User talk:AmericanHistory.exe

Welcome to my talk page. A place for respectful discourse and discussion.

AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 06:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, AmericanHistory.exe, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 03:20, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

October 2022

Welcome to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, content you added to Ten Commandments appears to be a minority or fringe viewpoint, and appears to have given undue weight to this minority viewpoint, and has been reverted. To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. Feel free to use the article's talk page to discuss this, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.

No scholar worth his salt dates the Torah to c. 1400 BCE.

No. It's a historical question. And by "theological points of view", you're not referring to the mainstream theological position but what is essentially a fringe theory held by fundamentalist theologians. The purpose of theological study of the bible is hermeneutical - it's about interpretation, and most respected theologians accept that Genesis was written somewhere between the reign of King David (c. 1000 BCE) and the exile period (560 BCE). Claritas (talk) 14:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Please also read WP:RGW. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Citing the King James Bible, and using a new “translation,” that is not the known English translation from Ancient Hebrew, is not a neutral point of view, and fringe. For Judaism to be properly represented in the 10 Commandments that came from Judaism; they cannot continue to be gatekept by those with no knowledge of the religion. I have as thorough of an education in Judaism and Jewish Studies as-is possible, with the exception of a Rabbi or Cantor. Also, there are two Torahs. There is the Oral Torah, which predates the written Torah, given it existed at a time when the Ancient Egyptians were using hieroglyphics. The Oral Torah is presently known as the Mishnah. The written Torah came shortly after Jewish slaves were liberated from Egypt, during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II. The first known historical mention of the Jewish people, was found written by the Egyptians in the Late-Bronze Age. As someone who also studied Historical Geology, I know each historical age very well.

Please, be respectful of Judaism. This cannot be another Christian-centric article, that also attributes the Torah, Pentateuch, to “Samaritans.” See Samaritans and Samaritan Pentateuch .

Perhaps it would be best to add a separate column for the Jewish 10 Commandments, so they can be shown as they appear in Jewish scripture without altering your preferred wording.

In their current form, after the edits I spent hours on were reverted, they’re written and translated based solely upon the King James Bible, a Bible commissioned by a literal King, King James VI and I(a notorious Antisemite) of the British Empire, in 1611 for the Church of England. It’s unilateral adoption by English speaking Christians was part of the King James Only movement.

This is supposed to be an encyclopedic article. It must live up to those standards. I see you’re a Christian Theologian. Do you not think it’s fair for Jewish scholars to have a voice about their own religious text? AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not a Christian. I believe in Spinoza's God. But, anyway, make your case politely at the talk page and use mainstream academic sources. You'll find that the consensus of mainstream archaeologists is that there never were two million Israelite slaves in Egypt. That would have meant that the majority of the Egyptian population were Israelites.

According to Shaye J. D. Cohen, "Most Israelites were actually of Canaanite stock; their ancestors did not participate in an Exodus from Egypt; Israelites did not build the pyramids!!!" tgeorgescu (talk) 10:42, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Please do not add or change content, as you did at Elohim, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Ditto Palestinians in Syria - this article may need a lot of work, but the way to go about editing it correctly is by providing reliable sources along the way as you do so. Please also note that the lead sections of articles are supposed to be summaries of the contents of the body (MOS:LEAD), so if content is missing it should be first inserted (and sourced) in the body. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

And same to Ten Commandments. Also, your edit summary included a personal attack on myself which you should avoid. —Caorongjin 💬 21:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Your harassment has been well documented. @Caorongjin, please try to set aside biases, and prioritize remaining secular, while engaging in editing of encyclopedic topics. Facts are not personal attacks. AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 07:29, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

References

As a new editor, please be patient with me as I learn. Enjoining separate discussions to make generalizations about my knowledge or intent is not productive, and invites others to doubt my sincerity rather than provide constructive criticism or engage in discussion where a compromise can be reached. Secularizing, removing bias, and correcting misinformation and disinformation permeating the world's largest online encyclopedia, need to be at the forefront of every editor's decisions. These are the reasons I decided to finally roll-up my sleeves and try to contribute to this cause.

Unfortunately, I'm seeing consensus between two individuals writing about dramatically different topics, one coming from a Bible = history perspective, and the other requesting more sources on an outdated page I tried to update. I'm even having difficulty formatting talk page replies from mobile browser, but I want to address these concerns.

For example, I offered a compromise above, but was met with pseudohistorical rhetoric that targeted a persecuted minority group, under the assumption that it would personally offend and cause me to react unprofessionally. It's also not professional that one editor has been following my edit history, reverting every edit, then proselytizing on my Talk page. This is not social media. Please keep discussions focused and respectful. As a new editor, I need help. This thread, however, is doing the opposite. How can we ever make Wikipedia worthy of it's reputation if experienced editors don't leave room for new editors bound to make mistakes under this steep learning curve and hours and hours of research, formatting, writing, editing and correcting previous contributions, while making the article as informative and readable as possible; if the OGs don't extend patience, toleration, and/or understanding? AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 03:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

DS alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in the Arab–Israeli conflict. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

To opt out of receiving messages like this one, place {{Ds/aware}} on your user talk page and specify in the template the topic areas that you would like to opt out of alerts about. For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Iskandar323 (talk) 05:55, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit here, but you must do so within our guidelines, asking you to do that is not bullying. Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 16:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@AmericanHistory.exe until you have 500 edits you can’t edit any articles in the topic area, eg you shouldn’t have edited Palestinians in Syria. See the talk page for that article. Doug Weller talk 18:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller Hi, thanks for letting me know. I'm a brand new editor, and I've only come into contact with pages/topics that lock editing and display a message in the editor for those who don’t meet said criteria. Usually they display a message laying-out what you said above when attempting to edit:

until you have 500 edits you can’t edit any articles in the topic area
— User:Doug Weller

You’re absolutely right, however, I had to get on desktop browser to see the guidelines you’re referring to in Talk:Palestinians in Syria, because this talk page displays as empty on mobile browser (chrome, chromium & safari).

I double-checked Palestinians in Syria, and the editing restrictions don’t show on article page’s editor. The only warning that displays in edit mode is:

Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources.

Is there a way to get this message to display in edit view, so others don’t make the same mistake?

While I very much understand the need to protect pages that fall within the Arab-Israeli conflict, this specific article is relatively obscure, with very little edit history since it’s inception as a stub in 2014 and page has had the following warning for nearly 6 years:

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.  (February 2018)

This is concerning given the current page’s content is thin and only tangentially related to the page’s topic. I spent a great deal of time attempting to expand and update this article that appears to be repeating information covered in much larger high-traffic articles that’s not specific to this sub-topic, and doesn’t accurately define this very diverse subject in the opening summary, nor articulate it so the layman can understand. The current definition doesn’t encapsulate this ethnic group’s complex cultural identity that spans various regions, has several contextual definitions that also change based on historical period (especially during different colonial periods, Syrian statehood, and wars). I felt it important to expand away from the generalization that’s remained in place since 2017; dissolving both Palestinian-Syrian (local & diaspora) and Syrian perspectives, that need to be given weight. Lastly, some of the events researched and referenced weren't fully reported until 2018 or later.

Looking at the edit history, the reason given by @Iskandar323 for revering edits was:

Not providing a reliable source (RW 16.1)

Hopefully there will be another way to protect this page some day, because so few have taken interest in contributing to this page, and at this rate, I likely won’t reach 500 edits due to time constraints, and most of my work being reverted by right-wing zealots I apparently angered attempting to edit Ten Commandments — who’ve since persistently stalked my edit history across the spectrum as a mechanism of harassment. On a side note: Ten Commandments: Revision history log shows how this behavior enables a minority fringe perspective (despite lacking citations, non-compliance with Wiki policies, and ensuring typos never die); to dominate and reign.

Today is the first time I’ve seen this notice, let alone what’s happened to my talk page since I last checked. I’m deeply saddened and confused by all the cross-posting by 3rd parties making new topics, and replying to unrelated ones (such as this) — or, as this thread demonstrates — quoting harassment I’ve received, out-of-context, simply because I missed the infobox on the talk page (that doesn’t populate in mobile browsers) and edited without knowing about 500 min. edit rule. I’ve rarely been active on Wiki these past 3 months, avoiding logging-in just to see another 30 hours of hard work erased across as soon as I posted it. Today, I login to see toxic behavior spanning the rapidly growing new topics popping-up on my user talk page, while I’m not even active. At present, there are issues with primarily two editors (both using my talk page to recruit more), using my edit history to follow me across various pages in what appears to be a well-documented attempt to intimidate and demoralize me from editing — or get me banned if all else fails.

Outside of this instance, nearly all of my edits are being reverted without cause by the same users on topics/articles they’re otherwise not active. As I mentioned above, the Ten Commandments edit history shows dozens before me, and since, have tried to correct a factually incorrect article that doesn’t meet encyclopedic standards by any definition — which is a massive Wikipedia failure on one of the most high traffic pages. These editors then engage similar behavior, classified as trolling, on user talk pages; replying to every single topic, engaging in character assassination with others, quoting out of context in an attempt to show a pattern “problem of behavior,” (contaminating even this thread), and posting intentionally offensive or bigoted statements in an attempt to solicit a certain reaction that can be used to strengthen whatever case they’re building against a brand new editor. I’m not the only one. Clearly.

I hope Wikipedia has tools ready to stop their own tools, meant to prevent vandalism and bad faith edits, from being weaponized to crush and silence others like me — who’ve had enough of the disinformation now being spread on the largest online encyclopedia in the world, and decided to roll-up their sleeves and volunteer their time and expertise in an attempt to try to fix any of it — because there is no one else. There is a steep learning curve of not just an entirely different coding language, but navigating bureaucracy, gatekeeping, and personal attacks. No historians sign up to deal with such an impossibility placed before them for being late to join Wikipedia as an unpaid editor spending just as many hours defending their work, as they do writing it. Please direct me to any resources regarding these concerns. Moving forward, I will check talk pages on desktop before editing. However, accessibility to editing criteria is best for everyone. AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 07:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Complaint

About [1]: it is true, there are fundamentalist Christians who vandalize Wikipedia in order to promote their own religion. But I act against them. You should know that the Christian right sees Wikipedia as a basically Anti-Christian encyclopedia. See e.g. why Conservapedia was established.

These being said, there is no excuse for something like The original ten commandments from Judaism, were taken into Christianity when it was created around 300CE. Not only is that original research, but it is badly made up original research. If you want to serve Judaism through Wikipedia, WP:CITE mainstream Bible scholars like Shaye J. D. Cohen and Joel S. Baden. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:44, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

If you’d like to discuss the compromise to be more inclusive on the Ten Commandments article by allowing a table with separate wording on the Commandments by religious sect (as I suggested months ago), I’m more than happy to work on that project with you. It will be time consuming, so I’m not attempting it until a consensus has been reached. As the Ten Commandments: Revision history log shows, the overwhelming majority of editors find the present King James Bible version, especially the re-wording of the Commandments, completely problematic across the entire religious spectrum.

I haven’t been active on here in months, I don’t see why felt the need to create a new topic titled “Complaint” amidst the Holidays (hope you didn’t waste Christmas Eve on my talk page), and replying to unrelated threads on my talk page by quoting individuals harassing me; as a means to discredit me. I’m, of course, referring to your reply to a topic regarding accidentally editing of a page that requires a minimum edit history (rules stub in talk page didn’t populate in mobile browser), attempting to turn it into a thread about a “pattern of conduct” you’re dedicating an awful lot of time to inventing.

I’m a new editor, as you can see. You’re established. I’m happy to take constructive criticism, and I want to work towards compromise and tolerance. This, however, requires the cessation of troll-like behavior, and attempts to offend whatever race, religion, or creed you think I am based on my edit history. No need to dogwhistle, I can hear you loud and clear.

You should know that the Christian right sees Wikipedia as a basically Anti-Christian encyclopedia.
— User:Tgeorgescu

I’m a historian donating my time, just to have my edits reverted repeatedly by Christian zealot gatekeepers, and their “friend-of-my-enemy” friends. I’m not concerned about the “Christian right” allegedly seeing articles covering the Jewish religion, or any other religion, as “Anti-Christian.” That’d be enabling Antisemitism to takeover Wikip—oops… too late.

Not only is that original research, but it is badly made up original research. If you want to serve Judaism through Wikipedia, WP:CITE mainstream Bible scholars like Shaye J. D. Cohen and Joel S. Baden.
— User:Tgeorgescu

”…serve Judaism through Wikipedia?” Sounds like you’re racially profiling me. I serve the truth. It’s best to ensure your biases are not clouding your own judgement before making assumptions about the intent of others. Are you this aggressive with all brand new Editors? The rhetoric espoused above is flirting with Antisemitic conspiracies.

Dozens of editors are extremely unhappy with Ten Commandments. I’ve offered a solution that works for everyone. It’s time to finally allow those typos to be fixed, formatting to be up to Wikipedia’s standards (i.e. BCE & CE only — it’s currently using both interchangeably because all edits get reverted!), and sources to be added to the entirely source-free “Categorization” section that makes counter-factual pseudohistorical claims, as-if they’re fact, because this is an Encyclopedic entry. I’m not sure if you’ve been one of the moderates on that page, and I know you didn’t revert my edits (at least not from this account), so I’m very confused as to what your goal is on my user talk page. It’s taking-up way too much of my time, in addition to the over 30 hours I’ve put into work that keeps getting reverted by those actually holding fringe viewpoints, and misusing Wikipedia’s tools meant to prevent this exact scenario: the silencing of history and facts one doesn’t agree with. AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 08:14, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Friendly piece of advice: if you are working to enact changes on a page that have ultimately proved unpopular and been reverted on that page by other editors, start a talk page discussion. The worst way you can go about editing pages, particularly as a new editor, is by making sweeping changes to existing articles with little evidence of additional sources being added - that does not build confidence. However, if you start discussions, provide reliable sources and explain how pages are currently at odds with those reliable sources, chances are people will listen. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:25, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this. I will absolutely do this going forward. AmericanHistory.exe (talk) 08:33, 13 January 2023 (UTC)