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Nomination of Brahman-Atman Yoga for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Brahman-Atman Yoga is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brahman-Atman Yoga (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. – Shannon Rose ^Talk 10:35, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Libyan Civil War redirect

There has been a 2-3 month long debate on the 2011 Libyan Civil War talk page over whether a re-direct should exist or not, there are several individuals who have argued that there are other events besides the 2011 Libyan civil war which could be called "Libyan civil war". The re-direct was created on the 1st of June to settle whether or not there was support for these individual's arguments. So it's not merely as simple as making an obvious change which needs to be made. Either way, your input is appreciated, hopefully an admin will finish this up sooner rather than later. 174.114.87.236 (talk) 08:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Has this "debate" taken place exclusively among logged-out IP users?

If there are "other events besides the 2011 Libyan civil war which could be called Libyan civil war", just create Libyan civil war (disambiguation), per WP:DISAMBIG, problem solved. Yes, this is extremely obvious, as anyone who is at all familiar with Wikipedia naming conventions and disambiguation would tell you. --dab (𒁳) 08:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Etymology question at Dionysus

Back in September, you addressed a question of etymology re: Dionysus (specifically on Nysa). When you took a break, you mentioned cutting back on your watchlist surveillance, so not knowing whether you still watch that page, I thought I'd point out a comment that could benefit from your attention. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

You are right, I am still ignoring my watchlist. I am still enjoying not babysitting thousands of articles and just doing something new. Of course I will stop enjoying this as soon as I see what entropy has done to the articles I left unwatched, but perhaps that will be a good exercise at letting go.

The last time I touched the Dionysus article was here. You will note that none of this pseudo-Sanskrit trash was in it then. Now Olav Smith (talk · contribs) has figured out that it is indeed trash. That's good for him, but he should also remove it, so less perspicacious future readers can benefit from his discovery. I am not sure why my involvement is needed to remove some piece of random and obvious nonsense from a Wikipedia article.

I believe I have presented a fair discussion of the name's etymology in my October 2010 edits: nobody knows what it means. There are theories. A theory that is both recent and scholarly, and has my sympathy, is that of Janda (2010), but this doesn't change the fact that nobody can be certain about it. The article, like any other, can do very well without random Sanskrit sound-alikes. --dab (𒁳) 16:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I restored the earlier version, sans Sanskrit. Another intervening change had been, for example, "in Ionia" to "Ionian" in the list of forms. This is perhaps a negligible difference, but "Ionian" seems to imply "this is the form in the Ionian dialect" instead of a mere assertion of geographic distribution. I didn't know which was meant, so I changed it to the version you'd approved. I'm an utter ignoramus about linguistics, and admit to a special revulsion for the etymologies of theonyms, which in the wrong hands are used along the lines of "this is the key to unlocking the long-lost secrets of the gods!" Cynwolfe (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Europe list merge

I brought up your suggestion here for discussion. Rennell435 (talk) 11:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Running havoc IP

Could you block this IP. It is running havoc. Thanks Aigest (talk) 14:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Eh, bit more complicated than that. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Hellequin

An article that you have been involved in editing, Hellequin , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Bikepunk2 (talk) 14:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Expanding the article Chera dynasty

How about expanding the article Chera dynasty? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.117.211.100 (talk) 10:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Vishnu sahasranama

Thanks, Dab for cleaning the article up. I have been not active on Wikipedia for months and I was shocked at some of the unsourced statements. I had cleaned up the General Thoughts section. Raj2004 (talk) 01:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I just had to show my appreciation

I don't know about you but personally I think users like Samy23 make me glad to still be around on Wikipedia. Maybe it was invidious to single out Samy when there are many other editors with similar talent and dedication to making this place a great encyclopaedia but, what the hell, I just felt I had to express my gratitude[1]. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 08:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

You are a funny man, Folantin. --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Martial arts by country of origin

Sorry, but you have me confused with another editor. I fixed a link after a page was moved and did not revert anything over there. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

1001 nights and your GENERAL Accusations

Hi Dab. I just need a small explanation for this sentence "every time you find some mention of "Persian" anywhere on the wiki. Chances are that such an article is periodically destroyed by expatriate Persian teenagers in an identity crisis. This is unfair and very general and therefore non-sense. For your own education outside wikipedia (which I am afraid you have forgotten it) let me very kindly, very friendly, and very seriously mention that: One should be very careful in putting the name of a group of people with one single designating name (e.g. Persian/Blacks/Jews/European/...) on the top of a complaint about the behaviour of a number of people of the group. Europe had such an experience in reality, and you have read about that? I hope you take this little suggestion seriously and do not write such comment that make people feel really bad. Regards. Xashaiar (talk) 11:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

um, did I strike a nerve or something? I said that Persian nationalists are a pest on Wikipedia. I did not accuse you of anything. If you are not part of the Persian nationalist troll outfit, that's good for you and I have no beef with you.

I did not comment about any "group of people". I commented on a group of Wikipedia accounts that create problem. I will be happy to accept that these have nothing to do with the actual Persian people. In fact, I have met and I know a number of exceptionally nice Persian folk. So, I do not understand why you seem to think I have attacked Persians. You should be concerned about the bunch of nationalist kids that give Persians a bad name on Wikipedia, and if you care about anything Persian, you should be very interested indeed in helping roll back the teenage trolling.

But since I have no idea who you are, and since you apparently come here and throw around oblique references to the holocaust for no good reason, sadly I must allow for the possibility that you are indeed in the camp I was attacking. This is not the camp of the Persians, it is the camp of online nationalist idiots trying to damage Wikipedia.

It is not "nonsense" to state that Persian nationalist trolling has been a severe problem for the project. And it is not completely without basis in prior experience to assume that any user with an Old Persian account name who also touts the Faravahar on their userpage and who furthermore is actively engaged in Persian troll hotspots will not be editing in good faith. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Look Dab, I am not complaining because I though you meant me. Also, I am concerned about those nationalists and you can see that in some of the articles that I work on them on regular bases. I am complaining because it is just unfair to "assume" (formulated: "chances are") that certain keyboard (e.g. "Persian") should be seen as an alarm of wrong behaviour (formulated: "destroyed by expatriate Persian teenagers in an identity crisis"). It just reminds me of the usual example: the Black guy in any accident in the US was, in a large number of documented examples, the guilty one and to your surprise they can say "And it is not completely without basis in prior experience to assume that". And for your last paragraph: Please read wp:agf. Assume good faith, assume good faith and assume good faith. Xashaiar (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you fail to distinguish between Wikipedia and real life. In real life, yes, we need to observe fundamental rights, in dubio pro reo and what have you. On Wikipedia, editors don't have any "fundamental rights": no free speech, no "assumed innocent", nothing like that. WP:DUCK would be a terrible thing in real life justice. It serves perfectly well for Wikipedia. Wikipedia IS NOT an online model of society, it is a project to build an encyclopedia. Best practices are streamlined not to protect user's human rights, they are streamlined to benefit the project.

I am perfectly willing to "assume good faith", but I don't see the point in your trying to imitate the standard behaviour of nationalist troll accounts, because you will become a victim of WP:DUCK. It is also sometimes impossible to assume good faith and at the same time assume intelligence. Sometimes, an editor is clearly either malevolent or a complete moron. In either case, WP:DUCK says to clamp down on them, because they can safely be assumed to be part of the problem, not the solution. --dab (𒁳) 15:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Elvis has left the building [2]. --Folantin (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice work on Template:Martial arts!

Nice work on the template - it is far less controversial and much more useful. jmcw (talk) 11:01, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

thanks. I don't think I'm done yet, it's still rather on the cluttered side. But what we should ask ourselves when editing this topic is "what are the most relevant articles pertaining to the topic "Martial Arts". Things like Shurikenjutsu or Oom Yung Doe will probably not figure very high on that list. Otoh, generic items like Punch (attack), Form (martial arts), Grappling, Sparring or Knockout are rather likely to be of relevance. --dab (𒁳) 11:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

ARE you a new chauvinist romani-an?

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dbachmann You vandalised many Hungarian articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.106.7 (talk) 20:14, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Improving the article Rovas Script Family

I tried to improve the article Rovas Script Family. If there is any imperfection in this article, please, let me know. Thanks for reviewing this article. Rovasscript (talk) 08:05, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

What you fail to understand, apparently, is that we don't need an article "Rovas Script Family", because we already have an article about the topic, at Old Hungarian script. We do only one article per topic. --dab (𒁳) 08:07, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

First, thank you for reviewing again this article. There are two different problems: one is that the Hungarian Standard Body prefers the name "Szekely-Hungarian Rovas" instead of the "Old Hungarian" term. But this is only a terminology problem. Another - distinct - problem is that some Eastern-European scripts are simply different from the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas (or as you like: Old Hungarian). These scripts are the Carpathian Basin Rovas and the Khazarian Rovas. Not me was, who realized these. For decades, in Hungary, the leading scholars have already published results, including the transcription of some inscriptions (now, I inserted some of these publications into the appropriate articles).

I realized that you inserted a row into the Khazarian Rovas article. I do not know if I have right for editing your entry, therefore I did not modified it. However, the article you targeted deals with the Khazar language, and it shows an attempt for transcribing the Rovas inscription of the Kievian letter with Old Turkic characters. However, in a Hungarian book, an officially acknowledged scholar G. Vékony already proved that this inscription was not written with Old Turkic. Anyway, if you read the short article Rovas on Kievan letter, and you follow the link to the Cambridge Library, you can also compare that the Old Turkic-based transcription is inaccurate. Moreover, the Kievan letter was made in Eastern Europe, and the Old Turkic script was in use in North Mongolia and in Central Asia near the Chinese border. Consequently, there was a very little chance of knowing the Old Turkic script in Kiev or anywhere in Europe. I hope I did not use too much of your time. BR, Gabor Rovasscript (talk) 13:21, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

well, it seems we are getting somewhere.

As for the terminology issues, I will point you to WP:UCN. If you propose a rename of the existing Old Hungarian script article, you will need to present evidence that your preferred title is the most commonly used term in recent English-language expert literature. If you can do that, take it to WP:RM.

What you call Khazarian Rovas appears to be simply the Khazar script, one of the Old Turkic scripts. So yes, it appears that this is a separate variant, apparently called "Don alphabet" at Old_Turkic_script#Variants. If you have decent material to add to that topic, may I invite you to add it to Old_Turkic_script#Variants or to Khazar_language#Surviving_examples. Perhaps there can be a separate Don alphabet article if you really succeed in building an article.

Now what might be the "Carpathian Basin Rovas"? Please identify it relative to the terminology attributed to Kyzlasov (1994) at Old_Turkic_script#Variants and we might be getting somewhere.

these are "script variants" of the Old Turkic script. You really don't need to create a separate article for each, at least as long as there isn't a solid discussion of their properties seen in context at the main Old Turkic script article.

also, if you are Gábor Hosszú, or his associate, you urgently need to stop pushing your own publications and research on Wikipedia. Uploading entire portions of your book to commons is extremely bad style. You can modestly contribute to articles suggesting inclusion of your own publications, but you should limit yourself mostly to talkpages and let others handle it. Your aggressive approach is the very antithesis of how you should have behaved. See also WP:SPS.

Pushing your own research is bad enough, doing so by using sock puppets and crying "vandalism" is completely unacceptable and as a rule will simply get you banned from editing altogether.

You are perfectly welcome to discuss individual inscriptions in these scripts and cite sources such as the G. Vékony one you mentioned, there is really no problem with that, as long as you aren't trying to push one particular view over another (we call this WP:NPOV). Indeed if you collect enough literature on the Kievan letter inscription, I do encourage you to write an article just about that. See Category:Inscriptions for examples of other articles dedicated to individual inscriptions.

--dab (𒁳) 13:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Google books gives me four hits on "Kievan Letter". It appears to be possible to write a decent short summary just based on these. The "runiform" letters apparently are only one aspect, the main part of the letter being in Hebrew. --dab (𒁳) 13:44, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

...and now it turns out we already have that article, at Kievian Letter, so if you have information based on quotable references you wish to add, you can just do it there. --dab (𒁳) 13:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, please stop calling this stuff "Rovas" in English, especially "Khazarian Rovas". It should give you pause that nobody calls them that except for your own Unicode proposal, most certainly not in print. I have no idea what they are called in Hungarian. If you want to push hu:Kazáriai rovás on hu-wiki, you have to talk to people there, I am in no position to judge this. I just note that nobody uses the term except for you in your Wikipedia articles. This is suspicious, and I think you should stop trying to abuse Wikipedia to push your preferred terminology. --dab (𒁳) 14:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

(I already made this email, later I will response to the term "Rovas") Dear Dab, yes, I am Gábor Hosszú. There are some misunderstanding. I really wrote this book, but it is mainly the summary of the results of the Hungarian researches. Yes, there are some own results (I am also a researcher at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics), but its main purpose is to inform the international science about the Hungarian results. It is 277-page long book in English, in which there are 552 entries in the literature reference list and I cited them throughout the book in 1052 cases. e.g., the transcription of the Szarvas relic is the result of Vékony in 95%, 4.5% is another linguist, and I had only one very small improvement in it. In the book it is very clear. I understand your position, since you see the author is me. But I am accurate in this things: I always refer to the appropriate researchers. In the Wikipedia, I cited this book, since I supposed that you prefer a book in English. But now - as you surely noticed - include many relevant literature. Many of them are in Hungarian - unfortunately.

According to the Khazarian Rovas-related problem: in this case I have a strong background: very good and accurate works, which clarified for decades that the Old Turkic is far from the Rovas scripts. The reason of the popularity of the Old Turkic script (which anyway is really a wonderful product) is that Thomsen deciphered it more than one century ago. That is why everybody knows it and try to read every inscriptions with Old Turkic script. That was the situation in Hungary up to the 1980's. However, in that time new and significant Rovas relics were explored by the archaeologies. Based on them, they were able to transcribe the Eastern Europe Rovas inscriptions. I am going to follow your advices but in this case, I cannot do: if it is clear to me, that the Rovas scripts and the Old Turkic scripts have common ancestor but they belong to two distinct groups, I cannot do opposite thing. Old Hungarian-debate: From 2008 to 2010, the appropriate Unicode related standard committee preferred the term "Hungarian Runic". Only from this June they prefer (again) the term "Old Hungarian". The both are incorrect. On one hand, the Rovas scripts are totally different from the Runic script. On the other hand, the Hungarian Latin-based script was developed in the Old Hungarian linguistic period (896-1526). The Rovas scripts were developed earlier, in the Ancient Hungarian linguistic period (3000 BC - 896 AD). Consequently, for the Hungarians, it is very strange to use the term "Old Hungarian" to a script, which is earlier. Please, try the following: invoke the Google with the expression: "Old Hungarian text" (quotation marks are important in this case). I obtained 103000 hits. If you check them, you will find that these are about the Old Hungarian Latin-based orthography. Please, check the articles Carpathian Basin Rovas and Khazarian Rovas. I started to include not only the characters of these Rovas scripts, but also their phonetic values. I cannot be more accurate or more scientific. If you want to know more about me, my home page: http://nimrud.eet.bme.hu/hosszu/ BR, Gabor -Rovasscript (talk) 14:13, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dab, The terminology is really a hard problem. In fact, using the Rovas is a solution after many discussion: we did not find any appropriate term in English. I collected some examples of the international use of the word Rovas: http://rovasirashonlap.fw.hu/papers/rovas-international.pdf

Also, if you see the Old Hungarian script, in the end of the page (in source code) you see: pl:Rowasz, sr:Ровашко писмо, sh:Rovaško pismo. Consequently, the "Rovas" has a certain international use. In 2008, the larger user conference of the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas decided to define the "official" terminology, since up to that time there were many variants. From that time the term "Szekely-Hungarian Rovas" is used by us. BR, Gabor -Rovasscript (talk) 14:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dab, Naming question: for you, the name Khazarian Rovas or Carpathian Basin Rovas are new. This is the mistake of the Hungarian science that we did not published enough in English. Note that the term “Rovas” is a category name – we cannot substitute it with any other term.

I am not going to retitle the article Old Hungarian, I dislike the “war”. It was enough that somebody qualified my work as "pseudoscientific". However, we cannot use a bad term. The term “Old Hungarian” - sorry to say - is erroneous for the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas script. The Khazarian Rovas script is not a variant of the Old Turkic script. Kyzlasov is a great scientist; however, he did not transcribed either Khazarian Rovas or Carpathian Basin Rovas relics. Kyslasov had right that these scripts are cognate, but not variants of the Old Turkic script. The Old Turkic script was never used in Europe, only in Asia as I mentioned above. Moreover, the Carpathian Basin Rovas is very far from the Old Turkic script.

I gradually delete my own publications; however, I am a little bit disappointed since in Hungary my works are appreciated. The agressivity is far from me. But the position of the Hungarian science in this topic is very different from the international state of the art, since you do not know anything about the results of our researches (I speak about ’’not’’ my results). Are you really sure that I made „vandalism”? If you think so, please, delete all of my contributions. I will not appeal. According to the Kievan letter: thank you for the Google results: I will read them and build into the article if necessary. I do not know Hebrew script, what I know – a little bit only – the two-word long Khazarian Rovas inscription. Sorry, I cannot call these inscriptions any other way, if the people, who deciphered them named them so. BR, Gabor -Rovasscript (talk) 15:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Tulāsana for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tulāsana is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tulāsana until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article.

Factual addendum to above template notification: The AfD discussion concerns a total of 58 asana articles. MarB4 •ɯɒɹ• 14:01, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Paradise

Everyone is entitled to live in one's paradise. I just wish to bring to your attention that even in 2011 the British are a metaphor for evil, so that the dirtiest slur that is hurled against any one is Angrez or English (British). See latest use of Kale Angrez, or Black English.[3], that sums up the whole discussion as well as anything else can, no matter what Monty thinks about the Romans.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure, you may want to add these to list of racial slurs. I realize there is racism and xenophobia anywhere, you don't need to be ashamed about this, people do this in every country the world over.

There are unpleasant people in India just as there are unpleasant people everywhere else. There is a good chance of finding the most unpleasant people in chauvinist outfits that pretend that no, unpleasant people are only found elsewhere, especially among those foreign devils. People suffering from collective narcissism are almost invariably under-achievers with a low self-esteem. If you cannot be proud of yourself, at least be proud of your group. If you cannot be proud of your group, find some other group and blame them for keeping your group from achieving the splendour and glory it naturally deserves. In Britain, you find this kind in the BNP. In Germany, they-re the NDP, in Switzerland, the SD. These people will exist. You just need to watch out to never let them run things. Fortunately, all three parties I mentioned are part of stable parliamentary democracies, where they gather less than 2% of the popular vote. Other parts of the world may be less fortunate in this. --dab (𒁳) 13:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Dravidian culture

--Avedeus (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC) Dab, I seriously value your comments and views. Could you please have a look at the article again, and help me improve it further? Keep it constructive and specific, please. --Avedeus (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your spirit of collaboration, but you have not explained so far what is wrong with the South Indian culture article. Yes, I realize that "Dravidian culture" would technically amount to "South Indian culture, plus a bit of Sri Lanka, plus some isolated patches in North India", but "Dravidian culture" is de facto identical with "South Indian culture". The very reason that it makes sense to talk about South Indian vs. North Indian culture is that the South is "Dravidian" while the North is "Aryan". That's already implicit in the existence of the South Indian culture article. Note how we don't have a West Indian culture article: that's not a missing topic, it is an article we should not have.

If you want to focus on antiquity, however, you should go to Sangam period. You can only contribute value after you have reviewed what is already there. This is a collaborative project, we don't just come here and write some article in isolation, we should build on what is already here, ideally improving it. --dab (𒁳) 08:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok... so do you think I should incorporate the bits I wrote about modern/medieval South India into South Indian culture and the bits I wrote about antiquity in the Sangam period?--Avedeus (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, that would be my suggestion. I am not asking you to avoid the term "Dravidian" altogether, you can certainly use it when something concerns Dravidians in general. You just need to take care to avoid using "Dravidian" as a synonym of "Tamil". Remember, the Brahui and Gondi are Dravidians too. Do your statements about "Dravidian architecture" include Brahui and Gondi architecture, or were you really just talking about South Indian architecture? The term "Ancient Dravidian" suggests the Common Dravidian period, that is remote prehistory (Bronze Age, or Iron Age, certainly pre-Sangam). The Sangam period is more adequately described as "Ancient Tamil". --dab (𒁳) 06:21, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Karakucak

I restored the references. They are not "random URLs" as you happily referred to in order to create a pretext but they are sources on the very topic. I'm sorry to say that I cannot assign good faith to your move. Behemoth (talk) 20:16, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

so, in your opinion, guresdosyasi.com et al. qualifies as WP:RS? Are you serious? --dab (𒁳) 09:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Early Middle Ages

Hey dab. I've reverted some recent changes to Early Middle Ages that altered the scope of the article in a way that could spill over to other related articles. I saw you've worked on the article before, if you get a chance I'd appreciate it if you'd weigh in.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Please do weigh in at Talk:Early Middle Ages . The changes to Early Middle Ages were within the scope of the article in an attempt to {{globalize}} the article. --J. D. Redding 20:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Not Reddi again. When will this character finally get an education in history, or else go and edit articles on topics in which he is educated. Pleas for sanity are wasted breath in this case, this game has been going on literally for years. --dab (𒁳) 10:11, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I have an education in history; got a degree [BSc] ... maybe that is the problem. Know about the subject. The personal attack comment are unappreciated and, because of those, you can go screw yourself. --J. D. Redding 13:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

So much the worse for the label "BSc", I suppose. I have no intention of attacking you. The fact is that you are disrupting the pedia, and keep creating janitorial work for others. I did not ask you to "go screw yourself" or anything of the kind, but I believe in frankness when discussing the quality of people's edits, or lack thereof. Apparently you are not getting the message when it is being put politely. Maybe you will get it when it is being put bluntly, maybe not, I am not holding my breath. Maybe you will just keep throwing temper tantrums and swear at people. This would be a good thing, because it would mean that the problem will sort itself out. --dab (𒁳) 15:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Middle Ages

He's at it again at Talk:Middle Ages. Dougweller (talk) 15:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've stated my opinion on this. And we all have rollback buttons. But I need a break from this because it erodes my lingering belief in human intelligence. --dab (𒁳) 15:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Dbachman

Referring to this edit (http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=History_of_Libya_under_Muammar_al-Gaddafi&diff=434022359&oldid=433959217) of yours, which clearly shows that all references in the lead section were deleted and the whole section was written again with a strong POV, I would like to inform you that I'm undoing your edit.

Thank you

Sin un nomine (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you learn some English before trying to write an English language encyclopedia?

I'd like to know that, since I stumbled upon this jewel of yours "Notable living US American advocates of linguistic monogenesis are Merritt Ruhlen, John Bengtson, and Harold Fleming.". You should at the very least state in your user page that your first language is German and that your grasp of English is quite poor. --Belchman (talk) 01:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Huh? [4] Reminds me that I was going to write an essay on editing under the influence... Hans Adler 06:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

hm, as far as I can tell, the sentence in question is perfectly grammatical. Perhaps the copula ("living advocates are") does not quite comply with current-day standard written English, people would tend to pick a more grandiloquent verb such as "include" or "comprise" or "have been identified as by some commentators". But since "Belchman" for some reason has emboldened the "US American" bit I am not convinced that he even began to give grammatical structure any thought here. So frankly, I am not sure why I am being asked to "learn some English". Nor what the attempt to second-guess my first language is based on. Perhaps the Bachmann (to assume that he had based it on the point on the copula discussed above, informed by intimate knowledge of both German and English syntax, would perhaps be giving this editor too much credit).

I might add that I clean up after a lot of people who are native speakers of "English" and who make a depressing mess of the language of Shakespeare. A quarter-millennium into American independence, the time may have finally come to decouple things. --dab (𒁳) 08:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Bronze Age

Hi, FYI - please sign up Johnbod (talk) 15:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

history of name of Azerbaijan

hi - I'm writing to you in regards to the page [History of the name Azerbaijan] since you know editor Xashaiar from before [5]. Per the administrators' suggestion at the top of the page and in page talk that there are too many quotes and the article doesn't read well, as well as per the facts and quotations of both primary and secondary sources quoted in the article itself, I have deleted two irrelevant quotes that did not deal with the name Azerbaijan, and revised the intro sentence to better reflect the page, by removing the incorrect contention that the name of Azerbaijan supposedly became to encompass lands of the current Republic of Azerbaijan only in the 20th century [6]. I don't claim that I made the article perfect, but definitely made it slightly better, more consistent with Wikipedia purpose, and historically and factually correct. When one editor asked me about the edit, I've discussed it on his talk page [7], and on my talk page [8], showing all the scholars and geographers, who were already cited in the article, based on whose writings the edit came about. Then came editor Xashaiar and just started to revert (here's the diff: [9]), without discussions, without providing any logic or facts. Could you please take a look at the page and voice your opinion? --Agasalim (talk) 17:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

pf, yeah, Persian nationalists vs. other nationalists. Not the most pleasant side of Wikipedia, nor the most interesting one. But I guess someone has to do the thankless job of clamping down on the patriotic trolls around here. --dab (𒁳) 11:05, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Christ Islam.png

Dear Dieter Bachman,

Are you still an Admin here? You don't say anymore on your wiki userpage. Anyway, this map you created now on WikiCommons is quite wrong for South Sudan. How can you just colour green for South Sudan--when its predominantly Christian and Animist (African tribal religion)? Can you fix this map at Commons? After all, it was made by you. This map is actually more accurate for South Sudan. 2 million people in South Sudan didn't die in the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) so that outsiders like us can still label their new country Muslim when they are black Africans (not Arabs) who practise Christianity and their native African tribal religions. Best Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 08:45, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

What is wrong with you? The map is by country, and when I created it back in 2006, South Sudan was still far from being an independent country. I used Islam by country and Christianity by country. The map is only a visualization of the data in these article they stood in 2006. You are shooting the messenger, ok? You are welcome to update it, but you will have to update everything, not just South Sudan. The map shows the situation in 2006. If you want to update the map for 2011, nobody is stopping you. I resent your coming to my talkpage and asking me to "fix" the map, when by "fix" you mean "create a new updated map", as if it was somehow my fault that time has passed since 2006. --dab (𒁳) 09:42, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: Couldn't you update the map just once to make an exception for South Sudan in 2011? I agree the map was drawn up in 2006 but even in 2006 it was incorrect for South Sudan. When Manute Bol the late black African NBA player from Sudan was asked to represent his country as the "minister of sport" in 2001, the Arab Sudanese government said he must first convert to Islam from Christianity first. That is intolerable. I am not familiar with maps but you seem to have made all the edits to this map. Maybe you can make 1 more for South Sudan--as it is a mix of African tribal religion and Christianity. Its just a suggestion...and I'm sorry if I was rude. I should have said this is an update. Today I'm mostly active on Commons. Best Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 19:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry if I overreacted. The point is, the simple fact that I took the trouble to draw up this map back in 2006 does not mean that I a now obliged to maintain it. I may or may not get around to this in the near future. You would be much better advised in placing a request at WP:GL/MAP. --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Is ...

Is the phrase "epigraphic inscriptions" half redundant? Are there inscriptions that aren't "epigraphic"? I've seen this in a few articles, and I trust you to set me straight. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:22, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, in my opinion, "epigraphic inscriptions" is a pleonastic tautology. You can say "in epigraphy" for "in certain (unspecified) inscriptions", but when discussing a specific inscription, in the singular, you can just say "in an inscription". --dab (𒁳) 10:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I had started to doubt myself after seeing it a few times, and thought I was missing some intended nuance. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Astrology in Hellenistic Egypt

An article that you have been involved in editing, Astrology in Hellenistic Egypt , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Tartessian as Celtic and Koch's "Celtic from the West" school

Can you have a look into this problem? User:Jembana, with the support of some other users, is currently pushing John T. Koch's POV, especially in the article Tartessian language, but also in some other places, in a way clearly inconsistent with Wikipedia policy as I understand them, especially the WP:RECENT and WP:UNDUE guidelines. The mainstream view is still that Celtic origins lie in Central Europe and that Tartessian is unclassified, and as far as I'm aware, Koch's and Oppenheimer's dissenting views have not yet been widely discussed in the linguistic community. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, User:Jembana and friends do a lot of damage to our coverage of Celtic topic. I am not sure if they are aware of what they are doing, but since they are clearly ideology-driven I assume they do. This should just be treated like any other ethnic nationalist nonsense.

I have not seen the Cunliffe ans Koch volume, this may be the most reasonable account of this minority model atm. So it should be used to report on it. But of course the editing shouldn't be done by confused agenda-driven editors who actually try to push the minority view.

At the end of the day, the question is, where did the pre-Proto-Celts spend the early Bronze Age, and should they be described as "Celts"?. It is clear that Proto-Celtic proper is closely associated with Hallstatt/La Tène. This is as far as reasonably confident statements can be made. Now people want to know where did these early Celts come from? Obviously, they must have had ancestors. Where did those ancestors spend the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age? This is anyone's guess. If it pleases some people to speculate that the Atlantic Bronze Age should be considered, that's fine with me, but in my book this has very little to do with Celtic proper. It may have to do with early Indo European prehistory in Europe, and should be discussed for what it is, a speculative topic of Indo-European prehistory. Dubbing Neolithic peoples "Celts", even if they are ancestors of the early Celts, is just misleading. I do not think that authors like Oppenheimer who are not ashamed of throwing around stuff like Ice Age Celtic or pre-Roman English should be mentioned at all. We need some sort of minimal standard of non-inclusion for patent nonsense. --dab (𒁳) 07:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it turns out that "Celtic from the West" has now become a "thing" that should somehow be discussed on Wikipedia. This is a problem, because Wikipedia has long had trolls pushing this theory for cranky or nationalistic reasons, even before there was substantial literature on it. These people will now of course feel enabled, because they have been "saying so all along". But we will still need to try to do this properly.

• This is an instance of WP:FRINGE.
• It is also an instance of WP:RECENT, because this is being discussed right now. It may be gone again in another two years.
• The linguists don't believe in it. Which is rather relevant, because it is after all a linguistic theory.
• Nevertheless, "Celtic from the West"has now (2010–2011) been put on the agenda, even if the agenda simply consists of debunking it. And of course, as long as this takes place within academic publications, we are supposed to trace its development

Suggestive phrasing like this one, referring to the mainstream view as the "long-established, but increasingly problematic scenario" should rise huge WP:REDFLAGs: it is the hallmark of crank theories to suggest that the mainstream is "increasingly" problematic. The mainstream is always problematic, there are always little problems and unresolved questions. Suggesting that it is "increasingly" so just after your new idea entered the stage is dishonest, because it implies an extrapolation of a future where the mainstream will be "even more" problematic, and your minority idea "even more" widely accepted. Of course this does not need to happen at all, most minority views end up being recognized as even more problematic than the view they were supposed to replace, and are phased out again after a couple of years. But as long as they are new, it is always easy to claim that they get "increasing" attention etc.

This would be problematic enough on its own. But seeing as we have, on Wikipedia, a history of trolling dedicated to dishonestly inflate the credibility of these ideas, I am afraid the current forecast for the development of our Celtic articles is not looking too bright. --dab (𒁳) 12:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Neo-Pagan (literature) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Neo-Pagan (literature) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neo-Pagan (literature) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. IrishStephen (talk) 20:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Pre-Cyrillic Slavic writing->Pre-Christian Slavic writing

You moved the article Pre-Cyrillic Slavic writing to Pre-Christian Slavic writing as per the talk page. My reading of the indicates a consensus on "Slavic runes". Is there any information not on the talk page that I sould know about before I re-move the page? VanIsaac_WS 00:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Your reading of the what? --dab (𒁳) 11:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Oops. My reading of the talk page. VanIsaac_WS 11:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

hm, that's strange, my reading of the talkpage reminds me of why I had acted on the suggestion to move the article to its current title. Google books gives me 25 hits on "Slavic runes", so I will grant you that the term exists, but in my opinion this is a term used in popular literature, and it is also misleading. --dab (𒁳) 11:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

That's all I was wondering. As long as you have an informed reason to make the move you did, I'm not in a position to overturn it. VanIsaac_WS 12:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

oh, there is ample room for argument. The Russian article is called "the problem of pre-Christian writing among the Slavs", which is more accurate, but also a little wordy. I do by no means claim that the current title is optimal. I just do not feel that "Slavic runes" would be an improvement. --dab (𒁳) 12:13, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I just kind of thought that the discussion had seemed absolutely against Pre-Cyrillic Slavic writing, but slightly more in favor of Slavic Runes than Pre-Christian Slavic writing. As such, I was thinking that Slavic Runes may be a more appropriate consensus name, but I didn't have any background to support that. Like I said, I was just wondering whether you had a reason for the decision you made, or whether you had simply read the discussion differently. If the latter, I was going to discuss re-moving the article on the basis of consensus. It is, however, quite clearly the former. VanIsaac_WS 12:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Bigotry?

Did you mean this to be so strong? It took me slightly aback. There are no doubt bigots of all persuasions editing the article but I would say it has been remarkably collegial so far. Remarks like yours don't seem calculated to help the situation, if you don't mind my saying so. --John (talk) 21:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I am frustrated with the situation, and I am also frustrated with how well-meaning people are tip-toeing around naming the issues. How are we going to do anything to improve the situation if it isn't even allowed to address the problems? Yes, I would call this bigotry: sticking to your pre-conceived ideological worldview no matter what the facts are. This is never going to be helpful. I was not complaining about the tone of interaction on the article talkpage. I was complaining that the result, the actual article page, was steeped in politically correct dodging of the uncomfortable questions raised by these events.

I am frustrated enough to realize that I will not be a great help in editing the article, which is why I didn't touch the content page. --dab (𒁳) 08:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi Dbachmann, I haven't run into you for awhile, but just noticed your edits to Pan Germanism - well done, and thanks for taking an interest in that article. It was ina pretty sad shape a little while ago.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:34, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

thanks. I just came across the article as I tried to clean up the Germans#Name section. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Middle Eastern conflicts

You had expressed your opinion on synthesis and proposed merge of List of conflicts in the Middle East and List of modern conflicts in the Middle East earlier this year, though i closed your suggestion due to lack of interest by other editors. However, due to recent changes in the structure of those articles, i would like you to contribute to the renewed discussion here Talk:List of conflicts in the Middle East#Criteria for modern conflicts inclusion.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Unprotection of Babylon

Would you consider unprotecting Babylon? It's been over a year and the threat has probably passed. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 08:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

But the article isn't protected. It is semi-protected, which in spite of the similarity of the term is something entirely different. You should have no problem editing the article as you please. I see no reason to remove semiprotection. Wikipedia has thousands of well-developed articles which are semiprotected indefinitely, and for excellent reasons. --dab (𒁳) 08:34, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the difference. No worries; I'll take it to WP:RPP. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 08:45, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

yes, that's the right approach, thank you. I have no problem with the page being unprotected, I am just rather confident that within a couple of weeks and after lots of addition of nonsense and article deterioration, it will just go back to semiprotection, so the whole procedure is rather futile. I would also like to add that I am rather sensitive to semiprotection being called protection, as historically, troll teams have even managed to confuse the much-overwrought arbcom into issuing sanctions over "admin abuse" for using "protection" in "disputes", when in fact only semiprotection had been used to avoid socking. If people don't make the distinction (semiprotection gives zero leverage in content disputes against editors who are not sockmasters), the arbcom and other people basing a "judgement" on a cursory reading of a case of trolling will make mistakes. --dab (𒁳) 08:50, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The editor requested unprotection at RfPP, and it didn't sound like you minded too much, so I took the liberty of unprotecting it. Though you're probably right about the vandalism coming back at some point in the future. AlexiusHoratius 07:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

that's ok, thanks. If in two or three months we see that all anon contributions needed to be reverted, I'll just take the liberty of re-sprotecting. --dab (𒁳) 08:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

natio hungarica

Please see Talk:Natio Hungarica#Redirect. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:20, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Tone

Dear DAB, I would expect normal tone if you showed me your attention and addressed something to me. Here:Talk:Kingdom_of_Hungary, like

• "Fakirbakir, please let us clean this up, ok? You will have enough opportunities to insert grandiose statements into the article once the cfork problem has been fixed. --dab (𒁳) 13:20, 11 August 2011 (UTC)"
• "due to patriotic (to say the least) sentiment of the type of Kingdom of Hungary was lasted from 1000 to 1946. This state never ceased during the centuries. "

I think you are prejudicial with me.Fakirbakir (talk) 12:45, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

inasfar as you have been behaving irrationally and unconstructively, I have not been "prejudicial" so much as simply "judicial". But there is always time to revise my judgements, so if you are willing to accept WP:ENC, we won't have to prance around about childish patriotic sentiment and focus on the job of editing an encyclopedia. I submit that this would be the ideal approach. --dab (𒁳) 12:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have just tried to explain facts, historical movements. Of course maybe I am wrong however my tone was neutral contrary to you who judged my contributions in offending personal remarks ("grandiose statements..."; "due to patriotic .......to say at least").

And your link. Could you explain that why it is "nationalistic" or "patriotic" attitude when I stated Turanid race was used in the Communist era by anthropologists? It was terminology problem, a simple scientific problem because Hungarian anthropologists used that term (Turanid race) in the seventies and eighties without any nationalist habit and somebody (user Okoslegyel) wanted to make connection between the irredentist Hungarian politics prior to WW2 or the Hungarian party of Jobbik and the anthropologists of socialist era. You emphasized my editing like "bad behavior" or something like this. Your last comment is also offending "childish patriotic sentiment" (obviously addressed to me) and I see you are very confident when you characterize your own behavior. ("Simply I am not prejudicial just judicial".) I recommend you to be patient and sympathetic with other users. Sorry if I harm you with my comment, but I felt your contributions were offensive with me. Fakirbakir (talk) 14:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

About history of LEG XXI Rapax

Hello Mr. Dbachmann. In article about Vindonissa (http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Vindonissa) i read that in 69 AD Leg XXI looted the countryside and becouse of this fact was replaced. Where do you find such historical sources about this? Can you tell me please? Becouse this is you who add this fact to the article. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by M.Bonus (talk • contribs) 09:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

You are right, this was an edit of mine dating from February 2006, which I left deplorably unreferenced. I think what I was doing was just providing a quick summary of de:Vindonissa for what was at the time a substub. The primary source for this is apparently Tacitus, Historiae I, 67-68 but I didn't check. I note that our Legio XXI Rapax article is also poorly referenced. This situation warrants a {{refimprove}} content warning tag at least. --dab (𒁳) 17:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

SeikoEn maps

Hi

I noticed you commented on SeikoEn's maps and the text inserts.

More importantly than the points mentioned, the text is copyvio from the Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine. I had thought that the matter was resolved, but it appears they have not been fixed. If the matter is not resolved then I suspect that deletions will be the only way forwards.

The latest one to be placed into Wiki, though by another editor, is File:Kievan_Rus'_historical_map_980_1054.jpg (copyvio is from [10]). I will raise the matter with them again, but as the last conversations were less than friendly I am not sure how that will pan out. Chaosdruid (talk) 22:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, if they are copyvios on top of just poor editorial judgement, it will be very easy to report them at commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard for deletion. --dab (𒁳) 17:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit summmaries

Hi Dbachmann
I noticed that you have been busy at the Lantern shield article recently. However, your last eight edits there had very little or no summary, making following the history rather difficult. Could you please do the honours in future?
Regards

RASAM (talk) 21:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

AfD

Hello. As one of the top ten contributors of Great Divergence, the main article on the subject, you are notified per WP:Canvass (users who are known for expertise in the field) of a AfD on whether the Canadian scholar R. Duchesne is notable in his field of "wolrd history" or not, that is whether the bio should be kept or not. See here. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Unprotecting Sanskrit?

I just made various changes to this article. You semi-protected it some 3 years ago due to a single incident then, and it has remained semi-protected ever since, except for a period when the pending-changes mechanism was applied. I'm not affected by semi-protection but I wonder why we need it at all -- doesn't seem to make sense to keep it indefinitely semi-protected just because of a single incident 3 years ago. The reason I bring this up is that there was a major error in the lede; an IP noticed the error over 2 months ago and wanted to correct it to how it should read, but couldn't due to the semi-protection. Instead, he added a note about this to the talk page -- and someone with no knowledge promptly said "If that's true, show us the sources", but the IP was already gone. If I hadn't happened to come along and know that the IP was correct, the major error could have sat for months or years. This is a prime example of why semi-protection of articles of this nature is a bad thing. Could you just remove it? Thanks. Benwing (talk) 09:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

this cuts both ways. Because the article isn't watched by many competent editors, the continuous crap that keeps getting added by IPs will just seep into edit history and make it an absolute nightmare to clean up, leaving nothing but deep reverts after months of keeping an utterly flawed version online. I assure you that this is what happened constantly before semiprotection, and will happen again after unprotection.

I am sorry about the "liturgical language of Buddhism" thing, and I thank you for fixing it. I still assure you that this pales in comparision with what you will need to fix, on a daily basis, if we unprotect. Since I am not heeding my watchlist at this point, I will not be able to help fixing the crap after unprotection, and my idea is that whoever unprotects has a certain obligation of keeping a close watch on the article over the next few months. "administrative unprotection" on the basis of "I'm just the admin here, and I say unprotect; let the expert scum look after maintaining integrity of content" is a very misguided approaches to using admin privileges: you unprotect, so you take the burden of responsibility.

But of course I will not oppose unprotection. I never do, on the off-chance that I have too pessimistic an outlook, and on the premise that there will still time to re-protect in a couple of months if we get tired of reverting nonsense. You can just ask the good people at WP:RPP to do the honours if you like. --dab (𒁳) 17:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Re: Natio Hungarica

I've no idea what you mean by "wheel-warring" or why you would be referring to the redirect as "your" (mine). This is completely uncalled for.

I've explained the reason for it in no uncertain terms at the talk page at the time, if you disagree, you should use the fine talk page.

I've undone the full indefinite protection (it's been almost a week already), so you all are free to go do whatever else you want.

Frankly, I've been abused enough by both sides of the debate already. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't intend for the former text to appear as yelling. I had actually been reading that talk page before my change and was under the (mistaken) impression at the time that you were the administrator who moved it and protected it, so it didn't occur to me that you hadn't actually already noticed that stuff in the Nobility article... In any case, the full protection of the redirect was a bit excessive, so I've undone it in good faith, just like I acted in good faith when I re-pointed the redirect to another article that did not omit an actual mention of the term. Full protection doesn't have to really mean much, in this case it looks like it was just a result of one (of a thousand...) admins having a knee-jerk reaction to an edit war. Let's move on :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

"Dravidian" articles

Dab, you've cleaned up after Kalarimaster before, could you help with the same again? The three most recent socks Wangond (talk · contribs), David Fraudly (talk · contribs), Malaikaran (talk · contribs) have been carrying on the same work as before, but linguistics isn't my area, and even a broken clock is right twice a day. The two main articles are Telugu language and Malayalam and Malaikaran has been the most active in the linguistics area. In addition Ancient Dravidian culture is one that needs some attention. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 07:32, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I am getting tired of accepting that some users are just here to create janitorial work for others. "a broken clock is right twice a day" is not an acceptable approach to Wikipedia in my opinion. The burden is on the clock to make plausible that it has a better than random chance of being right.

Otherwise we could just create bots posting random strings of words to articles and we would have to ask people to sift through them on the one-to-billion off chance that something sensible has been produced. Users that have shown that they do not know what they are doing (or Hanlon-equivalently worse) should have their work reverted by default, so they learn it is their task to convince us they have anything worthwhile to offer.

In other words, I will fully support you in a policy of by default reverting Kalarimaster, unless this guy manages to present a coherent and referenced argument. --dab (𒁳) 07:50, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I have reverted the contributions per policy, especially since all he does is remove sources he doesn't like and adds stuff that he does. But what I meant with the broken clock analogy was that he keeps writing about something that's wrong and of the other POV extreme and there might be some merit to that. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 07:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

yeah, I just note these have already been blocked as socks. This guy is clearly an idiot, and also angry and agenda-driven, so this is the obvious solution: we do not need to put up with this. Swat the socks, roll back their edits, and save your capacity for worthwhile tasks.

I understand the broken clock analogy: what the nationalist cranks need to learn is that they are damaging their own cause, as they invite a backlash by being blatant jerks. Nobody makes Persia look worse than our resident Persian idiot nationalists. Persia has a great heritage, but nobody does more towards obscuring that fact than the teenage trolls going on about it.

This is also how things work in real life. Gandhi figured this out 70 years ago. You don't gain independence by killing soldiers. You gain independence by getting the soldiers to kill your own people while they sing peace songs and wave with flowers. I.e. you need to get the other side to lose the moral high ground and look evil, then politics will take care of the rest. It is my opinion that teaching this lesson to nationalist kids on Wikipedia might actually help fight terrorism :o) Once you have understood that every successful terrorist attack actually damages the cause of the terrorists, the smart thing to do is try and get the other side to kill some of your own people. Once both sides have understood these dynamics, people will just taunt one another with no shots fired. That's the beginning of civilization. What follows is obnoxious politics, but you only think politics is obnoxious if you forget what it is replacing. Gandhi is a hero for having figured this out, not for being a peacenik. Gandhi was actually happy to wade in blood, just as long as it was the blood of peaceful protestors on his own side, because nothing is going to end a regime faster than a record of its slaughtering civilians. The Arabs are 70 years late to this lesson (like to so many other ones), but they are getting there now, too.

Ok, so this was off topic, but it explains my line of thinking on nationalist trolling. Zero tolerance, block the socks until the kids get tired of the game, then try to get a grown-up to cover their point of view properly for them. --dab (𒁳) 08:06, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

So Avedeus (talk · contribs) is not one of the socks, is he? He is still to blame for this train wreck. I think this should not actually be deleted but kept a round as an example illustrating the problem, as it's close to the textbook case. After the article has been blanked-redirected of course. Any minute wasted on such stuff by capable editors is damaging the project. Anyone capable of posting stuff like this to Wikipedia article space, either seriously or mock-seriously (who can tell),

The culture of the Ancient Dravidians was one of the most complex and oldest of living civilisations. ... Kolam reflects much of what Dravidian culture is; ancient, but still endures; it is simple, yet complex; it is colourful and exquisite and is formed from a tight knit network.

makes clear that they have not the first idea what this website is even about. These people should be kindly pointed at WP:ENC and asked to go write a blog. My experience of half a decade of dealing with these people tells me that any further minute spent "debating" these people is wasted. --dab (𒁳) 08:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Avedeus is a sock, behavioral evidence and editing interests indicate otherwise. Yeah I saw the article when I was looking through the socking contributions, that's why I highlighted it above, because I'm not sure that just reverting the sock edits would have been useful in that case. thanks for taking a look at these. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 09:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree it's not a sock. Some users are just genuinely just as bad as Kalarimaster+socks in their own right. --dab (𒁳) 10:00, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

• The articles you are debating about is about have valid referencing in them. You cannot, for political or personal reasons, criticise an article. Believe it or not, Dravidian identity spans countries - not just India but the likes of Sri Lanka, Singapore, Mauritius. I am up for making the article as neutral as possible by citing other POVs, but to think that you are debating about something like you own the place is ridiculous - so get off you high horses and come back to reality. The article has several valid citations, and of course, if you have other sources that say the opposite, incorporate that into the article, but to not consider it at all shows how close minded "capable editors".

Please continue this discussion ON the DISCUSSION page of the ARTICLE, not here. --Avedeus (talk) 15:31, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

"valid references", eh? I don't think you know what that is. Have you written an article Dravidian identity? No. You are welcome to write one, if and only if you base it on academic references that discuss Dravidian identity. As long as you haven't even started to write that article, let alone provided any references on the topic, I cannot imagine why you even bring up the topic. I certainly haven't complained about a Dravidian identity article, as there isn't even one in existence.

What I have complained about is your insertion of random nonsense into the India article (i.e., the name "India" being derived from a Dravidian word for "date palm". I ask you). Coming to my talkpage rambling about "Dravidian identity" or some other unrelated idea is not going to change that. Please stop doing this. Of course the "please" here is optional. If you continue to add nonsense to articles, you will find that Wikipedia has means to prevent you from doing that. --dab (𒁳) 16:27, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

How am I when I have quoted credible citations to back up most if not all things I have said, if you care so much help to improve instead of criticizing, which is all youve been doing instead of constructively saying how the article can be improved. Dont give me this vague/ambiguous nonsense, what precisely is your problem? Give me opposing views with citations we'll incorporate that into the article, instead your personal/political criticism is baseless and will get you nowhere --Avedeus (talk) 16:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I repeat keep your personal/political views to yourself, I have quoted two credible sources that relate India to Dravidian origin. AND IT IS NOT IN YOUR JUDGMENT TO RULE THEM OFF AS "RANDOM NONSENSE" OR WHATEVER; because I dont care what you think, keep your opinions to yourself!--Avedeus (talk) 16:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for posting on the discussion page. Once again we have come to to this point where to some people the "Dravidian identity" is, as the book you linked opines, a mere travesty by Christian colonial missionaries in India to cause a division in India. And yet, to some of us, including me and many people around the world, it is our identity as shown by the references.

We should not conflate South Indian culture and Dravidian culture, because the latter encompasses the Chitti, the Malbars, the Malabars as well Sri Lanka, not simply South India. Dravidian culture and identity is mixture of all the following:

Dravidian languages Dravidian peoples Dravidian Architecture Dravidian martial arts

• Note they are all called 'Dravidian' for a reason, i.e. they are part of the Dravidian cultural sphere as recognised by the people themselves.

If you or anyone want to believe it is a mere travesty by Christian colonial missionaries in India to cause a division in India; then I will incorporate that opinion into the article, but for many, Dravidian culture is a mixture of South Indian culture with that of Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Reunion, Malaysia, Singapore, etc., so me including Tamil cuisine in the food section is not at all surprising. --Avedeus (talk) 01:23, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• • • --Avedeus (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC): Right; could you have a look at the article and see how much of it you approve now? I have deleted many things about modern and medieval South India, and stuck closely to "ancient Dravidian culture."

Gandhi

I find your opinion about Gandhi extremely repulsive when you say:

“ Gandhi figured this out 70 years ago. You don't gain independence by killing soldiers. You gain independence by getting the soldiers to kill your own people while they sing peace songs and wave with flowers. I.e. you need to get the other side to lose the moral high ground and look evil, then politics will take care of the rest...Gandhi is a hero for having figured this out, not for being a peacenik. Gandhi was actually happy to wade in blood, just as long as it was the blood of peaceful protestors on his own side, because nothing is going to end a regime faster than a record of its slaughtering civilians. ”

I almost threw up as I read your words above. Ironically the very Hindu nationalists you've fought with again and again here on Wikipedia would probably be the ones endorsing this sort of a view point. You have the right to your opinion but might I suggest that you put on your "editor" hat and try to evaluate your opinion from a viewpoint of making an addition to the article on Gandhism based on reliable sources and all of that. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

well, this isn't something I would try to push in an encyclopedia article about Gandhi, but it does happen to be my impression of Gandhi after having read a lengthy biography of the man.

Note --> Why read a biography when you have an autobiography? Just saying. ElbowingYouOut (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I was a bit disturbed by this at first myself. He was a great man, no doubt, non-violent and all. He was still a fanatic. His only concern was the Motherland, he didn't care about mere human lives. Whether that makes him a great patriot or a deluded fanatic is left to the judgement of the reader, I suppose.

Note --> Half knowledge is dangerous knowledge. Finish reading history first. Didn't care about more human lives? You wouldn't know about his work in Africa, would you? ElbowingYouOut (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

But I was serious when I said I consider Gandhi a hero. If only all fanatics could embrace his sublime brand of fanaticism the world would be a much, much better place.

What I never understood was this fixed idea that India was by no means to be divided. After all, India was only united because the British forced the individual states under their imperial rule to begin with. Why should the Indians be so enthusiastic about this unification imposed from the outside? After all, India had never been united since the time of Ashoka, and even then only by imperialist force. And now you ended up with a billion-citizen democracy. I have no problem with that if that's what people really want, but I cannot help but wonder if India had not been better off if it had been turned into a loose union of half a dozen states or so, say the Republic of Tamil Nadu, the Republic of Kashmir, and so on. A lot of bad blood and warfare just might have been avoided. I am only saying.

Eh --> Yeah, right. ElbowingYouOut (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course I do by no means pretend to know all about Gandhi, or to be an expert on Gandhism, and I will be very happily swayed from my current opinion of solid evidence is presented to the effect that I am mistaken. --dab (𒁳) 16:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, Gandhi is on record saying that he was good with delaying Indian independence if it came at the cost of violence and a human toll. Your opinion is non-mainstream and what's in it for me to make you sway from it? :-) May I have the name/author of the biography that had you come to such an incorrect (IMO) conclusion? If you are truly open to changing your opinion then the best way to do it is to source your claim and make an edit to the article dedicated for this topic - Gandhism. You will gain a lot more knowledge through the WP:BRD process that follows (assuming the page has active watchers). Also since you use words like civilization, violence and Gandhi in the same context, may I ask what you think of European colonialism of that era? Do you think the British (in this case, but it could be the French or the Spaniards, etc) were civilized to barge in uninvited and not leave from India even while the Indians worked hard at convincing them to leave in a very patient and civilized manner? Zuggernaut (talk) 17:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not married to my opinion, and I have no stakes in it. I may also have overstated it. I do assume you agree it is "mainstream" to say that Gandhi cared very much about the Motherland and made it his primary task to keep it united after independence? Of course it speaks for Gandhi that he was killed by the Hindu nationalists, the same way it speaks for Yitzhak Rabin that he was killed by a religious Zionist. Gandhi had a mature, grown-up religiosity, unlike the violent pubescents who run the "Hindutva" movement, so he understood that God isn't a Hindu. All this makes him a very positive figure in my mind and if you think I was just dissing Gandhi above, you haven't understood what I meant.

What I meant was that Gandhi for all his maturity was a dyed-in-the wool nationalist. What the hell is so important about the allegory of Bharat Mata that millions of people should be killed over it? Why not create a bunch of cantons in a pragmatic federalist state, and forget about "nation"? The state is for collecting taxes, building roads, and catching burglars, not for expressing an eternal holy essence of Nation or Folk. If you get this wrong, the outcome will just be very sad for everyone. People can still enjoy their ethnic identity or whatever as much as they like, but like religion it would be their private business and not a matter of state. After a few generations of treating this ethnic or national bs as a private hobby, people will stop to obsess over it as well.

Now, it's not Gandhi's fault that millions of Indians at the time obsessed over religion and ethnicity. This wasn't even the Indians' fault, I suppose they just got the idea from the Europeans, who were absolutely insane over this during about 1880 to 1940, i.e. precisely the time the British came in close contact with India. This was very wrong, and the Europeans payed dearly for the mistake, in the currency of the blood of dozens of millions. Then, by 1945, they had finally learned their lesson. Now from the Indian perspective of the 1940s, if people are going to go apeshit over religion and nation, the very best that can happen to you is Gandhi, a nationalist fanatic who is also a mature spiritualist vowed to non-violence. This is why I think Gandhi may have been the right man at the right time, even if it would have helped if he had been told about the advantages of federalism. People might have been kept from making up a fairy-tale India united under Emperor Bharata which must be re-united at all cost, and we might not have two disturbingly unstable nuclear powers staring each other down across the Kashmir line of control today. I submit that this would have been a nice outcome compared to what we have today.

Now this is just my opinion. I am not sure whether you are saying that I am getting the facts wrong on which I base my opinion, or if you just saying that while I am getting the facts right, you disagree with my subjective conclusions from these facts.

you mustn't think that I have a less than bleak opinion of European colonialism. I was using "civilization" facetiously. Of course "civilization" usually means law and order at home, and imperialist adventures abroad. This isn't a European thing, this happened everywhere, from China to the Andes. Queen Victoria wasn't any more, nor less, of an imperialist ruler than king Ashoka. What I cannot abide is people who denounce the empire who colonialized them as evil, while at the same time glorifying their own historical history of colonizing others. Now that is just lame, dishonest. "Ashoka was a great Indian emperor, but the British in India were evil colonizers" is an extremely stupid position. You could as well say that "Victoria was a great British emperor, but the Romans in Britain were evil colonizers" If your ideal is the romantic Kibbutz/Gaṇa sangha style of local communism, that's great, but then you shouldn't take pride in your own successes at imperialism.

(But I think apart from a few cranky pagan indigenists, most British would say that the Roman conquest had its benefits in terms of trade and technology, say, Britain got the road from the Romans just like India got the railroad from the British. Yes, I admit I do think this joke is at least as much on the Indians as on the Jews.)

My view of this is that imperialism like nationalism is something that is going to happen. I don't believe in contrasting such realities with utopias, I prefer to think about that since they are going to happen, how can the be made as beneficial as possible. In this sense, I believe the British Empire, as empire, did pretty well. I do think that if India had been colonized by the Spanish, you would have noticed the difference. India would probably be half Roman Catholic today, for a start. And from 1945 at least, the British wanted nothing more than leave India as quickly as possible, like the Americans wish they could just leave Afghanistan today without things devolving into a bloodbath. They did their best to prevent the worst, but disaster still happened. Under the innocuous heading independence and population exchanges we learn in passing, that about half a million people were not so much "exchanged" as killed. Half a million! Considering that people write obsessive articles about each terrorist attack killing two and injuring five, I find it difficult to believe this massacre doesn't even have an article on Wikipedia. I guess it doesn't quite fit the smooth narrative of "the polite and peaceful Indians asked the British would they please leave already, and then they became an independent democracy". --dab (𒁳) 06:09, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

If anything, Gandhi was a stickler for principles, one of which included Ahimsa. Nationalism, social reform, family and everything else came later. You make an emphatic statement like Gandhi was actually happy to wade in blood, just as long as it was the blood of peaceful protestors on his own side, because nothing is going to end a regime faster than a record of its slaughtering civilians and then you say you are not dissing him or that you've overstated your opinion. If that's the case, why not strike it out or redact it and we'll be on our way (we'll be on our way even without that since this is just a talk page). Let me state some facts so you can re-evaluate your opinion.

• In 1920, Gandhi led what was perhaps the most successful Satyagraha of the Indian freedom struggle with the entire nation being mobilized in the civil disobedience movement. When a violent incident took place in Chauri Chaura on the Indians' part, Gandhi took personal responsibility and called off the movement stating that he did not want independence in a violent manner. You will find numerous sources stating that this insistence of Gandhi's to obtain freedom in a non-violent way set back Indian independence by decades. The 1922 Chauri Chaura trial has been called "The great Chauri Chaura trial" - you will find the entire trial proceedings all over the net and in books. Parts of it are an interesting read.
• When World War II broke, all leaders except Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to push the British against the wall and seek independence. Gandhi was alone when he said that taking advantage of the British at such a time would only be another form of violence (perhaps mental violence) and said that independence should wait until after the war. The only leader that I am aware of who opposed him was Subhash Chandra Bose.

So, you see, your stated opinion about Gandhi being "happy" to "wade in blood" is divorced from all recorded facts. There are a plethora of sources that will corroborate this. You just have to look them up. Regarding nationalism, you are viewing nationalism through a European lens, a continent whose definition of nationalism has given us two World Wars and violence on a scale that has not been elsewhere on the planet. Until Gandhi's time, at least, nationalism in India meant liberation from slavery and social reform to some extent. Gandhi himself, of course, wanted no part in the concept of the Indian nation-state which had it's own army, navy and an air-force. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

(od)Dab should measure his statements against Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and how Gandhi's disciple Vinoba Bhave coined Jai Jagat or Viva World, which is Hindu culture. Much of Dab's tirade denunciation of Hindutva is Quixotic like tilting at windmills thinking they are dragons, Hindutva's foremost ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, wrote "...The only fair and helpful criterion to be applied while independently studying different religions is to remain truthful and free of bias towards and against any particular religion.", and "...When we read the poetry of Milton, Homer, Valmiki, Omar Khayyam; history books written by Kant, Spencer, Kapil, Spinoza; science books on electricity, light, heat; works on technology, medicine, sculpture and novels, we fondly consider all of them as our common heritage irrespective of the place of their origin. Readers do not generally get lose their sanity and break each others’ skulls when they read these books. Why can’t we likewise read these five or ten religious scriptures peacefully? Why should each of these five or ten books cause murder and mayhem, insult and abuse over a period of centuries? Why should their reading breed enmity between man and man? If this is the result of reading them, then these scriptures are not religious but irreligious scriptures!...",[11] Gandhi was not murdered by a lunatic in a frenzy of madness, Godse was a pariot and an editor, in the events to 30 January 1948 Dalvi's Godse speaks They (Godse's parents), prayed to God, had their fourth son, Nathuram. Nathuram survived because they were destined to suffer for their young son's death and Gandhi was destined to be assassinated. ...I never stole in my childhood, so there was no question of apologising to my father. I never took a vow of celibacy as I was already practising celibacy. I was moving around the refugee camps and helping the destitute with food and clothes. But I did not wander half-naked because the refugees were naked. I never spun yarn, never cleaned my toilet, never observed silence till I was hanged. There was only one common factor in Gandhi's life and mine. We were both the cause of each other's death. He wanted to live for his principles and I was prepared to die for my principles. ...You can't just warn the government through editorials at such hours. Tell me Nana (Narayan Apte ), What do you mean by people will not tolerate, people will revolt...and so on? Who are these people? Do you mean our readers or those who attend our meetings and listen to our speeches? No, Nana, people also mean you and me, us. If we forget what we write and what we talk then our editorials and brave speeches in the meetings and futile. A man addressing from the dais is also a part of the crowd sitting before him. When we say that the people should revolt, it means that we should revolt![12]Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:26, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Zuggernaut, I have already said that I have respect for Gandhi. But I don't see how you propose anything to counter the opinion I stated. I stated the opinion polemically, giving it a rhetoric edge, in a certain context. This doesn't mean that there is no substance to it that can be phrased more soberly. The problem seems to be Gandhis almost religious conviction that there was a "nation", with some kind of real, substantial existence. I do not accept such beliefs as factual, but I do accept that many people hold them. I argue that it is very clear that there was not, nor never had been, a single "Indian nation", hence the bloody ordeal of partition. Apart from that, Gandhi was a kind man and all, he simply held an ideology which I reject, and to some extent despise. This doesn't mean I need to despise the man holding it.

Yogesh Khandke, I have permitted myself to have a discussion of opinion on my own user talkpage. Nothing in this section has anything to do with how I propose to edit any article, which I invariably do based on WP:RS, attempting to meet WP:DUE, never mind my own opinions. Such a discussion on opinion may be "quixotic". It may also be fruitful. Depends on your perspective.

Hindutva is just the Hindu term for "jingoistic religious right". It doesn't matter if these people are Hindu, or Christian, or Muslim, they will always succumb to the same evils. They are a reality that needs to be faced in real life, but they are not a reality that we need to put up with as Wikipedia editors. I am not here to do Indian politics, in my real life, it is enough for me to put up with the same kind of evil in my own country without putting my nose in foreign affairs. But as a Wikipedian, it is for me a janitorial task to keep jingoistic nonsense out of Wikipedia articles. I have brushed with Hindutvavadi editors on Wikipedia because of their anachronistic nonsense regarding the Vedas. The Rigveda is a unique document, without any equivalent the world over, and it does not deserve to be reduced to a feather in the cap of national mysticists or jingoist morons. If Gandhi was killed by an Indian patriot, I will just say, so much the worse for Indian patriotism. It kind of makes my point for me. I am sure Gandhi was saintly enough so he didn't mind being assassinated, and his killer was disturbed enough to not mind being hanged, so, good for them. I really have no stakes in this stuff and all I can do is observe what "patriotism" will make people do, and try to take precautions against this kind of mind-cancer in my own sphere. Perhaps you should preach Savarkar's reconciliatory approach to his own followers instead of to me. The day I see the RSS hold workshops on reading the Quran, Kant and classical electrodynamics because "Hindutva is about peaceful inter-cultural intellectual curiosity" instead of holding rallies and riots, I might be prepared to admit that the quotes you throw at me have anything to do with the topic under discussion. --dab (𒁳) 16:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Its so ironic that Hindutva was started under an avowed atheist and someone who thought Omar Khayyam was Indian heritage. "Perhaps you should preach Savarkar's reconciliatory approach to his own followers" - That is a profound statement.Pectore^talk 20:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You are reading Savarkar incompletely Pectore, he writes that Khayyam and Homer are human heritage, not Indian, if you mean that.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Bbachmann I'm a little rushed, I'll get back to you, except one point, our talk pages are Wikipedia pages, with editor's names on them, they are not a blog page, the one whose name the page carries has a few more privileges. *Well I will strike Quixotic, it is meant to convey the picture of one striking at wind-mills thinking them to be dragons, that is why I used an upper-case. I am striking it off as I meant no personal offence.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:09, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

there is no need to finish this discussion, Zuggernaut and myself just decided to have a friendly exchange on Gandhi in a public spot, this isn't in any way tied to Wikipedia. I did not mean to attack you for the "Quixotic", and I was not offended at all. I merely replied stating why I thought you were mistaken. I understand you meant to say my "tirade" was misguided. I actually objected more to the "tirade" than to the "Quixotic", replying that I was within my rights to post "tirades" to my user talkpage as long as things don't escalate to a blatant violation of WP:NOTBLOG. Nobody forces you to read or comment on this page. --dab (𒁳) 10:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

(od)(1)Tirade struck off, replaced by denunciation. (2)Please read Godse was a patriot, as Godse considered himself as much a patriot as Gandhi, therefore that quote on celibacy,etc. (3)Your statement I do think that if India had been colonized by the Spanish, you would have noticed the difference. India would probably be half Roman Catholic today, for a start gives too much unnecessary credit to the British, one 1857 was a lesson for them not to mess up with religious traditions of Indians and concentrate on what they had come to India for - bleed it financially, Victoria proclaimed very much under duress of the violence of 1857 that Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be in anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all alike shall enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure.[13] (4)The following statement too And from 1945 at least, the British wanted nothing more than leave India as quickly as possible, like the Americans wish they could just leave Afghanistan today without things devolving into a bloodbath., grossly overestimates British capablity, one mutiny in Mumbai, brought back memories of 1857, and the desire to withdraw to Old Blighty. (5)My referring to wp:NOTBLOG was in response to the my page that you wrote. (6)Your statement Gandhi was actually happy to wade in blood, just as long as it was the blood of peaceful protestors on his own side, because nothing is going to end a regime faster than a record of its slaughtering civilians, seems to be remarkably accurate, though I do not have evidence to agree with your allegations of his motivations, I would tend to disagree about it, perhaps it was religion, he was prepared to bleed like Christ, perhaps for him, his suffering and his people's suffering was the same, and he was indifferent to his people's suffering as he was about his own. The first part is Godse's complaint about Gandhi, and why he (according to him) had to erase Gandhi.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Look, I am not asking you to strike out things you said. You say stuff, and I reply, and If I disagree I will just say why I happen to disagree. I also have no particular desire to draw out this conversation. It started as an exchange between Zuggernaut and myself. You have been free to comment, but this doesn't mean we need to follow the debate wherever you want to take it. I have already said that I do not wish to defend colonialism, and the British Empire was clearly colonialist, so there. I am also aware that the Indian nationalists of today have a bee in their bonnet about whining hysterically about the evil British, far beyond the admitted unpleasantries the British are undisputedly guilty of. Hence my reference to "what have the Romans ever done for us". There wasn't a Hindu nationalist anti-British purge after 1947, outlawing the railroad and the printing press, or use of the English language for communication between the disparate nations found within India, so clearly the British must have done something right for the good of India even in the eyes of their most radical detractors.

I am asking you to compare British rule to Maharaja or Sultanate rule, not to some imagined utopian ideal. Once you do that, you can give a fair comparison as to how the British did fare as authoritarian rulers. I am not endorsing authoritarian rule, I am merely saying the British did remarkably well within that category, compared to real-world contrasting examples of authoritarian rule. If you cannot or do not want to follow this argument, you are welcome to just let it be. Of course there was missionary activity under the British. And of course the Hindu nationalists are going to be scandalized about that. Yawn. All I am asking you to do before you whine about colonialism is, go and look at how the Conquistadores fared with the Incas and other indigenous religions of the Americas, and then compare this to a British missionary going around converting Dalits by friendly persuasion. A "lesser evil" may still be an evil, I agree, and you are still free to whine about colonialism, but at least you will be able to put things into perspective.

The last thing I want is accolade for my characterization of Gandhi from the camp of plain depressing fanatical nationalism responsible for his assassination. Gandhi may be surprisingly ambiguous considering he is recognized as an image of sainthood almost universally. The people who assassinated him are not "surprisingly unambigous", they are just plain and boringly evil in the most unsurprising way possible. If you want to disagree with my concept of "evil", that's fine, I am not asking you to join my camp or wave my flag or anything. --dab (𒁳) 12:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry if it appears that I am barging into a private discussion. If you wish, you can just revert my edit as its your private space, but I cant stop myself from listing a few relevant points .

1. Mahatma Gandhi wasn't always non-violent. Quit India Movement of 1942 was a violent struggle and Gandhi didn't denounce the violence. This question was asked in Indian Civil Service Examination 2011 conducted by UPSC

2. I cant say this for all but, as far as I know, at least some Hindu nationalists, e.g. Girilal Jain (and even V.S. Naipaul to an extent), view British rule as a positive influence on Indian Society.

3. A small difference between imperialism and British colonialism of India is that British never settled in India. I think if they had settled, as Mughals did, they would have been viewed far more positively than they currently are.

I have not written the above comment to elicit a response from you. Its just that I could not stop myself from writing it. :) --nids(♂) 06:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Foreign relations of Libya

I've restored Foreign relations of Libya to its previous state. Making that article into a disambig is a controversial move, and should be discussed via WP:RM first. --JaGa^talk 17:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Same for Human rights in Libya. --JaGa^talk 18:58, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

trolls

• "nationalist troll problem our Hungary topics"
• "I can only surmise that what we are seeing here is a spillover of ethnic crankery going on in Hungary in the wake of the 2010 Jobbik election victory."

You mix patriotism and chauvinism. I have to inform you chauvinist supporters of Jobbik are (usually)unable to edit those topics. However, I am getting convinced you really have prejudice to Hungarian topics, editors.Fakirbakir (talk) 19:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Fakirbakir. Please, do not make prejudiced political statements and exaggregated conclusions. Not everybody is a "nationalist troll", who does not agree with your opinion. I would also expect a neutral tone and an unbiased approach from you. Thank you. -- Koertefa (talk) 04:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Elimination of outline articles

Have you seen this? There are better examples illustrating the problems. Dougweller (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks for notifying me.

Wikipedia can be a showcase of human stupidity, often malevolent, but the more exasperating examples are those of well-meaning stupidity. But in the end, common sense tends to prevail. But you will only notice if you stick around for five years or more, because that's about how long it will take.

I have done my best to prevent this thing doing more damage than it already had when I first noticed it. Now it has just gone stale and simply sits there. I expect it's going to be eliminated eventually. But in any case it doesn't seem to be doing any damage now, it's just stale cruft. --dab (𒁳) 14:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Principality of Hungary - articles for deletion

Hello. I have a some questions and I would like to talk about that. It was created a new article about Hungarian principality. It was existing this page: [14] But a keen user made a next 2 or 3 about that (Principality of Hungary, Hungarian invasions of Europe). It was you who redirected it [15] to the prehistory of Hungarians. They just found a therm "principality of Hungary" in google books and created the article where is written almost the same as in the Hungarian prehistory or Magyar_invasion_of_Pannonia. Its like a essay... Here is the link to the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Principality of Hungary: [16] . Btw I mentioned you here: [17] - your conversation with User:Fakirbakir, which told that Iam Slovak nationalist who hate Hungarians. I have noticed that it exist a lot of articles about Hungarian issues whose are written 2-3x almost same, or the fictional names of articles. Royal Hungary was redirected without discussion to Kingdom of Hungary (1538–1867). In that time was the Kingdom of Hungary divided to 3 parts. Principality of Transylvania, Budin Eyalet, Ottoman Empire and Royal Hungary - province of the Habsburg empire. Are we creating a new history of Hungary at Wikipedia? It exist no publication which deals with "Kingdom of Hungary (1538–1867)": [18] Thank you for answer and advice. --Samofi (talk) 09:38, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

User Fakirbakir still uses the wrong citations. And could he close the discussion about deletion with the result KEEP and remove the teplate? (http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Principality_of_Hungary&action=history) Thank you. --Samofi (talk) 09:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

E-mail

...nothing urgent. Just in case you'd missed it. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 19:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Renaming of List of conflicts in the Middle East

Please share your opinion on renaming "List of conflicts in the Middle East" into "List of conflicts in the Near East" in the discussion. The renaming is proposed in order to cover the pre-1918 period (when the Middle East had generally been related as the Near East), and delete post-1918 conflicts while leaving wikilink to List of modern conflicts in the Middle East). This is in order to avoid doubling of information between post-1918 section in the "List of conflicts in the Middle East" and List of modern conflicts in the Middle East article. Thank you.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Principality of Hungary

Could you please advice me on the following issue? 'Principality of Hungary' is a latter usage of this entity. Moreover, in primary sources (Byzantine) it was Tourkia or Western Tourkia. English rather uses 'Duchy of Hungary'. Hungarian historiography uses form of 'Principality of Hungary' (or sometimes 'Tribal Alliance' until Prince Géza). Should I move it to Tourkia? What would be the proper solution?Fakirbakir (talk) 11:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, WP:UCN/WP:UE say clearly that we should use the most common name relevant English-language literature. So if the common name is Duchy of Hungary in English, that's where the page should be. But we will need to collect evidence on which is more common, "Duchy of Hungary'" or "Principality of Hungary". From a quick survey of google books, "Principality" seems to be slightly more common. --dab (𒁳) 11:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. I am going to seek sources about it. My concern is whether usage of 'Hungary' is correct before the establishment of 'proper' Hungary.Fakirbakir (talk) 11:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what this "Tourkia" thing is supposed to be about. It's clearly a red herring, probably motivated by the usual ethnic bickering among editors. --dab (𒁳) 11:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Byzantines called Hungary for Tourkia. It is only a historical fact. It is not supposed to be ethnic bickering. A Greek inscription (on the Hungarian crown): "ΓΕΩΒΙΤZΑC ΠΙΣΤΟC ΚΡΑΛΗC ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑC" (Geōvitzas pistós králēs Tourkías, meaning "Géza I, faithful kralj of the land of the Turks").Fakirbakir (talk) 11:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It is not relevant to the English Wikipedia what the Byzantines called Hungary unless it becomes fashionable among English speakers to use that word. And if you are concerned about using a term that suggests the entity in question was more related to modern Hungary than it really was, then I don't understand why you aren't a lot more concerned about using a term that suggests the entity in question was more related to modern Turkey than it really was. Surely that would be a bigger problem? Hans Adler 11:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You mean, "it is not relevant to the article titles on English Wikipedia". Of course the fact as such is perfectly relevant to the article, it just has no bearing on how we choose article names. But I agree, this "Tourkia" nonsense and the entire deletion "debate" is a red herring, to put it kindly, or just disruptive behaviour by ethnocentric morons of one flavour or another to put it more bluntly. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. Of course that's what I meant. I know that most Hungarians don't like to be reminded of their historical close cultural ties with the Turks, but it's really news to me that there are people anywhere who make a point of obnoxiously reminding them. I have never seen that outside Wikipedia. Hans Adler 11:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Basically, what is going on here is simply that the 10th-century Byzantines could not care less whether a bunch of barbarians on horseback were "Turks" or "Magyars". It's not like they had any interest in studying the subtleties of Altaic linguistics. So they simply included the Magyars under the "Turks" moniker, and if you had pointed out to them, would they please take note that the Magyars were in fact speakers of Finno-Ugric, not Turkic, they would probably just have raised a sardonic eyebrow.[19]

Also, in Central/Eastern Europe today, "Turks" means "Ottomans". These are the "Turks" the Hungarians would not like to be associated with. Well, they aren't. The "Turks" under discussion here aren't the Ottomans, they are the Khazars. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to use primary sources determining the valid name of Hungary in historical context. I see primary sources are not important here. This is the real problem. We can use name of Romania in the Middle ages. Or name of Principality of Nitra or name of Balaton principality (there are no primary sources about these names).Fakirbakir (talk) 11:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

No, primary sources aren't very important for Wikipedia. We want secondary sources. The idea is that the authors of scholarly secondary literature more or less know what they are doing. Did you realize that anyone can edit Wikipedia? Unless we base our articles on scholarly publications, there would be no end to discussing shoddy private interpretations of primary sources. Also, would you please recognize that the choice of WP:TITLE is a question completely seperate from the discussion what should or should not be discussed in the article itself. --dab (𒁳) 12:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I thought the title of page of Principality of Hungary may be incorrect. I chose the name, I thought this is the most neutral title of the page. However I got unsure in reference to the title (Because of the primary sources). My aim was to be accurate, formal. I have failed. I did not want to emphasize the Turkic connection (though it is fact).Fakirbakir (talk) 13:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not a problem, Fakirbakir. Your contribution is still valuable, as the article is now aware of this "Western Tourkia" thing. It would only be a problem if people point you to WP:UCN and WP:PRIMARY and you somehow pretended you didn't read or understand what is being said there. We have these guideline pages for a reason. Namely, so that people can read these things up on their own without needing a separate and personalized explanation of such project basics. --dab (𒁳) 13:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Avestan letter

Hi, I've asked a question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Avestan letter that maybe you can answer. Angr (talk) 15:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Big mistake in Romani_population_average_estimate.png

Hello. There is a huge mistake in your [Romani_population_average_estimate.png graph] that is used by several wikipedia articles. There are 535,140 (census) (700,000 estimated - [article]) Gypsies in Romania and for your graph you considered 1,85 million. That means that only 2.46% of the Romanian population are Gypsies, as you can find in [this article], not 8.5% as shown on your graph. Please make the necessary adjustment. I would be more than happy to assist you if you want: (talk). Thank you for your time. —Preceding undated comment added 20:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC).

uh yes, I seem to remember there are wildly diverging estimates for this number. I am sure I based the graph on some reference, also taking care to use comparable references for all countries, so before we change the graph we will need to collect as many estimates as we can, instead of basing it just on the first one we come across, choosing the high or the low estimate depending on "preference". --dab (𒁳) 06:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Hold out on Akan page till saturday

I think we should handle this like adults all the information there seems to be right as a person who knows a thing or two about African history and the Middle East along with E. Europe.

I can help fix it properly on saturaday but, I have a big exam coming up so can't do it now. Leave the page as is until then. I vote for that and, I think Delivernews likely feels the same way.

Medicineman84 (talk) 12:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

By "like adults" you mean, of course, adhere to Wikipedia policies. You are most welcome to add referenced information any day you like, on Saturday or any other time.

Of course, as long as that work has not been done, we can agree like adults that the page should not contain non-referenced information. There is no deadline. Once you have written the article, you can post it. As long as you have not written it, there is obviously also nothing to post. --dab (𒁳) 12:22, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Washington Window/Selby Abbey

Hi, I noticed your cn notes regarding the date of the Washington Window in Selby Abbey. I haven't found anything concrete to use as a source, but if you're interested, the abbey website [20] suggests that it "probably represents some kind of benefaction made to the Abbey to commemorate John Wessington, Prior of Durham (1416~1446)" which makes it C15. The link from there to this BBC article, which may be the original source for the research asserts these dates for Wessington, but then says that it is C14. I would suggest that the mid-late 1400s is the correct date, making it 15th century, with some sloppy editing by the BBC staff. —User:MDCollins (talk) 08:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I would tend to assume the same. Never trust a journalist. Thanks for your research. --dab (𒁳) 08:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Modification to the Qwan Ki Do article

Hi Dbachmann, I have noticed that you have recently amended the Qwan ki do article, merging some parts of it, and removing some references to the origins of this martial art. I wanted to ask you the reasons behind this, as I thought that it was interesting informations. Do you think that this should be part of a new part focusing on the history of this martial art, rather than being part of the intro? Speak to you soon Regards FSJmax — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fsjmax (talk • contribs) 22:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Romanian language

Your edit resulted in a broken ref. Unfortunately, I can't figure out from which "main article" you took those parts, which would have enabled me to retrieve the text of the ref. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Celts

Hi, there's a discussion going on at Talk:Celts regarding an "undue" tag you placed in the minority views section. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:17, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Star names

FYI, one or more people went around adding spurious star names to Wikipedia a while back. Urodelus is one example I found; other editors found plenty more. Please check back through the edits before re-introducing them. As far as I can see, all references to Urodelus as a star name come back to the original Wikipedia vandalism. How sad that the Patrick Moore book has swallowed this spoof name, which will only reinforce the general impression that Wikipedia is full of misinformation. Skeptic2 (talk) 21:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC).

PS: There's a big list of bogus or questionable star names on this page User:Rursus/star_name_desinformation Skeptic2 (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

(Butting in) Some of the "fake name" research [21] may be a little out, e.g. dismissing "Biceps" as a name for Gamma Herculis on the grounds that it's an "obvious hoax" because "biceps" is "a modern medical term of no real language alleged to be a traditional star name." [22] "Biceps" is perfectly good Classical Latin. It means "two-headed", which would be appropriate for a binary star. Of course, we do need reliable sources to prove that Gamma Herculis really is called "biceps". --Folantin (talk) 16:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

"may be a little out", yes of course, but disproving a star name is pretty much harder than approving and attesting it by citations. Please, feel free to improve!

"two-headed" ... "appropriate for a binary star", yea... nope! Not if one knows the history of star names, Latin names originate from latest the 18th century, I think, and nobody knew of the duplicity then. Later on, stars are almost always called by some designation, in the case of bright stars the Bayer/Flamsteed/variable designation, or some star catalogue designation.

(Also having something called "real life" outside of WP) Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, apologies for the way my comment was phrased. I didn't mean to diss your research. I know what a drag it can be dealing with some of these pranksters. Maybe I should just have said that the troll might be more learned than we imagine. On the other hand, "biceps" may just be a lame joke about Hercules' muscles rather than evidence of a Classical education. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 17:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

No problemo! I think rather more like a "lame joke", in fact the lamest joke of them all. The most tricky one was Dhanab al-Shuja, that truly means the tail of the (water) snake, applied to some star in Hydra. Realistic, but I found no source for it. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. I had not known this was an issue on Wikipedia. Amazing how "Urodelus" ended up in print, entirely based on Wikipedia vandalism? I was somewhat surprised the name wasn't more widely known. But I would be even more surprised if ε UMi had no name in medieval Arabic astronomy. The question is, of course, what was its real name? I'll make sure to be more careful in this area in the future. --dab (𒁳) 12:39, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Just saw that "Urodelus" is in Constellation, as part of a list of stars of Ursa Major with proper names (Polaris...). Itsmejudith (talk) 13:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Name of Russia (Russia TV) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Name of Russia (Russia TV) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Name of Russia (Russia TV) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

Hi. I see I'm visiting a lot of pages to which you have added {{Disambiguation}} and removing it. I'd encourage you to review WP:CONCEPTDAB. A page that contains a list of links to Wikipedia articles with similar or related titles is not necessarily a disambiguation page; it may just be a list article. The distinction is whether the similarity of titles is the only thing those articles have in common, or whether the titles are similar because of some other relationship among the topics of those articles. Only the former case requires {{Disambiguation}}. Thanks for your consideration. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I understand this, but if you want to turn a mere disambiguation page into a full article, you will need to carry the full burden of establishing notability, encyclopedicity, avoiding content forks, etc. If in doubt, it is a disambiguation page. Meeting the "broad concept article" requirements is a much, much more difficult proposition, and the burden of that lies with whomever is trying to create such an article. --dab (𒁳) 08:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I realize that many of our "list articles" violate every rule in the book. This is no reason to assume the rules are invalid or do not apply to lists, it just means that these pages need to be cleaned just like thousands of other broken articles.

"List articles" list encyclopedic items, not Wikipedia articles. This is what distinguishes them from mere categories, content indices or disambiguation pages. Whether it is encyclopedically viable to collect a certain kind of thing into a list page needs to be established based on quotable encyclopedic sources, just like everything else in content namespace. You cannot just create lists on random topics that pop into your head, the thing listed must be verifiably encyclopedic, and the list itself must be based on solid references.

The only thing in main namespace that doesn't need to be based on references are disambiguation pages, as they do not have the purpose of conveying encyclopedic information, they are just a navigation aid. There is much confusion surrounding this. Apparently some people think because disambiguation pages are navigation aids, they must not have an intelligent structure informed by the nature of the term to be disambiguated. I submit that this is too silly a suggestion to merit discussion, but I have been forced to have exasperating discussions on this in the past. --dab (𒁳) 08:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

So, if I understand you correctly, one cannot just label any random group of links as a list article, because there are "rules" that govern those types of articles. (Of course, they are not actually "rules" but guidelines, but we'll let that slide for a moment.) But, one can label any random group of links as a disambiguation page, regardless of what the "rules" pertaining to that type of page may say. Pardon me if I'm having trouble following the logic of this.

Anyway, if a guideline says that if a notable, encyclopedic, well-referenced list is divided into logical sections contained in separate articles, there cannot be an index to those lists without separately meeting the notability and referencing requirements for the index, then it is the guideline that is wrong, not the list. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Islam and Intercalation

Hi. I can see that you have made an edit claiming that Islam did not encourage astronomy because of the prohibition of intercalation.[23] Apparently, you seem to be unaware that the pre-Islamic concept of intercalation as practiced by the Arabs (called nasīʾ) is different than how the term is generally used. Here is a quote from the Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd, Index, p. 144) that explains this difference:

nasīʾ : intercalary month, intercalation, or person (pi. nasa'a) charged, in pre-Islamic Mecca, with the duty of deciding on intercalation. The Arabic system of ~ can only have been intended to move the HADJDJ and the fairs associated with it in the vicinity of Mecca to a suitable season of the year. It was not intended to establish a fixed calendar to be generally observed.

Happy editing. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 22:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I do not understand what I am supposed to be unaware of. I am aware of what you are telling me, but thanks nevertheless. I do also not understand what you are implying is the "general use" of the term intercalation. Anyway, my "claim" was in an edit summary. The actual edit was just a request for clarification.

To explain the background of my comment: Muhammad went to great lengths to discourage astronomy:

• no intercalation: the purpose was to avoid political disputes on who has the authority to define intercalation (this had been an issue in pre-Islamic Mecca)
• active disregard of the movements of Sun and Moon, to avoid all danger of misunderstanding of his religion as Sun or Moon worship. For this purpose, prayer times were moved away from sunrise and sunset, so that nobody could entertain the idea that the Sun was being prayed to. This was also motivated by the fact that in pre-Islamic Arabia, the Sun and Moon had indeed been worshipped, and this was supposed to stop under Islam.
• the only astronomical observation encouraged by Muhammad is the new moon (to determine the beginning of the month). That's it. The positive intention behind this is avoid confusing astronomical calculations left to a scholarly elite as was the case with the Christian date of easter. Anyone is able to understand the concept of "first sighting of the new moon". You don't need to be an astronomer for that, and it is objective and unambiguous. Either you see the new moon or you do not. This is hardly "astronomy" in anything but the widest sense.

In the light of the above, the claim which I have tagged, to the effect that "The rise of Islam provoked increased Arab thought" in the field of astronomy, is extremely dubious to say the least. --dab (𒁳) 09:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

How can a ban on shifting months for political reasons (i.e., nasīʾ) be against astronomy? Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 13:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

um, what? Sorry, you are not making sense. Mumammad asked people to stop observing the heavens. I find it difficult to see how this could have "provoked increased thought" on astronomy. --dab (𒁳) 13:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm only explaining what nasīʾ is, ie, the shifting of months for political reasons. As noted by EI2, nasīʾ was not intended to fix the calendar, so claiming that banning an arbitrary practice such as nasīʾ to be "against astronomy" is rather absurd. My guess is that you were thinking about a different type of intercallation that was not practiced in Arabia at the time. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 15:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Re: Citing references

First of all, the oneliner from that Ivo Vukcevich book is incoherent. Well, maybe I'm also on crack, but you can't let a single fishy source contradict the entire historiography of the region :) Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and this isn't one - I did a cursory search for the author and found very little. The Premuda claim is cited to a work by Heinrich Kunstmann, but the entire notion is not - it says "the names Pfreimd [...] are traced to Dalmatia to Primorska Serbia or Primordia to Namen der kleinen Adria-Insel Primordia", and I think I verified that last part, but not the former part. Granted this could just be a GB problem, but I'm wary of such blatant generalizations.

Primordia certainly looks like a Latinized rendition of the Slavic word Primorje, which is a generic term meaning Littoral - such a title could refer to practically anything, but if we know the historical context, then going to Premuda is completely nonsensical. It's an island to the west of Zadar (Zara), and neither Tvrtko of Bosnia nor Tsar Dušan had a realm that included territories that far to the west. Granted, one could still invent an armorial that includes such an item, but then we need a source that would specifically describe that claim, rather than this.

That's probably the reason why the author Blažević didn't make any such claim, and instead referenced Zachlumia/Zahumlje/Hum, but apparently making the mistake of using a strange term for it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Fine, I agree the source is fishy. As long as you agree that no source at all is even more fishy. So we'll just have to leave this open until we have something better. I can accept that Primordia is probably a corruption (or "latinization") of Primorje "littoral, coastal". So far so good. Then we have a source stating that the name Premuda is from exactly that word. This doesn't prove, I'll agree, that the Premuda island is what is meant by the Primordia in these armorials.

What I would need to see before allowing your "Zachlumia" interpretation is a confirmation that "Hulmia" (not just "Hum") has been used to refer to that. Then we could say that "Blažević interpreted 'Primordia' as referring to Zachlumia". --dab (𒁳) 15:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I admit that was simply my best guess - based on the fact that these consonants seem to have been getting swapped on a regular basis - compare ZaHuMLje vs. ZacHLuMia vs. HuLMia - but it still seemed more grounded in the actual source than the Vukcevich stuff. Using the latter seemed way too WP:SYNTH for my liking.

While examining the Čiode picture, I read the article, and it looks like the whole thing might simply have been a random error, because it was done by a person who was trying to fake nobility. Yet, they also describe that part as "primorske i humske zemlje", i.e. Zachlumia. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Granted, the original source seems innocuous enough, we just have to avoid misinterpreting it for more than it's worth :) BTW the same hand holding the saber motif seems to have found its way to the emblems of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Austro-Hungarian condominium), so the link to the territory we now call Herzegovina seems clear from that point, too. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am interested in that design at the moment. I forget what the heraldic term for it is, bras de fer or something. I am also very interested in the star-and-crescent used for Bosnia, as it predates the Ottoman star-and-crescent by full 200 years. --dab (𒁳) 11:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Here (img) is a claim that the arm-and-sabre motif was used for Bosnia in 1499! I have no idea if this is correct (the 'source' being croatianhistory.net), but it would mean that this design at least was not just made up by Don Pedro. --dab (𒁳) 11:47, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

	Quality Management Inspection Medal
	I, [Inspector] No. 108, am honored to award you this medal for your positive and industrious contributions to the quality management inspection process. I appreciate your assistance in improving the "Stable Version" of the Illyria article. Always know that you have this humble inspector's gratitude and respect. Thank you. No. 108 (talk) 19:08, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I am honored to accept this accolade, thank you kindly :) --dab (𒁳) 11:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Serbian cross

You're probably looking for this quote [24] regarding the date.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 11:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. This German source say that the Serbian eagle originates in 1402, not the ocila. I had expected as much. I consider it possible that the "ocila" cross appears in the 15th century, but so far I haven't seen any references. So far the earliest source we have dates to the late 16th century.

I simply do not understand why so many people feel they must add things that they "simply know to be true". There are so many widespread misconceptions, and there is no way for you to know whether the things you "just know" are such misconceptions as long as you haven't bothered to check. Also, even if people aren't interested in finding out about their own misconceptions, they still violate project policy by adding unreferenced content. --dab (𒁳) 11:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In the Balkans many misconceptions regarding such symbols originate in works of 19th century folklorists/national activists. Later scholars accepted and propagated these views and (finally) in the late 1990s a demythologization process began, which is why many users regard such theories as facts. For example, many Albanians still believe that the ethnonym Shqiptar originates from shqiponjë (eagle). Unfortunately I couldn't find any online sources dealing with the Serbian cross in a strictly ethnographic manner[25] without commenting on its use during the Yugoslav wars, although some offer interesting details[26].--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 12:13, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

well, at least we know the "Serbian cross" long predates the 19th century. We know that it was presented as the "Serbian coat of arms" in 1595. But nothing on any earlier date. It is perfectly possible, even plausible, that it dates to the late or mid 15th century, but we have no sources to support this as yet. --dab (𒁳) 12:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbcomm and uninvolved user

You have been mentioned here as a party [27] --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 11:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I like the description of myself as "equal opportunity abrasive" :) --dab (𒁳) 12:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Well that is my honest opinion. I would appreciate your comment on the Russian mechanism. Thanks. Ali Doostzdeh --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 05:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Why did you delete this?

You apparently believe that the Ninjutsu article should be a ninja redirect. If the article (which had valuable informaion on ninja equipment and training) had been cut and pasted to the ninja article, I would agree that deleting it would be fair. However, the article on ninja does not contain these very informative facts. I have an interest in ninja history, and this is the only place I can go without hearing those media lies about how "dishonorable" they were, or how they were "peasants". Please post these crucial facts to the ninja article. I would appreciate that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shinobi 224 (talk • contribs) 01:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I hold no such belief a priori. I was reacting to the content that happened to be there. No, there was no "valuable information" in the Ninjutsu article, at all. There was a tiny little bit of valid information, which is covered in much better quality at Ninja.

I don't know what "crucial facts" you are referring to. The Ninja article is of surprisingly high quality, I can see that some people have been fighting an uphill battle against pop culture there. But I wouldn't know about "media lies" of the kind you refer to. --dab (𒁳) 08:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the Albanians

Hello, Dbachmann. I note that back in July 2009, you protected Origin of the Albanians, citing the need to protect the page from vandalism and revert warring. That was some time ago, and there doesn't appear to be any recent problem that makes protection necessary. Would you be prepared to consider unprotecting the page? Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 03:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Quick question

In Anti-Turkism, should Ferdowsi be included? Does the fact that Ferdowsi grieves about Turkish invaders and makes some negative comments about them sufficient reason to include him in the article given the fact that "Turks" for Ferdowsi was equivalent to Central Asian nomads (who happen to be Altaic speakers), and not the various modern groups such as Anatolian Turks, Uzbeks, Azeris, Meshketians and etc. whose ethno-genesis came long after Ferdowsi? Can a wide diverse linguistic group (Turkic being a linguistic family not an ethnic group) have one article? It is like including anti-French, anti-Portoguese, anti-Spanish and anti-Italian in one article because they speak romance language family (hence anti-Romanicism which probably would be most wikipedia losers). What happens then to the recent clash between Uzbeks and Kyrghyz which was more severe than the simple stereotypes in that article? Also is it expected that Ferdowsi greets an invading group with rose petals? Or should the article concentrate on modern issues? Your two cents would be valuable. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 03:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

(Butting in) In my experience almost every "Anti-X Nationality/Ethnicity" article on Wikipedia is completely dreadful, a context-free litany of complaints. Your point about Anti-Turkism lumping all kinds of disparate things together is well taken. I suppose it's possible to be against Turkic-speakers in general just as Hitler was avowedly anti-Slav (although his treatment of Croats and Slovaks was very different from the way he behaved towards Poles and Russians, for instance) and we have a stubby article on Anti-Slavism, but far longer articles on Russophobia, Anti-Polonism and Serbophobia. In practice, most European "anti-Turk" feeling has been anti-Ottoman. I doubt if there has ever been any strong prejudice against the Kyrgyz in Britain, France or Italy. You would need some pretty solid sourcing to include Ferdowsi as part of the Anti-Turkist brigade. I recently overhauled the Ferdowsi page and wrote "The new ruler Mahmud of Ghazni, a Turk, may have lacked the interest in Ferdowsi's work shown by the Samanids, resulting in him losing favor with the royal court", i.e. he got less patronage from a Turkic ruler than from an Iranian ruler for writing a poem about the glories of the Persian past. That seems like simple common sense. I also believe that Turkic people(s) later adopted Ferdowsi's Shahnameh as part of their own culture (I must find a quote for that). So maybe they were much less thin-skinned back then. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 09:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Folantin is right. Any sane patriot concerned with a decent representation of their country or people on Wikipedia should try to muck out as much material as possible from the respective "anti-X-ism" articles. I mean, of course there are obvious cases with encyclopedic value, such as Antisemitism, but "Anti-Turkism", "Anti-Albanian sentiment", "Anti-Persian sentiment"? These articles are full of lame whining by people trying to denigrate some group they not like and trying to make their own group appear as a victim. Yes, there should be an article on the Armenian genocide. But no, there should not be an article about "Anti-Armenianism". This is just lame. I know this is the thing to do in the USA, where everybody wants to be some marginalized group victimised by the WASPs, because it means they get carte blanche and nobody can touch them because, come on, it would be politically incorrect, if not racist. This perverse sort of logic which makes people want to be victims is not in any way encyclopedic, or something we should encourage in the least. If you want to see one of the most disgraceful corners of anti-encyclopedism on Wikipedia, look through the voluminous {{Discrimination}}, {{Discrimination sidebar}}, Category:Discrimination. --dab (𒁳) 10:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

These trainwrecks are basically massive violations of WP:SYNTHESIS. What does German skinheads attacking Gastarbeiter from the Republic of Turkey have in common with friction in Iran over its large Azeri minority? Not a lot, I'd say. By only focussing on the "hatred", these pages also distort. The section on 18th-century Anti-Turkism gets precisely one sentence: "Voltaire and other European writers criticized the Turks as tyrants who destroyed Europe's heritage." That does not even begin to cover European Enlightenment attitudes towards the Ottomans, which were just as likely to be positive as hostile with the Sultan praised for his enlightened rule. An encyclopaedic article would have a title like "European attitudes towards the Ottoman Empire" (with references to Busbecq, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Pierre Loti et al. just as much as to the phrase tête de Turc). By focussing on one aspect of what is often a love-hate relationship between different peoples these pages violate undue weight. --Folantin (talk) 11:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, I agree that the article is not telling the whole story. What I wanted to point out is that non of the modern ethnicities such as Anatolian, Azeri, Uzbek,etc. actually existed during the time of Ferdowsi as "Turk" was another name for nomads of Central Asia (not focusing on their languages which was Altaic but rather their nomadic lifestyle which was hostile and came into conflict with the Iranian sedentary centers of Central Asia and Iran). Here are some sources of interest on Turks and Shahnama:

• Seljuqs
  • e.g. [28](Shahnama translations into Turkish) :"Turks have been influenced by the Šāh-nāma since the advent of the Saljuqs in Persia. Their last prince in Persia, Ṭoḡrel III, recited verses from the Šāh-nāma while swinging his mace in battle (Jovayni, II, p. 31). There is a great deal of evidence that this influence continued in a more powerful way in Anatolia in the 13th-14th centuries (Ebn Bibi, pp. 71-72, 126, 202; Riāḥi, tr. pp. 52, 55).".
  • "According to Ibn Bibi, in 618/1221 the Saljuq of Rum Ala' al-Din Kay-kubad decorated the walls of Konya and Sivas with verses from the Shahnama" [29].
• Timurids
  • [30]

"Certainly fairly early on in the Timurid period (1370-1506) it was considered de rigueur for members of the ruling family to own their own personal copies of the epic poem “as a sort of status symbol or advertisement of regal power” (Robinson, 1983, p. 285). Thus three of Timur’s grandsons—Bāysonḡor, Ebrāhim Solṭān, and Moḥammad Juki—each commissioned such a volume in Jomādā I 833/January 1430 in Herat, circa 1430-35 in Shiraz, and circa 1444 in Herat, respectively "

• Turkomans
  • [31] The production of illustrated Šāh-nāma manuscripts in the 15th century remained vigorous, however, among the Qarā-Qoyunlu or Black Sheep (1380-1468) and Āq Qoyunlu or White Sheep (1378-1508) Turkman dynasties, judging from the number of extant illustrated copies, many with seventy or more paintings, attributable to Tabriz, Shiraz, and Baghdad beginning in about the 1450s-60s and continuing to the end of the century
• Qajars
  • [32] (..Agha Muhammad Khan is said to have recited verses from the Shahnama of Firdausi to encourage his troops)
• Safavids
  • Akbar S. Ahmed, "Discovering Islam: making sense of Muslim history and society", Psychology Press, 2nd edition, 2002. pp 70: "Perhaps the high point was the series of 250 miniatures which illustrated the Shah Nama commissioned by Shah Ismail for his son Tahmasp.".--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 14:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin and Dbachmann, Wikipedia article is not about pride or patriotism, but about facts presented in scholarly fashion. Anti-Turkism refers to actions or beliefs of intolerance and racism against a particular ethnic or cultural group. According to Racism article:

• Racism is the belief that there are inherent different traits in human racial groups which justify discrimination.

I suppose you would agree with this definition. If so, then whether calling Azeri in Iran as Tork-e khar, portraying Turk as an enemy alien to Persian pride in Shahnameh, British PM William Gladstone calling Turks as one great anti-human specimen of humanity, or skinheads attacking Gasterbeiter from Turkey, simply because he/she looks different and speaks different language, are all expressions of anti-Turkism - racism against Turkish/Turkic identity, regardless of it being classified as linguistic, ethnic or else. Atabəy (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabey

• The "Torke-e KHar" (or Donkey Turk) is first of an a terminology prevalent in the Ottoman empire and Middle East, way before the modern era. The word "khar" (which literally means donkey) in this context means dumb or "dumb ass" in English. These are simply streotypes about different groups in some circles just like the US has "dumb pole" and "drunk Irish" or "dumb hick" or "inbred redneck". These are not "racism" but streotypes. In Iran, such streotypes exists about Persian cities as well: "Greedy Isfahani", "sexually loose Rashti", "Homosexual Qazvini", "Thief Mashhadi", "Lazy Shirazi", which are all Persian speaking cities. These stereotypes which exists in many countries about many cities/regions cannot be considered as skinheands attacking a group. These streotypes are centuries old and are not solely concentrated on any region or group.
• As per Shahnama, it is the Turanians (with all Iranian names) that are the enemy. Ferdowsi conflacts Turan and Turk, but that is because Turks later on came to represent the nomad par excellance which before was the Turanians in Avesta. It has nothing to do with various Turkic-speaking groups (who are not homogeneous as the recent mass classh between Uzbeks and Qyrghiz shows). The Tork/Turanians of Shahnama are central Asian nomads, not the modern groups like Azeris, Anatolians and etc. that did not exist 1000 years ago (the Anatolian and Azeri languages developed after the Mongol era long after Ferdowsi and similarly the ethno-genesis of Uzbeks). Folantin is totally correct, and I just mentioned some sources above.
• Also you should be the last person talking about racism, since I can forward that information I sent to Arbcomm to Dbachmann and Folantin which you made the following statements:
  • "Come on guys, I hate Armenian infection ever more passionately as many of you do. But there are certain bounds of diplomatic reason and logic in dealing with enemy, «toporniye» approaches result in what Turks are suffering from today with allegations of armocide."
  • "Turkic people were always glorious in their history, ruled many kingdoms and were masters of Armenians, Persians, Greeks and others. «Turk is a master of his destiny», the old saying goes."
  • "You and others know well that I support tough stance on Armenians, until they leave not only Karabakh but also territories of former Iravan khanate. They have historically proven not to be a trustworthy nation, should always be kept as servant/dependent people, and not allowed to resettle in any other part of Azerbaijan."

These statements which were made by you that were sent to Arbcomm. No action were taken since these are from 2007. So please no crocidle tears about "racism". --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 14:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Khodabandeh14 (also known as User:Nepaheshgar and User:Ali doostzadeh), you are violating WP:HARASSMENT, trying to connect myself to another person. You may send to ArbCom anything you like, it does not mean you are allowed to establish your unsubstantiated claim as a fact in Wikipedia talk pages. Not to mention, that you are trying to use your irrelevant identity claim to push WP:POV on a subject.

Again, you can bring any examples of Persian pranks, however, calling a group of people "Tork-e khar" because they speak Turkish, or demonizing them in a literary work, is, by all definitions, an act of racism and intolerance. I personally don't see how Hitler blaming Jews for troubles of Germany in Mein Kampf is different from Ferdowsi demonizing Turanians/Turks vs Persian pride in Shahnameh. One may look more ancient than the other, and no action would have been taken after Shahnameh, simply because Turks ruled Iran at the time. But it does not change the essence of intolerance. Atabəy (talk) 14:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"I personally don't see how Hitler blaming for troubles of Germany in Mein Kampf is different from Ferdowsi demonizing Turanians/Turks vs Persian pride in Shahnameh. One may look more ancient than the other, and no action would have been taken after Shahnameh, simply because Turks ruled Iran at the time. But it does not change the essence of intolerance." LOL Thanks for the laugh. You really can't see any difference? Ho hum. Oh well...--Folantin (talk) 15:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabek

• The prank is not because they speak Turkish, it is simply pranks that exist about each group/city/province/tribe (majority of the pranks about Persian cities/subgroups). It has hundreds of years of history that developed through social culture and cannot be seen in the modern context of "anti-xism".
• well you have never read the Shahnama, or else there is also praises of Turanian viziers, kings and warriors. Ferdowsi also has criticsm of Iranians in his books as well. Ferdowsi has slight bias towards Iranians, but it is not like the Mein Kampf. This is is just another emotional outburts of your which does not measure with history as noted above.
• I doubt any serious scholar has made such a comparison. And the difference is obvious while the Jews did not embrace Mein Kampf, the Turks totally embraced the Shahnama as the above quotes show and it had a great influence on them.
• I do not need off-line wikipedia messages. These suffice:
  • "general pattern demonstrated by Iranian/Persian groups to attack and remove, dereference and POV every article related to Turkic groups shall also be noted as nothing more than hateful and disturbing development" [33] (note Turanians in the original sense are not Turks)
  • "You're only weakening your Iranian identity by claiming Safavis as Kurds or Armenian or anything else, because any reference that you make up 500 years after, when there are pages of Ismail's poetry in Azeri Turkic, will be laughed at." [34]
  • Armenian user Nareklm has once again abused the consensus version with help from Mardavich. [35]--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin

• Thanks for the feedback. I hope this issue Atabek tried to push in the synthesis and OR article "anti-Turkism" is resolved here. Jews never commisioned masterfull and colorfull books of Mein Kamp, but the Turkish kingds did. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear @Folantin and @Dbachmman Can you please comment here: [36] . If such a mechanism is not developed, then I believe that I am wasting time on Wikipedia and will go back to my break (which was to be permanent but I wanted to give one last shot to develop a healthy atmosphere). Basically the Russian wikipedia has solved all these ethno-nationalist bickering (which are mainly in AA topics) due to a group of expert neutral admins scuh as yourselfs taking more responsibility, and all users from the countries with nationalistic upbringings abiding by such decisions. I urge you to share your opinion please. Thank you --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:21, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, instead of LOL, can you please, provide a detailed opinion, as to how Mein Kampf professing hatred of Jews is different from Shahnameh promoting anti-Turkism/anti-Turanism. There is one difference that one has resulted in mass murder of some 6 million people, the other - only in discrimination and present-day racism and diminishing of Turkish identity. But it does not change the essence of original writing.

@Khodabandeh14, Anti-Turkism subject is not resolved on talk page of another user, but on the talk page of the article, bringing facts in support of your argument. Instead of focusing on subject, you focus on WP:HARASSMENT of my identity or WP:CANVASS on user talk pages. This has been duly noted and reported.Atabəy (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabek, on your statement: "in discrimination and present-day racism and diminishing of Turkish identity" you need WP:RS source that it relates to the Shahnama. As per "diminishing of Turkish identity", I do not know what identity you are talking about since the above sources mention that the Turks adopted the Shahnama, presented it as gifts and even inscribed its verses in the walls of Ottoman cities. The actual LOL by Folantin basically is a response to your proposal. I tend to concur. As per WP:CANVASS, this is trying to get help from unbiased administrators who are tired of the nationalist cruft going in Wikipedia. @Folantin/Dbachmman: That is why I have proposed the Russian Wikipedia mechanism which has solved this issue: [37]. Do you think I would like to endlessly bicker with annoyance? Thank you. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Khodabandeh14, in my opinion you are wasting your time by participating in arbcom cases. I learned this in 2005. Arbcom is something that should be routed around. It is a giant bureaucratic time-sink which never fixes anything. If you want to edit in a healthy atmosphere, you should pick a topic that isn't attractive to nationalists. Wikipedia has literally millions of articles which are devoid of nationalist agendas, and I am sure you can find something that catches your interest if you are tired of the chauvinistic nonsense. If you check my edit history, you will find that I spend most of my wiki time away from such stuff. It gives my the energy for the occasional cleanup effort.

I will occasionally be motivated to be "equal opportunity abrasive" to nationalists of all flavours, and you are free to quote me on arbcom, but I am not inclined to particpiate in any arbcom case, because it will be wasted time, and because by doing so, I would lend credibility to the self-important "arbitrators" who believe that content issues, or even user conduct issues, can be fixed without a solid understanding of the topic in question. --dab (𒁳) 15:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Dear Dab, Thanks for all of your good works throughout the year. I am not interesting in initiating another Arbcomm, but rather for Arbcomm to pass a single formal measure that the Russian mechanism is established for AA related topics (broadly construed to include Iran, Turkey and Kurdistan). Basically in the Russian mechanism, a group of expert non-regional involved admins make the final call on items that are of conflict. This has lead to tremendous reduction of time, and also ended the nationalist bickering to 1% from the 100% in English wikipedia. So I am just asking for your opinion on this proposal. Simply for Arbcoom to add a supplement to AA2 establishing such a committee of experts (from outside the region like yourself and Folantin) who will deal with the bickering-endless nationalist POV statements that are causing the conflicts in different articles. Once that committee makes the decision, the users will have to accept. That is how it works in Russian wikipedia, and it has shown great results. . I will skip Wikipedia all together if such committee is not established as I do not want to work in a place where ethno-lobbyists from governments of the region edit it. That simply disgusts me too much. Thank You--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, is Khodabandeh14 your spokesperson? It seems so from his statement above?

@Dab, I suggest that you compare the history of my edits [38] in one click, to see how much of my editing time is wasted in defending myself against WP:HARASSMENT and WP:POV attacks by Khodabandeh14 each time. And see what I try to do the rest of the time, contributing to topics with references. So I think a worthy suggestion given to Khodabandeh14 would be not only suggesting him to cease wasting community resources in ArbCom, but also to stop WP:POV pushing and WP:HARASSMENT of contributors. Just ask yourself a question, why is that Khodabandeh14 is in the middle of content issues in any article related to Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkish, Turkic, etc. topics, and why he is off the hook when it comes to WP:AA2 injunctions. That should explain the nationalism issue, and not in a one-sided fashion. Atabəy (talk) 15:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"is Khodabandeh14 your spokesperson?" Khodabandeh has made some sensible, evidence-based comments about Ferdowsi. You have compared Ferdowsi to Hitler. Who is responsible for your coming across as a fool here, him or you? Now if you don't mind I'm off to add Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Anglophobia article. His stories about King Arthur's resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invasion are dreadfully biased against my ancestors. Let's ignore the fact the English later adopted Arthur as one of their own, it doesn't disguise the innate racism and Celtic supremacism of Merlin and his bigoted ilk. There is no difference between The History of the Kings of Britain and Mein Kampf. --Folantin (talk) 16:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabek, yes I am not in AA1/AA2. You are on permanent 1rr due to nationalistic bickering. @As per Folantin, besides the "LOL" which is the best response one can give, the user has also mentioned the issues like Ottoman-European relationship needs a whole article. It is the same with Turks and Shahnama/Ferdowsi, and these two articles are a good start: [39][40]. A blanket one sentence statement is not to be inserted in such a synthesis/or article. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC) @The user also mentioned that such articles as anti-xism are nonsense synthesis work, which me and dab agree also. @Finally the best response one can give to your statement above was a LOL. So I say LOL. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC) @Dab, @Folantin, please see my messge time-stampled at 15:35, 12 October 2011 above. Thank you--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Khodabandeh14, why not let Folantin reply for himself once with a more detailed explanation of the LOLs and Oh Wells. And before attacking anybody you disagree with as "ethno-lobbyist for foreign government" in WP:BATTLE flavor, why not think that if your analysis was to be applied to your own editorial behavior, it would sound more like a "lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Iran", right? Or no? Are you neutral and others are nationalist? Atabəy (talk) 15:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• @Atabey: No I am not a lobbyist as I am opposed to the current government of Iran. Allow me to demonstrate: Screw Khamenei and IRI government who is a piece of dung. And I say again: all ethnic lobbyists in WIkipedia are pieces of crap and ugly losers. Now lets see you demonstrate with that: Screw Elham Aliev and Azerbaijani government who is a piece of crap; and : all ethnic lobbyists in Wikipedia are pieces of crap and ugly losers. It would be funny if you do since even if you say it, you are cursing at ..... Actually, the lobbyist proof are based more than that. They are based on the wikipedia lists (used in Russian WIkipedia to sanction users and 100% verifable list baed on hundreds of corresponding edits proposed in that list and that took place in both English and Russian wikipedia). Two head of lobbyist organization (USAzeris Network) and (Azerbaijani American Council) [41] were on the wiki-list and are currently active in Wikipedia. One of these organizations is even mentioned in wikileaks[42] whose aim is to“to advocate for Azerbaijan’s interests with their host government.”. I do not need to prove this to you, but if Dab and Folantin request further proof, I can provide it to them through off-line. Sufficient to say is that wikipedia email list has the two heads of those organizations active in Wikipedia[43][44]. The first responses of Dab and Folantin clearly show how lame the anti-xism articles are, and the LOL is great response. I am done with conversing with you here as I got the results I needed.

• @Dab, @Folantin, please see my messge time-stampled at 15:35, 12 October 2011 above. Thank you. I am not going to waste Dab's space anymore as him and Folantin responded sufficiently enough to the main issue.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 16:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabek, screw "Ahmadi Nejad who is also a piece of crap" too. How about "Screw Khomeini". He is Persian. Now as you see, you couldn't utter the statements I made about lobbyists and Azerbaijan government figures. As per the sources above, they have been discussed in the talkpage, and Folantin can read them as well. Only source 1 and 5 meet RS (explained why in the talkpage and then you mentioned Sumerian and Turkish being possibly related), and again, there is a whole discussion on the issue in the talkpage. The "Turks" in Shahnama are Central Asian nomads and are not related to groups which did not exist at the time.

• @Dab, @Folantin, please see my messge time-stampled at 15:35, 12 October 2011 above. Thank you. I am not going to waste Dab's space anymore as him and Folantin responded sufficiently enough to the main issue.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 16:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Khodabandeh14, if you respect Folantin (or Dbachmann for his space), you should let Folantin respond for himself. Unless you think that he is incapable to respond without your lengthy WP:FORUM which makes anything harder to read?! Atabəy (talk) 16:36, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If you respect Folantin and Dbachmman, then reread their opinion.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Khodabandeh14, first of all, before repeatedly accusing me of being connected to any individual off-wiki, in violation of WP:HARASSMENT, you must produce proofs and be given right to publicize such information on talk pages. No such right is known in Wikipedia, thus you violate WP:HARASSMENT without any remorse. Furthermore, even if your imaginary / false claim about my connection to any off-wiki individual, based on some spam site which could as well fabricate any posted information or message, would realize, it still does not justify you to use such information in an editing dispute to justify pushing WP:POV on a contentious subject.

Again, you are posting tons of writing, with WP:FORUM, not letting anybody read or respond to anything written. It is also the reason why you do not stop writing on this talk page, despite strongly believing that Folantin is done expressing his opinion. If Folantin is an expert to judge Shahnameh, he should read the links I provided above, and provide his own comments without your assistance. Unless of course, if you do not respect him as someone capable of doing that, in which case, you should not be seeking his opinion as a 3rd party on the subject in first place. Atabəy (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Atabek,

• A site cannot be spam if it was used in Russian Arbcomm to ban 30 members. Most of your comments about my opinion with regards to Folantin is WP:SOAPBOX as I never said that he is not capable in expressing his opinion. He is more capable than I and can give a neutral viewpoint. But your tone in my opinion has already dimissed Folantin's opinion. As per expertise, none of the books you mentioned except that of Dick Davis has any expertise in Persian literature (specially books quoting Poorpirar on Ferdowsi! your third source). None of them have any analysis of the Shahnama except Davis who is an actual translator and Professor. But if Folantin is interested, he should also follow the talkpage on this issue where I have given my opinion on the matter; and provide his opinion. As I noted the complex situation where Turks (Central Asian nomads and not modern ethnic groups like Anatolian, Azeri, Uzbeks etc. whose ethno-genesis comes much later) heavily adopting, praising and loving Shahnama is much heavier than the slight bias for Iranians in the Shahnama. Also the "Turks" of the Shahnama from historical point of view are in reality Turanians and are not related to modern Turks, see Turan. Ferdowsi's material is based on Avesta and Pahlavi texts, which deride the nomadic Turanians (who are not Turkish Altaic speakers), not because of their race, but rather because of their conflict with sedentary civilization. So none of that applies to modern Turkish speaking groups (who are vastly different as Uzbeks and Kyrghyz clashes show), who are sedentary, and which did not exist during this era (ethnogenesis of Azeri, Uzbek, Anatolians all comes much later than the Shahnama). However, an article on Shahnama and foreigners might be more fitting. So the whole concept is flawed as the article has put together various disparate groups.
• Pointing all this out, as well as the talkpage, I will await to see if Folantin provides any further response. However, lets see if he responds further. If not, then we can draw conclusions based on the above and I will propose my comments from this discussion here on the talkpage. I welcome further opinion from him, if he has any.

@Folantin and Dbachmann... this is exactly why we need such a committee for Wikipedia to decide matters on these issues. If I was the nationalist type, I would not propose such committee of outside experts. The Russian wikipedia has the mechanism to solve these sort of issues within a day. If such a committee is not formed, as I mentioned, I will likely take a break from the disgusting lobbyist induced atmophere of topics. Thanks.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, instead of pandering to Khodabandeh14's nationalist WP:POV and attempting to insult me, note that the fact that modern Supreme leader of Iran is ethnic Azeri, does not cease discrimination against that ethnic group in Iran. So claim that just because some ignorant Turkic ruler liked reading Shahnameh, does not exclude the fact that it was professing anti-Turkish feelings at their core. And before calling Khodabandeh14's lengthy WP:FORUMs on talk pages as sensible writing, take some time to review Talk:Anti-Turkism for this segment on various author's view of Shahnameh from Google Books:

• was reviving the Persian sense of superiority and anti-Arabism (Shuubia) and anti-Turanism through his Shahnama
• Even Shahnameh (Book of Kings), Iran's national epic, subsequently adopted as the holy book of Persian nationalism
• It took 30 years for Ferdowsi to complete the Shahnameh. The result was the glorification and superiorization of his own Persian race, culture and language at the expense of non-Persian and non-Aryan races
• She laughed; and then, more gently, almost sighed: “No Turk will bear away a Persian bride;
• like The Shahnameh, which celebrated countless Persian victories over the Turks and which usually cast the Turks as...

So unless, you, Folantin, (not Khodabandeh with another WP:FORUM) can provide a sensible response to opinions of other authors about Shahnameh being essentially anti-Turkish "bible" of Persian nationalism, you should not be using LOLs, Oh Wells, or worse, calling me a fool. Moreover, if Khodabandeh14 uses your one-sided opinions in formulating an opinion in talk pages, then you should probably spend some time as a party to ArbCom case he is currently pursuing to open - that is taking a position in a handful of edit conflicts that he is involved with pushing POV. Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 16:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• @Atabek, why did you move your response. I am moving my response to your last response (where it is relavent). I am sure Folantin can see it as well read the talkpage where I discuss your sources (some of them mentioning Sumerians as Turks and quoting Nasser Pourpirar]). As per expertise, none of the books you mentioned except that of Dick Davis has any expertise in Persian literature (specially books quoting Nasser Pourpirar on Ferdowsi! your third source). None of them have any analysis of the Shahnama except Davis who is an actual translator and Professor. But if Folantin is interested, he should also follow the talkpage on this issue where I have given my opinion on the matter; and provide his opinion. As I noted the complex situation where Turks (Central Asian nomads and not modern ethnic groups like Anatolian, Azeri, Uzbeks etc. whose ethno-genesis comes much later) heavily adopting, praising and loving Shahnama is much heavier than the slight bias for Iranians in the Shahnama. Also the "Turks" of the Shahnama from historical point of view are in reality Turanians and are not related to modern Turks, see Turan. Ferdowsi's material is based on Avesta and Pahlavi texts, which deride the nomadic Turanians (who are not Turkish Altaic speakers), not because of their race, but rather because of their conflict with sedentary civilization. So none of that applies to modern Turkish speaking groups (who are vastly different as Uzbeks and Kyrghyz clashes show), who are sedentary, and which did not exist during this era (ethnogenesis of Azeri, Uzbek, Anatolians all comes much later than the Shahnama). However, an article on Shahnama and foreigners might be more fitting. So the whole concept is flawed as the article has put together various disparate groups.
• So lets wait for Folantin to respond (although I believe he already did) but I am sure he can read the talkpage and this page. So you do not need to remove my response to what you wrote. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm done here. By comparing The Shahnameh and Mein Kampf and thus resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum, Atabey has violated Godwin's law and the discussion is therefore over. --Folantin (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, I appreciate your third party opinion (as I am from the region and so do not feel that I might not be 100% unbiased). I would like to have your opinion on the Russian mechanism (which has ended all these sort of silly bickerins) I proposed here [45]. Feel free to comment upon it, or anywhere you feel like. As I said, if this is rejected, then I plan to go on break as I feel I am wasting time. Thanks. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• Also final point. One good source is better than dozens of poorly written paragraphs in non-specialist books. Bosworth, C. E. "Barbarian Incursions: The Coming of the Turks into the Islamic World." In Islamic Civilization, Edited by D. S. Richards. Oxford, 1973. pg 2: "Firdawsi's Turan are, of course, really Indo-European nomads of Eurasian Steppes...Hence as Kowalski has pointed out, a Turkologist seeking for information in the Shahnama on the primitive culture of the Turks would definitely be disappointed." [46] So I state again that a book on mythology cannot relate to groups whose ethnogensis was not even started during the time of Shahnama. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 19:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

@Folantin, Goodwin's Law is not a Wikipedia rule. There are several references already produced above, reaffirming the fact that Shahnameh was anti-Turkish writing. It is not me but scholars saying so. I am just drawing comparison that by essence of anti-Turkish intolerance that Shahnameh has incited (which is obvious in ongoing edit conflicts of Khodabandeh14 on Turkey-Azerbaijan-Iran related topics), it was not far from Mein Kampf inciting anti-Semitism. You may consider my view in context of Goodwin's law, and I will consider your inability to respond in detail to references above to lack of time or interest. Hence, Khodabandeh14 simply cannot use your view as a conclusive third party opinion on Anti-Turkism. Moreover, due to his WP:FORUM, it is unclear what we are discussing already. Is the subject here Khodabandeh14's allegations of my identity or Shahnameh's anti-Turkish context? Just FYI, I did not add Shahnameh to Anti-Turkism article, only discussed it on the talk page. Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

To relieve Dbachmann's talk page from this lengthy debate, I made the following proposal in good faith at Talk:Anti-Turkism. Interested contributors can comment there. Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 20:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Why Did You Change the Sequence in the Comma Johanneum Article?

I don't understand why you changed the sequence in the article, placing the grammar issue, which is a secondary issue, in front of the manuscript issue, which is a primary issue. The grammar issue is an afterthought compared to the manuscript issue. That is why in any article regarding the Johannine Comma, the manuscript record is ALWAYS discussed before the grammar issue is discussed, if the grammar issue is even discussed at all. The reason that the manuscript record is more important is that it is factual. In contrast, the grammatical argument favoring the Johannine Comma is nothing more than a circular argument that Nolan invented, in which Nolan reverses the rules of Greek grammar in order to falsely claim a grammatical requirement for the Johannine Comma that does not actually exist, on top of which Nolan claims that in a 1780 letter, Eugenius (an expert in the Greek language) says the same thing that he (Nolan) says on pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book, when in fact Eugenius says the exact opposite of what Nolan says. 7Jim7 (talk) 03:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

sigh, why are you using big fonts, and why are you not asking this on the article talkpage? It was a simple toc edit. Because topically, the grammar thing is presented as part of the "modern research" section. That's all. --dab (𒁳) 11:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Why are you sighing? I used the bigger font because it is easier for me to read. I did ask this on the article discussion/talk page (at the bottom, right after your statement that you edited the article). How did you miss it? The History of Modern Study section in the article, to which you moved the Grammar Argument section, explains what has been said about the Johannine Comma in various Bibles and how various groups have viewed the Johannine Comma. The Grammar Argument section does not belong in that section. Like the Manuscript Evidence section, the Grammar Argument section discusses the evidence of the Johannine Comma (or lack of it). It is called Grammar Argument instead of Grammar Evidence because it is not real evidence. It is false evidence that has been planted into the minds of people who don't understand that the verb's subject neither does agree nor should agree nor can agree with the grammatical genders of the added nouns that are added to it as modifiers to provide additional information. The primary evidence regarding the Johannine Comma is the Manuscript Evidence, which, being the primary evidence, should be discussed first. The secondary evidence regarding the Johannine Comma, which is actually false evidence, is the grammatical evidence, that is, the Grammar Argument, which should be discussed after the Manuscript Evidence. 7Jim7 (talk) 13:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not a problem. You are welcome to restore the earlier sequence if you feel this results in a better article. --dab (𒁳) 13:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Cordial

I believe he left you a couple of responses. This one with a a "Fianl warning" as well as this cordial reply.

I've tried to AGF with him but I'm beginning to give up...I believe that he & the wiki mix like oil & water. I just love the part where he cusses out the Sinebot on his talk page. :)

You must have caught him on a good day. He's been known for this kind of response before. Cheers,
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 03:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

yeah, this guy is clearly an idiot. It was worth a shot giving him the benefit of doubt, but I think he blew that. So AGF is out of the window with this one. Not the kind of contributor we want to attract. I must say the piped link "Go away you little troll" would be brilliant if it was meant to parody idiot editors, but I am afraid this is the real deal. He's probably just a kid, so maybe he'll be able to contribute meaningfully and civilly in another five years or so. --dab (𒁳) 11:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Please stop PRODing obviously notable things

You recently PRODed Shinobi-iri here. Well, if you look at a simple Google Books search], you can see that it is an obviously notable topic that can be easily referenced. Silverseren^C 20:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Too bad I did not notice this PROD before Silver seren removed the tag. I would have deleted the article as my Google Book search [47] shows only 27 hits, many of which are false hits to general-purpose dictionaries or otherwise useless as sources and rest is part of the usual ninja popular culture & Bujinkan canon. I don't think every obscure Japanese word that is mentioned in the usual Hatsumi/Hayes/Ninja Grandmaster X sources needs its own article. The term shinobi-iri is just straightforward concatenation of shinobi (ninja) and verb iru (to enter). Anyone can coin more such words, and even if this is real concept we don't typically have separate articles about small subsections of martial arts curricula. This and sui-ren should both go to AfD. jni (talk) 13:11, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Silver seren doesn't explain what source exactly he has in mind when he says the "topic" is "obviously notable". I see a few dozen of hits in Ninja-boom literature, where this term is always presented as an item in a list. This doesn't make it a "topic". At the very most, it makes for a wiktionary entry.

Silver seren, if this is your approach to "research" for writing articles, I am not surprised we do not have a "Shinobi-iri" page that is worth the space it takes on the server's harddisk. --dab (𒁳) 07:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

AFD of article you contributed to

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of new religious movements BigJim707 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC).

RfC: revert or retain your recent deep revert

I have requested comments regarding your recent deep revert of List of new religious movements here. • Astynax ^talk 09:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Look, this article was never "finished". But I find it disturbing if one editor can slaughter it to the point of uselessness, and then an other editor suggests deletion because of this. I suggest instead of "debating" people just spend some time improving the article. It has potential, so let somebody come up with the best revision yet. Don't waste time discussing which revision is better, come up with a new revision that combines the best of either. --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Tolkien article-'racism' section

I think this paragraph is still too long and is trying to create something that isn't there. I noted you sort of agreed; in fact, the first time in ANY circles that I had ever even heard of this was on Wiki. Everyone that knew Tolkien thought he was a fine man. Anyone seeing 'racism' in his fiction is talking about themselves, not him. What rot! I'm going to look and see if I can find some RS sources refuting this, but, seeing it is a non-issue with most people (except a few extreme writers trying, apparently, to be noticed) it may be hard to do. If you run across any material, please add it to the article. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is a topic, and it comes up again and again. I have no more sympathy for the "scholars" who keep bringing this up than you do, but as always on the wiki, it is better to keep around a section debunking it than to try to ignore it. In this sense, I agree with your evaluation of the merit of this item, but I disagree with your evaluation of its notability.

Fwiiw, it is completely undisputed that JRRT was a cultural conservative and a traditionalist Roman Catholic. In the 1970s-style of Postmodernist/Marxist "scholarship" this in itself is more than enough to brand you a racist, but of course this says more about Postmodernist or Marxist scholars than about their object of study. --dab (𒁳) 09:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Could you unblock my account. Thank you. User:Geir Smith 109.12.14.75 (talk) 13:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)}}

Serboi

You had this article deleted (through prod), but soon enough it was recreated saying basically the same thing, in much fewer words, which is IMHO much worse. I restored some of the old content and discussion, so the history is clear, but you might want to either fix it fully or WP:AFD it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:12, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the best solution would be merge/redirect to Name of the Serbs. --dab (𒁳) 15:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Please let's continue this at Talk:Serboi. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Geir Smith (talk · contribs) block on hold

You blocked this user quite some time ago for personal attacks and general disruption. I've been discussing with them a bit and I feel like we are at the point where the only way to be sure they are sincere in their desire to contribute positively is to hand them the rope and see what they do with it. Checking with you first as blocking admin. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Never mind. Your block still stands, and it is now fairly clear to me that this user intends to go straight back to what they were doing before. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 24 October 2011 (UTC)