Talk:Macedonia (ancient kingdom)/Archive 7

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Request for comment

Should this article be redirected to Ancient Macedonians? Your input is welcome. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 14:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• My first gut reaction was that a merger would very likely be a good idea, since I've never seen much use for this Wikipedian habit of having separate articles for ethnicities and their countries, where the factual scope of both topics can be considered as near-100% identical. However, in the present case, it turns out that both articles are of very substantial length already, with (apparently, from what I can gather at a quick glance) predominantly non-overlapping content, so a merger might lead to a rather unwieldy article. Before such a merger is done, I'd certainly want to see something like a planned outline first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you for your input Future. I agree with your assessment that these articles are not identical as has been claimed and I fully agree that as a minimum any merger has to be planned. As a corollary to that, converting this article to a redirect is not a good idea at this stage. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 16:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• I believe that these articles shouldn't be merged as they are both quite long articles and they refer to different subjects, a kingdom vs people. A merge will lead to a very long article where bias will be harder to rid, so it is better for it to stay how it is. When you search for the Macedonian Kingdom, you're not looking for the people are you?Luxure (talk) 09:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• No, these are two separate subjects each with their own distinct and lengthy content. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:47, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comment 2

Should the lead sentence of this article call the ancient Macedonian kingdom a "kingdom", without further specification, or a "Greek kingdom"? --Taivo (talk) 15:23, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• kingdom: This was the stable, neutral consensus for several years because it is not a WP:POINTy edit directed at the current geopolitical problem between Greece and Macedonia and because it correctly illuminates the fact that there were notable differences between Macedonian culture and society and Greek culture and society. It also better matches the title of the article, which is "ancient kingdom", not "ancient Greek kingdom" or "Greek kingdom". --Taivo (talk) 15:29, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• Ancient Greek kingdom This was the stable version before Taivo and a sockpuppet started the vandalising editwar, this is easy to see in the page's history. Plus there are dozens of sources behind the Ancient Greek term. Ancient Macedonia was an ancient Greek kingdom and this is the historical truth regardless nationalism from Greek Macedonians and Slav Macedonians. History cant be adjusted to politics. If you think that Ancient Macedonian was instead a slavic or Ilyrian, or Paionian or Persian, you can bring your references. Just dont delete other sources because you disagree. You cant propose that a version without any justification can replace one with dozens of references. DispStevepeterson (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

People seem to confuse certain things here. The dispute on Ancient Macedonia, is whether the pre-Attic speaking Macedonians were speaking a Greek dialect or another Indo-European language. That is not something to be treated here, but on the dedicated page for the Ancient Macedonian language. Period! The founders of the kingdom are undoubtedly Greek, regardless if someone believes that there were other ethnic groups (e.g. Brygians, Thracians) incorporated to the Kingdom. That Greek aristocracy would then be responsible for a supposed "Hellenization" of the whole population and the establishment of Attic Greek in that kingdom. Now, the problem here is that pages like this, are getting kinda insane to maintain "neutrality" and "objectivity" which in many cases leads to over-referencing OR outdated views going back many decades. That is making the articles harder to read for the ordinary reader, plus it creates suspiciousness over the neutrality of the article. If you want to prove a point, it is enough to mention a handful of authorities and not dozens of primary sources that the reader needs to interpret. So my suggestions: a) @Taivo > leave the "Greek Kingdom" and ask for strong and quality references, b) @Stevepeterson & others > do not over-reference, it makes it terribly tiresome. Fkitselis (talk) 21:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Fkitselis, the page was stable for months/years as Ancient Greek Kingdom without any references. Few days ago a user added these sources only after the page became (once more) a battlefield between nationalists and sockpuppets. This is because they disputed the validity of the qualifier of (Ancient Greek) for the word kingdom. A discussion opened to resolve the issue and none of those who oppose the qualifier Ancient Greek brought any justification but continued to remove the qualifier in a vandalising/editware manner. After the references were introduced, they changed the strategy and removed the qualifier together with its sources with the argument that it is not necessary/interesting for an introductory sentence to to include a qualifier for the word kingdom. Stevepeterson (talk) 03:51, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

You are wrong, Stevepeterson. The page was stable as "kingdom" for years. It has only been recently changed to the WP:POINTy "Greek kingdom". Your list of references is also indisputable proof that you don't understand the reliable source policy. --Taivo (talk) 04:47, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo >> the issue has been discussed already back from 2008. It is not a recent addition. Stevepeterson >> The only sources needed are those of few academic authorities. By that I do not mean every single person who made a one sentence statement about it. I mean those who have actually spend some ink writing about it. Fkitselis (talk) 05:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we dont need so many sources. Initially there was one source after the words Ancient Greek kingdom (Simon Hornblower, "Greek Identity in the Archaic and Classical Periods" in Katerina Zacharia, Hellenisms, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, pp. 55–58.). Vandals removed the Ancient Greek, so the source was left orphan and describing the word kingdom. Then Gtrbolivar introduced the list of sources in his attempt to stop the edit wars but with no result, vandalism continued (and still continues as we discuss the topic here) despite a discussion here and the sources were removed with a simple argument that I dont believe that Ancient Macedonia was Ancient Greek . Stevepeterson (talk) 06:16, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

You are wrong, Fkitselis. The issue was, indeed, discussed in 2008 (I was there), but the consensus was to simply use "kingdom" without "Greek". That was the version that stayed stable for years. --Taivo (talk) 08:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I can see the discussion. Personally, I do not care whether the word Greek is there or not. After reading the article again, I feel there is no need for such a thing, as it is later mentioning the origins of the royal house. However, as a general note we should consider that wiki pages should always reevaluated after several years. Fkitselis (talk) 20:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

• Memory Refresher. Since the pro-"Greek" camp keeps claiming a false history of the first sentence, I did the research. There was a discussion back in 2009 and the consensus that was reached was to simply use "kingdom". That consensus edit remained for 3 years until it was changed to "Greek kingdom" with a false edit summary on 9 March 2012 here. It was changed back to "kingdom" the next day here. Then on 25 September 2012, this edit added "Greek" again, but the editor was lying and marked it as "minor" without an edit summary. That was the last time it was changed--without building a new consensus, just by virtue of a lie in terms of calling it a "minor" edit and not including an edit summary. The last consensus on this subject was built in 2008 to use just "kingdom". --Taivo (talk) 08:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• Last Consensus Version The article should remain at the last consensus version until this Request for Comment has been completed and a new consensus built (or not). The last consensus was built in 2009 and does not include the word "Greek". --Taivo (talk) 08:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

So, 2 years of the article being in this form is not enough for you to call it stable and you revert to a pre 2012 version with such an aggresive and vandalising manner? I dont see any pro Greek Macedonian attitude here only people trying to resolve an issue and one vandal with sockpuppets pushing nationalistic pro SlavMacedonian agenda which is not accepted even in ghe majority of the Republic of Macedonia residenta.Stevepeterson (talk) 08:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

When an actual consensus has been reached and the change is the result of a lie, doesn't that call into question the actual stability of the edit? If you think I have a sockpuppet, then prove it. Perhaps you missed this comment on your bogus sockpuppet investigation. Since you are just trying to win your point by using ad hominems I will cite you for a violation of WP:NPA and WP:AGF, especially since you think that neutrality equates to "nationalistic pro SlavMacedonian agenda". Please show me a single place where I have called Ancient Macedonia a "Slavic kingdom". Your personal attacks will not help your cause in promoting your own POV in this case. --Taivo (talk) 08:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

not if the consensus happened (if it really did, i need to see proof for that) over 6 years ago and the page has been stable for the last 2 years. And what is disturbing is your vandalising methods that compromise the quality of the article and make so many editors waste their time. And regarding [WP:NPA]] and WP:AGF it is you who accuse us of being pro greecomacedonian, although we are just trying to protect the site from one vandal and a sockpuppet. Your bias towards teh Republic of Macedonia is obvious, you even go beyond RoM nationalism to call the country Macedonia (when discussing an Ancient Kingdom with exactly the same name), when the constitutional name is Republic of Macedonia, just to create a confusion that everything Macedonian refers to RoM and its slavic population, no. You want to remove the Ancient greek qualifier because you want to extend this confusion to the Ancient Kingdom majority of which is within the borders of the southern neighbour of RoM. Stevepeterson (talk) 00:33, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Were it not so damaging to Wikipedia, your insane paranoia would be laughable. Do you actually see modern Macedonians behind every rock or is that just here? Please quote a single, solitary time when I have claimed that the ancient Macedonians were Slavic or that the ancient Macedonian kingdom was Slavic? You can't. You simply operate from the childish POV that anyone who would dare deny that anything ancient the Greeks say is Greek might not be Greek must be a lover of modern Slavic Macedonia. And since there is more than one editor who disagrees with your paranoid nationalism, your attitude is that one must be a sock of the other. From the aggregate of your comments, it is crystal clear that you don't know the meaning of WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:RS, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NPOV, or WP:SOCK. --Taivo (talk) 07:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I do believe that anyone posting and vandalising so aggresivelisy here is pushing modern Macedonian nationalism, from both sides, the Greek Macedonian (2.5 million people) and Slavic Macedonian (1.4 million). I am just trying to revert the page to its stable form that for 2 years created no single issue and make the article more accurate with a qualifier so that creates confusion over new uses of the term Macedonian (eg Greek Macedonia, Albanian Macedonian, Slav Macedonian, geographical area of Macedonia, salad Macedonia, Greek Region of Macedonia, Bulgarian Region of Macedonia) and without touching on the endless nationalistic debate on who has more right on the use and without being biased towards any of the modern ethnic groups, all unrelated to Ancient Greek Macedonians. Your position is a combination of the following two:

1) that modern use of the term Macedonian is equivalent and exclusively means Slavic Macedonians (example above: Do you actually see modern Macedonians behind every rock or is that just here?) and 2) Ancient Greek qualifier to the Kingdom of Macedonia is not nessasry, so we should say Macedonia was an ancient kingdom simply (not ancient Greek, despite all evidence, but something else that we dont know) but with Macedonia meaning a slavic population. This is exactly the confusion nationalists from ROM want to create due to synonimity and proximity to the Ancient Greek kingdom. I have never said that Ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedonia should be related to any modern nation, so YOU stop accusing me with nationalism. Stevepeterson (talk) 07:33, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

You have summarized your paranoia about finding Slavic Macedonians behind every tree quite nicely. You praise the stability of "Greek kingdom" for two years, but utterly fail to praise the longer stability of "kingdom" for three years. Indeed, the only reason that an editor snuck "Greek" in past the watchlists is because he lied about it being a "minor" edit. Your paranoia about modern Macedonian nationalists is utterly misplaced. Adding "Greek" to kingdom accomplishes only two things: 1) it is a WP:POINTy edit directed not at accuracy, but at a modern geopolitical situation (by your own admission); and 2) it obscures the fact that the ancient Macedonian kingdom was not 100% "Greek", but included non-Greek elements as well (and note that "non-Greek" is not synonymous with "Slavic"). Give it a rest. You have made your primary argument over and over and over again your prejudice against modern Macedonians. Wikipedia must be as neutral as possible (see WP:NPOV). That is not possible when edits such as yours are made with the express purpose of eliminating another possible point-of-view. The facts of Greekness are expressed in the article in detail, where they should be--as are the facts of non-Greekness (and note that there is not a single word about ancient Macedonia being Slavic in any way). Taking a side in the summary statement based on your modern geopolitical point-of-view is non-encyclopedic. --Taivo (talk) 10:01, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, none said that Macedonia was a Greek (modern) but an Ancient Greek kingdom. Ancient Greeks are unrelated to any modern nation. By removing the Ancient Greek you just want to link/misslead a connection with the modern Slav Macedonians whom you also name Macedonians, without any qualifier. I have no prejudgement against any modern Macedonian because I am one myself. You are the one who prejudges modern Macedonians, at least the Non Slav ones, firstly by assuming that every modern Macedonian is a Slav, for your own reasons; I never said you are a Macedonian (Slav/Greek/Albanian/Bulgarian) but perhaps you are a Slav in general thats why you push panslavism nationalism in this article. And your argument that Ancient Maceonia doesnt qualify to be named as Ancient Greek, because it was in the periphery of the Greek World and had influence from the neighbours and despite the fact that greek culture and language prevailed (indisputable fact, there are hudernts of sources and archeological findings on that) is totally invalid. It is equivalent to someone in modern times claiming that regions in peripheries of countries should become autonomous from the rest/homogenous core because they dont belong 100% to the core culture but have other elements from the neighbours. In that sense even modern Greek region of Macedonia i the future should not be called a Greek region because there are also Slav Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish minorities and in general the Greek culture there is highly influenced from the Balkans, unlike Athens or Sparta. Future Historians wont call Brandenburg a German State, because it was not 100% German, it also had otehr elements eg Polish. Stevepeterson (talk) 10:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

@StevePeterson >> Can you please specify which sources you would like to add and for what purpose. I suggest you make a collection here and write few words behind the reasoning. After that we can start discussing what is relevant and what is not. Fkitselis (talk) 20:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

My proposal is Ancient Greek Kingdom with the second bunch of references only namely the contemporary sources: Zacharia 2008, Simon Hornblower, "Greek Identity in the Archaic and Classical Periods", pp. 55–58; Joint Association of Classical Teachers 1984, pp. 50–51; Errington 1990; Fine 1983, pp. 607–608; Hall 2000, p. 64; Hammond 2001, p. 11; Jones 2001, p. 21; Osborne 2004, p. 127; Hammond 1989, pp. 12–13; Hammond 1993, p. 97; Starr 1991, pp. 260, 367; Toynbee 1981, p. 67; Worthington 2008, pp. 8, 219; Chamoux 2002, p. 8; Cawkwell 1978, p. 22; Perlman 1973, p. 78; Hamilton 1974, Chapter 2: The Macedonian Homeland, p. 23; Bryant 1996, p. 306; O'Brien 1994, p. 25. . To these I would only add Strabo and Herodotus from the first bunch, as sources of the ancient world and evidently not biased by modern politics. Thése are my last words, I have wasted far too much time in this article by Taivo's slavic nationalism and insisting on vandalising this page. Stevepeterson (talk) 00:54, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Stevepeterson's agenda of personal attacks and failure to assume good faith is well in evidence with that last comment. He has utterly failed at any point to demonstrate that I have been motivated by "slavic nationalism". It is just further evidence of his "find a modern Macedonian behind every tree". --Taivo (talk) 06:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I will again reiterate that the consensus reached in 2009 was changed in a manner that it passed by watchlists by falsely marking it as a minor edit, thus "kingdom" without specification should be considered the "base" consensus. At this point there has been no consensus reached for changing that earlier stable consensus. We're not talking about the tone of the entire article, or the details and evidence presented in the article. We're talking about the summary first sentence. As such, such WP:POINTy wording that, by Stevepeterson's own admission is designed to keep modern Macedonians from thinking that ancient Macedonia might have been Slavic, should be considered to be against the basic Wikipedia principle of WP:NPOV. --Taivo (talk) 06:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Modern Macedonia include Greek Macedonian, Republic of Macedonia, Bulgarian Macedonia and Albanian Macedonia. Your failure to understand this and your insisting of limiting the use of term Macedonia to describe only a specific ethnic group that doesn't even represent the majority of Macedonia shows your bias and the reason why you are so sensitive about the topic and went into the war in the first place. Qualifier Ancient Greek Kigdom was there for 2 years and none complained. My point is that we need to avoid confusion over modern uses of the term Macedonia and there are many, not only the Republic of Macedonia. Your initial reasoning behind hiding the Ancient Greek is that this would lead to edit wars due to modern politics (clearly a WP:POINT, look at your own comments above); in fact you are the only person who initiates such edit wars. Your second argument is that Ancient Macedonia wasnt 100% part of the ancient greek civilization and this was rejected by hundreds of sources: Ancient Macedonia was indisputably an Ancient Greek Kingdom (there are so many references) perhaps not 100% no kingdom is 100% purely something unless a genocide happens, even ROM is 70% Macedonian and 30% Albanian but its stil rightfully called a Macedonian state. Once the references were introduced you deleted the sources with the argument that the first sentence should not include unessasary details (such as what civilisation the kigdom belonged to) and neither allows sources in the first sentence, however similar articles on other areas of the ancient greek world follow the same format (eg Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece) and you didnt show the same excitement to apply these rules in these articles. Once you lost this argument too, you cite a consensus 6 years ago that changed 4 years ago. And you call yourself not a hothead nationalist. If i do personal attack? No I dont do, I have nothing against you but I blame you for the waste of time due to your irresponsible and arrogant behavior. I have nothing against Macedonians, Greek or Slavs, I am upset with you wasting the time of so many people here. And you were the one who called me nationalist, at least I recognize that modern republic of Macedonia citizens are Macedonians, you dont recognize the existence of Greek Macedonians in Greece. Stevepeterson (talk) 07:06, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

This article has zero to do with modern Macedonia, so the majority of your comments throughout this issue are pointless and irrelevant. I won't respond to your personal attacks along those lines any further. And you obviously have a problem with math. The consensus for "kingdom" was reached 5 years ago in 2009. It remained stable for three years until an obviously pro-Greek editor changed it by falsely calling it a "minor edit". That lie prevented it from showing up on the watchlists of people who would have objected to the change (as they had a few months earlier when the same change was made without it being marked as a "minor edit"). Are you seriously trying to defend a false and disingenuous edit made with the explicit purpose of no one seeing it? That was done two years ago, not four. You are simply wanting to add a WP:POINTy edit to pee on the ancient Macedonian fire hydrant with your Greek dog. You clearly have no idea what a WP:POINTy edit is so you should actually read the essay before you try to misuse the term again. The following two versions violate WP:NPOV: 1) "Macedonia was an ancient Greek kingdom" and 2) "Macedonia was an ancient non-Greek kingdom". Those are WP:POINTy edits since their only function is to plant a Greek or non-Greek flag on the topic. The only neutral formulation, that goes in neither direction and plants no partisan flags, is "Macedonia was an ancient kingdom." In 2009, that was the consensus wording that was reached after a long discussion. In 2012, no new consensus was built for a change because the change was a result of a misleading lie. Unless you are able to actually build a new consensus right here, right now, then the previous actual consensus of 2009 is the only relevant one. --Taivo (talk) 23:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I dont have time top build a consensus, if anyone wants to prepare please do and i will contribute. I will summarize your contribution above to show you how you contradict yourself: A) you personally attack me: 1) numerous insulting such as Greek nationalist (BTW I am a Macedonian), i have problem with Maths (FYI I have PhD in Applied Mathematics, from the Univ. of London) 3) you say that i clearly have no idea what a WP:POINTy edit is. B) You find pro-Greek propaganda behind every stone here and anyone who believes that Ancient Macedonia was an Ancient Greek Kingdom (you accuse me of finding Macedonians behind any one who disputes how Hellenic Ancient Macedonia was, although (Pan)Hellenism was a concept introduced during the Macedonian domination on the Ancient greek world). Then not only all editors here are pro-Greek nationalists but also all historians and but even the earth that reveals archeological evidence of the anc-greekness of Anc Macedonia, all are forged by modern greek propaganda, you remind me this onion's article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks,18209/). We wont rewrite european history because modern greeks are indeed nationalists and abuse history for political benefits. Perhaps Alexander himself was a Greek Nationalist, not neutral and according to you and his words are PPOV, and shouldnt be included in this article. To say that Ancient Macedonia was an Ancient Greek Kingdom is not only neutral (it doesnt reflect any modern population of Macedonia, it follows the format of similar articles (All other ancient Greek state articles mention their ancient-greekness.) and doesnt have anything to do with the irrelevant name dispute). But it is historical fact and wikipedia's attitude to history should not be affected by modern politics. Removing Ancient Greek although it appears in all other anc. greek states articles, in order to remain neutral in an irrelevant modern name dispute is a bad idea ánd certainly a WP:POINT. Stevepeterson (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

No one is forcing you to be on Wikipedia if you don't have the time for it. And it's utterly amazing how much fantasy you can construct about comments that I have never made and how you can twist nothing into fairy tales. Again, you confuse the content of the article with a summary statement that needs to be as all-inclusive as possible without planting a flag on one interpretation over another. Most of your comments are pure invention or misinterpretation. --Taivo (talk) 01:13, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I have alot of time for wikipedia but unfortunately this month i wasted it on unnecessary edit-wars trying to prove an already proven fact (that Ancient Macedonia was part of the Hellenic world that itself has created) and defending myself from vandals' attacks. Stevepeterson (talk) 02:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo's crusade to remove the word "Greek" (blatantly disregarding the countless top-class historians and reliable sources) is becoming outrageous and inflammatory beyond words. Who entitles you to remove sources and crystal historical evidence for God's sake? Where are the admins? It seems that anybody who wants to impose his pseudo-historic (backed-up with tons of pure vandalism) agenda in wikipedia is free to do it with impunity. Your ridiculous and slanderous attacks against Stevepeterson, who tried to stop your vandalistic pseudo-historic propaganda with solid arguments is typical of the way you understand dialogue and of course history for that matter. It is obvious to everyone that you are here to impose a certain agenda (who knows why?) at all costs. You're trying to make us go away, employing vandalism, lying, slander, propaganda and a behaviour full of unspeakable arrogance like you own the place, like you are the master of wikipedia who does whatever he wants. Rest assured that your aggresive and unacceptable behaviour, your pseudo-historic propaganda, your blatant disregard for the sources and for the most distinguished and reliable historians from antiquity to today, your vandalistic frenzy and your forlorn attempt to claim ownership of the article will not stand. To Stevepeterson: The next time he vandalizes, distorts history and behaves like he owns the place I am ready to bring this matter to the administrators. If you agree, we can submit this issue to the administrators together. I don't know the exact drill, but I am sure we can report his behaviour and his vandalism in one complaint. Gtrbolivar (talk) 15:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand the way that Wikipedia works, Gtrbolivar. You don't understand WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:POINTy, WP:NPOV, or WP:CONSENSUS. You have also failed to actually discuss the matter civilly here, simply relying on base insults and accusations. Perhaps you should try building a new consensus. You didn't even participate properly in the Request for Comment. --Taivo (talk) 16:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

"Kingdom" or "Ancient Greek Kingdom" I think the difference at the source of this RFC will be lost on most people reading the article. As someone who knows a fair bit about Western History, I think the fact that it was a Greek Kingdom is implied. that being said, the article that Ancient Greek currently links to is informative and useful to readers. I cannot go toe to toe with a real scholar on what comprises Greek/Hellenic realms, but Alexander was from Macedonia and he is most certainly considered a military leader of ancient Greece. I don't think it really matters, but a link to Ancient Greece is very useful and should be prominent in the article. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:57, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Elmmapleoakpine and Gtrbolivar. If Ancient Greece article has extensive reference to Ancient Macedonia as an Ancient Greek Kingdom and dedicates a long section on the period of Macedonian domination and its resulting Hellenistic Civilisation, it makes little sense that we remove the link to Ancient Greece in this article just because one single user claims that: "by trying to raise the unquestioning Greek flag over ancient Macedonia in the first sentence of the article, you needlessly prejudice the reader and promote needless conflict from those who might disagree with that assessment. --Taivo (talk) 17:47, 29 August 2014 (UTC)" . But I wouldnt keep on the endless arguments and edit-wars with him. I propose one of two directions: A) Either we all in a civilised manner agree here that we bring back the article to its stable (for 2 years) pre-vandalism format or B) we start a consensus to undo the obsolete 2008 consensus. I would personally prefer the 1st so we dont have to waste more time Stevepeterson (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Stevepeterson You added a bit to what I said. I was not responding to whomever your quoting here. I can go either way. I think that you presume an awful lot about the motivations of the other editor. I do not have any history here. I just made a suggestion of what would be useful to readers who are not familiar with the subject. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Dear Elmmapleoakpine, thank you for your comment and for allowing me to clarify my position, I wrote that I agree with both you and Gtrbolivar and I curried on with adding my personal view. To be honest, I also believe that there is little difference between with or without the Anc Greek qualifier. My point here is that users should not be allowed to vandalise and try to push their PPOV in wikipedia articles (eg I remove a well referenced fact that Anc Mac was part of the Ancient Greek world, just because I believe that Ancient Macedonians were in the periphery of the Greek world and hence not 100% Greeks and also because there is an unrelated political name-dispute today between two unrelated modern states, plus everyone who disagrees with me is driven by Greek nationalism and deserves to be insulted). This is not what wikipedia is about. Stevepeterson (talk) 03:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

You are still under the impression that personal attacks are appropriate, Stevepeterson. Do you want to falsely accuse me of sockpuppetry again as well? I propose that we maintain the last actual consensus from 2009 and the stable form that lasted for three years and was changed only because of a lying Greek nationalist's vandalism in a way that it didn't show up on watchlists. So your attempts to paint the last two years as somehow a better Wikipedia solution are just as sneaky and underhanded as the vandal that violated the 2009 consensus. You also act like the (B) solution is your idea. Please note that I was the one who initiated this Request for Comment, not you, and that so far there is no consensus for a change to "Greek kingdom". --Taivo (talk) 01:45, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

What an oxymoron: a user who has initiated a reckless edit-war (i count 6 reversions in September, 4 of which during the last 2 days), who has attacked and insulted any WP contributor who doesn't agree with his opinion that Ancient Macedonia was not part of the Ancient Greek World (because its population was not 100% Ancient Greek), is afraid of losing the credit of initiating a cease-fire/discussion that has not anyway prevent him from continuing the editwar. 175.136.204.66 (talk) 10:05, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Oxymoron--read it since you don't seem to know what it is. Your other comments simply show an ignorance of the entire discussion and the reasoning therein. --Taivo (talk) 13:44, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The Macedonians were not, are not and will never be Greek. The anti-neutrality editor is seeing biased POVs everywhere. There are disagreements whether it was or wasn't a Greek Kingdom (it wasn't) The Greeks saw us as barbarians, Greeks didnt have Kings nor did they fight the same way the Macedonian Phalanx did. This user is hallucinating if he thinks the 2012 vandalism edit is the stable version and somehow the 2009 consensus is 'outdated'. Well! Since Stevepeterson was born before 2009, (dubious), he must be outdated as well. He does not see the OUTRAGEOUSNESS of his claims. Wikipedia is a place for collaboration, reaching consensus BEFORE changing anything. If he truly believes he is correct (he isn't), why doesn't he collaborate like an adult and reach consensus first?

"I have alot of time for wikipedia but unfortunately this month i wasted it on unnecessary edit-wars trying to prove an already proven fact (that Ancient Macedonia was part of the Hellenic world that itself has created) and defending myself from vandals' attacks." - User:Stevepeterson

HAHAHAHAH! What a HYPOCRITE. It has NOT been proved that Macedonia was a 'Greek' Kingdom and your having to defend yourself of vandals attacks is laughable. Seriously, I really want to know how old you are. No-one has been attacking you and if anything, you have been attacking people, as when you started a 'sock investigation' (attack) against Taivo, not even informing him and without even 1x10^-1000 pieces of evidence. Return back to that rock you have been living under, don't waste our time. Macedonia (talk) 06:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

now that Taivo invited for support in his attacks and vandalism his fellow supporter of the irredententist United Macedonia concept of the Slav Macedonia "liberating" all ancestral Alexanders Slav Macedonia land from the occupying evil Greek and Bulgarian Macedonians (just have a look at his profile that shows the Republic of Macedonia's map including 40% of the Greek territory and 10% of Bulgaria), now this is the time to say the final goodbye to wikipedia. Stevepeterson (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If you actually think that I invited Macedoniarulez to this discussion, then please prove it. This personal attack is nothing more than another of your incessant "There's a Slav behind every bush" paranoia. You falsely accused me of sockpuppetry solely because I disagreed with you. Now this baseless accusation. What's next in your bag of personal attacks? Prove it or shut up. --Taivo (talk) 16:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the real issue here is personal attacks and not assuming good faith have gotten out of hand. Editors have stopped working to find neutral wording that addressed the concerns of both sides of the debate. Is there a way to factually and accurately state the relationship of ancient Macedonia to the wider ancient Greek world in the lead of the article without prejudicing the reader? What if the section in question read, "ancient kingdom that was x,y, z to ancient Greece? I know that is not it exactly, but I trust you get where I am going. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 21:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

what about: an ancient kingdom on the Northern periphery of the Ancient Greek world?

I have no problem at all with either of those wordings. Ancient Macedonia definitely had a relationship to ancient Greece, that's not in dispute. Saying either "Macedonia was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world" (my preference), or "Macedonia was an ancient kingdom that shared much with the Greek world" (or something like this) would be an acceptable neutral wording. --Taivo (talk) 04:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonia didn't have a relationship to ancient Greece. Macedonia was an ancient Greek Kingdom according to every reliable source in the world. Within the next days I'll be submitting a detailed report/request to the administrators, presenting the historical sources and the solid evidence that prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Ancient Macedonia was a Greek kingdom. At the same text I'll talk about Taivo, who is destroying wikipedia, distorting history and trying vehemently to impose his pseudo-historic agenda. It is a shame to all the civilized world, it is an insult to all the historians, professors, to all the people with expertise, that a single editor, is trying to sneak his baseless and POV opinions into wikipedia through the back door with unbelievable arrogance like he owns the place. Unfortunately, me and millions of other users don't have the time to write in wikipedia all day (unlike Taivo who has all the time in the world) trying to prove yet again the most self-evident and well known truths. Taivo is trying to own the article and to impose his groundless and outrageous personal opinions. He is in complete violation of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research and he is removing (without any justification whatosever) reliable historical sources and evidence with impunity. I really don't know where wikipedia is going, but if it's becoming a safe haven for propaganda and historical revisionism, administrators should inform us formally. I really can't believe that we are sitting here talking about whether ancient Macedonia was Greek or not. It's a shame. Gtrbolivar (talk) 12:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Stevepeterson and I have reached an agreement on neutral wording that includes Macedonia's involvement in the Greek world. I have reverted Macedoniarulez's edit to that wording the Stevepeterson used. Read the discussion. Those of us pushing for this wording ("Macedonia was an ancient kingdom at the periphery of the Greek world") include myself, Stevepeterson, Elmmapleoakpine, and the anonymous editor right before my last comment. That is the core of a consensus--editors from each side and editors in the middle. Your continuing personal attacks, Gtrbolivar, are no longer warranted. Macedoniarulez, your extreme nationalism is also no longer warranted. --Taivo (talk) 12:56, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice try Taivo, you really are a master in propaganda. You're trying to compare Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Josephus, Titus Livius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Theodor Birt, David Levinson, Hammond and tens of others top-class historians with the ridiculous paranoid fantasies of a Bulgarian-Slav Skopian distortionist who desperately tries to steal Greek history in order to get attention, in order to break out of his historical and cultural nonexistence and who is supporting you openly by insulting other editors. You are using this nonsense in order to discard my arguments and present yourself as the neutral voice, equating me with the Skopian fake nationalist who believes that he is a descendant of Alexander the Great and that Greeks are Ethiopians. Is this the kind of support you need to impose your agenda? Yes, of course it is, and I must admit that you used him perfectly. Anyway, I hope that any person with an average IQ who'll read this will easily understand your methods and your obvious agenda.

Let's cut to the chase now. In Stevepeterson's talk page, you wrote that Each reader can decide how "gray" ancient Macedonia actually was. That is all I've ever wanted for that lead sentence (...). Everything "Macedonian" is subject to explosion (as you have seen just above in the previous two sections), so we have to be extra careful in Wikipedia to be neutral. Questions for you: Can you produce one iota of reliable evidence to prove that Ancient Macedonia was not Greek? Can you show us a shred of reliable evidence by a distinguished historian that suggests that Macedonia was (quote) gray? What about all the evidence I produced? You don't give a damn about the evidence, do you? Your only goal is to impose your agenda at all costs. What does neutrality mean? Does it mean "hide the truth and compromise with the ridiculous pseudo-historic propaganda"? Is it neutral to blatantly disregard the sources and the evidence and remove them without any justification whatsoever? Is it neutral to violate Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research? Who are you Taivo? Are you a historian? Is your opinion more important than solid evidence? Is Taivo's opinion more important that the works of Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Josephus, Titus Livius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Theodor Birt, David Levinson, Hammond and tens of other historians? Where is this project going anyway? Gtrbolivar (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

PS: As far as the Skopian Slav comedian is concerned, it's oblious that I don't intend to dignify him with dialogue. Any descent man should feel sorry for men like him. I'll just post a video as a farewell: Kiro Gligorov, first president of FYROM, talking about the FYROMIAN/Skopian Slavs: "We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century ... we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians and there is no connection between us and Alexander the Great". My deepest condolences. We all understand his hopeless situation. Gtrbolivar (talk) 12:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

At this point it is clear that you have no interest in compromise or in building a WP:CONSENSUS as Stevepeterson and others have done. Your comments here make it quite clear that you are going to turn this into a WP:BATTLEGROUND for your own point of view that is currently unsupported by other editors. You also clearly show that you still don't understand what a reliable source is. --Taivo (talk) 12:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

At this point it is clear that you don't want to answer to anything I've said, it is clear that you have no arguments. You are evading yet again. Who are the other editors? You and the Slav who calls himself descendant of Alexander and the Greeks Ethiopians? I understand perfectly what a reliable source is but as a matter of fact YOU don't. You are showing blatant disregard for all the reliable sources, you are removing them without justification and you are in complete violation of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Wikipedia is about sources, about reliable sources about the work of people with expertise. Wikipedia doesn't care about your historical perspective or about mine for that matter. You are no expert, you are not a historian and you have no right to remove historical evidence. It is unbelievable, it is absolutely outrageous that you are free to commit vandalism like somebody has given you a green light to remove whatever you want, whenever you want, like you own the place. Your tactics are despicable. Stop evading and answer to my arguments for God's sake. You're distorting the truth and you're trying to impose you pseudo-historic agenda by wearing the cloak of (a false and hypocritical) neutrality which you use as a pretext. You are the one who wanted to turn this into a battleground and that's why you brought here a Slav nationalist(!!!) to support you, a man who insulted and harassed every editor in this page. Stop evading, stop acting like you hold some moral high ground. I proved that you are a vandal, a distortionist, who doesn't give a damn about Wikipedia:Verifiability and the basic rules of wikipedia, about sources, about the distinguished and world-class historians, about truth and common sense. You are trying to sneak your personal POV subjective historical opinions into wikipedia through the back door, with arrogance and using neutrality as an excuse. Gtrbolivar (talk) 15:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"As members of the Greek race and speakers of the Greek language, the Macedonians shared the ability to initiate ideas and create political forms." N G L Hammond, 1992 The Miracle that was Macedonia p. 206AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"Historians refer to this enlarged Greek society as the Hellenistic world. At the start of his reign, the 20 year old Alexander was the crowned King of only Macedon, a crude Greek nation northeast of mainland Greece. His mother Olympias came from the ruling clan of the north western Greek region of Epirus" David Sacks 'A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World' Oxford University Press 1995.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"Nowadays Historians generally agree that the Macedonians form part of the Greek ethnos, hence they also shared in the common religious and shared cultural features of the Hellenic World" M. Opperman, Oxford Classical Dictionary 3rd ed. 1996 p. 905.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"By Philip's reign, Macedonia was essentially Greek in language and Culture, and it could no longer be classed as barbarian" Antigonus Gonatus, William Thorpe Tarn.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"They [Macedonians] felt as Greeks and they had no temptation to destroy what they claimed was their mother country. They had clearly no wish to swallow up Greece in Macedonia, but rather to make Macedonia, as a Greek state, the ruling power of Greece. Such was undoubtedly the aim of Philip and Alexander too." Theodore Ayrault Dodge,'Alexander',p. 187 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AkiiraGhioni (talk • contribs) 16:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

""The Macedonian people and their Kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify", Bury and Meiggs, (1985) 'A History of Greece',p.415.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

J. B. Bury died in 1927, and his ideas of "stock" are a tad dated. But there is no serious dispute that the Macedonians are related to the ancient and modern Greeks.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The point is that the ancient Macedonians spoke Greek, they were ethnically Greek according to the majority of historians, that is they were a Greek subgroup, they had Greek place names, Greek Royal names, Greek personal names, Greek names of the months of the year, worshipped Greek gods, partook in the Olympic games, had a Greek culture, the cultural milieu of the Macedonian court was Greek, the temples they built were Greek, the coins they minted in their millions were Greek, and the legacy they left behind from Egypt to India was Greek. One should also bear in mind that according to historians such as Hammond and Borza,the Macedonians were one of many Greek tribes a residue of which stayed behind in the Pindus mountains of Greece, one of these, the Makedones, occupied Aegae and expanded out eastwards into the coastal plain of lower Macedonia. And lastly they lived in Greek Macedonia.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 18:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

And we must not forget that the ancient Macedonians claimed descent from the Argeads, the oldest and most ancient of Greeks in order to assert and rubber stamp their Greekness.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Taivo, do you have modern secondary sources saying that Macedonian were not Greek? You are not likely to convince people without doing that.

As an aside, Athenians and company were pissed at Alexander and at Macedonians. I recall they denied Alexander's Greekness in some of the criticism they made of him. But this was done out of spite and elitism? There should be history books discussing this..... --Enric Naval (talk) 11:45, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Kingdom Disambiguators should be short. There has been no other Kingdom of Macedonia. That should be sufficient; the name of the article is no place to be polemical - even for those whose polemicism is accurate and unquestionable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  Since Republic of Macedonia is so placed, there's an argument for no disambiguator at all. Perhaps even Macedon, which redirects here. With the Republic out of contention, this article is primary or effectively primary for both. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  Sorry, what are you talking about? This RfC isn't about disambiguation, and it isn't about article titles. It is about the wording of the lead sentence. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:55, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  Then perhaps I got a request from the last RfC. But the same argument applies: Keep the first sentence simple - and uncontroversial. "An ancient kingdom in the North of modern Greece.." perhaps? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:48, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Kingdom with no further specification. I'd also recommend the two warring editors take a break from Wikipedia. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
• Have kingdom only in the lede, leaving the other issues to be considered in the body of the article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
• Kingdom seems good enough. I don't think it needs to be specifically labeled as Greek. I don't see how that really improves the article. "Hellenic" could work, I suppose, but even that seems like it might be a bit of an unnecessary disambiguation. The article can discuss these issues after the first sentence, where it's not really essential. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
• Kingdom. The 'Greek' qualifier is useless in this context. For example: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a British Kingdom situated on .... or Portugal is a Portuguese Republic. It is for this reason most countries do not have an ethnicity qualifier in their name (eg. The Turkish Republic of Turkey or The Hellenic Republic of Greece). It is simply not required. Luxure (talk) 06:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
• Ancient Greek Kingdom. The Greek or Hellenic qualifier is correct in this context since it defines the ancient Macedonian Kingdom, now extinct. In WP the 'Ancient Britons are defined as a Celtic people, in much the same way the ancient Kingdom of Macedon would be defined as a Greek or Hellenic Kingdom.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 00:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Ancient Greek Kingdom as per the vast majority of neutral academic sources. Reaper7 (talk) 20:41, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Kingdom alone. Adding "Greek" looks WP:POINTy and polemical. Look, I don't doubt that it was Greek but the opening stylistically has too many "Greek"s in it: "Macedonia or Macedon (/ˈmæsɪˌdɒn/; Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía; Ancient: [ma͜akedoní.a͜a]) was an ancient Greek[2][3] kingdom.[4] Centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula..." Any neutral reader looking at it thinks "Yep, the editors want to beat us over the head with the Greekness of it". DeCausa (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

• Ancient Greek kingdom is fine, and is moreover more informative. I don't see why anything pointy or controversial here. We say that the Akkadian Empire was a Semitic empire, that Babylonia was a Semitic state, that the Sassanian Empire was an Iranian empire, and so on. Regardless of the ultimate ethnic origin of the ancient Macedonians, it is uncontroversial that the Macedonian state had strong political and cultural links to the Greek world. Its political elite made a conscious effort to adopt Greek customs. I also don't buy the "simpler is better" argument, one word does not make a difference stylistically. Obfucius (talk) 02:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Notes

Vandalism, unjustified removal of reliable sources, POV editing

Dear admins, I would like you to inform me how is it possible that the user Taivo can remove reliable sources, solid historical evidence (Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Josephus, Titus Livius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, David Levinson, Hammond etc) with impunity. Is wikipedia his personal domain? I thought that wikipedia is about sources (Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research). Is Taivo free to remove whatever he wants, is he free to distort well-known facts backed-up by thousands of reliable sources?

I am respectfully asking you: Am I free to write that Ancient Macedonia was an Ancient Greek Kingdom (it is something like writing that Napoleon was a French or George Washington an American) when I am producing evidence and sources like these:??

Does our wikipedia project rely on solid facts, on reliable sources, on Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Josephus, Titus Livius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Theodor Birt, David Levinson, Hammond and thousands of others, or has it become a safe haven for anyone who wants to impose his own subjective POV historical perspective and his propaganda? Are we going to make contributions based on the distinguished historians, on the compelling reliable historcal evidence or will we start doing whatever editors like Taivo want? Is Taivo and any given Taivo free to do whatever he wants? Is he free to distort history and deny common sense in wikipedia's name? I would like a straight answer please. Thank you so much for your attention, Gtrbolivar (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You are quite wrong, Gtrbolivar. You simply don't understand how Wikipedia works. It works on WP:CONSENSUS, not your personal opinion. While based on reliable sources, none of which are your "ancient sources", it fundamentally rests on editor compromises and consensus-building about how to properly use those sources and how to properly present them in the articles. Right now, you are on the outside of the consensus and compromise that has been built by Stevepeterson, myself, and others. Your individual warfare over this and your stated goal of winning at all costs on Stevepeterson's Talk Page is anti-Wikipedia and anti-consensus. You don't seem to understand the process. You are alone right now. All other editors on this page have overtly commented that the compromise wording, that Stevepeterson himself put in place, is acceptable. You also think that we are dealing with the text of the article and that the article itself is somehow denying the Greek elements of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. You couldn't be more wrong and your attempts to present that as the issue here is false. We are talking only about the summary in the lead sentence and not the article's actual content. Your sources are appropriate at the appropriate places in the article itself and you are free to put them there. We're only talking about the lead sentence. What is false? Was ancient Macedonia a kingdom? Yes. Was ancient Macedonia on the periphery of the Greek world? Yes it was. There is absolutely nothing false there. Your only point is to place a WP:POINTy and unnecessary red flag in the first sentence in violation of Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. --Taivo (talk) 16:14, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No, you simply don't understand how Wikipedia works. It works on Wikipedia:Verifiability, not your personal POV subjective and erroneous opinions. There is no consensus. You are trying to impose one, based on your opinions and your "orders". You are trying to impose your own personal perspective ("Ancient Macedonia is not Greek but it has Greek elements") which are pseudo-historic, erroneous and against all reliable academic sources and historical evidence in the world. You started a crusade against every distinguished historian and professor in the world in order to impose your POV opinion, your subjective point of view. You couldn't produce one iota of evidence to support your false theories and at the same time you are trying to distort the truth and drag all wikipedians to follow you into something so ridiculous and against all existing sources, evidence, academic knowledge and of course against common sense and knowledge. Neutrality doesn't mean removing sources and hiding the facts. The fact that someone is a nationalist, a communist or an anarchist doesn't change the fact that Napoleon was French, Abraham Lincoln was American and Ancient Macedonians were Greeks, according to every distinguished scientist, every world-class historian, every reliable historical source in the world. You are manipulating the concept of neutrality in order to hide the historical truth and the well-known facts. You are blatantly disregarding everything with reliability and undoubtable academic value in order to sneak your POV, unsubstantiated, groundless and subjective personal historical perpective (which has no place whatsoever in this project) through the back door. This is unacceptable, and if wikipedia wants to preserve its credibility, its stature and its values, the admins will give you the reprimand you deserve. Every decent editor must act in a manner commensurate with wikipedia's credebility and rules. Stop distorting history, stop removing sources on your own volition and stop this crusade against common sense, against self-evident facts which are backed-up in every possible way by sources and evidence. Gtrbolivar (talk) 17:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

A consensus here has emerged on the first sentence, whether you like it or not or whether you agree with it or not. That consensus is that the first sentence shall read "Macedonia was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world." There is not a single, solitary inaccurate word there. Not one. Every word of that sentence is verifiable. Stevepeterson placed that very sentence into the article. It was suggested by other other editors above. I support that edit. There is absolutely nothing false about that sentence. Macedonia was an ancient kingdom. Macedonia was on the periphery of the Greek world. If you can find a single, solitary source that says Macedonia was not an ancient kingdom or that Macedonia was not on the periphery of the Greek world, then you would have a point to make. Right now, you have no point to make other than pursuing your battleground mentality that you will accept no compromise to pushing your POV onto the first sentence despite the established consensus around Stevepeterson's edit. --Taivo (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If you can find a single, solitary source that says Macedonia was not an ancient Greek kingdom or that Macedonia was not Greek, then you would have a point to make. By the way User:AkiiraGhioni is against your alleged "consensus" and made those remarks that you didn't like: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. These are solid historical evidence. Stevpeterson's texts are lying above and everybody can read that he is against you, and doesn't accept your pseudo-historic perceptions and your vandalism. He has repeatedly called you a vandal and a distortionist of history, so don't try to speak on his behalf. Due to the lack of time and because of your slanders and your repeated attacks (which you made in collaboration with your ultranationalist Slav supporter) he was ready to abandon wikipedia. Gtrbolivar (talk) 17:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm transfering Akiira's text here Gtrbolivar (talk) 19:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC):

"As members of the Greek race and speakers of the Greek language, the Macedonians shared the ability to initiate ideas and create political forms." N G L Hammond, 1992 The Miracle that was Macedonia p. 206AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"Historians refer to this enlarged Greek society as the Hellenistic world. At the start of his reign, the 20 year old Alexander was the crowned King of only Macedon, a crude Greek nation northeast of mainland Greece. His mother Olympias came from the ruling clan of the north western Greek region of Epirus" David Sacks 'A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World' Oxford University Press 1995.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"Nowadays Historians generally agree that the Macedonians form part of the Greek ethnos, hence they also shared in the common religious and shared cultural features of the Hellenic World" M. Opperman, Oxford Classical Dictionary 3rd ed. 1996 p. 905.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"By Philip's reign, Macedonia was essentially Greek in language and Culture, and it could no longer be classed as barbarian" Antigonus Gonatus, William Thorpe Tarn.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"They [Macedonians] felt as Greeks and they had no temptation to destroy what they claimed was their mother country. They had clearly no wish to swallow up Greece in Macedonia, but rather to make Macedonia, as a Greek state, the ruling power of Greece. Such was undoubtedly the aim of Philip and Alexander too." Theodore Ayrault Dodge,'Alexander',p. 187 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AkiiraGhioni (talk • contribs) 16:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

""The Macedonian people and their Kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify", Bury and Meiggs, (1985) 'A History of Greece',p.415.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The point is that the ancient Macedonians spoke Greek, they were ethnically Greek according to the majority of historians, that is they were a Greek subgroup, they had Greek place names, Greek Royal names, Greek personal names, Greek names of the months of the year, worshipped Greek gods, partook in the Olympic games, had a Greek culture, the cultural milieu of the Macedonian court was Greek, the temples they built were Greek, the coins they minted in their millions were Greek, and the legacy they left behind from Egypt to India was Greek. One should also bear in mind that according to historians such as Hammond and Borza,the Macedonians were one of many Greek tribes a residue of which stayed behind in the Pindus mountains of Greece, one of these, the Makedones, occupied Aegae and expanded out eastwards into the coastal plain of lower Macedonia. And lastly they lived in Greek Macedonia.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 18:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I should also refer to the recent Exhibition at the Ashmolean Exhibition, Oxford University, exhibiting and showcasing over five hundred treasures of gold and bronze recently found in Royal burial tombs, the exhibition at the Ashmolean museum was entitled, "From Heracles to Alexander the Great, the Legend of Macedon: An Hellenic Kingdom in the Age of Democracy".AkiiraGhioni (talk) 19:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit Warring

Now stop. Many of you are in danger of going past WP:3RR, keep reverting is not the way to create a page. I see editors are referring to WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:CON to put forward their arguments. The first two are most important, without them we do not have an encyclopaedia. Consensus is also important, but not at the expense of the other two - Consensus refers to the primary way decisions are made on Wikipedia, and it is accepted as the best method to achieve our goals. Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable); nor is it the result of a vote. Decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.. So remember - it's not a vote, just because one camp is bigger than the other does not give them the right to impose their view - we must view the proposed changes with regard to the polices. We must keep all the policies and guidelines in the forefront of our writing. We realise that editors will not always agree, but we need overcome that and move on. I've protected the page for a month, so you can try to finally decide on how the page should be. If you cannot agree you will have to use dispute resolution - no admin will allow an edit war to run on. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem here is not with sources or the content of the article. It is solely about with a WP:POINTy word in the first sentence of the article based entirely on a contemporary geopolitical conflict. In 2009 a consensus was reached to short-circuit that conflict by not including the word "Greek" in front of "kingdom" in the lead. The article described ancient Macedonia's relationship to ancient Greece in great detail and that is the place for sources, facts, etc. There has never been any question of the content, only throwing up a red Greek flag in the first sentence to emphasize a nationalistic point to Slavic Macedonian readers. This discussion has shown again that any time that an editor wants to reassert the 2009 neutral consensus (which was sidestepped with a sleight-of-hand move in 2012 by marking the edit as "minor" to avoid watchlists), he is attacked as being "pro-Slavic", accused of sockpuppetry when another editor agrees with him, accused of canvassing when a real Slavic nationalist shows up (with whom I do not agree), and then faced with an overtly-stated battle mentality of "I will fight to the end." I agreed to compromise wording that was offered by a neutral editor above and then that same compromise wording was actually placed in the article by the editor who had accused me of sockpuppetry and canvassing. Consensus is absolutely important for lead sentences. RS and V are far more important for the body of an article. But the body of this article was never in dispute--only the lead. The compromise sentence--"Macedonia was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world"--is absolutely verifiable and accurate. Adding the word "Greek" in front of "kingdom" does nothing to change the content of the article, but only plants a Greek flag in front of Slavic readers. --Taivo (talk) 19:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo,the point is that Macedonia was a Greek speaking Kingdom, the Macedonians were ethnically Greeks and had a Greek culture. But they had remained isolated in the far north, far from the city states in the south. As the Historian Ulrich Wilcken wrote in 1931, "Our conviction is strengthened that they [Macedonians] were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which were further south." Macedonians were simply a Greek tribe left behind in the north of Greece who had no contact with the city states until the advent of the Persian wars. The conclusion is therefore that it was a Greek / Hellenic Kingdom, and that is how it is entitled in museum exhibitions.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 20:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No, AkiiraGhioni, you don't get it. It's not about the content of the article at all. It's all about waving a Greek nationalist flag at the Slavic Macedonians in the first sentence. I don't want the first sentence to make any non-neutral declaration (either pro-Greek or pro-Slavic) that will serve as a touchpoint in the current geopolitical situation. If you don't think that there are Greek nationalist feelings involved here, just look at some of Stevepeterson's first edits after I reverted to the 2009 consensus. He was all but accusing me of invading Greece with a modern Macedonian army (or at least invading this page with Slavic editor hordes). I was doing nothing of the sort, but it's illustrative of how touchy these "Macedonian" articles are. We have to walk a very careful line. The compromise wording does just that--keeping the Greek parts of Macedonia intact ("on the periphery of the Greek world") while not overtly ramming a sharp stick in the eye of Slavic readers by saying "Greek kingdom". This is what Gtrbolivar and yourself don't seem to understand. It's not about the content of the article at all. You can reference to your heart's content in the article. It's all about carefully wording the first sentence (and the first sentence only) so that a strict neutrality on geopolitical matters can be maintained. --Taivo (talk) 20:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No Taivo you're wrong, Wikipedia is not a political forum whereby we have to maintain some form of diplomatic decorum. Wikipedia is an Encyclopaedia dispensing historical facts. Why should Slavic people be upset? The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [FYROM] resides on what was ancient Paeonia and not Macedonia. Ancient Macedonia is almost wholly in Greece, and historically may have been on the periphery of the city states, but nevertheless it was a Greek speaking Kingdom, inhabited by people who held themselves to be of Hellenic stock, and whom historians almost unanimously now recognize as Greeks. So what else should we call it?Are we going to compromise historical facts in case we upset someone's childish ego?AkiiraGhioni (talk) 23:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You still don't get it. There are no historical facts being compromised. And you are quite wrong about Wikipedia. Wikipedia absolutely must "maintain some form of diplomatic decorum" in the first sentences if possible. It's called neutral point of view. In other words, the sentence that achieved consensus already says "at the periphery of the Greek world" so it's not at all necessary to poke your neighbor with a stick and say "Greek kingdom", especially when that phrase is a political minefield of non-neutrality. Remember that we're not talking about the mention of Greek culture throughout the remainder of the article. We are only talking about the first sentence. I'm sorry I keep having to remind you that we are not talking about the whole article, but you seem to continually forget. There are no facts being compromised, there is only a non-confrontational, neutral, yet still accurate, first sentence. And your politicized and nationalistic reference to "FYROM" is precisely the reason why it's important to keep your Greek point-of-view from overwhelming the introduction to the article. It is offensive to modern Macedonians, so you need to leave your politics at the door. That's precisely the problem--you and Gtrbolivar have simply refused to leave your politics at the door. Otherwise you would have seen the wisdom of a compromise long ago. --Taivo (talk) 00:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Its not a question of politics. Its a question of facts. Ancient Macedonia was a Greek state - fact. History is not in the business of making comfort stories. Was the Ashmolean museum, Oxford University being nationalistic when it entitled its exhibition of ancient Macedonian treasures "From Heracles to Alexander the Great, the Legend of Macedon: an HELLENIC KINGDOM in the age of Democracy"? Or maybe now you think historians should be chastised for referring to ancient Macedonia as a 'Greek state', or as a 'Hellenic Kingdom' or as a 'Greek nation'. Are you inferring that we should now censor Historians and Scholars. And why should modern Slav-Macedonians be offended? Their Republic was ancient Paeonia and not Macedonia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.166.51.111 (talk) 03:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You are confused about what we are talking about. It is a fact that the capital of ancient Macedonia was at Pella. It is a fact that ancient Macedonia's most famous king was Alexander. It is a fact that etc., etc., etc. But we do not present all these facts in the first sentence which is the only thing we are talking about. We pick and choose which are the most salient facts to present in the first sentence: 1) "Macedonia was an ancient kingdom" (undeniable fact) and 2) "it was on the periphery of the Greek world" (undeniable fact). What's the problem? Ancient Macedonia is presented as being part of the Greek world, but not at its center. What's the problem? But while the consensus compromise is WP:NPOV and avoids waving a red flag at a segment of our readers, you continue to insist on placing a political objective front and center. --Taivo (talk) 08:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm perfectly aware of what you are talking about, and its obvious you are trying to put a political spin on the whole issue, you want to censor the use of the word Greek or Hellenic on the basis that it might offend some readers,now why should anyone be offended?. But you are in in fact offending the right to knowledge which is what Wikipedia stands for. Let me quote Professor of History Barry Strauss, Cornell University, "Macedonia was a funny Greek state, always the bridesmaid but never the bride". Meaning Macedonia being in the extreme north was not able not participate in the progressive civilization of the states which were further south, and remained a backwater monarchy, but it was still a Greek state. "The Macedonians were racially Greeks"(Stoneman, Exeter University), "Macedonia was a Greek speaking Kingdom in northern Greece"(Robin Lane Fox, Oxford University). Of course I could sit and argue that Athens was not the center of the Greek world since the Athenians were descendants of Pelasgians and therefore technically non-Greek since Pelasgians were the non-Greek tribes who inhabited the Greek peninsula before the arrival of the proto-Greeks. This is Ironic since the Macedonians are described by Historians such as Borza as proto-Greeks (E. Borza 'Makedonika' 1995). "Modern Scholars now almost unanimously recognize them [Macedonians] as Greeks, a branch of the Dorian and north-western Greeks who after long residence in the Pindus region migrated eastwards" (John V. A. Fine, 'The Ancient Greeks, a Critical History, Harvard University Press, 1983, pp. 605-608). I rest my case.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 09:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

And at the expense of being repetitive, one must ask the question, why do scholars refer to ancient Macedon as being a 'Greek state' or a 'Greek nation' or a 'Hellenic Kingdom'? The answer is because Macedonians were racially Greeks, they were ethnically Greek, they were a Greek sub-group, they spoke a Hellenic language, they lived in Greek-Macedonia, they had Greek place names, Greek Royal names, Greek names of the months of the year, they considered themselves Greek tracing their roots to the earliest Greeks - the Argeads, they partook in the Olympic games, they had a Greek culture,the cultural milieu of the Macedonian court was Greek, they worshipped Greek gods, they traced their nation's origins from Olympian gods, the temples they built were Greek, the coins they minted in their millions were Greek, the legacy they left behind from Egypt to India was Greek.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 11:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You still absolutely, positively don't get it. You act like my comments deny the degree to which the ancient Macedonians participated in the Greek world. You are just using the same arguments over and over and over again that simply do not address the point. You blind yourself to the real world issues involved just to push your nationalistic stick into your neighbor's eye. The compromise first sentence absolutely still indicates that ancient Macedonia was in the Greek world. All you want to do is to plant your Greek flag as close to the front of the sentence as possible. You have ignored the point by obfuscation over and over and over again. If you could you would probably try to change that first sentence to "The Greek kingdoms included Macedonia" to get that word "Greek" right up front. That's absolutely all that you are arguing for--moving "Greek" as close to the front of the sentence as possible. All I am arguing for is, for a more neutral presentation, putting "Greek" later in the sentence. That's the entire issue, but you ignore it. --Taivo (talk) 12:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Many countries were in the 'Greek World' or Hellenistic world, including Egypt, Ephesus and Tyre, Palestine and Memphis, Babylon and Taxila but they were non-Greek and they were dependencies. The difference is that only the Macedonians were ethnically and racially Greek and Greek speakers. I didn't influence the Ashmolean Museum to title its exhibition on ancient Macedon as "Macedon: An Hellenic Kingdom in the age of Democracy" neither did I influence Barry Strauss professor of Classics at Cornell to say Macedonia was a 'Greek state', nor did I influence Historian Robin Lane Fox of Oxford University to state, "Macedon is a Greek speaking Kingdom in northern Greece" nor did I influence David Sacks 'A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World' to write that "Macedon was a crude Greek nation north east of mainland Greece". Are you now claiming that the aforementioned Ashmolean museum and respective Historians are somehow promoting a nationalistic agenda?79.166.192.152 (talk) 14:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand, if you say, Taivo, that your objection is not to the "Greekness" of ancient Macedon, why do you want to move the term 'Greek' as far back as possible? That's like saying 'Well, I don't doubt that France is in Europe, but let's move "France is a nation in Europe" as far back in the opening statement as possible, preferably in the last paragraph where no one is likely to see it". That makes absolutely no sense. The opening sentence of the article is supposed to convey in as few words as possible what the article is about, and given the importance of Macedonia in the Macedonian dispute, it is important for the article to clarify what Macedon was. Taivo's arguments in particular are starting to fall apart a bit. The current opening statement is supported by a very large number of sources. When you replaced it with your "concensus" it was supported by only two. --Philly boy92 (talk) 13:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Personally I feel that there is little difference between ancient Kingdom, Ancient Greek Kingdom (Basileion) or Ancient kingdom in the Periphery of the Ancient Greek world. I (regretfully) got involved in this editwar initially trying to protect the site from what I saw as a nationalism driven vandalism against a stable (2years) version of the site by one user (Taivo) later followed and backed up by two more users Luxure and Macedoniarulez. I admit that I didn’t assume good faith and I will explain why: Firstly because the user(s) who aggresively removed the qualifier and its references did not show interest in other Ancient Greek articles (eg Sparta has similar reference to Ancient Greece: Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece) 2) I found that their arguments and rhetoric were biased against Macedonian Greeks and had elements/influence from Slavic Macedonian nationalism and in particular the pseudo-irredentist concept of United_Macedonia. This concept bases its foundations on the following false arguments: 1) that inhabitants of the geographical area of Macedonia have always been a distinctive ethnic group (Macedonians) and not 100% belonging to other regional ethnic groups such as the Greeks or Bulgarians. So historic figures such as Basileus Alexander the Great and Tsar Samuel were not ethnically Greek and Bulgarian Macedonians respectively but members of the same continuous "Macedonian ethnic group" 2) The second pillar/argument of United Macedonia is that today the term Macedonian exclusively refers to the residents of the Republic of Macedonia and in particular only the 65% slavophone portion of the population. All users who started the editwars and opposed the inclusion of Ancient Greek qualifier have appeared to agree with both of the above both two arguments. Macedoniarulez on his userpage openly supports the concept and includes maps of the Republic of Macedonia that include all Macedonian regions of Greece, Albania and Bulgaria. User Luxure not only openly supports the concept but was even refactored my own edits ([[6]]) to make me sound like a concept's supporter. I did not assume good faith from Taivo either (and I have apologised for that) because he expressed the following views that are related to Macedonian Slavic Nationalism 1) Ancient Macedonians did not belong (100%) to the anc Greek ethnic group and 2) Today the term Macedonian is synonym to Slavic Macedonian. These two positions together make the United Macedonia concept that denies the existence of Macedonians (Greeks), recognises one (slavophone) Macedonian nation with minorities in Greece and Bulgaria that one day will unite with the Republic of Macedonia. Going back to our article: I believe that including the qualifier Ancient Greek is useful, certainly not harmful and that we should not worry if it might appear as pointy to supporters of the United Macedonia concept (in the past 2 years only Taivo tried to remove it). It was a Basileion type of kingdom, so I would suggest that we can even hyperlink kingdom to Basileus so that readers can better understand Ancient Macedonian monarchy. Including Ancient Greek, is inline with the format of other regions of the ancient greek world and also consistent with the overall historic narrative of wikipedia, eg there is long reference to the period of Macedonian domination in the Ancient Greece article. Removing it is similar to someone deleting holocaust articles with the excuse of neutrality and avoiding to be pointy to Holocaust deniers. But I am fine with the periphery version although it appears as suspiciously longer wording Stevepeterson (talk) 10:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a substantial difference; the situation is far more complicated than one adjective can convey.

• The (ancient) Macedonians spoke an Indo-European language, poorly documented but closer to Ancient Greek than to any other IE language - including Slavonic.
• Nevertheless, it is further from the conventional Greek dialects than they are from each other, and is quite often not considered Greek.
• In antiquity, the Macedonians were often considered Greek, and often considered foreign/barbarian.
• Appian and Plutarch, our best sources on the wars of Alexander, routinely speak of his troops as composed of "the Macedonians" and "the Greeks" - separate bodies, with a different relationship to him. If they speak at all of "the Macedonians" and "the other Greeks", it is so rare that I do not remember it.
• When it was politically convenient, the Macedonians, or their ruling dynasty, were recognized as Greeks in various ways; the same is true of many other peoples up and down the Mediterranean.
• The claim that the ruling dynasty (only) is of Argive descent rests on a claim which goes back before historical record, and is emmeshed in fairy-tale: the youngest of three brothers accepts a cruel king's joke gift of the image of the sun, and comes back to reign in his place.
• The same recognition given to the Macedonians as Greeks was given to the Romans, when they dominated Greece; some of it to the Persians and the Jews.
• Nevertheless, Latin, Old Persian, and Hebrew are not Greek, and the Romans, Persians, and Jews were not Greek.

We should include this in its complexity, or leave it out; in neither case, should we simply call the Macedonians Greek in the first sentence.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:28, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, Pmanderson/Septentrionalis. And the reason I never compared this article to Sparta is very simply that Sparta (with Athens and Corinth and Thebes) was in the heart of ancient Greece and was 100% Greek while Macedonia was always on the periphery. They are not comparable situations. --Taivo (talk) 21:21, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

But then if we assume that Macedonians were not Greek but a separate ethnic group, then modern Greeks belong to this very Macedonian group not the Greek. Because Greek city states ceased to exist after the Macedonian§ domination and a new panHellenic national identity was introduced and followed by Alexander and Philip, and the modern Greeks speak an evolution of the koine language of the great Macedonian kingdom. Regarding ancient Macedonian language you are wrong, there is no evidence of the existence of a language belonging to any but the Greek family. Macedonia was in the periphery of the Greek world and as such it was less Greek than the core but still Greek, Macedonians evidently self identified as Greeks .

Stevepeterson (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Texts identifying X as a Greek, and Y as a Macedonian, continue for centuries after Alexander. They continued to be separable ethnic groups as long as ethnicity mattered.

Less Greek than Attic, Ionic, Boeotian, Doric, or Aeolic will do; indeed, less Greek than Koine will do; calling such a language Greek, rather than related to Greek, is misleading. But I have no objection to explaining these matters in full where there is space for complexity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"In 359 a man called Philip became King of Macedon. We know the Macedonians were fundamentally Greeks, that is to say they were Greek speakers and ethnically, if there is such a thing, they were Greeks" [Donald Kagan, Sterling professor, Yale University, Extract from Yale University Lecture 24 Transcript, 'Introduction to Ancient Greek History']AkiiraGhioni (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)141.237.140.161 (talk) 15:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Olivier Masson writes about the ancient Macedonian language "Yet in contrast with earlier views which made it an Aeolic Greek dialect, we must now think of a link with north-western Greek (Locrian,Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote) This view is supported by the recent discovery of the Pella Curse tablet which may well be the first Macedonian text attested." (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1996, Olivier Masson).AkiiraGhioni (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)141.237.140.161 (talk) 15:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

And, of course, the Greek city-states did not cease to exist after Chaeronea. Macedonia dominated them, much as the United States has dominated several countries, deciding who should govern them and maintaining garrisons. But the Greek cities were no more parts of Macedonia than Cuba, or Vietnam, or Iraq, has been part of the United States. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:03, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

The only difference being that in the case of Macedon and the city states, both were members of the Greek race and speakers of the Greek language (Hammond). As Historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge put it "They [Macedonians] felt as Greeks and they had no temptation to destroy what they claimed was their mother country..............but rather to make Macedonia, as a Greek state, the ruling power of Greece". I don't think the Americans felt as Vietnamese Cubans or Iraqis or considered the respective countries as America's mother country, neither were they of the same race or language.. .AkiiraGhioni (talk) 12:44, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I need more explanation Septentrionalis: So Greeks city-states and their related cultures did not cease to exist after going under Macedonians domination, however it is evident that they all adopted the new Macedonian koine Greek language over their attic, ionic etc Greek dialects and never went back to them. Lets assume that greek ethnic group and macedonian ethnic groups were different, Ethnic Greeks remained under foreign domination for centuries speaking the language of their Macedonian oppressor without ever adopting the Macedonian ethnicity? Or did they keep their Spartan, Athenian Greek ethnic identities for centuries refusing to adopt the dominant Macedonian one? And when did they become Greeks again because Macedonians claim that modern Greeks are unrelated to Macedonians. Also its so weird these linguistic complexities are so weird:

1) Ancient Macedonian belongs to the same linguistic family with Ancient Greek but unrelated and also anc Macedonians were unrelated to anc Greeks

2) Modern Macedonian belongs to the same linguistic family than Modern Bulgarian but it is unrelated and also modern Macedonians were unrelated to mod Bulgarians

3) there is evident continuity of Macedonian ethnic group from Anc Macedonia to modern Macedonia but always remaining unrelated to both Greeks and Bulgarians who are also totally unrelated to each other, but somehow they are fiddling between the two over the millennia. Stevepeterson (talk) 13:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Stevepeterson, you are falling into the same habits that you have exhibited throughout this entire process--thinking that "non-Greek" or "not entirely Greek" translates automatically into "Slavic". This is an utterly false and misleading position. Septentrionalis, at no point, and myself, at no point, have made any such assertion.

Regarding your linguistic confusion, Ancient Macedonian was related to Greek, as is modern Macedonian, but with widely different degrees of relationship. Ancient Greek and Ancient Macedonian were most likely sister languages in the Hellenic subgroup of Indo-European. Some linguists place Ancient Macedonian in an independent Indo-European branch, although still closer to Hellenic than to other Indo-European branches. Since modern Macedonian is a Slavic language (a sister language to Bulgarian), it is more properly considered a distant cousin to Ancient Macedonian and Ancient Greek, but still related to them within Indo-European. I hope that clears up the linguistic situation. All the languages mentioned are related to each other, but the degree of relationship is different between Ancient Macedonian (Hellenic probably although not definitively) and modern Macedonian (Slavic) and Ancient Greek (Hellenic). There is nothing at all "weird" about these linguistic complexities--they are well known and totally unexceptional to linguists. --Taivo (talk) 15:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Koine is not Macedonian. Macedonian is very specifically not Koine. Just as the English-speaking inhabitants of the United States came from different parts of the British Isles and wound up with new and averaged dialects (Ohio speaks no British dialect; their dialect resembles several), so did the Greeks, when they went to Asia and Egypt. Macedonian, being further from the Greek average and spoken by a relatively small emigrant population - probably not fully understood by Greeks - made a very small contribution to Koine. (Once it came into existence, Macedonians, like other people, tended to adopt it - as the Scots have tended to adopt Standard English. But that's a very different question.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:31,

18 September 2014 (UTC)

To all intents and purposes though, Koine (Attic Greek) DID become the new Macedonian language with Philip's reign, replacing the rough and broad dialect of Greek spoken by the Macedonians, and was ultimately spread throughout his Empire by Alexander and became the lingua franc of the ancient Greek World.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 05:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, modern Macedonian being a Slavic language is therefore a CENTUM language. Ancient Macedonian being an ancient Greek language, like modern Greek, was a SATEM language.There is no logical connection between the two. As for ancient Macedonian it is now regarded as a dialect of north-western Greek. North-western Greek dialects are Aetolian, Locrian, Phocidian, and Elean. All these dialects are well documented, date from Archaic times, and there is no doubt that they are Greek.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"The [Macedonian] Pella curse tablet is a text written in Doric Greek and found in 1986. This has been judged to be the most important ancient testimony to substantiate the theory that Macedonian was a north-western and mainly Doric dialect" ('A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You are behind the times in your knowledge of the Indo-European languages, AkiiraGhioni. The Centum/Satem split has been thrown out of modern Indo-European linguistics. Indeed, when I was in graduate school (in linguistics) back in the 1970s, it was already on the way out of favor. The current view of Into-European is that it split into dialects rather early on and that there was a general wave pattern to interbranch borrowings and influence. The Centum/Satem split is ancient history, so your comment about that is irrelevant. And even if it were accurate, Ancient Macedonian and modern Macedonian are still related since they are both Indo-European languages. You apparently don't understand what the term "related languages" actually means. English is also related to Ancient Macedonian as well as are Bengali and Hindi. And that "now regarded as northwestern Greek" is not a universally held opinion on the matter. Yes, there are some linguists who of that opinion, but it is not universally held to be the case. There are other reputable linguists who think otherwise. --Taivo (talk) 22:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Certainly there are those such a as Eugene Borza and N G L Hammond who maintain that Macedonian was a very early form of Greek called proto-Greek, a form of Homeric Greek, however the Macedonian Pella curse tablet has been forwarded as an argument that the Ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of north-western Greek. James O'Neil (University of Sydney) writes, "A 4th century BC curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects" And Certainly in Livy there is the quote that "Aetolians, Akarnanians and Macedonians are men of the same speech"

And indeed it has been stressed out that Macedonian traditions, personal names and names of the months present strong "Dorisms" and undeniable "Aeolisms". In any case, by Philip's reign the Macedonians had replaced their local dialect of proto-Greek / Aeolic Greek or Doric Greek by the more refined Attic Greek, which was the prestige dialect of Athens and the Attica basin.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 02:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

By the time of Philip II, certainly some Macedonians, especially of the upper classes, could understand and presumably speak Attic, the language of Athens. But Macedonian continued to exist; that is why the later Greeks bothered to write out vocabularies of it.

But this article does not begin with Philip II; the Macedonian kingdom began some 300 years before. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Certainly it seems the common folk still spoke Macedonian - the rough dialect of Doric Greek, as the Macedonian Pella curse tablet confirms. But interestingly the subjects of Philip and Alexander would stream in their thousands to the numerous theatres of the realm to enjoy plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 04:49, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

And the people of London stream in thousands to operas and actresses from Italy. This does not change the relationship between English and Italian. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes but when Londoners go to an Italian opera barely a handful probably understand Italian, they go to listen to the singing. Its a completely different thing to see a play by Sophocles, Eurypides etc where you have to understand the dialogue.I like Kabuki theater, but its unwatchable unless you can understand Japanese.`AkiiraGhioni (talk) 07:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Precisely my point. They go, but that does not prove they understand Italian - although some do. What we know about Euripides in Macedonia is that the Macedonians went to the display of high culture, and were willing to pay for it. (I trust I need not quote the Poetics to show that Euripides was done to music; Eleonora Duse, however, doing Ibsen in Italian (in London) had only her voice.)

User:AkiiraGhioni, even after the Pella tablet, there are respected Indo-Europeanists who treat Ancient Macedonian as a sister language to Ancient Greek, not as a dialect. Eric Hamp, in 2013, for example, is one of them. Hamp is one of the best living Indo-Europeanists and historical linguists. --Taivo (talk) 04:30, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

You are so, so wrong. The Greek group had no ties, no ties with the Ancient Macedonians. Greece had banned the very word Macedonia until the 1980's. Greeks speak Koine Greek, not anywhere near related to the Ancient Macedonian Language. There is heaps of evidence regarding this and that the common names of some things in the 2 unrelated languages come from an unidentified language predating both the Languages, with both languages borrowing from this extinct language. I am not making this up so search it up. Greeks considered us Macedonians barbarians (Βαβαροι) and when Alexander/Philip spoke to the phalanx, which had a different layout and fighting compared to the Greek city-states, the Hellenic people in the army did not understand. I suggest you read 3rd Phillipic, and at any chance the Athenians revolted against the barbaric rule. Modern day Greeks have no right to use the name Macedonia and its derivatives. Macedonia (talk) 06:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Macedonia for clarifying things; I am aware of the position of you and the rest of the anti-ancient greek camp here. So according to you inhabitants of Macedonia have always been a distinctive ethnic group unrelated to Greeks, Bulgarians, Illyrians etc. Currently the only real descendants of this Macedonian ethnic group are the inhabitants of the only free and autonomous in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (which should be called simply Macedonia because they are not A Macedonian nation but THE Macedonian nation), located on the North of the Ancient Macedonian kingdom. But not all inhabitants of ROM are the real Macedonians, only 70% of the population and in particular those who speak a language closely related to Bulgarian but people are 100% unrelated to Bulgarians or other Slavs. The rest 60% of the Macedonian land outside ROM are unfree territories occupied by Greece and Bulgaria, and 3 million Macedonian people living there are ethnically unrelated to Greece and Bulgaria but minorities from Fyrom. One day the glorious ROM army will liberate these Macedonians and the lost lands and will unite the Macedonian ethnic group under the Macedonian flag with the Vergina Sun. Lets remove teh Ancient Greek qualifier so we don’t POINT to you people Stevepeterson (talk) 08:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Stevepeto you have no clue what you are talking about, do you? Just remember this: Macedonia never was, never is, never will be, Hellenic. Deep down you know it's true. Deep down you do.

The question of the use of the ancient Macedonian language was raised by Alexander himself during the trial of Philotas, one of his generals accused of treason. This is what Alexander has said to Philotas:

“ The Macedonians are about to pass judgement upon you; I wish to know weather you will use their native tongue in addressing them." Philotas replied: "Besides the Macedonians there are many present who, I think, will more easily understand what I shell say if I use the same language which you have employed." Than said the king: "Do you not see how Philotas loathes even the language of his fatherland? For he alone disdains to learn it. But let him by all means speak in whatever way he desires, provided that you remember that he holds out customs in as much abhorrence as our language ”

The trial of Philotas took place in Asia before a multiethnic public, which has understood Greek as it was then the lingua franca, like English is today. But Alexander spoke Macedonian with his Macedonians (the language he accuses Philotas of loathing) and used Greek in addressing the west Asians. Like Carthagenian, Illyrian, and Thracian, ancient Macedonian was not recorded in writing. However, on the bases of about a hundred glosses, Macedonian words noted and explained by Greek writers, some place names from Macedonia, and a few names of individuals, most scholars believe that ancient Macedonian was a separate Indo-European language. Evidence from phonology indicates that the ancient Macedonian language was distinct from ancient Greek.

AND

Eugene Borza the Great

"The lesson is clear: the use of the Greek language as a form of written expression does not by itself identify the ethnicity of a culture". ("In the Shadow of Olympus -The Emergence of Macedon", p. 94.)

AND

In the course of the second pre-Christian millennium, the ancient Greeks descended in several migratory waves from the interior of the Balkans to Greece. Some passed across the plain of Thessaly on their way south, while others went south through Epirus. More recent scholars point to Asia Minor as the original Greek homeland. There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks ever settled prehistoric Macedonia. Archeological evidence shows that ancient Macedonia lay beyond the cultural and ethnic borders of the Bronze Age Mycenaean Greek Civilization, which ends at the border of northern Thessaly (1400 - 1100 BC). The prehistoric Macedonians show a remarkable continuation of existing material culture.

Ancient Macedonia was home to many tribes. The ancient Macedonian tribes emerged from the Brygians or Phrygians. Some of the Brygians left Macedonia and migrated to Asia Minor where they changed their name to Phrygians and established a powerful Phrygian kingdom (Herodotus). When the Macedonian army under Alexander the Great will enter Phrygia centuries later, Philotas spoke of the connections between the Phrygians and the Macedonians, by calling the Macedonians "Phrygians" (Curtius).

Greek migrants settled few coastal areas of Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyria after they exhausted the possibilities of settlement in Asia Minor, Italy, France, Spain and Scythia (Ukraine and Russia). However, they did not consider Macedonia especially attractive for permanent settlement. Neither did the Macedonians welcome them as open-heartedly as did the Italians and Scythians. By the middle of the fourth century BC, the Greek settlers were expelled from Macedonia and their cities, including Aristotle's native Stragira, razed to the ground by the Macedonian king Philip II (360-336). Aristotle died in exile in Greece.

The ancient Macedonians regarded the Greeks as potentially dangerous neighbors, never as kinsmen. The Greeks stereotyped the Macedonians as "barbarians" and treated them in the same bigoted manner in which they treated all non-Greeks. Herodotus, the Father of History, relates how the Macedonian king Alexander I(498-454 BC), a Philhellene (that is "a friend of the Greeks" and logically a non-Greek), wanted to take a part in the Olympic games. The Greek athletes protested, saying they would not run with a barbarian. Historian Thucydidis also calls the Macedonians barbarians, and so did Thracymachus who called Archelaus a barbarian who enslaved Greeks. Demosthenes, the great Athenian statesman and orator, spoke of Philip II as:

"... not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honors, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave." [Third Philippic, 31]

The Macedonian "barbarian" defeated Greece at the battle of Chaeronea in August 338 BC and appointed himself "Commander of the Greeks". This battle had established Macedonian hegemony over Greece and this date is commonly taken as the end of Greek history and the beginning of the Macedonian era. Greece did not regain its independence until 1827 AD.

In 335 BC, Philip's son Alexander campaigned toward the Danube, to secure Macedonia's northern frontier. On rumors of his death, a revolt broke out in Greece with the support of leading Athenians. Alexander marched south covering 240 miles in two weeks. When the revolt continued he sacked Thebes, killing 6,000 people and enslaving the survivors. Only the temples and the house of the poet Pindar were spared.

Go have a cry about the truth please. It doesn't matter when a person is wrong, but when they force these incorrect ideals onto everyone else, then it becomes a problem.

I suggest you check your sources

Macedonia (talk) 08:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The above user, with his ultra-nationalistic user-profile showing a map of Republic of Macedonia including 40% of the Greek territory and 10% of the Bulgarian is a good demonstration of the good motives behind hiding the Hellenic identity of the Ancient Macedonia and projecting that Macedonians have always been an individual ethnic group unrelated to the modern-inhabitants of the territory of Ancient Macedonia land. Stevepeterson (talk) 09:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

There you are, you have been defeated, go scuttle back to the rock you came from. We were, are and always will be different to the Hellenic peoples and that map including 40% of the Country of the Hellenes and 10% of the Bulgar (Tartar) country accurately depicts the borders pre-Treaty of Bucharest (1913). Have a good day my friend as I am sick of you and your childish antics. Macedonia (talk) 09:42, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

@Macedoniarulez. You're wrong in every respect. Firstly the local language spoken by the ancient Macedonians (before they adopted Attic Greek, the prestige language of the day), was a rough, broad and vulgar dialect of Greek. Borza calls it Proto-Greek, and N G L Hammond says it was a very early form of Greek unintelligible to contemporary Greeks.

As for Demosthenes corpus, Historians have already explained that it was merely rhetoric.Borza stated that it was "simply political rhetoric designed to formulate public policy",whilst N G L Hammond maintains Demosthenes was just using "insulting speech".Then again Demosthenes had a chip on his shoulder,he was the semi-barbarian - his mother was a Scythian slave - whilst Philip was "traditionally a blue blood of the most noble Greek descent."AkiiraGhioni (talk) 06:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

As for the origin of the ancient Macedonians, N G L Hammond states that "At the end of the bronze age, a residue of Greek tribes stayed behind in southern Macedonia, one of these, the 'Makedones', occupied Aegae and expanded into the coastal plain of lower 'Macedonia'. Borza states "The highlanders or 'Makedones' of the mountainous regions of Macedonia are derived from north-western greek stock. That is we may suggest that north - west Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of Proto-Greek"('Makedonika' 1995)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 06:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for CONSENSUS

It has been exactly 3 weeks since I made the edit pertaining to the re-wording of 'Ancient Greek Kingdom' to just 'ancient kingdom'

The reason I made this edit is because there is reasonable doubt relating to the Ancient Macedonians alleged Greekness. Also, reading through the plethora of text on this page, the version of 'ancient kingdom' was reached by consensus in 2008 and sneakily changed to 'ancient Greek Kingdom' in 2012, without consulting or consensus.

Who knew that such an inconsequential edit could cause an edit/pov war for 21 days?

So let's resolve this stupid war. Here are the options I propose (I am for either version I or II, against the others):

I. The original

Ancient Kingdom

II. The recent consensus

Ancient Kingdom on the northern periphery of the Greek World

and, due to popular request

III. The biased (I)

Ancient Greek Kingdom

IV. The biased (II)

Ancient Slavic Kingdom

V. The biased (III)

Ancient non-Greek Kingdom

I would especially like to hear from these editors. Remember to cast your vote and keep reasoning sweet, short AND concise No arguing/lengthy edits and be civilised, since, after-all, Ancient Greece was the birthplace of democracy.

Taivo

Stevepeterson

Macedonia

Ronhjones

Gtrbolivar

Dr. K

Pmanderson

Future Perfect at Sunrise

I also sincerely apologise for my past behaviour.

Cheers,

Luxure (talk) 19:32, 15 September 2014 (AEST)

• An ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world. This was the compromise wording proposed by User:Elmmapleoakpine and an anon IP and implemented in the article by User:Stevepeterson. It is accurate without being WP:POINTy. --Taivo (talk) 12:27, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
• An ancient kingdom, inhabited by the principal state of a people related to the ancient Greeks That is true, being questioned only by extremists, and gives the modern nationalist controversies as much as they deserve. Periphery is acceptable, but vague; it is arguable that the periphery in that direction is Scythia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  Modified for euphony. And yes, "principal state"; whether Lyncestis was part of Macedonia or not depends on the year, and the definition. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• Macedonia was a Protoslav Kingdom and Alexander was a Slav Macedonian not Greek Macedonian. Greece should stop appropriating Ancient Yugoslavian history. AleksanderDonski (talk) 00:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for CONSENSUS which respects history, reliable sources and common sense

Obviously I am not going to comment on Luxure. Everybody who participated in this "dispute" unsterstands his role, his "historical" perception and his agenda. Unfortunately me and many other users lost our time answering to ridiculous things like (quote): "there is reasonable doubt relating to the Ancient Macedonians alleged Greekness. Also, reading through the plethora of text on this page, the version of 'ancient kingdom' was reached by consensus in 2008 and sneakily changed to 'ancient Greek Kingdom' in 2012". Besides his historical ignorance ("Ancient Greece didn't have Kings") and his vehement attempt to sneak his pseudo-historic fairy tales and POV perceptions in wikipedia, he obviously doesn't understand what WP:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources are. Admin Ronhjones clearly informed us: "I see editors are referring to WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:CON to put forward their arguments. The first two are most important, without them we do not have an encyclopaedia. Consensus is also important, but not at the expense of the other two."

For those who respect history, reliable sources, all the distinguished world-class historians from antiquity to today, the academic society, the greatest museums in the world, the compelling evidence, for those who respect wikipedia rules, common sense and ultimately themselves there is only one wording. There is only one option which is truly commensurate with the standards of a contemporary, reliable and independent encyclopedia which relies on evidence-based scientific historiography and not on inconcievable propaganda-driven historical myths and fairy tales:

Ancient Greek Kingdom

Yes, Ancient Greece was the birthplace of democracy. But "in a world without truth, democracy loses its very foundation".

I strongly believe that the input of these editors would be vital and crucial:

Philly boy92

Stevepeterson

Ronhjones

Chewings72

Magioladitis

Delirium

Tkinias

Charlesdrakew

Dr. K

AkiiraGhioni

Macedonian

Cplakidas

Cangelis

Sthenel

Gtrbolivar (talk) 01:39, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, Ancient Greek Kingdom, since from the middle 90s onwards 95% of modern historians consider the Macedonians as northern Greeks. AkiiraGhioni (talk) 22:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

PS 1: Taivo your supporter from FYROM is using your crusade to vandalize every article related to Ancient Macedonia, starting with Alexander the Great here: [7]. That is the ultimate goal of your crusade: Removal of the undeniable historical truth in every article related to the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia and incorporation of every fairy tale the ridiculous FYROMIAN propaganda mechanism has created. Your collaborator has already started the work. Let's see if Wikipedia will be handed over to propaganda. I strongly believe that its members will not allow it.

PS 2: According to Taivo we are not allowed to write that Macedonia was an ancient Greek kingdom even if this is a well-known fact backed-up by every distinguished historian, every professor, every world-class university and museum in the world, because it will be hard and difficult for the inhabitants of a certain country to read it. Next thing will be to remove the Armenian genocide from wikipedia because the Turks deny it and the Holocaust because the prime minister of Iran, or some Neo-Nazis deny it as well. According to Taivo and every given Taivo it's not neutral to write that Armenians were slaughtered because (quote): It is offensive to the Turks, so you need to leave your politics at the door." If tomorrow Albanians start advocating that Napoleon was Albanian and not French, we should respect them and not provoke them by writing in wikipedia that Napoleon was French. This ridiculous argument is the core of Taivo's perception and point of view. Therefore, in wikipedia we shouldn't care about the sources, about the evidence, about the truth. We should care about creating a propaganda-driven project which buries the reliable sources, disregards the evidence and its own rules in order to create some form of ill-conceived diplomatic decorum and a safe haven for anyone who wants to impose his propaganda by distorting the truth, by removing evidence, by insulting common sense. I strongly believe that the editors, the people who sacrifice their time to contribute to wikipedia selflessly and without hidden agendas, will stop this crusade against history, against common sense, against the very principles this project was built upon. Gtrbolivar (talk) 02:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you ever going to learn that personal attacks have no place in Wikipedia? Apparently not. --Taivo (talk) 02:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

If anyone has a shred of thought that Gtrbolivar is a reasonable editor who will work toward a compromise, his very words "I will fight this to the very end" ([8]) should prove his battleground mentality. --Taivo (talk) 02:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo just removed my text. This is outrageous. It is typical of his understanding of democracy and dialogue. The argument about my alleged "battleground mentality" is a complete falsehood. I wrote that in response of the unspeakable attacks that Stevepeterson and myself had suffered from Taivo and especially from his supporter who harassed us repeatedly. Gtrbolivar (talk) 02:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, refactoring incivility is standard practice on Wikipedia. And that Macedonia was ancient Greek is backed up chiefly by Greek nationalist textbooks. Especially those from 1912 and 1970. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

If these sources: and scientists like Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Josephus, Titus Livius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, David Levinson, N. G. L. Hammond, Ide Wheeler, Starr, Bryant, Cawkwell, Errington, Fine, Hall, Jones, Osborne, Toynbee, Worthington, Chamoux, Perlman, Hamilton, O'Brien, Ulrich Wilcken, Robin Lane Fox are "Greek nationalist textbooks from 1912 and 1970" then I rest my case. The community will judge your argument and your historcal competence. And mine for that matter. Gtrbolivar (talk) 03:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Good. A remarkable collection of ancient quotes taken out of context, and of nineteenth-century authors. No mention of Demosthenes calling Philip a non-Greek, for example. I stand by my position; above. Both yes and no are readily verifiable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

While also adding only the editors who agree with you, the ones who are biased towards your pseudo-cause. Ancient quotes taken out of context, including Quintus R Curtis and Herodotus, who disagreed with the VERY points you have, and of nineteenth-century authors. No mention of Demosthenes calling Philip a non-Greek, for example. This is very obviously an attack. The editor should be blocked. 101.161.59.17 (talk) 06:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Modern Historians and experts on ancient Macedonia have clearly revealed that Demosthenes corpus is simply "political rhetoric designed to formulate public policy" (Eugene Bora, 'Shadows of Olympus' 1992, p. 5-6), or just as "insulting speech" (N G L Hammond, 'The Miracle that was Macedonia' 1991). "In fact the Orator Aeschynus found it necessary to counteract the prejudice by defending Philip on this issue and describing him at a meeting of the Athenian popular assembly as being entirely Greek",(Malcolm Errington, 'A History of Macedonia'), and in turn called Demosthenes a barbarian. It is thus well known that Demosthenes' speeches against Philip were pure rhetoric. By reading his speeches leading to the infamous 3rd Philippic his language becomes stronger and stronger. It wasn't until Philip was in Boeotia that Demosthenes finally broke down and called Philip a Barbarian. Now barbarian in the classical period also meant uncivilized and most Greeks according to the Athenians were "uncivilized" including the Spartans. When Demosthenes called Philip a barbarian, it had nothing to do with language or nationality, but rather to the 'backwardness' of his Kingdom in which a King ruled and there was no constitution.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"The King [of Macedon] was chief in the first instance of a race of plain dwellers who held themselves, to be like him, of Hellenic stock" (David Hogarth, 'Philip and Alexander of Macedon')AkiiraGhioni (talk) 14:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

As the protecting admin, I will make a comment, although this is not a subject I know anything about - but that should not matter as what we need to be sure is that the policies are followed. RS and V are very important, and I do see a hint policical censoring from some editors - we must always remeber that Wikipeda is not censored, we do not adjust the article because of the potentail feelings of some readers, as an OTRS agent I see plenty of people complaing that we don't censor (e.g. sexual images, images of Mohammed, etc.), we explain to the poster that there is no censorship. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 14:58, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

No one is talking about censorship here. Censorship would be removing information from the article and there is not one single editor advocating that. This is all about how we summarize the information in the very first sentence and in the first sentence only. As you can see from the various accusations being thrown about (most unjustified), this is a sensitive subject. The first sentence needs to be minimal in order to reduce the amount of immediate acrimony. We don't include every detail of ancient Macedonia in the first sentence, just a brief and basic definition--"Macedonia was an ancient kingdom on/in the ..." That's all we're talking about although verbose editors like Gtrbolivar want you to think that we are talking about emasculating the entire article (in which there are more than enough references (satisfying V and RS quite well) to ancient Macedonia's precise relationship to ancient Greece). A minimal first sentence is perfectly verifiable and reliable. It's the remainder of the article that contains all the details, not the first sentence. --Taivo (talk) 15:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Taivo, maybe you can give your opinion on the recent exhibition of Ancient Macedonian artefacts at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University which was entitled "From Heracles to Alexander the Great, the Legend of Macedon: An HELLENIC KINGDOM in the age of Democracy".AkiiraGhioni (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Hellenic" is not "Greek", it encompasses more than just "Greek". It is a much broader and more neutral term than "Greek". And this is simply another example of obfuscating the issue by implying that those who think "kingdom" is sufficient in the first sentence want to censor the entire article. --Taivo (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

That is ridiculous. Hellenic means precisely Greek or something done/created in the ways of the Greeks (in the same way that "Hellene" is not someone born in Greece, but one adopting the ways of the Greeks and therefore becomes Greek not by birth but by choice). Care to enlighten us with some sources of how "Hellenic" is "not Greek"? And where in ancient Greek historiography have you ever seen the term "Hellenic" be used for something General and the term "Greek" be used for something more specific within the context of "Hellenic"? --Philly boy92 (talk) 18:33, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Taivo, so, the Hellenic Post, Hellenic Navy, the former King of the Hellenes, etc etc of Greece are not precisely Greek then? I think someone should inform the Greeks in that case and let them know. 'Hellenic' is merely what the Hellenes call themselves and 'Greek' is what the Latin Romans called the Hellenes. So Hellenic means Greek. (AkiiraGhioni).79.166.87.240 (talk) 19:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Apparently the two of you are ignorant of linguistics, where "Hellenic" refers to the small language family of which Greek is a member along with a small number of other extinct languages. Apparently you are ignorant of the use of the term "Hellenic" for the culture spread by Alexander throughout the ancient Near East among people who were definitely not Greek (so that the Egyptian Ptolemaic kingdom was "Hellenic" or "Hellenistic"). The term "Hellenic" very commonly refers to a wider context than just Greece. While "Greek" is a central component of "Hellenic", it is by no means the only component. --Taivo (talk) 20:51, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually you are the one that is wrong. What you are referring to is Hellenic languages, a phrase comprising the words Hellenic (Greek) and languages therefore languages that are Greek. Hellenic by itself means Greek. When combined with the English word 'languages' it means exactly what you said, a group of languages grouped together because they are Hellenic, or Greek. Are you implying that the word Hellenic by itself only refers to the group of languages? You probably need to read the definition of the word. May I suggest Marriam-Webster, Oxford Dictionaries, MacMillan, Collins and Cambridge. --Philly boy92 (talk) 21:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

You clearly are not a linguist since not a single solitary one of your dictionary references is to a linguistic source. Perhaps you need to refer to Hellenic languages right here in Wikipedia. You should also note that the ambiguity of "Greek" in English is also quite a solid argument against using an imprecise adjective to summarize information in the first sentence of this article. "Greek" in the linguistic sense most commonly refers only to the modern Attic language. "Ancient Greek" also refers only to Attic Greek since that is the variety of Greek most commonly encountered in schools and ancient literature. Other languages, such as Pontic, Cappadocian, Doric, Mycenaean, and modern Tsakonian are sometimes subsumed under the label "Greek", but inaccurately since they are neither modern nor ancient Attic. In other words, the ambiguity of what "Greek" refers when used by you people who are not linguists is the very reason why it should not be thrown around like a stone in the first sentence of this article. --Taivo (talk) 21:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I understand very well what you are saying, there is no need to be condescending. What I do not undestand, however, is why you want to implement the linguistic meaning of the word Hellenic with regards to the phrase "Hellenic kingdom" or anything similar. Obviously if you wanted to define the word "Hellenic" in the context which we are discussing using it, that is to say on a cultural and geopolitical basis, you would not use a linguistic dictionary. --Philly boy92 (talk) 22:00, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Also if you do indeed refer to the near-eastern Kingdoms after Alexander the Great as Hellenic, stop doing it. Hellenic means Greek, while Hellenistic means Greek-like. They are not the same word and cannot be used interchangeably. --Philly boy92 (talk) 21:33, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Hellenic means Greek. Hellenic means to be ethnically Greek and Greek speaking and should not be confused with Hellenistic. In fact it should be stressed that from the middle 90's onwards, more than 95% of modern Historians consider the Macedonians as a northern Greek tribe, whilst linguists talk about the "northwestern Greek color of the ancient Macedonian idiom.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 11:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"Historians refer to this enlarged Greek society as the Hellenistic world. At the start of his reign the 20 year old Alexander was the crowned King of only Macedon, a crude Greek nation northeast of mainland Greece. His mother Olympias came from the ruling clan of the north western Greek region of Epirus." (David Sacks, 1995, 'A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World', Oxford University Press)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 22:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)79.166.87.240 (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"The matter of the Hellenic origins of the [ancient] Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron age is acceptable" (Eugene Borza 'Makedonika' 1995)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 22:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)79.166.87.240 (talk) 22:13, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Alexander[the Great] was one of the first Greeks, though not quite the very first, to be worshipped as a god in his lifetime" ('Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past', Paul Cartledge]AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"We have now become accustomed to regarding the [ancient] Macedonians as northern Greeks". (Ernst Badian, Harvard University, 1982, Studies in the History of Art. Vol 10.)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"We must remember that Philip and Alexander were Greeks. Descended from Heracles, they wished to be recognized by Greeks as benefactors of the Greeks, even as Heracles had been." (N G L Hammond, 'Alexander the GReat' 1989, p.257)AkiiraGhioni (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I should have added irrelevant, as in the quotation from Arrian. Of course Demosthenes was acting in the context of a political situation; so was Alexander. After all, the Macedonians had been massacring Greeks, and selling them in slavery, only a few years before, under Alexander's command. Now he had Greek troops fighting for him; they were also convenient hostages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The Spartans were also massacring and reducing whole populations of Greeks to Helotry (Slavery). The Spartans would cull a proportion of their Greek slaves on a yearly basis to assert themselves as the master race. As for Demosthenes, political prejudice was of prime importance in Athens. Athens was the polis state that prided itself on its unique democratic structure. The fact that the Macedonians weren't even close to democratic, they were a feudalistic autocratic monarchy run by barons, meant to Athens that they were barbarians. They may have had the same origins and spoke Greek, but to Athens that wasn't nearly as important.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 14:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

"Alexander was not the first Greek to receive divine honours in his lifetime, but the precedents were very few, and of course inevitably inexact." ('the Greeks, Crycible of Civilisation' 2000, ch 15, p. 228, Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AkiiraGhioni (talk • contribs) 16:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

As a sidenote to various editors who insist on calling on texts being "out of context", when you refer to Demosthenes as a very good example of how Macedonia was not Greek, you too are taking him out of context. "THe Context" in that case is the geopolitical situation whereby his own State was about to be overtaken by another power, Macedon, which calls into question excatly how biased Demosthenes was. And at any rate, Demosthenes is widely accepted as being a demagogue advocating, in this instance, populist anti-Macedonian opinion. If you want a modern-day equivalent, look a the debate on Scottish independence. There's all kinds of poop being flung both ways, you won't be able to use everything in 2000 years to support one side or the other simply because it was said at that time, it has to be analysed for what it really means. And in Demosthenes' case it mans anti-Macedonian and pro-Athenian fanaticism. PMAnderson's opinion that 'both yes and no' are readily justifiable is not really the case. You have brought to us how many sources? 5? 10? The 'is a Greek Kingdom' references number much, much higher than that. To say that because *someone* supports your view then it is justifiable to the exact same degree as the other side is a falacy. Last Week Tonight actually had a good episode on falacies like this. --Philly boy92 (talk) 16:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it should be Ancient Greek Kingdom, historically that is correct to reality. I know this may annoy some with emotional hopes towards an ambiguous proto slavic kingdom, but Wikipedia should not be based on pseudo linguists replacing facts. Reaper7 (talk) 05:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Napoleon is actually an excellent example. He was not 100% French at all. Our article Napoleon says: "Napoleon was born in Corsica in a family of noble Italian ancestry that had settled in Corsica in the 16th century. He spoke French with a heavy Corsican accent." Corsica had only just been annexed by France when Napoleon was born, and the Corsicans used Italian as their written language and had close ties to Italy. Ethnically, therefore, Napoleon was more Italian than French. He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte – pray tell, does that sound French or does that sound Italian?

Scotland is another excellent parallel. Scotland has always been on the margin of the Anglo-Saxon/English world. There are three languages spoken in Scotland: Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and Scottish English. Scottish English is clearly a dialect of English, although a quite distinctive one. Whether Scots should be counted as part of English is controversial; it clearly descends from Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, but whether that makes it merely a group of English dialects, or whether it has become a language of its own, is a matter of definition. However, there is no doubt that it is closely related to English – the standard English I am writing in. Scottish Gaelic is completely different from English, more different probably even than Thracian was from any form of Ancient Greek, yet Scottish Gaelic and English are related. That there are as many as two quite different descendants of Old English spoken in Scotland is due to the fact that it has always been subject to influence from the south. The parallels to Macedonia, where Attic Greek, some Northern Greek dialect and Ancient Macedonian (not to mention probably other Ancient Balkan languages) were all spoken side by side and influenced each other are obvious. And Scotland is far from the only European region with such a complicated and confusing linguistic situation. Switzerland, Belgium, Sardinia, Occitania, the Netherlands, you name it. Some regions are even more confusing and controversial, such as South Tyrol. Or Ukraine. Or the clusterfuck that is Scandinavia. Or the whole east of Europe, actually. It's a nightmare trying to explain. But it's completely normal that such situations arise. It's not even specific to Europe, just more obvious here.

In the case of Ancient Macedonia, we just don't see all the different ethnic-linguistic layers as well as in modern Europe, so it's not clear whether there was a Macedonian language that was neither a proper Greek dialect nor Phrygian nor Illyrian nor Thracian nor Paeonian nor Pre-Proto-Albanian nor (Balto-)Slavic nor Anatolian nor even some possibly non-Indo-European language like Pelasgian supposedly was, but presumably closely related to Greek yet distinctively different. But still close enough to be masked or hidden through superficial Hellenisation.

I'm serious – there are people in Germany who think that Swiss German is only normal Standard German with that funny Swiss accent. But there is also a completely different kind of German in Switzerland that is not readily intelligible to most Germans. Future historians who would only have official Swiss texts such as newspapers at their disposal would be just as confused about whether Swiss German is only an accent of German or a completely different thing, and whether the Swiss were Germans or not. There is similar confusion about Low German sometimes, where people do not realise that there is a completely different language in Northern Germany that is closer to Dutch than to Standard German in some respects. And of course, the cases of Austria and Luxembourg are quite similar to the Swiss case as well. People are confused about Scots and Scottish English too, believing that there is only a Scottish accent of English and nothing more. That's because the more different or divergent kind of language is so easily masked. Bavarians are even confused themselves about Bavarian and its relationship to German, and why place-names and personal names are sometimes different to normal written German in spelling and sometimes not (Heide – Haide – Haid, Buch – Puch, Meier – Mair/Mayr, Brunner – Prunner; I know I was – before I learnt that there was once a Bavarian-based written language, until the 18th century in fact, and which even contributed to Standard German, which is such a little-known fact that even most linguists don't realise it; the situation is actually very similar as with respect to Scots), so I wouldn't be surprised if the ancient Macedonians were too. Speaking several closely related languages or dialects is confusing as hell – yet so normal in the world. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

True, but Swiss German is still German, it is not French, Italian, or Romansch. If Switzerland were comprised only from the German-speaking cantons, it would be a "German" country, as much as Austria is. As you rightly point out, languages exist in a continuum, and the discussion on the dichotomy of "Macedonians" vs "Greeks" discussed at length above is false in so far seems to forget that "Greekness", whether in language or culture was never a solid, clearly defined, standardized concept. There were rules that marked a certain boundary of inclusion (Olympic Games etc), but "Greeks" differed from city to city and region to region by political institutions, customs and dialect, let alone the great divisions into Ionians, Dorians, Aetolians. An Athenian might have considered a Sicilian Greek rustic or slightly better than a barbarian, but this does not negate that they did belong to the same cultural continuum, especially if seen with hindsight by a completely different culture. I am Greek by birth, but have German practically as my second mother language. Still, for the life of me I cannot understand a word of the Bavarian dialect. Does this mean that the Bavarians are not "standard Germans", or that I am more "standard German" because I speak Hochdeutsch without an accent? Conversely, if a Bavarian speaks derisively of "die Preißen", does this mean that Mecklenburgers or Berliners are truly a different people, perhaps descended from the Prussians? Yes, of course there are differences of customs, language, even temperament, but compared to Poles, French, or the Danes, they are all "Germans". Likewise, modern Greeks may call someone a "Vlach" if he is uncultured and rustic, but that does not mean they are indeed of Vlach descent. Similarly, a man like Pavlos Kountouriotis could be proud of his well-documented Arvanite origins, he would swear in Arvanite in the heat of battle, but he is still a "Greek admiral", because that is the dominant culture he grew up in and that he served, much like Napoleon. So I do not think that anyone seriously challenges that, Demosthenes' rhetoric barbs and some peculiarities aside, the ancient Macedonian kingdom belongs, or at least came to belong, politically and culturally, by the time we have any definite evidence, firmly within the spectrum of the broader ancient Greek world. I suspect that if it were not for the existence of the modern naming dispute to stir up things, we wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with. Constantine ✍ 13:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR A TRULY NEUTRAL CONSENSUS

I propose that we make a new truly neutral consensus. A consensus proposal should be neutral without trying to prejudge the participants, ie referring to options with terms such as "The biased" or "due to popular request only".

• an ancient Kingdom, as per the 2009 consensus
• an ancient Greek Kingdom, or Ancient Hellenic Kingdom as per the latest stable (2012-2014) version,
• an ancient kingdom on the northern periphery of the Ancient Greek World, as per the latest agreed compromise between some of the parties involved in the dispute.
• an ancient Slavic Kingdom, or an ancient Protoslavic Kingdom
• an ancient kingdom, the principal state of a people related to the ancient Greeks

Please feel free to add other options. Perhaps we can migrate all votes on the former two consensuses or invite users to vote again. My hyper-links are indicative only, feel free to propose your own preference. Also none should cast their vote before we all agree with the terms of the consensus. I hope that you will agree with this monodrome direction and that we will find a civilised resolution to the matter soon. Personal attacks and long answers are not welcomed. you don't need to add references, these can be added later and agreed by everyone. Stevepeterson (talk) 09:24, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• an ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world: most recent compromise wording. The word "ancient" doesn't need to be repeated. --Taivo (talk) 12:53, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• an ancient Greek Kingdom: as per the BBC: Became king of ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon at age 20.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29239529 Reaper7 (talk) 06:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• an Ancient Greek Kingdom: today historians almost unanimously recognize the Macedonians as ethnically Greek, and have invariably described Macedonia as either an Hellenic Kingdom / Greek speaking Kingdom /Greek nation / Greek state. The qualifier Greek or Hellenic is important as it behaves as an identifier since we are talking about an ancient and not a modern nation.(As in 'Ancient Britons were a Celtic people').So Ancient Macedon was a Greek or Hellenic Kingdom is perfectly legitimate.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 09:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• an Ancient Greek Kingdom: This is supported by a very large number of sources already, as opposed to only two for "in the northern periphery of the Greek World". Was also going to post about the BBC source on "Became king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon" (from a BBC article on the Kasta Tomb), but someone already posted it. --Philly boy92 (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
• an Ancient Slavic Kingdom or a Proto-Slavic Kingdom AleksanderDonski (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I am going to transfer stated preferences and short comments from above. If an editor wants to replace this copy with a new comment, then feel free to erase this one.

• "An ancient kingdom, the principal state of a people related to the ancient Greeks: That is true, being questioned only by extremists, and gives the modern nationalist controversies as much as they deserve. Periphery is acceptable, but vague; it is arguable that the periphery in that direction is Scythia. PMAnderson 15:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC) "
• "Kingdom with no further specification. I'd also recommend the two warring editors take a break from Wikipedia. User:Chris troutman (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2014 (UTC)"
• "Have kingdom only in the lede, leaving the other issues to be considered in the body of the article. User:Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)"
• "Kingdom seems good enough. I don't think it needs to be specifically labeled as Greek. I don't see how that really improves the article. ... User:NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)"

These were the only overtly expressed preferences in an RfC-style that I found above. --Taivo (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• an ancient Greek kingdom: Prior to the 4th century Macedonia was a small state with Greek population (Makednoi) and a Greek ruling dynasty (Argeads). When the Macedonian kingdom expanded in the 4th century incorporated some foreign populations due to its placing in the fringes of the Greek world and its proximity to the "barbarians". It was a Greek state though. Sthenel (talk) 03:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
• an ancient kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world: I think that neutral and accurate wording saves all the kb of head ache that has transpired on this page. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Process for Consensus

The proper process for developing a consensus is the Request for Comments process. There has been consensus in the past on two different versions of the lede, but consensus can change. What should the options be: ancient Greek kingdom (possibly contentious); ancient kingdom in the Greek world; ancient kingdom (let the body of the article specify where); ancient Slavic or proto-Slavic kingdom (probably even more contentious than Greek); anything else? Let's identify the choices and get an RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

In the meantime, remember that this article is subject to WP:ARBMAC and that disruptive editing can be dealt with by a draconian process of arbitration enforcement. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Robert McClenon, we were not aware of the formal procedure and took the initiative to give a neutral solution to this endless editwar. On a sidenote and in my humble opinion, I don't think its a good idea that prejudge the contributors, eg by mentioning what options are contentious and not. The wording should be unbiased without directing. Administrators should always remain neutral Stevepeterson (talk)

There is already an RfC running (see above under "#Request for Comment 2"), plus ostensibly 3(!) more troll-feed ones. I don't see how starting the whole thing over yet another time will achieve anything here. The problem is that, after a few years of relative quiet, we are again seeing this topic being taken over by nationally-motivated POV editors (from various sides), for whom the (otherwise utterly meaningless) question of the "ethnic" nature of this ancient tribe is an ideological matter of life and death for their own present-day ethnic self-definition. As for the "options" you list, please strike the last one, "ancient Slavic" or "proto-Slavic" would be not merely fringe but utterly ludicrous; only the dumbest of nationalist trolls would argue for that sort of thing (or indeed, an agent provocateur sockpuppet of the other side might, to build up a strawman position to make the opposing side look particularly foolish). Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)r

I agree with Fut.Perf., I dont think that Slavic or protoslavic can come as serious proposals. I included it only because it was introduced in the initial consensus by User:Luxure and not because it was supported by the trol (none in the Greek or Macedonian camp would use the term Ancient Yugoslavian history). i think that the ancient Slavic option was introduced by the proMacedonia camp as a parallel to the ancient Greek option, to make them both look equally biased/contentious/stupid as opposed to ancient kingdom which would appear the only unbiased option. the other option should be '"Macedonia was a kingdom on the northern periphery of the ancient Greek world" Stevepeterson (talk) 15:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, we have to bear in mind that both options ancient Greek Kingdom and ancient kingdom are POINTy options:

• "Ancient Greek Kingdom" would be a POINT towards Slavic Macedonian nationalists who struggle to disconnect ethnically the ancient inhabitants of the territory of the Ancient Macedonia (majority of 90% is within the Greek Macedonia) with the modern inhabitants.
• "Ancient Kingdom" points at Greek Macedonian nationalists who struggle to prove continuity with the ancient inhabitants of the land they currently inhabit.

Dear Fut.Perf., I think that it is dangerous to equalise the two nationalisms above as equally radical/unsound/dangerous is incorrect. We have to take the two points into consideration:1) The Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom is an indisputable fact backed up by the majority of scientific community (even by 2/4 of the former Prime Ministers of the Republic of Macedonia) as opposed to the non-Hellenic nature of ancient Macedonia. 2) The great majority (90%) of the ancient Macedonia territory is in the modern Greek region of Macedonia and only a small portion (10%) (its Northern periphery) is inside the modern Republic of Macedonia.

So nationalalism from the greekness of Ancient Macedonia derives from struggle to create ethnic continuity of current with ancient inhabitants, nationalism from non-greekness derives from struggle of people outside the territory to disconnect current with ancient inhabitants, which inevitably leads to feelings of irredentism, territorial claims and terrorist radicalisms such as the United Macedonia). I have never came across a Greek Macedonian nationalist who claims that modern Slav Macedonians are not rightful inhabitants of their land, or any Greek nationalistic map showing the borders of Greece extended to the north to include areas of the republic of Macedonia and neither exists any Greek version of United Macedonia. On the other hand, Slav Macedonian nationalism includes radical concepts of annexation of Greek, Bulgarian and Albanian territories, calls Greek Macedonians, [[Bulgarian Macedonian]s] and Albanian Macedonians settlers who are not real Macedonians, and has produced thousands of published materials that with the map of Republic of Macedonia to include 40% of the territory of the Hellenic Republic and 10% of Bulgaria. And the argument that RoM is a small country so Greek Macedonians should not feel threatened is not valid, history has proved that state borders move equally easy from small to bigger and a topical example is the Macedonia region itself, annexed by Greece during WW1 from a much greater Ottoman Empire.

Just look at who has been POINTed by the "Ancient Greek" here, it was 3 users: User:Macedoniarulez (a quick look at his profile is evidence that it is annexation dreams that brought him in this discussion), USER:Luxure, a user who openly denies the self-determination right of Greek Macedonians to (also) be called Macedonians (rightful inhabitants of their land) in his recent refactoring of my edit [9]. The 3rd user was User:Taivo who I believe had good faith in trying to protect the article from editwars but he felt into the trap of participating in one (as I did myself)

Wikipedia will not become more neutral and reliable source of information if we sensor this article by removing justified information so that we don't disappoint some radical readers who dream of irredentist wars Stevepeterson (talk) 06:12, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Stevepeterson, you have once again set the same argumentative trap that you have tried to ensnare us in throughout this discussion--"removing justified information" is a comment about removing information from the article rather than simply writing the first sentence (and the first sentence only) in a neutral manner. Nothing has been proposed to be "removed" from the article, but your continued diatribe about "removing information" obfuscates the simplicity of the issue at hand. All the information about Macedonia's degree of Greekness is, and will continue to be, present in the article. There is absolutely no attempt being made here to censor this article--your attempt to portray this as article censorship is simply more of the exaggeration and grandstanding in order to gain sympathy for your position. This article was stable without "Greek" for longer than it has been stable since the word "Greek" was placed in position "in the dead of night" in a manner that evaded watchlists. All this discussion is about is not pushing a WP:POINTy word into the first sentence. Not a single, solitary piece of information will be removed from the article so your entire argument simple fails the test of relevance. --Taivo (talk) 06:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I mention "removed" because: 1) the article was for two years stable and formatted as "an Ancient Greek kingdom" until a pro-SlavMacedonian user removed the Ancient Greek with the excuse that he disputes the Greekness of Macedonia and the existence of modern Greek Macedonians 2) it follows the same format of all other articles on regions of the ancient greek world which refer to the greekness on the lead sentence eg Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, Classical Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece (508–322 BC).... Those who believe that reference to ancient Greece is not so useful information as to be included in the lead sentence should propose an alternative consistent format for all ancient Greek states. If we remove (sensor) it so that we dont POINT to irredentist radicals then wikipedia is losing its purpose Stevepeterson (talk) 07:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Equating ancient Macedonia, on the periphery of the Greek world with the treatment of Sparta and Athens in the center of the Greek world is unrealistic and unhistorical. And your continued assertion that moving the word "Greek" from in front of "kingdom" is the moral equivalent of the Macedonian army marching down the streets of Thessaloniki is simply irrational. --Taivo (talk) 07:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I just said that it is not the scope of wikipedia to remove useful, proven and relevant information so that it doesnt POINT or irritate those radicals who dream of marching the Slavic Macedonian army marching down the streets of Thessaloniki (good example and topical one of the 3 POINTed users USER: Macedoniarulez has the White Tower of Thessaloniki as a symbol of the Republic of Macedonia in his profile) Stevepeterson (talk) 07:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

And you continue to claim that I want to remove information. You are again pushing your censorship exaggeration and smokescreen. Not a thing is being "removed" from the article. We are only talking about making the first sentence less WP:POINTy. And with the compromise wording the word "Greek" is simply being moved from the front of the sentence to the rear and not even being removed. You don't seem to be able to focus on the issue at hand without exaggerating and obfuscating with words like "remove" and "censorship". And you don't seem to be able to address me without trying to link me in some Slavic cabal with other editors. Focus. This isn't about your fears of Slavic hordes, it's about moving the word "Greek" in the first sentence into a less WP:POINTy position or letting the rest of the article speak for itself as to the degree of ancient Macedonia's Greekness. --Taivo (talk) 07:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The White Tower of Salonica is a Macedonian symbol, a symbol of the descendants of the Macedonians, who now inhabit the present Republic of Macedonia. The Hellenes living in these Northern 'Greek' regions came from various areas in Anatolia, the Pontus, Bulgaria (Tartaria), Romania, Southern Regions of Italy, and Austro-Hungary. I would also love for you to name the other 2 'POINTed' users. The Former Ottoman Republic of Greece (FOROG) has taken this land from modern Macedonia in 1913 and now claims that the resettled Greeks descend from the original Macedonians. Did you forget what Metaxas did in the 40's and 50's. Stop with your obvious pov pushing. Ancient Kingdom is NEUTRAL. Why dont we label it as the 'was an ancient Ancient Macedonian Kingdom?' (purposeful double repeat) It's as stupid as your other comments Macedonia (talk) 07:22, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly my point Taivo, these are the users you are trying to protect. Stevepeterson (talk) 07:32, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Stevepeterson, but you can't even write a single comment without implying that I'm part of some Slavic conspiracy. You try to sound apologetic, but then you slip right back into the same habits and accuse me of bad faith. I was quite willing to compromise, but you make it more and more difficult with your inability to focus on the issue at hand. Your POV continues to sound like, "I want to say 'Greek' so that I can stick it to the Slavs." That's not neutral wording, that's planting your flag and establishing a battlefield. --Taivo (talk) 07:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo, I dont say that you are part of the conspiracy or share radical ideas and I do believe that your motivation is trying to improve the article by avoiding something that you find as a POINTy case. I am trying to explain this is not a POINT case and the article should not be compromised just to avoid irritating users who openly promote radicalism, racism and terrorism and concepts such as the United Macedonia. I dont see that anyone who is POINTed or irritated by the (indisputable) greekness of Ancient Macedonia (not you who is trying to remove a POINT) is not motivated by struggle to prove that Greek Macedonians dont and never existed and pseudo-irredentism and territorial claims against the Greek Macedonian region. Just check who is on the pro-Macedonia camp (apart from you) and you will see yourself. It is you, not me who assumes bad faith and you call anyone who refers to Ancient Macedonia as an Ancient Greek Kingdom as raising a Greek flag. Apart from the majority of scientific community, respected media such as BBC (on yesterday's article), also 2/4 of Slav Macedonian leaders namely Gligorov and Georgievski refer to Ancient Macedonia as an Ancient Greek Kingdom. You have to assume that I am here with a good faith to improve the article, not to raise any nationalistic flag. Stevepeterson (talk) 07:59, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

You still don't understand that I am not in the "pro-Macedonia" camp. It is insulting, yet you continue to do it without apology. But by doing that, you also ignore the handful of other editors (not counting User:Luxure and User:Macedoniarulez) who have expressed their opinions here that "Greek" is an unnecessarily WP:POINTy imposition on the first sentence. Are you also going to accuse all of them of being in your fantasy of Slavic tanks driving to the Aegean? You also implicitly blame me for promoting the aggression of some "pro-Slavic" editors here yet utterly fail to condemn the overt aggression and insults from User:Gtrbolivar. Your argument for retaining "Greek" in the first sentence has always hinged on your fear that the first sentence of this article will be used as Slavic propaganda. The first sentence isn't the entire article, which clearly states the precise nature of the relationship between ancient Greece and ancient Macedonia. --Taivo (talk) 12:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Both Stevepeterson and now Taivo assume I am now in the pro-Macedonia camp. Wrong. I'm not arguing anymore. Goodnight. Luxure (talk) 12:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Now that's funny Luxure, I noticed that you removed the word 'Greek' from the Alexander the Great article a couple of days ago without so much as a by your leave.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The only reason I mentioned User:Luxure above is that User:Stevepeterson thinks he's "pro-Macedonian". But since Stevepeterson thinks that anyone who disagrees with him is "pro-Macedonian", that doesn't mean much. --Taivo (talk) 21:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

AkiiraGhioni, I will not even comment on you. Stevepeterson, if you consider the removal of Greek from the term 'Ancient Kingdom' not neutral, and destabilising the 'current' version, you have serious issues. My changing of your edit to fix spelling mistakes 1 MONTH ago, which I have apologised for, seems to be stuck in your mind. I made that edit in Winter, and now we are 24 days into spring. Any apologies I have made for that edit appear to not have made any difference. I apologise for attempting to apologise for those edits and withdraw those apologies while apologising to all other editors who have to deal with you. You fail to assume good faith and you insult me for being on the 'proSlavMacedonian' camp. You obviously have no common sense as you even started a sockpuppet investigation when Taivo agreed with me, not even trying to compare our contributions. Your assumptions are severely degrading and they are wrong. When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME. The '2012-2014' version was NOT a stable version. It was a vandal edit, and I am serious questioning your capacity to see things which are obvious. It is also funny how you are not insulting the other editors in the 'proGreek' camp (who agree with you). Akiira, PhillyBoy, Gtrbolivar, just to name a few. The purpose of wikipedia is to spread information and maintain neutrality. Your comments regarding User:Macedonia as 'terrorist' are misleading and ludicrous. You seem to not know the definition. ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban are terrorist groups. Macedoniarulez is simply expressing his thoughts on his user page, whether they be right or wrong. He has not threatened to fly planes into buildings, nor has he threatened to behead people. Please stop your destructive editing as it is harming this project. Luxure (talk) 23:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, the use of the 'Hellenic' qualifier is wrong, as Hellenic means 'Greek'. The term Ancient Kingdom is absolutely neutral. We do not have an ethnicity qualifier when describing countries, past and present. That is why there is no 'Greek Republic of Hellenes' or 'The Great British United Kingdom of British Great Britain and Celtic Northern Ireland' It is nonsense and stupidity. It has no substance, quite like a few editors here Luxure (talk) 01:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Luxure, with all due respect, but you should be aware that the use of the term 'Hellenic' is perfectly correct. The term 'Hellenic' is the original ancient Greek term for those ancient peoples who belonged to the Hellenic race,or regarded themselves as Hellenes. The ancient Macedonians referred to themselves as Hellenes and belonging to the Hellenic race. The fact that modern Greeks also refer to themselves as Hellenes is neither here nor there. "The King of Macedon was chief in the first instance of a race of plain dwellers who held themselves like him to be of Hellenic stock(David Hogarth, 'Philip and Alexander of Macedon']As for the ancient Britons of the British Isles the Wikipedia article is titled 'Britons(Celtic people)', so ancient Macedonians (Hellenic people), or ancient Macedon (Hellenic Kingdom) would be perfectly acceptable.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 11:38, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo is trying to protect us from users like you, Stevepeterson Macedonia (talk) 07:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Macedoniarulez, I do not speak for your assertions that ancient Macedonia was Slavic in any way, shape, or form. It was not. I am simply promoting a neutral point of view in that wording to prevent either party from putting a sharp stick in the other's eye in the first sentence of the article. The article is quite clear that ancient Macedonia was highly Hellenized and not Slavic. Those are the facts. But calling ancient Macedonia a "Greek kingdom" in the first sentence is a violation of WP:NPOV in my view. --Taivo (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Taivo, personally I don't think political correctness and soothing comfort stories has a place in Wikipedia or any other encyclopedia for that matter especially when it compromises historical facts, its a cruel world you know, and I'm wondering whether the following will convince you. "They Macedonians felt as Greeks, and they had no temptation to destroy what they claimed was their mother country. They had clearly no wish to swallow up Greece in Macedonia, but rather to make Macedonia, as a Greek state, the ruling power of Greece, Such was undoubtedly the aim of Philip and Alexander too."[Theodore Ayrault Dodge, 'Alexander', p. 187]. So Macedon was not in the periphery of the Greek world. Macedon had become the center of the Greek world.Macedon had unified the disparate city states into one monolithic entity with itself,as a Greek state, the leading /ruling power of Greece. Macedon - even though racially Greek - may have been in its very early years isolated in the northern periphery and unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which were further south, however ultimately, Macedon became the core of the new Greek imperial age - the new imperial Greece.

"Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, unifier of Greece, [...]founder of the first territorial state with a centralized administrative structure in Europe, forger of the first western national army, the first great general of the Greek imperial age. [Richard Gabriel, 'Great Captains of Antiquity', p. 84]AkiiraGhioni (talk) 20:04, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

You are continuing to play the same game that User:Stevepeterson plays--make it sound like removing the word "Greek" from the first sentence or moving it to later in the sentence will destroy the entire article or falsify the information in the article. You couldn't be more wrong. Add your references and quotes in the article body all you want. We're only talking about the wording of the first sentence, not a denial of any aspect of ancient Macedonia that was borrowed from the Greeks. You have a serious misconception on how the first sentences are constructed. They are far more reliant on WP:CONSENSUS than nearly anything else in the article. The remainder of the article is built on verifiable reliable sources. While the first sentence cannot be false in any regard, it is also a summary and that summary is built on consensus when there are a variety of details available to include. Not every detail about the topic is useful or neutral for that first sentence. That's why consensus is far more important than spamming of sources. --Taivo (talk) 21:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

It wasnt a Slavic kingdom, sorry. The inhabitants of Modern Macedonia are mixed between the slav invaders and the ancient macedonians, unlike the majority of the so-called 'Greek Macedonians' Macedonia (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:53, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

My suggestion at this point to clear up the mess that this process has devolved into:

• Formally close the previous RfC (Request for Comment 2)
• Open a new formal RfC
• Transfer the preferences that have been expressed in the previous sections without transferring any of the extended comments.
• Archive what has gone before to clean up this page
• Have a neutral admin oversee the RfC and enforce short comments without debate

Just a suggestion. --Taivo (talk) 17:01, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I have another suggestion, contact Oxford and/or Cambridge University Classics and Ancient History departments and ask them for their opinion.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 18:51, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I am starting to lose hope over this matter. There seems to be, in Wikipedia, a desire to be unecessarily neutral in matters which are not really questionable. Why is there a need to use "Macedonia was a kingdom on the northern periphery of the ancient Greek world"? When this was added it was supported by one source (Simon Hornblower, "Greek Identity in the Archaic and Classical Periods" in Katerina Zacharia, Hellenisms, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, pp. 55–58). "Macedonia was an ancient Greek kingdom" is supported by forty sources. You can count them yourselves, they are actually 40. If I find you two sources that say Obama is Kenyan and not American, will you remove "American" from his nationality because some people disagree with it and find it POV-pushing? Or would you go with the undeniably large majority of publications that support what a minority finds "not neutral"? Neutral point of view is being pushed without sufficient information to support the opinion that Macedonia was, in fact, not Greek simply because a minority disagrees with what is supported by no less than 40 sources and want to replace it by what is supported by one. --Philly boy92 (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the two of you need to read the point of this section--process. Your comments on content aren't relevant here. --Taivo (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I will contact the prestigious Classics departments of Oxford. At the end of the day, they're the only people who know what Ancient Macedon was.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 20:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Phone call as reliable source. LOLOL. You really are an WP:SPA rookie here. --Taivo (talk) 20:51, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you would have no objection to an input from the prestigious Classics and history department of Oxford University. Unless you're a historian and expert on ancient Macedonia yourself that is.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 21:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't know how Wikipedia works. You can talk to those scholars all you want. Maybe you'll learn something. But it's irrelevant to Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 21:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Follow-Up

The suggestion to call a university and get them to answer the question is not the way Wikipedia works. Any given editor can call them, or their professors can take part in the RFC. There is an RFC currently running that has been basically been disrupted. Maybe the existing RFC should be closed and a new one started. Also, everyone should be aware that disruption is subject to WP:ARBMAC sanctions. My own thought is to shut down the current RFC and the out-of-process "consensus" requests and start over, but that is only my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Would you like me to remove my 'Request for Consensus'? Or will you wait for it to be archived? I will remove mine although I will not remove Gtrbolivar's. That can be firmly in your hands. Luxure (talk) 05:15, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no need to call academics and ask them what the Greek nature of Ancient Macedonia was. There is already a written academic consensus that the state was Greek. The problem seems to be original research flies in the face of the academics. For example, the idea that the ancient macedonians were proto slavs. This tends to muddle the issue. Reaper7 (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

If I may quote Historian Robin Lane Fox of Oxford University, a foremost authority on ancient Macedon as to the naming issue, his response was, quote: "The correct answer would be Hellenic, the wrong answer is Slavic or non-Greek. This answer is only disputed by modernizing nationalists with their own agenda, the war is manufactured noise."AkiiraGhioni (talk) 14:25, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

And, of course, your unverifiable comment means nothing. --Taivo (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Taivo, Of course its verifiable, just contact New College Oxford, Robin Lane Fox as I did, and he'll give you the same answer he gave me.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

You are clearly ignorant of the meaning of "verifiable" according to Wikipedia policies. You claiming to have an email is just as much bulloney as me claiming to have an email from the same person saying the exact opposite. You are completely unable to prove it. --Taivo (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems you're not interested in what Historians have to say about ancient Macedonia, and instead choose to hide behind Wikipedia protocols, I suspect you have a hidden agenda. I merely reproduced the email from Robin Lane Fox, a foremost authority on Ancient Macedon in good faith in order to help resolve this edit war. If you think I'm faking the email, please feel free to contact him at Oxford university yourself, I'm sure he will respond with the same answer he gave me.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 22:25, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

You can have all the email exchanges you want with whomever you want. That's not the point. The point is that you have absolutely no way to prove 1) that you actually emailed anyone, 2) that you actually emailed the person you said you emailed, and 3) that the person wrote what you claim they wrote. You think I'm going to trust you? Absolutely not. I could say the exact same thing and you shouldn't trust me either. Wikipedia is about VERIFIABILITY and your word is worth nothing here. But keep wasting your time making up emails from people. --Taivo (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Verifiable source: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, Exhibition 7th April 2011: "Heracles to Alexander the Great: Treasures from the Royal Capital of Macedon, A Hellenic Kingdom in the Age of Democracy"AkiiraGhioni (talk) 23:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

That is one data point, but it's irrelevant to the topic of this discussion. Have you not been reading for the last six weeks? This is beside the point. The question is whether or not the word "Greek" is necessary before the word "kingdom" in the first sentence. And half of the editors here don't think it is. You are just pissing into the wind. --Taivo (talk) 00:38, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

You asked for a verifiable source and now you've got one, and from no less than one of the most prestigious universities going. And the verifiable source states Macedon was a Hellenic Kingdom. Therefore it is correct to state in the lead that Macedon was a Hellenic Kingdom. And that's going against the grain since the majority of verifiable sources still say that Macedon was an ancient Greek Kingdom. Both are acceptable since 'Hellenic'='Ancient Greek'AkiiraGhioni (talk) 01:02, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I didn't ask for a verifiable source, I simply pointed out that your "email" was far from verifiable. You are simply not paying attention to anything going on here. You keep whining about "Macedonia was Greek", but ignoring the issue. The issue is that putting the word "Greek" in front of "kingdom" in the first sentence is not neutral. It's not about anything else whatsoever. Half of the editors here don't think that "Greek" should be there. But you are behaving in a classic "I didn't hear that" manner. Since you simply refuse to pay attention, I'll summarize: No one cares about your emails or your repetitive references--they are irrelevant to the issue at hand. --Taivo (talk) 03:07, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Personally I don't give a duck's fart about your notion of neutrality when it's at the expense of historical truth. If modern scholars unanimously recognize the ancient Macedonians as Greeks or Hellenes and Macedonia as a Greek /Hellenic Kingdom as do verifiable sources, that's good enough for me.AkiiraGhioni (talk) 12:40, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

References

long list of references
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.