Also, an unrelated question, do you see yourself coming back to Wiktionary some day? We need more experts on PIE and ancient languages. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 06:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is {{script}} which is intended to handle issues of obscure scripts, identified by their ISO 15924 code. Whether it works is another question. This is ultimately delegated to the css file, for which see H:CSS. I see that the templates on wikt: als invoke css classes, so the Wikipedia css might conceivably be improved by referring to solutions at wikt:.

Regarding my participation in wikt:, I still do make occasional edits, logged out. But last time I tried to become involved on a larger scale, the project was WP:OWNed by a handful of jerks with a high-school level idea of the concept of a dictionary, and who also hated etymology. Once wiktionary manages to resolve this problem I would certainly like to become involved again, but I do not have the energy to open a front where I have to fight for the privilege of contributing philological expertise. --dab (𒁳) 08:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know why you left, I read the injustice in the archives. But since then many things have changed - we love etyomologies and keep etymologyphobes on a tight leash; just look at wikt:Appendix:Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-, wikt:Appendix:Proto-Indo-European *h₁nḗh₃mn̥, wikt:Appendix:Proto-Semitic *ʾil-, wikt:wolf or wikt:Վահագն. Now the only thing stalling us is the lack of experts on this stuff (we have only one Ivan Štambuk). Perhaps only 5% of this list is taken care of yet. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moses of Chorene

Hi. Please see this, if you haven't: [40] This is what Robert W. Thomson, the foremost expert on Moses of Chorene says. I've been trying to include some of what he says into the article for quite some time, but meet fierce resistance of a certain group of editors. At the same time a large portion of the article is dedicated to frivolous criticism of Robert Thomson. Grandmaster 12:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

correction

In the spirit of accuracy, the Venki-Mudaliar conflict on User:Dbachmann/Wikipedia_and_nationalism#Arbitration was not a Sri Lankan conflict in any way at all. Segunthars are not found in Lanka. On a related note, Sri Lankan wikispace lacks the battle scars that define Indian wikispace ;)Pectore^talk 00:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes, I wonder why? Are Sri Lankans generally more peaceful? Or, less peaceful so they skip the stage of puerile bickering and grab their guns right away? --dab (𒁳) 06:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure. Most likely the second, since all the Sri Lankan users I have come across work in a fairly polite manner with others of different communities.Pectore^talk 23:10, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Urartu

Please stop removing the information regarding the reason Schulz was asked to travel to the Lake Van region. This information is so well known to those who are aware of the history of the rediscovery of Urartu that it does not really need a citation. But if you felt it did, then why did you not just add a tag to that effect? All you are doing by your repeated removal of this content is either indicating your ignorance of the subject or indicating that you have hidden motives behind the edits. Meowy 02:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sheesh, if it is so well known, why don't you just add a reference substantiating it and be done? Should have taken you less effort than writing me this note. I realize there is probably a source for this. I am still irritated that you apparently think that it is my job to find a source for a statement that you would like to see in the article. --dab (𒁳) 06:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is not a single reference in that entire section of the article - yet you chose to remove just that one little bit of text, the only bit of text that had the word "Armenian" in it! You did not even bother to insert the citation needed tag - which makes your belated request for a reference seem less than convincing. If it were not that other editors regard many of the edits you make with suspicion, the removed content might have gone unnoticed. Little wonder I suspect hidden motives, and I hope I continue to irritate you. Meowy 15:34, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspect all you want. Your suspicions are, however, irrelevant. You have been asked to produce a citation, and if I were you I would think producing that citation would be my first priority, because such is in fact required by policy when material is challenged. Your suspicions are not particularly relevant to policy or guidelines, other than maybe [{WP:AGF]], and are a concern of no one but yourself. John Carter (talk) 15:38, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe your first priority should be to actually look at the article - I have added a citation. And Dbachman did not ask for a citation - he removed the text rather than adding the citation required tag. Meowy 15:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, and I apologize. However, you started this thread with a totally unacceptable statement that the information doesn't need a citation, which is, dare I say, completely inappropriate and in fact in violation of policy. I apologize for jumping to the apparently false conclusion that your earlier statements accurately reflected the subject under discussion. John Carter (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious facts do not need citations! If that were not the case, then every sentence in every article would need to have its own citation! Obvious facts will be less obvious to a general reader in articles on obscure subjects - but obvious facts are relative to the obscurity of the subject - if it were not so then every sentence in every article on an obscure subject would need to have its own citation. Everyone who knows the basics about the rediscovery of Urartu knows why Schulz went to Van, as well as knowing about his unfortunate fate. It is the less well-known information that need citations. Meowy 17:15, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

bull. that Schulz set out to excavate Urartu "inspired" by the account of Semiramis in a medieval work is not an "obvious fact", it is, at best, an obscure nice-to-know trivium without any direct relevance to the article topic. By all means mention it, but reference it to some source. Now I will thank you to stop wasting screen space on my talkpage and begin writing some encyclopedic content. --dab (𒁳) 21:10, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All you are continuing to reveal is either your general ignorance about some of the subjects whose articles you have been editing, or your aims to exclude information for POV reasons. And Schulz was not sent to Van to "excavate" anything - he was sent to discover and collect inscriptions. Meowy 13:55, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What the hell, Meowy. We both agree, I hope, that the Urartu article is regularly under attack by Armenian nationalist trolls. Because of this, its contents need to be reviewed critically. This is what I have done. If you have a bleeding reference to add to this stuff, I will be happy to leave it alone. If you do not have a reference, why are you making all this noise. Either way I fail to see why you keep bugging me about it. --dab (𒁳) 14:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Though I don't want to search back to prove it, I'm pretty certain that I was the person who added that Schulz content into the article (rhich is why I asked you to stop remiving it). And when I added it I felt it was so well known and so completely uncontroversial that it did not need a reference.

I am not an "Armenian nationalist troll" and I fail to see how anyone could view the Schulz content I added as "Armenian nationalist" content. I think have two problems - firstly you are seeing "nationalism" everywhere, and secondly, you are assuming that anything you consider "nationalist" must be wrong. Yes there are plenty of articles that are under attack by those "nationalist trolls", and their activities need to be opposed - but your language (calling everyone "trolls" and "kids" and a lot worse) together with your kneejerk approach isn't doing any good. So, you questioned the Schulz content because the word "Armenian" caught your eye causing your "nationalist troll" kicking knee to jerk upward. But, in reality, because the content was actually not nationalistic and had sources which could have been added, all you did was to appear to be like one of the "Turkish nationalist trolls" with their knee-jerk reactions to remove the "A" word from all articles connected to Turkey! Meowy 17:51, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you are clearly not listening. Also, will you stop it with the "I felt it was so well known and so completely uncontroversial that it did not need a reference"? Read WP:CITE. End of transmission. --dab (𒁳) 18:10, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is you who are not listening. That is yet another of your problems, and the reason why it is pointless to continue with this. End of transmission. Meowy 19:07, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Known nationalist troll

Dear Dbachmann,

94.219.218.20 (talk · contribs), who also uses IP address 188.97.8.140 (talk · contribs), is a troll vandalising Bactria and other articles removing references. (see [41], [42], [43]) I have reverted him few times and "Enric Naval" (with whom I talked before) and "Slgcat" have also reverted him. But he repeats it when his edit is reverted by several other users. (see [44], [45], [46])

Please help to stop the troll from removing the word "Pashtun" (who are underrepresented on wikipedia) from wikipedia articles. Thanks. Good regards. -119.152.246.239 (talk) 07:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is definitely not "underrepresented on Wikipedia" is "ancestry-cruft" along the lines of "ancient people X are the ancestors of modern ethnic group Y", and you can be sure that a bunch of teenagers of ethnicity Y will turn the article on X into a quagmire about Y ethnic pride. This is not something I am fond of. The article "X" should be about X, and not prancing around group Y and their ethnic pride and their "underrepresentation" on Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 08:30, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response. I think he was removing sourced content whenever Pashtuns are mentioned in a wikipedia article, and he was repeating that when other users reverted him, which breaks the tone of an encyclopedia, that's why asked you. 119.152.246.12 (talk) 08:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes - can you please take the discussion of the origins of the Pashtuns to the Pashtuns aticle? Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 09:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I will try to put something together about the origins of Pashtuns or the linguistic ancestors of Pashtuns later.
In the Bactria article, the edits by the nationalist troll are still present in the current version because he repeats it. (see [47] and [48]) Can you either ban the troll (188.97.2.232, 94.219.222.128 etc. once he used an account Bahrudin Bahis), or protect the article? Good regards. -119.152.246.181 (talk) 15:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kosovo

Hello! I noticed you had responded to comments on the Kosovo discussion page. I do not have much time to deal with the article right now, but I wanted to note that Pjeter Bogdani must be mentioned before the article could be considered neutral. Also, we do not want the history section to discuss feelings and benefits of imperialism, but what happened during the centuries. Ottoman PM’s of Albanian descent need not mention on this article; most of them were originally from Southern Albania. Also, we need to mention the Second Battle of Kosovo and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Hopefully, I can get a chance to contribute to this article in a more acceptable way.--Getoar TX (talk) 13:49, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Pjeter Bogdani must be mentioned before the article could be considered neutral"? Why? I mean, I don't see why he shouldn't be mentioned, but I also fail to see how he is related to any of the disputes surrounding the article, which exclusively concern the 20th to 21st century. How is mentioning some 17th century writer relevant to this? ANd even if you can build a case to support this assertion, why haven't you already done that, at Talk:Kosovo, instead of notifying me in particular of your opinion on the point? --dab (𒁳) 14:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Concept of Armenisation or Anti-Armenian topic

"look, Liberatium, your text as it stands isn't acceptable for inclusion. We can work on it, but for this you need to drop the attitude of revert-warring. Also, this will be done at Talk:Armenian nationalism, where this is on topic, and not on this page. And no, Serouj, as you can read in this article, Orontid Armenia was not "the same civilization" as Urartu. It was the one that came after Urartu."

Lieber Bachmann, Muss ich, den Text selbst bearbeiten, oder Sie werden mir helfen, in diesem. Ich habe kein Hass gegen die Armenier. Aber noch immer die Wahrheit muss vorhanden sein. Ich möchte nicht , mit ihnen,debattieren weil sie nicht wollen, zu lauschen. Ich hoffe, dass Sie die Abteilung um bringen. Also habe ich dieser Abteilung auf der Wikipedia in einer anderen Sprache übersetzt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Liberatium (talk • contribs) 08:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very good. Your input is welcome at Talk:Armenian nationalism. Let us try to estabish a solid account of the significance of Urartu in the "Armenian national awakening" at Armenian nationalism. Once we have done that, a summary of that may be included in the Urartu article. --dab (𒁳) 08:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "truth will out", which sounds somewhat better than your "Aber noch immer die Wahrheit muss vorhanden sein" and is a hell of a lot more sincere. Meowy 20:33, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

continual major reverts at Accession of Turkey to the European Union

The editor is still doing major reverts, [49], I put in a 3RR report yesterday but still hasn't been acted on, this is now the 5th revert in 24 hours! LibStar (talk) 09:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well then report him, this is User talk:Dbachmann, not WP:AN/3RR. --dab (𒁳) 09:07, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have already reported him Wikipedia:AN/3RR#User:Pantepoptes_reported_by_User:LibStar_.28Result:_.29 but just letting you know as an admin that was aware of this issue. LibStar (talk) 09:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ok, sorry for my curt reply. I have no doubt this is going to be addressed properly. --dab (𒁳) 09:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zorats Karer

Hi Dbachmann, I noticed your edit to the above article where you removed a link as you regarded it as spam. I'm wondering what leads you to think it's spam? I've only had a brief look at it, and I couldn't find the information it was supposed to be used to source and I'm not sure whether it's reliable, but I think it was a good faith attempt to add references from the IP editor after it was explained to them the importance of referencing. At the least, if the reference is removed, the information it was backing up needs to be removed too. Happy editing, Nev1 (talk) 16:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Urartu

My god, nice job with the slight rewordings of Redgate's The Armenians, p. 276 and Kohl and Tsetskhladze's chapter in Nationalism, politics, and the practice of archaeology. Tell me, have you always had a track record of plagiarism and subtle rewordings? Yes, Urartu has been a major focus of Armenian nationalism, but I'd like to know how you thought it was appropriate to basically copy and paste scholarly sources and offer cheap attribution at the end. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 17:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

my god, if I don't stick close to the source I will be accused of original research, and if I do I will be accused of plagiarism. I take no credit for the text I "reworded" from the sources cited, and I think they are short enough to prevent accusations of copyright infringement, but feel free to do better if you like. And have fun with the patriots trying to shoot down every word that is not taken verbatim from the source quoted. This isn's some nice corner of Wikipedia where reason, erudition and wikilove abound. This is where we prove the wiki principle can withstand malicious attack, or where the nationalists prove that they can make Wikipedia their propaganda bitch. --dab (𒁳) 18:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outlines

Hey, I just noticed this push for "Outlines". How long has this been going on? Is it a recent phenomena? WesleyDodds (talk) 07:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is The Transhumanist (talk · contribs). At least the touting of these pages in all possible and impossible places, under "See also" and even in hatnotes(!) dates to this year. Wikipedia:Outlines dates to 9 January 2009. Things started to get really bad in May or June. See this interesting diff. this one is also instructive. See Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists for more.

I have repeatedly asked Transhumanist & friends to just move these pages out of main namespace, as part of Portal:Contents and continue to work on them in peace. They have consistently refused, and have consistently failed to provide any reason for their refusal. They will infallibly begin to argue how these pages are "useful", which I doubt but wasn't going to dispute, instead of giving a reason how moving them under Portal:Contents is going to reduce their alleged usefulness.

The upshot is that these people are just trying to hog traffic and screen space for their indices, for reasons best known to themselves, by spamming Wikipedia articles. When I think of the time and effort wasted in this thing, and the time and effort wasted again in trying to contain this thing within reasonable bounds, I feel like weeping. Or kicking a puppy. --dab (𒁳) 07:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'd think they'd have heard of nav templates or infoboxes . . . WesleyDodds (talk) 09:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

or categories. But I don't mind Portal:Contents. We need people doing this kind of work, and they need room to try things out. But when it comes to this, essentially reading "we own your WP:SA", a line has been crossed. "outlines" and "indeces of artices" and "lists of topics" all belong in Category:Content portals. As long as they stay there, I have no gripe. If they begin spilling out of that container, especially in an aggressive and disruptive manner as pushed by "The Transhumanist", measures need to be taken to contain them. --dab (𒁳) 09:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "we own your See Alsos" approach may be crossing a line, but this [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] is really tossing the gauntlet. This guy has the manners of Attila the Hun paired with the circumspection of Donald Duck. --dab (𒁳) 15:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Armenian Nationalism

Per your edit summary here:[55] Are you all right? It sounds like you're frustrated because you want people to be more flexible. --I dream of horses @ 15:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

replied on user's talkpage. These two diffs [56][57] would actually be priceless comedy if this wasn't so sad. They almost beat these [58][59] I think. --dab (𒁳) 15:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dbachmann. You have new messages at I dream of horses's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I dream of horses @ 15:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dbachmann. You have new messages at I dream of horses's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--I dream of horses If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. @ 16:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Syriac people

Why is Syriac people redirected to "Assyrian people". The term "Assyrian" is accepted by 40% of the group. Same with term "Aramean" which is accepted by 40% procent of the group and "Syriac people" is accepted almost by 90% of the whole group. How can an article about a people redirect to an other article about a people, a people which contradicts the whole identity of the Syriac "Aramean" people. There is 100 academic sources proving that the Syriacs are descendants to the Arameans. And the term "Syriac" is an umbrella name for the whole group and is accepted by almost everyone. Syriac languague, Syriac christianity, Syriac people. According to Wikipedia guidelines, only 1 title per group is accepted. But there is two groups, not one. The easterns "Nestorians or Assyrians" and the westerns "Syriacs or Arameans". Until today, there is no really evidence that connects easterns Nestorian Assyrians with western Syriac Arameans. Then, why is it not two articles, one dealing with the Syriacs, who only lives in Syria and Turkey, and one dealing with the Assyrians who lives in Iraq, and a minority in Syria. There is geographical, religious, historical, cultural, linguistic and also maybe ethnic differents with these groups. Nestorians consider themselves Assyrians, and Syriacs, or jacobites, consider themselves Arameans. Therefore, there should be two articles, one Assyrian people and one Syriac people. Dejwono (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you want to read the talk archives. Also, if you're going to present numbers like the "40%", I would be very grateful if you could cut to the chase and present the WP:RS substantiating them immediately. There are not "two groups", there are multiple denominations. For the main confessional division, see East Syrian Rite vs. West Syrian Rite. But the "Syriac" vs. "Assyrian" name preference does not run along confessional lines, as we have established literally years ago. Thus, your claim that "Nestorians consider themselves Assyrians, and Syriacs, or jacobites, consider themselves Arameans" is simply wrong. Or if it isn't wrong, it is unsubstantiated, which on Wikipedia is worse than wrong. If what you say were true, I would be ever so glad, because then the case would be very easy, and Syriac people could just be a redirect to Syrian Jacobites.

Read Names of Syriac Christians for more detail. Please try again and repeat the above posting with each claim it contains referenced to a scholarly source. Once you do that, we can begin including your sources in the articles. Perhaps you can show me one census in the whole wide world that lists "Syriacs" and "Assyrians" as two separate ethnicities. I know the Swedish and US censuses do not, but if you can point me to such a census, you would really be my hero. --dab (𒁳) 16:47, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this is assuming you are not a returning banned user's sock. If you are, and you already know all of this, please just stop wasting my time. --dab (𒁳) 16:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of Armenian patriarchs

I have noticed that you have redirected this article to the History of Armenia (Movses Khorenatsi) article. You did this without any edit summary justification or any prior discussion. How can a list of Armenian patriarchs (which could include, for example, the present-day Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul) possibly be redirected to an article about a book written by an early medieval historian? Why do you think a list of Armenian patriarchs is not suitable for Wikipedia? There are plenty of similar lists on Wikipedia, such as list of Popes, List of Archbishops of Canterbury, List of bishops of the United Methodist Church. I am asking you to return the article to its former state. Meowy 17:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Meowy, this is an idiotic complaint. Please check out the edit history of the pages involved. After that, feel free to apologize. --dab (𒁳) 17:52, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your ignorance and your rudeness knows no limits! I made a series of legitimate points and all you can do is give insults for daring to question the perfection of a Dbachman editing decision. What's your problem specific to this article? Is it because you do not understand what a "patriarch" is? It is a specific position within the Armenian church that exists to this day, not a 5th (or 7th) century "Armenian Great" (whatever that is). Meowy 18:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I now see you have changed the redirect after I brought up the issue here. So obviously what you call an "idiotic complaint" made you rethink your first redirect, resulting it it being changed to what you call a "better target". Meowy 18:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus Christ, I am not going to spell out the diffs for you. Review the edit histories and try to figure out what happened. And then feel free to come back to apologize for your rudeness. I am not holding my breath in the meantime. --dab (𒁳) 18:48, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is not the holding of breath, the problem is what you type. Are you denying that you changed the redirect after I raised the issue on your talk page? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Armenian_patriarchs&action=history Meowy 18:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, for now I am happy with the current redirect that goes to a disambiguation page. However, some of the content of the former "List of Armenian patriarchs" article could perhaps be used for a "legendary Armenian patriarchs" article rather than having the latter redirect to the Moses of Chorene article. Meowy 19:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

I came across this article when looking at suspected hoaxes, it still needs merging after the AfD in October last year: Moksha numerals. Fences&Windows 00:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AfD nomination of -graphy

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is -graphy. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/-graphy (2nd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

-graphy

Your insulting and frankly ignorant comments in the AFD are uncalled for, and shows you have no real argument to support the keep.

These comments, and the article is an embarrassment to the wikipedia. This is a purely lexical list that is essentially a duplicate of the information in the wiktionary. There are over 200 suffixes in the wiktionary, but there's hardly any in the wikipedia, and there never was. That's just everyone being lazy is it? 3 million articles in, and nobody could be bothered?

The reason is that it's impossible (in most cases) to make these kinds of articles into articles that should be kept, they don't work as disambiguation pages because they're not about articles, they're lists of words. Tried that, doesn't work. Glossary doesn't work either for this article, because there's no central topic,'graphy' has too many disparate meanings.

If you want to keep an article that currently has no valid title and violates several key policies, go right ahead. If you actually manage it make it a valid article, I'll give you a barnstar; hell I'll give you several. Go ahead, make my day.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware I was insulting anyone, but in light of the "ignorant" quip above, I suppose we should at least be even now. I could also return the compliment, but I will assume you just haven't bothered to read my comment thorougly enough to get my point. Feel free to do so now. I understand the issues involved, thank you.

If I was into fixing this, I would make -graphy into a redirect to Grapheme, which is at present our artile which discusses the Greek γράφω lexeme, and I would add a brief discussion of how the Greek root γράφ- made it into modern languages, including passing mention of the -graphy suffix, complete with interwiki link to wiktionary. Alternatively, we could introduce a Graphics#Etymology section and make -graphy into a {{R to section}}. Problem solved, no deletion necessary, Wikipedia's encyclopedic value enhanced. I never said -graphy should be a standalone article. The proper solution of an estimated 90% of AfDs are merges. If you accept merging as a solution, you may feel free to give me a barnstar for fixing the problem after all. --dab (𒁳) 13:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I came here to comment on the same issue. Despite it already having been done, I'm adding my 2c-worth as a third party. Your assertion: "This is not a "textbook case of WP:DICT", it is a textbook case of an AfD submitted by somebody too lazy to think of ways to handle a difficult case" looks to me like a textbook case of WP:ATTACK. As you are an admin I would have expected you would not descend to that level. I42 (talk) 16:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation

See Talk:Character#Recent_edit_to_arrangement. DionysosProteus (talk) 14:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hatnotes

I'm guessing there some kind of policy or discussion that's lead to you removing these outlines from hatnotes such as this one? Could you point me to it as there's not edit summary to explain. Thanks. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it obvious? I am pretty sure there is no consensus to spam links to outlines to the tops of articles. If this extreme outline-pushing continues I predict a serious backlash. It's absurd to construct an existence right for articles on non-notable topics (where is the article or book chapter discussing the outline of architecture, for example) from the fact that they have survived for years by staying under the radar in a walled garden. Hans Adler 21:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

whoa slow down there. Outline pushing, spammed links huh? I saw a removal on a page of a link that seemed beneficial, if a little prominent. What's the background, where's the discussion was all I was asking? Is this another WP hurricane in a tea cup? --Joopercoopers (talk) 21:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the consensus for adding these hatnotes in the first place? Why don't you start posting animated gifs as banner ads for your outline project? I don't see any consensus against placing animated gifs advertising WikiProjects at the top of articles, so I suppose that gives you a free hand? --dab (𒁳) 08:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I came here with a simple question and all I've received is sass. There's clearly some bull going on that I'm unaware off. I agree putting the link in a hatnote is too prominent, but it seems reasonable to have the link somewhere in the article - perhaps the See Also section, unless there's a policy or consensus decision that has decided "Outlines" are verboten? If so, I'd just be grateful to read the reasoning. --Joopercoopers (talk) 10:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

you asked a simple question and received a simple reply. If there is tension surrounding this topic, you can thank The Transhumanist (talk · contribs) and his surreal spamming campaigns. Regarding the see also section, you want to read WP:SEEALSO: The consensus is that the section should comprise

A reasonable number of relevant links that would be in the body of a hypothetical "perfect article". However, whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. ... Indeed, a "perfect" article then might not require a "See also" section at all

in other words, it is a matter of case-by-case consensus. "Use common sense" means that individual suggestions of adding such a link to an article you happen to be contributing to are certainly fine. Wikipedia-wide sprees of mass-addition of such links are certainly not. --dab (𒁳) 10:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. --Joopercoopers (talk) 10:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:HATNOTE for the guideline, "Hatnotes are short notes placed at the top of an article, normally to provide links to other similarly named articles or disambiguation pages". I've been trying to hint at this to those who are adding them, but they like "breaking new ground", "testing the waters", "trying out new things", and other such perspectives, which tend to rankle editors who are more conservative (or who are into "consistency").

In one of my first replies to TT about these, I incorrectly/tacitly endorsed the possibility that hatnotes might be used (here) but I've tried to correct that in all following mentions (including my 2nd reply in that thread).

[I'm on wikibreak. this is mostly just a guideline pointer.] -- Quiddity (talk) 18:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lebombo bone

You tagged this as a suspected hoax article. Peter Beaumont was an archaeologist at MacGregor Museum in South Africa until recently, e.g. see this article which briefly discusses the dig at the Border Cave,[60] but it seems he's retired now. So he definitely did conduct that dig, and he's a prestigious archaeologist who has worked with Chris Stringer, so he'd be unlikely to deliberately create a hoax. And he was doing radiocarbon dating in the area at the time:[61] so a dating isn't unreasonable. The question is, does Peter D. Beaumont, Border Cave - A Progress Report, S. Afr. J. Science 69 (1973) actually mention the bone? And why did Beaumont seemingly never again mention this bone in print? There's two options 1. It really was in the '73 paper. 2. Bogoshi et al. made it up. We can check this by finding the '73 paper, or asking Peter Beaumont. Actual pictures of it in this blog post[62] weight in on it being a real object. Also Bednarik cites a paper by Beaumont et al. from '78 about the Border Cave, saying it mentions a Middle Stone Age bone with striations.[63] Fences&Windows 19:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't suggesting Beaumont was deliberately hoaxing. {{hoax}} was just the best warning tag I could think of. My suspicion is that the 1973 report mentions this bone and provisionally dates it. The fact that it was never mentioned again would suggest that there was a mistake in that. The three authors of the Mathematical Gazette article took the discussion of the bone directly from the excavation report, and the object now leads a sort of ghost existence in "history of mathematics" literature based exclusively on what was probably a misrepresentation of the excavation report. It's more of a mistake than a hoax, but the result is the same. --dab (𒁳) 08:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely tenuous. For a more appropriate template, try {{Disputed}}? Fences&Windows 02:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Kosovo.

How am I trolling? How am I violating anything? Is that because my point of view is NPOV, I should be threatened for WP:DENY?

Help me out, explain....SpanishBoy2006 10:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

you make it very difficult to assume you are sincere. If you are, the first thing you need to do is read more, and try to understand what is being said. Your posts at the moment are useless because they aren't part of any discussion, they are pure ignoratio elenchi. --dab (𒁳) 11:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dab why do you try to edit material when you do not even fathom the English language? I'm sorry, but are you aware of the implication of "disputed region" as opposed to a "disputed state"? One more time.....Kosova's land is not disputed, no one is claiming there is a sea there or a desert ---- everyone agrees with the region and its location. The dispute is the SOVEREIGNTY, as in who governs Kosova, the land, and the people. The dispute is between Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosova. One more time, Kosova is a disputed STATE not a disputed region. Furthermore, I challenge your neutral bias, you deliberatly prevent users from progressing the article...I have said this to you time and time again. What is the diff between Kosova and Taiwan? Nothing, both are disputed states. Kosova's page needs to look like Republic of China (Taiwan), the end. PS, if you reply do it in my page please. Ari d'Kosova (talk) 21:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moses of Chorene

Hi. After many months of discussions, I finally managed to include in the article the list of anachronisms in MC's book, in accordance with Thomson. However, the article still has lots of POV issues. The criticism of Thomson is mostly related to the latter's claim that MC borrowed a lot of material from other authors (which is true), without ever mentioning his sources of info. Ok, Thomson was criticized even by Western scholars for claiming the modern standards of referencing from an ancient historian. However, this criticism deserves no more than one or 2 lines. For the most part, the criticism is very superficial and does not respond to the points raised by Thomson, i.e. why the work of a 5th century scholar contains so many anachronisms, and how those anachronistic statements could be explained.

Another problem is that the article claims that "F. C. Conybeare, Manuk Abeghyan, and Malkhasyants rejected the conclusions of the scholars of the hypercritical school", i.e. proved the critics wrong, however "Despite these studies, these critical points were revived in the second half of the 20th century and many Western scholars continue to maintain the arguments raised by earlier scholars". This is clearly not neutral. According to Thomson and others, the criticism never ceased to exist, and continued from the 19th century to present times. There was no revival, despite what Aram Topchyan claims. I discussed this, [64], but without any result.

And of course "Hypercritical phase" claim is extremely POV, and is not a generally accepted scholarly view. I'm thinking, is there any way we can attract a broader attention to this article, and get neutral editors involved in this article? This could help to make progress with bringing the article to neutrality. The boards are not really helpful, from what I noticed. Not so many people check them, and not many are willing to deal with hot topics. Grandmaster 11:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting repeated disruptions

You might like to know that I have reported 3 users (Lontech, Sulmues, Spanishboy2006) who are violating Wikipedia consensus on Kosovo to the ArbCom probation enforcement page. Feel free to leave any comments, if you'd like. All the best, --Cinéma C 02:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]