User talk:Dbachmann/Archive 37

beginning of automated archiving, 31 March 2010. Previous archive ("archive 36") is this diff. --dab (𒁳) 07:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Mahabharata

Hello Dbachmann,I want to add upparva in the table given in Mahabharata Article,what do you suggest,I have also done some modification in top para,please guide me to add upparva in table-list in Mahabharata.--Myth&Truth (talk) 13:18, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what an "upparva" is. Please try to pull your own weight, ok? I'll be sure to try and help as best I can on Talk:Mahabharata. --dab (𒁳) 13:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks,upparva Means sub-parva,As you know Mahabharata have 18 Parva as well as 100 sub-parva(canto),In the table given in Mahabharata Article consists of Parva name list only,It doesn't contain sub-parva name,i have an Idea to add sub-parva name list too,which is given in Mahabharata.

I have also done some Modifications in Mahabharata Article,Please Check them and instruct me whether they are not violating Wiki-policy,as I am new a Newcomer.--Myth&Truth (talk) 13:43, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

perhaps you mean upa-parvan? I full list of these would certainly be welcome. I have seen your additions, they seem fine to me except for formatting issues. You should not give naked google books urls as references. You need to cite the work properly, with page number. Also, why do you google for "saraswati river" in a "reference" to the statement that "Bhārata meant the Mahabharata without the accessory legends (Upakhayanas)"? --dab (𒁳) 14:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks,I simply searched articles on google regarding mahabharata,The book by C.V. Vaidya describes Mahabharata Redactions and textual history along with the sarasvati river,So i searched sarasvati river in google,Do you have any good suggestion for searching article and adding them as a reference

I think adding 100 sub-parva Name-list in the table provided in the article will stretch it badly,should it be added seperately.--Myth&Truth (talk) 14:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

This can always be split off. You can begin compiling the list in your user-space, for example at User:Myth&Truth/Mahabharata. You can add it to the article once it's complete. --dab (𒁳) 14:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks,I have modified that list upto some extent in User:Myth&Truth/Mahabharata.--Myth&Truth (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• I have completed the 100 parvan name list,Check them.I also gave Reference for it.

• Now regarding my Previous Edit to Mahabharata Article ,Bhārata meant the Mahabharata without the accessory legends,I have provided actual source and its page no,If You prefer it then keep,otherwise revert,Thank you.--Myth&Truth (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Dab, FYI: most of the new accounts commenting at Mahabharata, Rigveda, Sarasvati River and related pages over the last two months are socks of the same user. In particular, Myth&Truth (talk · contribs) = Mayurasia (talk · contribs) = Bankelal (talk · contribs) = Mkbdtu (talk · contribs) = Merushikhar (talk · contribs) = Mkbdce (talk · contribs) = Vedvyasa (talk · contribs) = ... and all 115.240.*.* IPs. Some of the points made by the user may well have a grain of validity, but as Rudra and I discovered after much discussion and source-hunting, the user also makes up fake references to push his POV, and resorts to trolling, abusing, and impersonation on being challenged. Thought this information would save you the effort of trying to guide each of the new socks to relevant content policies. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 04:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• Dear Dbachmann!I donot know what blame has been covered over me,I simply do what you instructed me and I also want to complete remaining tasks of making articles of parvans as you suggested me.I got a nice reward of sockpeppetry from some wiki Admins,Not mention if they think I broke wiki policy.I see now that my Account has been blocked for keeping sock Account.I donot know what it is,But i Request wiki not to block any user on only ip basis,one ip is used by thousand of people daily.Like in my case 115.236-244.--.--,there exists 30 lacs user on it.

• I have completed the Sub-parvans table work,keep it if You think there is any use of it now.I give you my best regards for helping me.Please donot keep hard feelings for me,Thank you--.--Myth&Truth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.242.70.151 (talk) 06:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Frei-Laubersheim fibula

Hi, dab. I just put this in the mainspace. It could benefit from a copy-edit by an experienced and interested editor. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 15:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

thanks for a very nice job. --dab (𒁳) 15:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Input

Please add your input here Thanks --Sikh-History 09:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Magisterium (fencing)

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

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message.  Sandstein  11:21, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Control of fire...

I know you are trying to improve the article (I only made it two years ago as an assignment for my human evolution course), but the wording changes I made only removed the reference to "James" (I attempted to refer to a specific writer a while ago and I was told that was wrong or something) and used the same references as the rest of the article to turn your two paragraph section under "Evidence" into one and removed the "Claimed evidence..." sentence as neither of us has found a publication other than James that specifically says that the early Paleolithic evidence is controversial. It might be in James and it would be good to use that, but seeing as I've been out of a university for almost a year now, I can no longer access the Library proxy to get to these sources.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I do hope to work together with you in clearing this up. I think in speculative topics such as this there is no way around mentioning exactly who said what, i.e. when reporting what James said, there is no way around saying "James".

I still do have access to jstor, and I can send you the article if you like. But, of course, the James article is 20 years old and it may be worthwhile to look around for more recent publications. --dab (𒁳) 22:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

At the time my limitations were that I had to find publications within the last 20 years. It was the best I could come up with at the time.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:33, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

You did well, and I have no intention of pulling down your work. My only concern is that the article was being too assertive about extremely speculative claims for controlled fire before 1 Mya. James does make clear that they have very little merit. --dab (𒁳) 06:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I was not trying to make any claims and I am not trying to edit war. I just reported on what the papers said. Clearly, a 17 year old paper was probably not the best source back then, but it was all that I could find.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 13:53, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

No, you did not "report on what the papers said". The paper says "evidence for fire". You turn that into "evidence of controlled fire". The paper has the main purpose of debunking claims as speculative. You go out of your way to present these same claims as fact, in Wikipedia's voice. I can accept that these were honest mistakes, but your present behaviour is difficult to explain in this way. I point them out explicitly, and all you seem to be able to do is say "I didn't hear that. I just report on what the papers say".

The paper's dating to 1989 doesn't even enter into this. If we find a more recent paper of comparable quality, we might consider relying on that when in doubt, but so far this is simply about reporting accurately what your source says, never mind its age.

Look, I am grateful for the work you did on the article, but it has flaws, and they need to be fixed. --dab (𒁳) 15:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Control of pseudohistory

Yellow monkey told me you could help me dealing with a editor that´s spreading pseudohistory all over wikipedia.Are you interested?--Knight1993 (talk) 16:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

You best bet is to present the case at WP:FTN. I am watching this noticeboard and I will react to cases that catch my interest. --dab (𒁳) 10:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

If I may intervene, the said user does not really spread fringe theories in the strict sense, but rather more or less subtle misinterpretations and synthesis over a vast range of articles for years now (he is one of top 200 'contributors' in the whole of WP.EN). There is probably not a single edit of him/her which would justify admin action taken alone, but the sheer scale and consistent bias of his/her edits have deteriorated much of what is written here about pre-modern technology and science and have incensed quite a lot of other users by now: Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#A massive loophole in WP:Verifiability Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I, too, am one of those who have been disturbed by this user's subtle misinterpretations. At the root is a continued practice of subtly misreading secondary sources to make Islamic scientific achievements appear more modern than they really are, and then duplicating those arguments in multiple articles to which they only have marginal relevance. (This duplication contributes to what is an otherwise incredible edit count). It's not as glaring a problem as those you have dealt with, but your experience in dealing with nationalistic bias would be helpful in dealing with this case, if and when it comes to some formal action. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Balance?

See talk:ghost#Undue weight?. As you can see, this topic is sort of bugging me... and a few weeks ago I had never even thought about it! Thanks, Aymatth2 (talk) 20:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Re: Mediation Jat People

Hi fellow editor, I feel this Mediation dispute involves you more than me, as I have been reinstating your edits. See here. Thanks--Sikh-History 17:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not interested in "mediation", I can speak for myself and I do not need "mediators" to interpret my position for me. I appreciate the general sentiment behind "mediation", but I simply haven't ever seen it do any good. --dab (𒁳) 09:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not me that has requested Mediation, but I have reverted edits that were made against your edits, therfore strictly speaking the editor in question is questioning your edits. I can see your logic, and therfore clarification would be much appreciated. Thanks --Sikh-History 15:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

hi

I want to know what's your reason on protecting Vajra and Rigveda. They were never protected before, but you decided to protect them indefinitely the first time either of them ever got protected.--Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

These articles are not protected, they are semiprotected. Quite an important difference there. Feel free to check out the article histories if you are interested. --dab (𒁳) 09:18, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

As it hasn't been made clear the reason Everyone Dies In the End is bringing this up here is because these articles has been bought up on WP:RUP. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a user who refers to semiprotection as "indefinate block" should get the hang of things a little more before worrying too much about permanently sprotected articles. If some admin should decide to try unprotection, let them go ahead, we can always reprotect if the trolling persists. --dab (𒁳) 16:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't like being insulted. That was a direct shot at me. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, semiprotecting something indefinitely when it is not needed defeats the purpose of wikipedia. Maybe you should see my history on wikipedia. I have a very good track record for fighting vandalism. Insulting me is uncalled for.--Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 16:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• In case you've missed it, there is currently a discussion on this topic at WP:AN. Cheers. Rodhullandemu 17:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Jat People

It looks like the mediation on Jat People will take a while and sikh-history said to speak to you.The Jat people page definitely needs improvement so let me tell you what I would like to do and if you're okay with it then I'll go ahead and do it.

• I want to improve the Origins and genetic studies. It has only one sentence on the origins of the jat people but 7 sentences on the origins of the Romany people. the Romany connection needs its own section under jat origins or it needs to be summarized
• In the Origins and genetic studies section I want to add something along the lines of "19th century scholars A,B,C have suggested this theory because of whatever reasoning. However other scholars D,E,F have disputed this because of a gap in the record or some other reason. Include other genetic studies on jat origins."
• I understand you and sikh-history have apprehensions about me because I am a new editor but please respond —Preceding unsigned comment added by Profitoftruth85 (talk • contribs) 17:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Mediation Case

A request for formal mediation of the dispute concerning Genesis Creation Myth has been filed with the Mediation Committee (MedCom). You have been named as a party in this request. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Genesis Creation Myth and then indicate in the "Party agreement" section whether you would agree to participate in the mediation or not.

Mediation is a process where a group of editors in disagreement over matters of article content are guided through discussing the issues of the dispute (and towards developing a resolution) by an uninvolved editor experienced with handling disputes (the mediator). The process is voluntary and is designed for parties who disagree in good faith and who share a common desire to resolve their differences. Further information on the MedCom is at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee; the policy the Committee will work by whilst handling your dispute is at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy; further information on Wikipedia's policy on resolving disagreements is at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes.

If you would be willing to participate in the mediation of this dispute but wish for its scope to be adjusted then you may propose on the case talk page amendments or additions to the list of issues to be mediated. Any queries or concerns that you have may be directed to an active mediator of the Committee or by e-mailing the MedCom's private mailing list (click here for details).

Please indicate on the case page your agreement to participate in the mediation within seven days of the request's submission.

Thank you, Weaponbb7 (talk)

Sorry, this is stupid. I am myself "experienced with handling disputes". What these articles need are not people patronizing editors as if they couldn't speak for themselves, but editors with experience in the subject matter itself.

I have never seen a mediator willing to pull their own weight in assessing the details of the subject matter. All they do is sit back and say "let's hear your point of view again". This is a royal waste of time for everybody. "Uninvolved" for this mediation thing is an euphemism for "clueless, and proud of it".

I am willing to discuss with anyone willing and able to absorb academic literature on the subject. Anyone unable or unwilling to dig into and absorb academic literature does imho have no business to even consider themselves in a "dispute" on anything. Such an approach would clear the air of non-issues due to half-informed ideologized pov-pushing to a surprising degree. --dab (𒁳) 07:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Physics history articles

Hi Dab, wondering if you are up to speed with pre-modern physics history. One contgroversial Jagged 85 (talk · contribs)[1] has been going around adding stuff everywhere saying that many things were invented/discovered much earlier by Muslims in medieval times, but a lot of people who have checked the soruces ssay they are faked. Can you make a quick survey of it, eg Physics in medieval Islam? —Preceding unsigned comment added by YellowAssessmentMonkey (talk • contribs)

Many Muslim/Hindu editors are desparate to prove that everything was invented by medieval Muslims / ancient Indians. Since very few of them actually know what they are talking about, they end up distorting things beyond recognition, burying the very real claims of precedence that these cultures do have.

Nationalism and ethnic pride are extremely bad guides to editing articles, even when the editors act in best faith.

In the present case, the article takes valid references to medieval scholarship and compiles them in a way that creates the appearance to the casual reader that medieval Muslim scholarship can somehow be taken to compete with the scientific revolution in the early modern period. Medieval Islamic science is astoundingly advanced, but "astounding" only to those who already have background knowledge on what was possible in the Middle Ages and what wasn't. To people without such a background, medieval science, Islamic or not, is rather astoundingly primitive. You have to be surprised how little was known first before you can be surprised what the scientific pioneers did manage to achieve.--dab (𒁳) 07:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I noticed your discussion here and wondered if you might take a look at the material at User:Syncategoremata/Misuse of sources, where I (and others) have collected examples of problematic edits by the particular editor mentioned by YellowAssessmentMonkey (talk · contribs) above? Note that most of the examples collected there are not new, but at least one dates from last month.

I would be particularly glad of any advice about the best way to proceed with this. I am too new here at Wikipedia to know how to respond to such abuses.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 07:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

the list you compiled is extremely useful. You illustrate exactly the kind of pov-pushing that is hard to catch and difficult to clean up. The only thing we can do is remove the offending passages. If the user insists on re-inserting them, it is good to have such a compilation for quick reference for the benefit of previously uninvolved editors. If the case is clear-cut, the pov-pusher will run into WP:3RR very quickly. If the case is less than clear-cut, the article in question will likely be tagged for {{NPOV}}, {{synthesis}} etc. for an extended period before somebody makes an effort to sort it all out based on solid references. --dab (𒁳) 07:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. The editor involved has been at it for a long time; you and I briefly discussed some of his history of astronomy edits (although without focusing on the editor) about three years ago. He seems to be continually pushing to test the limits, but is careful to avoid blatant violations of the rules. Given his prolific, and frequently improperly sourced, editing, cleaning up after him takes much more effort than he contributes to his edits.

I know that dispute resolution procedures don't deal well with the substance of articles but is there any way to focus on an editor's habitual misuse of sources? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

dab, you mention in your reply about that a "pov-pusher will run into WP:3RR very quickly". I just wanted to show you a quote from one particular editor on the Talk:Indian mathematics page, where he says:

Anyway, I won't be un-reverting the article for now, mostly because I'll be busy for the next few days, and also because I wouldn't want this article to be locked because of the three-revert rule. I'll be back when I have more free time to counter the obvious systemic bias present here. For now, feel free to continue with your revision until then.

This technique seems to have worked well for him, as he can return at some later time when the attention has died down and he is not at risk of falling foul of the 3RR rule. Thus he lives to edit another day.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Christ myth theory

Hi dab, this is up for featured article status again. It's somewhat improved since the last time, but I still have concerns about it. The problem is that I don't know anything about the issue, so I can't be sure my concerns are justified. If you have time and inclination, would you mind looking at the nomination? See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Christ myth theory/archive2. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If you could do whatever you wanted with that article, what would it be? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If I could do whatever I wanted and I had two days to spare, I would sit down and collect all material we have on "Jesus and history", including historical Jesus, quest for the historical Jesus, historicity of Jesus, Historicity of the canonical Gospels, Christ myth theory and possibly others, and sit down to work out a way to present this material in a cleanly organized way.

The main point I keep making at the Christ myth talkpage is not that the material as such is flawed, or that the editors involved are incompetent, thank god they are doing not such a bad job at all, but that there are numerous other articles of similar and ill-defined scope.

Wikipedia is not just about writing "your" article or defending "your" page, it is about arranging complex material in a clean and encyclopedic way across articles. --dab (𒁳) 10:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it's very confusing to have all those pages, and what seems to be content forking. I was wondering how you'd arrange the pages, whether there's a lot of repetition and several could be merged, or whether they'd all need to stay as separate pages but somehow arranged differently. I'm new to this so it's hard to get an overview. By the way, Eugene has just submitted an RfAr. Again, it's hard for me to judge whether it's needed or premature. Your views there would probably be very helpful. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene wants a content decision from RfAr? This is so ill-advised I actually feel a little sorry for him. He did a good job on the article even if he has OWN issues and I can understand his frustration with the deadlock (A deadlock he has himself helped to perpetuate, by joining the game of IDHT). God forbid the arbcom decides to meddle with this, it mean that the article will be truly buggered for at least another year.

Any experienced Wikipedian looking at the Jesus and history non-disambiguation-page will sit down and weep. This would be very difficult to fix even if it was just left to the good and knowledgeable editors, but of course this isn't going to happen, because the topic will remain trolled by both religious and anti-religious ideologists to a degree that will drive away all genuinely detached and encyclopedic editors. --dab (𒁳) 15:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It's the second time he's gone to ArbCom about this recently. He asked them to rule on content in February. This time he seems to want to have them warn me. [2]

I've started to write up a list of sources (as much for my own benefit as anything else) at User:SlimVirgin/CMT sources. If you have time or inclination, you're welcome to join in. My problem is that I know little about it and have little interest. :) I only got involved after trying to do a copy edit when it came to FAC for the second time. Not sure I have enough interest to keep me going, but I've ordered some books from the library anyway. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Slim, dab, do you think that the encyclopedia could get by with just two articles: Historicity of Jesus and Historicity of the canonical Gospels? If you do, then I will put merge tags on the others. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You asked "What has happened?" to the Christ myth theory article? SlimVirgin, that's what. As she's indicated that she values you opinion, could you maybe tell her to relax a bit? I think it would really help things coming from you. Eugene (talk) 18:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2010_April_11

You deleted three files but gave no reason. Two people !voted to keep it and one person questioned whether it was free or not. No one actually explicitly moved for deletion. Would you be so kind as to explain your rationale? — BQZip01 — ^talk 02:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Such a publication is now PD, correct, or am I missing something? — BQZip01 — ^talk 16:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

BTW, no harm here. If I'm wrong, I certainly want to know it. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, what is wrong with the previous day's image you deleted as well? Clearly I'm missing something. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(Re:Explanation on my talk page) Thanks for the info/background. AnonmieBot (or whatever the damn thing is called) basically pre-deleted the file with no edit summary. Had I known the problem, I would have made sure to investigate deeper. Lesson learned and I'll try to watch out for that in the future. This guy's story keeps changing and with all the copyvios, WP:AGF is pretty much out the window and he's trying to game the system/troll. Thanks for the explanation. — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Swami Satya Prakash Saraswati

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

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Wikid^as© 09:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Phrygian language

--Alsace38 (talk) 11:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC) We are working since 2 month on phrygian vocabulary!

which sourc your want exactly? say it! and for which word?!

My dear friend, i well know that wikipedia is not wikitionay, but as far as i am concerned, it is important to show to people what was this old language: we only did give around 20 words, i hope wikitonnary on phrygian will start quickly,

i have a lot of word on phrygian... take care —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alsace38 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Alsace38, what is your problem? I am glad you have a lot of Phrygian words. Please add them to wiktionary. Try to understand the concerns I am raising on Talk:Phrygian language, and if you like to comment, please try to make a coherent point. I do not absolutely object to listing a few words in the article, just make sure that the etymology of each word is referenced, and avoid listing random cognates in random other IE languages, it's pointless. --dab (𒁳) 14:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Phrygian word "beko" "bekos"

You ask me more detail on this word "bekos",, bread in Phrygian?

In kurdish we say "bakût" It is normal to ve different words beacause phrygian was spoken 1200 BC, and kurdish is spoken now 2010: it make around 3000 years of evolutions!

Bakût is food in Kurdish to say eating bread also!

look at: http://ku.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=gida&variant=ku http://legerin.ferheng.org/search.php?lang=enstitu&query=bak%C3%BBt.

i have a lot of word list but people are angry, they don't want to hear any kurdish words! --Alsace38 (talk) 15:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What the hell does Kurdish have to do with anything? Of course we want to hear kurdish words, but not on the Phrygian language page. Add your Kurdish words to wikt:Category:Kurdish language. Because they are, like, Kurdish and not Phrygian. If you want to argue that bakût is derived from bekos, cite your academic reference at wikt:bakût. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 15:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to intrude on dabs talkpage, but I noticed you were talking about the rather famous Phrygian word Bekos. Alsace38, we can't use Original research on cognates even if they look likely to you or even to all of us. We need published sources that make the connections for us. I noticed that "Bakut" is also similar to Welsh "Bara" but we can't just go suggesting similarities, because in all likelihood "Bakut" and "Bara" have entirely separate histories meaning they are not cognates, but totally separate words meaning the same thing. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

--Alsace38 (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)wel you are happy to clean ever thing which doesn't has any sources? well, then, will you clean that also? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_languages#Comparison_table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_language#Lexicon ? why not to clean every thing? or is it only self decision to clean what i did wrote?

Scoti and Gaels

There's a lot of duplication in the Scoti article, do you think Scoti should be a redirect or just heavily trimmed? It's discussed on the talk pages of both articles. Dougweller (talk) 15:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

oh dear. Both articles need cleanup. The Gaelsoneneeeds to make up its mind what it is about, the contemporary ethnicity, the Middle Ages, or remote pagan Celtic antiquity. The Scoti article needs to lose the cheap copy-paste content duplication. --dab (𒁳) 17:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Rigveda

Re your slightly snippy edit summary, yes, I'm watching Rigveda. What I'm looking for are problem edits by IPs or non-autoconfirmed editors. User:Atrijoshi's edits to that article would not have been picked up by the previous semi-protection. The one IP edit since unprotection was not a problem edit either, and as you haven't reverted that one, presumably you think the same? GedUK  10:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I am glad to hear it. Although your assertion that you this edit (which incidentially I did revert), an alteration to a verbatim quote without explanation or edit summary, is "not a problem edit", I find somewhat strange. Atrijoshi could have made their disruptive edit regardless of semiprotection, this is not the issue. --dab (𒁳) 12:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was in a crap mood this morning, shouldn't really have fired this off. Sorry again. GedUK  17:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW its on my watchlist too. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

it's ok. As long as an article has enough people actively watching it, it doesn't need sprotection. Sprotection is imprtant for articles that are well-developed but poorly watched, because they tend to go down the drain without anyone noticing for months on end. --dab (𒁳) 10:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I really liked your comments on the Rigveda page. I'm getting sick and tired of a bunch of politically motivated edits made by people who are, in my experience, wholly unqualified to do so. If I completely deleted the "Indigenous Aryans debate" sub-heading on the Rigveda page, would I be penalized? Its completely inappropriate. --Gnana (talk) 15:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

[post moved to Talk:Rigveda --dab (𒁳) 16:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Eugene and WP:OWN

Hi Dbachmann. Like I said, it's nice to see that your view of the CMT page has grown more positive. The nice comments about my editing above were also flattering. I don't really get the charge of WP:OWN though. I've left some of SlimVirgin's material in the FAQ and I'm not the only one who took some of her stuff out. You've cried foul on this a few times now and I've taken it to heart. I once asked [3] Raul654 what the line was between appropriate opposition to "disinformation" (his word) and violations of WP:OWN; he never got back to me, but I did ask. Any advice? Eugene (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

User conduct dispute at AN/I

Dab, I think your input would be valuable here. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Categories

You are invited to join the discussion here. Tadija^speaks 17:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}}) --Tadija^speaks 17:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Jass

[4] I am not sure how to fix this, but wouldn't Jass normally refer to games played with cards whose suits include shields and roses, rather than hearts and leaves? See [5]. These cards are even used in Vorarlberg, while the rest of Austria (and Germany) uses German or French suits. Therefore I would be surprised if anybody in Switzerland actually used German suits. I think Swiss suited or Swiss-German suited would be the logical description for Jass cards. Hans Adler 22:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Clearly a case for {{refimprove}} of a rather obscure topic. I do not know how the various suits in use in German-speaking Europe are usually referred to in English. Perhaps "Swiss suit" will be better after all. Playing_card#Switzerland isn't very helpful here, in fact all of Playing card would need restructuring, cleanup and reference improvement.

Please feel free to revert my edit, I am not sure it was really an improvement. --dab (𒁳) 12:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Corn in Rig Veda

The Hinduism article cites this from the Rig Veda: "I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother's job is to grind the corn." (Rig Veda 9.112.3) Corn is a New World crop that was not known in India in the Vedic times, so it appears to be a mistranslation. Do you know the correct translation?

Thanks, Raj2004 (talk) 01:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The basic meaning of corn is just grain, seed or cereal plant, see wiktionary:corn. Apparently some US regions are (or were) dominated by the cultivation of sweetcorn, so that the word acquired a narrower sense in addition to the original sense. Hans Adler 07:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hans is right, but nevertheless you cannot just "cite from the Rigveda" in English translation without saying whose translation you are quoting. What your translation gives as "my mother's job is to grind the corn" renders upalaprakSíNii nanaá. This means simply "mommy is a stone-grinder". No term for "corn" is even there, although it is clear that the idea is that the mother grinds grain on a stone. What we are looking at here is the verb kSiNAti "to destroy , corrupt , ruin , make an end of". An upalaprakSin is "one who destroys by means of a stone". Use of this word in the sense of "to wear down grain on a stone", i.e. "to be a miller" is a Rigvedic hapax only known from the single verse you mention. --dab (𒁳) 08:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Hans and Dab for the detailed explanations. In the US, corn literally means maize.

Regards, Raj2004 (talk) 11:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

EPIC DATE

hi dab!As you are expert here on vedic topics in wikipedia,i have an query regarding mahabharata composition date,How can you say that Mahabharata was composed around 400 B.C,Mahabharata have a lot of references of sarasvati river which dried up by at least 1900-1500 B.C.In mahabharata it is given that balaram(brother of krishna) visited many sites along sarasvati river from rann of kutch to plaksha(place near yamunotri) which exactly matches with present Ghaggar-Hakra river geography which was dried up by 1500 B.C atleast.it is another matter that whether it is early vedic sarasvati river or not,but it is accepted by many that it was later sarasvarti river mentioned in mahabharata and another later vedic literature.if you donot accept it as later vedic sarasvati river too,then we can say that mahabharata describe a river passing from kurushetra,pujab,rajasthan,pakistan to rann of kutch.in present time no river of such type exists,but a river ghaggar hakra was a mighty river atleast 3000 yr ago with some of its tributries.so some part of mahabharta would have been composed by 1500 B.C. because how can a writer in 600 b.c can tell about a river that not existed that time and dried up 1 millenium before is composition.some other factor may be-

>astronomical dates in mahabharata give hints a period of 1500-3000 B.C for its composition.

>all charactors of mahabharata were known to composers of upnishadas(1000-800 B.C)

it was very old trend to give 600 B.C date for composition of mahabharata because of lack of archaeological facts,but mordern research have shown many new facts.as proff brokington in his sansakrit epics page no-26 give mahabharata earliest date 900 bce,this line with reference was also given in mahabharata article but deleted by some one.you can see it in history 6 months before,--115.240.62.87 (talk) 10:52, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you would be interested in reading out Sarasvati River article?

I would never claim that "the Mahabharata was composed" at any date, certainly not in 400 BC. The Mahabharata was redacted around 400 AD, which is not the same as "composed". The text as redacted may contain passages that date back to as early as 400 BC. There may be mythological material in there that is even older, but you cannot date that (what is the "age of a mytheme"?).

A date of redaction around 400 AD, or a date of "composition" around 400 BC, does not preclude that there are certain items discussed that may have a historical nucleus as early as 1500 BC. If Thomas Mann writes a historical novel set in the Amarna period (Joseph and His Brothers), the fact that Akhenaten appears as a character in the novel does not prove that the novel was "composed in 1330 BC". The novel was composed (written) in 1926. Akhenaten lived around 1330 BC. No contradiction. --dab (𒁳) 13:57, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

hi dab,it is accepted by all scholar that ghaggar river was later vedic river however it was early rigvedic river is matter of controversy,now if we assume 400 b.c as a first redaction time of mahabharta then it doesnot fit in linguistic analysis,because it neither mention buddhism nor any later vedic kings like mauryas and gupta as proff c.v vaidya talked in his book The Mahabharata - A Criticism By C. V. Vaidya page 13,and also how can a writer could write these rivers name without mentioning that they had been dried by 1900b.c,although he talked about a very familier sense to these river that he could also see that rivers.

• apart from sarasvati mahabharta also mention drishtavadi river which was also dried up by 2000 bce

now 400 ad for latest redaction seems a troll because we have already two references

1)we have oldest manuscript of sanskrit 'm.s spitzer manuscript dated to first century .in which list of all 18 paravn of mahabharata is given.

2)The Greek writer Dio Chrysostom stated that the Mahabharata with its one lakh verses was well-known in South India in 50 CE The Mahabharata - A Criticism By C. V. Vaidya page 14--115.242.22.93 (talk) 19:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

please try to understand the term "redaction". It means that the work as it stands was given its final form. It is undisputed that the epic existed in some form or other before that date. The source you yourself cite asserts that the Mahabharata is later than Buddha. Your source dates to 1904, and a century later, scholarship is still unambiguous about the MBh being a composition shaping up between 400 BC and 400 AD. If you have any other opinion from a recent scholarly work we are missing, you are most welcome to bring it up.

Also, I understand that you are a returning banned user. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, and I see no point in discussing points on the dating of Mbh with you. We are trying to write an encyclopedia here, not to spend time in idle forum debates. --dab (𒁳) 20:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

dab sir!i understand your points,but i was saying that this point of view(date or composition before 400 b.c) should also be given in mahabharata article,

there is no information regarding its composition before 400 B.C,this is not following wikipedia own policy of neutrality.now its upon you what to do

thanks a lot and sorry for waisting your time on such bogous indian articles,offcourse wikipedia is not here to improve any indian religious article

sir,thanks for discussing it,I am not any banned user,i think it is a habbit of wikipedians to understand banned user from 115.00.00.00 ips discussing indian religious article,but i have done nothing wrong.but if you are not interested in talking to me then i will not.I will give you blessing because inspite of not giving attention to improve indian religious article,you all are making and managing some good articles for whole world,WE ALL ARE THANKFULL TO WIKIPEDIA AND YOU--115.242.96.123 (talk) 09:30, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

well, we would need references to scholars who propose an earlier composition. So far you haven't cited any. Please see WP:RS. Fwiiw, the Mahabharata article is also aware that medieval Hindu tradition dates the Kurukshetra battle to 3102 BCE. The Mbh is clearly not a text with a single author, and the best that philologists can do is state that the extant text was redacted during the Gupta period. I don't think that this lack of accuracy can be improved in any meaningful way. --dab (𒁳) 09:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

sir if you will see mahabharata article 4 months ago Textual history and structure,6th paragraph,it has already a reference of jhon brokington that mahabharata earliest layer may dated to 900 b.c.this information was there in mahabharata article for 1 or 2 year,but removed by any banned or established user why? i donot know.but brokington wrote his book in epic undertaking in 2005.so it is a latest information.thank you--115.242.23.37 (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Brockington is discussing the transition from Vedic to Epic poetry. I do not understand why you are so keen on making Mbh older than it is. What is the point of that? Whatever proto-epic poetry there was around in 800 BC, it was not the Mbh. It was a completely different set of orally performed epic poems, of which some fragments may or may not have survived into the Mbh text. Also, what does the Sarasvati have to do with any of this? Brockington is discussing philology, not the pseudo-scientific antiquity frenzy the "Vedic Harappa" people like to dream up. --dab (𒁳) 10:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry sir,i was only giving a reference that was given in old page of mahabharata,in this brokington cleary saying that "Parts of the Jaya's original 8,800 verses possibly may date back as far as the 9th-8th century BCE." in old mahabharata page's Textual history and structure,6th paragraph

Now regarding vedic harrapa its really like a joke,i think there is so much false or mythological stories filled in puranas and other vedic article that have waisted a lot of time of scholars to understand.scholars became frustrate of that.due to this some important information in other vedic texts was not refered by mordern scholars because most of the vedic literatire is based on imagination.

at last thank you very much,i think this discussion has grown very long,i read whole mahabharata and found that the geographical places like red ocean(Caspian Sea),gobi desert of china,nile river of egypt,sarasvati river was mentioned in it.i really liked this authentic information.but in case of purana,and other vedic texts i got frustrated by their false imaginated stories.

thank you very much sir,may god bless you that users like you may increase accuracy and level of wikipedia--115.242.33.154 (talk) 10:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Greater Khorasan and related pages and User:Ariana310

If you have time, take a look at Greater Khorasan and related pages (for example Template:Scholars of Khorasan and edits by User:Ariana310). Khorasan historically refered to the region between Dasht-e Kavir and Amu Darya, and its four quarters were regions around Balkh, Herat, Nishapur and Marw. Transoxiana wasn't included in Khurasan (or Greater Khurasan or whatever). Neither was any part of Pakistan. These issues have been mentioned in the corresponding talk page for several times, by several users. This exaggerated definition of Greater Khurasan has become more problematic recently (after recent edits of Ariana310 and creation of templates such as Template:Scholars of Khorasan). Alefbe (talk) 01:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

PS: Although a small political minority in Afghanistan have started to use this exaggerated definition of Khorasan (mostly as a Tajik response to the idea of Great Pashtunistan which was supported by Pashtun ultra-nationalists), it hasn't gained enough popularity to change the traditional definition of Khurasan. Alefbe (talk) 01:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Kharsag

Hi Dab - would you look at the talk page of this again? It turns out that Barton didn't use the word 'Kharsag' to denote a mythological mountain. I've also noted on the AfD talk page that Bedson had canvassed !voters from the old AfD (explaining editors like Gandalf who even refused to give a reason for this !vote). As the lead it now irredeemably (I believe) inaccurate, ie we can't have a lead that says "Kharsag; (also transcribed as Khar-sag & Gar-sag) or variations is an archaic Sumerian term used to denote a mythological location, meaning "head mountain", "sacred mountain" or "glorious mountain"" when Barton doesn't associate it with a mountain. This is too literal a use. I agree that we should retitle the article and broaden its scope. I'd appreciate your input on the talk page. I wish we could find a Sumerian expert, they'd probably be able to clarify this so we could easily settle the issue. Dougweller (talk) 07:48, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I just thought I'd add a personal note of thanks for your expert input on this subject. I greatly appreciate your advice and instruction and look forward to working productively with you in future. Paul Bedson (talk) 10:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you think now, have you seen the latest research being discussed on the AfD page? My preferred option is delete but move whatever content is salvageable to Barton cylinder, which is a new article, and [{Sumerian religion]]. WP:Title alone is a reason why we shouldn't have an article called Kharsag, let alone its dictionary nature now. Dougweller (talk) 10:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Kharsag can discuss "Holy mountain (Mesopotamia)" the same way that É (temple) can discuss "Temple (Mesopotamia)". The article can also be moved, but that's just a WP:NAME debate. There is a wide range of possible titles for these articles.

I am not sure what "latest research" you are referring to. This is a straightforward topic (albeit obscure) topic of Assyriology/Sumerology. Expertise is needed, but I don't expect we need to consider any "this just in" type of "latest research". All of this has been well known and well documented within the pertinent academic field for more than 50 years. --dab (𒁳) 11:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I mean transliteration (if that's the word), which was done in 1994. You can see an excerpt linked to Barton cylinder and the most relevant bit is at the AdF. Dougweller (talk) 12:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I see you've been editing the article, so you will probably have seen the link. I'm not clear why you removed the cuneiform and ANE categories - I don't care, just wondering what I did wrong there. Dougweller (talk) 12:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I do not understand what you are saying. Why are we discussing this Barton Cylinder, and why does it have a Wikipedia article? This looks like a typical example of a Sumerian mythological text to me. It doesn't appear to deal with any mountains at all. --dab (𒁳) 14:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I think I get the picture. We are talking about Christian_O'Brien#The_Kharsag_Epics, aren't we. I am really not interested in this, it isn't scholarship, it is pseudoscholarship. Apparently, O'Brien didn't even get as far as identifying harsag as a common noun, and thus ends up classifying any fragmentary mention of any mountain as a piece of his "Kharsag Epic". This isn't serious.

There is no "Kharsag Epic", O'Brien isn't a Sumerologist, and nobody would consider taking this stuff seriously. O'Brien was made CBE for his services to the oil industry and I am sure he was a decent field geologist. That's it. --dab (𒁳) 14:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

And that's the only reason we have an article on him, but most of the article is about his fringe ideas. Hey ho, at least we can, as I have, point out such things as current translations as compared to his fictional ones. Dougweller (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, the "fictional translations" are not his, they were made by bona fide scholars during the 1890s and 1910s. But it is a bit weak to use 1910s scholarship in a book written in the 1980s. It is also weak to pretend to have a theory based on "Sumerian texts" when your theory in fact rests on a 1918 English translation of Sumerian texts. But this is pseudoscholarship for you: people who go wrong from step one but never stop and keep writing books based on flawed premises for years and years. --dab (𒁳) 14:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't mean his use of scholarly translations, he actually re-translated some of the texts himself after teaching himself cuneiform. This is clearer on a couple of the websites pushing his work.

So where Barton wrote: 1. gar-sag-an-ki-bi-da-ge \. The mountain of heaven and earth

2. erim-an-ni dingir-dingir a-nun- 2. The assembly 1 of the great gods, na im-tu-ne-es a-ba entered, as many as there were.

He translates it as ""At Kharsag, where Heaven and Earth met, the Heavenly Assembly, the Great Sons of Anu, descended – the many Wise Ones"." Barton continue:

3. mu d e{inu nu-ub-da-tu-da nu- 3. A tree 1 of Ezinu had not been ub(?)-da-an-sig-ga born, 2 had not become green, 3

4. kalam-e*-bi d tak-ku nu-ub-da- 4. Land and water 4 Takku 5 had not an-dim-ma-al created,

5. d tak-ku-ra temen nu-mu-na-sig- 5. For Takku a temple-terrace had ga-as not been filled in,

6. 'u(?) nu-gu(?)-a pugad nu-ub-ra 6. A ewe 6 (?) had not bleated 6 (?), a lamb had not been dropped 7 ,

7. anse(?) nu-me-a-am numun dug- 7. An ass(?) there was not to irrigate 8 the seed,

8. pu-e x-a-bi nu-ub-tu-ud 8. A well and canal '(?) had not been dug, 10

9. anse-ra 11 bir-a-bi nu-ub-tu-ud 9. Horses 11 (?) and cattle had not been created,

1 mu more often means name, but the context here requires "tree"; cf. OBW, 62 9 .

2 The sign is so badly written that it may be either mu (OBW, iyo 3 ) "grow," or tu. Either reading makes good sense in the context.

8 As written on the clay and blurred this sign is illegible. Some lines have to be supplied in imigination. The phonetic complement ga shows that some syllable ending in g stood here. I at first read dug but was never fully satisfied with it. sig (OBW, 308) is possible and fits the context better.

Barton has: The Lord of the Granary had not yet arrived there, the grass had not yet become green. The Lord of the Plough had not yet prepared the land and (its) watering; for the Lord of the Plough, (that) implement had not (yet) turned over the hard earth. The cattle-shed had not (yet) been given running-water, had not been watered from the overflow. The ass had not (yet) been watered; the seed had not been watered. Then, the well and the irrigation channels had not been dug; then, had not been dug for the ass and the cattle.

The Anunna, the great gods, had not known, There was no M-grain of thirty fold, There was no M-grain of fifty fold, Small grain, mountain grain, cattle-fodder, there were not, Possessions and dwellings there were not, Takku had not been brought forth, a shrine not lifted up, Together with Ninki the lord had not brought forth men. Shamsah as leader came, unto her desire came forth ; Mankind he planned; many men were brought forth; Food and sleep he did not plan for them; Clothing and dwellings he did not plan for them; The people with rushes and rope came,

You get the point, if you are interested in this, which I think is probably a waste of time, his translation is here [6] and Barton's here [7] (starting after "A new creation myth". Dougweller (talk) 15:12, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Good work Doug. It's not a waste of time, it's a good opportunity to study a Sumerian text we might otherwise never have looked at. That's the beauty of Wikipedia as I see it, you start up cleaning up some weird article and you end up discovering something beautiful. --dab (𒁳) 06:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of the thanks go to Akhilleus, but you make a good point. And now that the AfD is closed, what do we do about the article? Dougweller (talk) 06:44, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

KUR has been crying for cleanup for some time too. Both should become section redirects, ideally to a "Ancient Near East" section of a new World mountain article. --dab (𒁳) 06:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Ghurids and ethnocentric POV

Hi Dbachmann. Your help is neede in the article Ghurids. User:Ketabtoon is removing sourced material (from both Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam). When being caed with the problem, he tried to challenge these standard reference works with googled pseudo-sources, most of them old books from the 18th century that do not represent the current consensus among scholars. He has no qualifications in that field and he does not understand that the EI and EIr are standard reference works that can only be contradicted by modern published works by distinguished scholars. He calls his sources (written prior to 1880) "authoritative" and "reliable", although they are contradicted by modern scholars (namely Clifford Edmund Bosworth). I have tagged the article, but he is so stubborn that he will immediately revert to his own (Pashtun ethnocentric) POV version. Tajik (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again, but User:Ahmed shahi is deleting well-sourced material without giving any explanation. See here. Tajik (talk) 12:42, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

User:Tajik is deleting my edits as if he owns the article and placing too many of his personal Persian views. The sources he cited do not say Ghorid dynasty was Tajik, and, User:Tajik is also removing the history of Afghanistan template and claiming that the land of Afghanistan didn't exist on earth at the time. The Ghorid dynasty was centered, based, ruled from, with its capital at Afghanistan so it should remain part of Afghanistan history. User:Tajik must stop his prejudice Persian-ethnocentrism.

I asked User:Tajik to show us the complete paragraph or at least the most important lines from the questionable source that he is using (Encyclopedia of Islam) but he (User:Tajik) only provided few words out of context to try to convince us with, and I believe he has done that so as to hide something from us. Plz see Talk:Ghurid_Dynasty#source

Ahmed shahi (talk) 12:50, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you really trying to fool him by claiming that my sources do not support the view?! Maybe you should READ the sources before deleting them! See here, once again for you and for Dbachmann to check:

• "... The Ghurids came from the Šansabānī family. The name of the eponym Šansab/Šanasb probably derives from the Middle Persian name Wišnasp (Justi, Namenbuch, p. 282). [...] The chiefs of Ḡūr only achieve firm historical mention in the early 5th/11th century with the Ghaznavid raids into their land, when Ḡūr was still a pagan enclave. Nor do we know anything about the ethnic stock of the Ḡūrīs in general and the Šansabānīs in particular; we can only assume that they were eastern Iranian Tajiks. [...] The sultans were generous patrons of the Persian literary traditions of Khorasan, and latterly fulfilled a valuable role as transmitters of this heritage to the newly conquered lands of northern India, laying the foundations for the essentially Persian culture which was to prevail in Muslim India until the 19th century. ... - Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, (LINK)
• "... The Shansabānīs were, like the rest of the Ghūrīs, of eastern Iranian Tājik stock ..." - C.E. Bosworth, "GHŪRIDS", Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed., Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV
• "... Bahrām Shāh (511-52/1118-57) had to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Saldjūqs; thereafter, the chieftains of Ghūr became increasingly stronger, and after long struggles drove out the Ghaznawids. The Ghūrīd dynasty [q.v.] was probably of Tādjīk origin. The fortunes of this dynasty were checked by invasions of Afghānistān by the Ghūzz and the Khwārizm-shāhs. ..." - M. Longworth Dames, G. Morgenstierne, and R. Ghirshman (1999). "AFGHĀNISTĀN". Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed., Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV

You have also deleted well-sourced information which explains that, according to modern scholarship and available evidence, the Ghurids were NOT Pashtuns (as YOU stubbornly claim and propagate):

• "... There is nothing to confirm the recent surmise that the Ghūids were Pashto-speaking [...] the Paṭa Khazāna “Treasury of secrets”, claims to include Pashto poetry from the Ghūid period, but the significance of this work has not yet been evaluated ..." - C.E. Bosworth, "GHŪRIDS", Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed., Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV
• "... It is clear, however, that all this literature was in Persian, and claims which were made in Afghanistan some decades ago (e.g., Ḥabībī in his ed. of Moḥammad Hōtak) of the existence of poetry in Pashto from the Ghurid period remain unsubstantiated. ..." - Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, (LINK)

You are the only one who calls these excellent scholarly sources "POV" and "OR". So far, you were not able to present even one accepted scholarly source supporting your ethnocentric POV-claims. Tajik (talk) 13:09, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm reminding you once again that the Pashtun people are not limited to Pashto language, some Pashtun tribes are Persian-speaking or Persian-speakers but they are not Tajiks. The Ghoris mother language is unconfirmed so the language issue is useless at this point. In the medieval era people in the Afghanistan region were not recognized as Tajiks or Pashtuns, they were recognized by their area such as Ghori (meaning of Ghor), Ghaznavi (of Ghazna), Khorasani (of Khorasan), Balkhi (of Balkh), and so on. The area of Ghor was multi-ethnic and multi-religious, as was the case with Ghazni and other places.

I respect Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopedia Iranica but they are not claiming that Ghorids were Tajiks, they are telling us their view. It is you who is not respecting the other sources who believe that they may have been Pashtuns.

Ahmed shahi (talk) 13:43, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

You neither respect nor accept the most authoritative scholarly sources. That is the reason why you delete them from the article without any explanation (my proof). And see the quotes above: the consensus is that the dynasty was NOT Pashtun (as you claim) but most likely Tajik. So far, you were not able to present any valuable sources. All you have posted were a few unrealiable websites, a link to a Pashtun newspaper ("Sabawoon"), and 3 links to outdated books from the 19th century which are not accepted (and clearly rejected) by modern scholarship. Tajik (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The rules of Wikipedia is that we present both views in the article. Sabawoon (Afghanpedia) is a respectable Afghan website and you may dislike it as much as you want but the information in their site is very accurate. I don't understand what kind of an Afghan are you to be hating your own nation so much, removing Afghan history templates from articles that are part of Afghanistan's history. You hate anything and everything that is from Afghanistan, prepared by Afghans, or has the name Afghan in it. Can you at least explain why you are doing these anti-Afghanistan things when we see on your front cover that you proudly present yourself as an Afghan? Why are you disrespecting your national history?

Ahmed shahi (talk) 13:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The rules of Wikipedia require that the consensus among scholars is presented. Other minority views need to mentioned exactly that way: that they are minority views and are not accepted by modern scholarship. You are trying to establish your un-scholarly POV views as some kind of equally accepted theory which is certainly WP:OR. You represent and support a MINORITY view which is explicitly REJECTED by modern scholars (see the quotes above). "Sabawoon" is not a reliable source, it is an online news-paper in Pashto which has been criticized as Pashtun-nationalistic by many people. In no way can that unreliable source challenge the aforementioned encyclopedias. You need to learn the most basic rules of Wikipedia! Your POV and your stubborn ethnocentric propaganda is destroying the article's quality. Not to mention the fact that you pruposely and systematically remove well-sourced information and quotes by scholars only because they do not support your extreme nationalist POV views. Tajik (talk) 14:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not against the rules of Wikipedia, whatever it says we follow them. You didn't explain why you're attacking your own nation, Afghanistan? Plz stop lying about Sobawoon, it is an English language Afghan site with very accurate information.[8] If other neutral 3rd party editors agree that Sabawoon is an unreliable source then you have a point but for now you have zero. Nobody in Afghanistan believe Ghorid dynasty being of tajik ethnicity, it's just you (one individual) claiming this proof-less theory.

Ahmed shahi (talk) 14:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

a) Wikipedia is not about defending national interests. Yes, I am from Afghanistan. But that does not mean that I have to publish nationalistic nonsense and unscientific propaganda as you do. I want the article to be fully according to the general consensus among scholars as presented in the most authoritative encyclopedias of oriental studies. You totally fail to understand this simple fact.

b) this is the correct link to Sabawoon, and it is by no means a cite-able source. For example, it claims that Pashtuns are 65% of Afghanistan while degrading all other ethnic groups (link) - a claim that is not and will not be supported by any serious source. Of course, you do not understand this. You fully support unscientific and ethnocentric claims like that one. You are not here to write an encyclopedic article but to promote nationalist nonsense. That's also the reason why you see Wikipedia as some kind of platform to "defend national interests" (as one can see in your posting above).

c) Whether people in Afghanistan consider the Ghurids to be Tajiks or not is fully irrelevant. This is not about what people in Afghanistan think, this is about what scholars and experts say.

Tajik (talk) 15:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

A. You're actions which includes removing the Afghan history template explain that you have an agenda to alter the history of Afghanistan.

B. I don't know why you're bringing the Sabawoon website into this discussion? I didn't cite anything from there in the Ghori article. I only used Afghanpedia as a reference in other articles. The information in Afghanpedia is accurate, it's the same as what you find else where, and, they don't reveal to us the ethnicity of Ghorid dynasty.Ghurids

C. Scholars and experts can only say that Ghori dynasty was either Pashtun or Tajik, but they simply don't know. And, why is it irrelevant what the people in Afghanistan think? Is it because you hate Afghanistan and its people or is it because you think the Ghori dynasty was not in Afghanistan?

Ahmed shahi (talk) 16:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Afghanopedia belongs to Sabawoon website and its articles don't have authors. What should be put on Wikipedia is scholarly conclusions that "There is nothing to confirm that the Ghūids were Pashto-speaking" and they were most likely or probably of Tajik origin.-Raayen (talk) 15:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

why is this on my talkpage? You are welcome to draw my attention to the discussion, but the discussion itself should be at Talk:Ghurid Dynasty. --dab (𒁳) 08:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Biblical POV-pusher

A user is adding 19th century Biblical cruft to the effect that democracy has its roots in the Bible and was invented by Moses, and is willing to edit-war to have his way [9] [10] [11]. Similar situation over at Moses [12]. He has asked for an RfC but apparently can't be bothered to wait for it [13]. Athenean (talk) 05:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

He has some interesting material. WP:UNDUE where placed, to be sure, but too valid to just be buried. Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Langdon, I wonder what the topic is here, perhaps Antidisestablishmentarianism, or certainly the separation of Church and State debate, Republicanism in the United States, Republicanism in the United Kingdom. Of course it is silly to claim that "Moses invented democracy", but I think we have a rather obscure intellectual tradition here that would deserve some attention. --dab (𒁳) 06:05, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

File source problem with File:Tunisia compsite NASA.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Tunisia compsite NASA.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of that website's terms of use of its content. However, if the copyright holder is a party unaffiliated from the website's publisher, that copyright should also be acknowledged.

If you have uploaded other files, consider verifying that you have specified sources for those files as well. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged per Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion, F4. If the image is copyrighted and non-free, the image will be deleted 48 hours after 13:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC) per speedy deletion criterion F7. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

what part of "This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA" do you find less than satisfactory? --dab (𒁳) 14:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Copyright/left of the "disk of nebra" photo

Further information: File:Nebra Scheibe.jpg

Hi there, I'm just trying to understand the copyright/left jungle concerning uploaded photos, and found that the county of Sachsen-Anhalt claims to have the copyright for the above mentioned disk of Nebra. On the other hand, you as an experienced Wikipedian have uploaded that photo without any trouble, so how this comes together? Did I oversee anything, or did they grant you some exceptional permission? With regards, QNiemiec —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qniemiec (talk • contribs) 23:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I took that image myself, with my own camera. So the county of Sachsen-Anhalt has nothing to do with it whatsoever. What the county of Sachsen-Anhalt claims is that they own the design of the disk, i.e. even if I was to make a drawing of it, they would still own it. This means, they claim intellectual property on an ancient artefact, designed in the Bronze Age. I don't know whether this is going to work under German copyright law, but as I am in Switzerland and the Wikimedia servers are in the USA, I don't really care, as German law does not apply. --dab (𒁳) 06:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks for the wonderful photo! Hans Adler 08:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I was lucky, it was a cheap digital camera in a badly-lit exhibition, most other pictures were blurred, but the one of the Nebra disk turned out fine. --dab (𒁳) 13:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Fork

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramean_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syriacs&redirect=no

Sock Puppet of AramaeanSyriac

130.17.218.242 (talk) 03:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Re: Jatt-Sikh

Hi fellow editor. Wondering whether you could help me out on this article. One of the editors seems to have taken exception to the fact I am asking for page numbers and ISBN numbers for refrences he wants to quote. Thanks --Sikh-History 13:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I am losing my patience with the Indian gotra-cruft articles. If the Indian family historian editors cannot get their act together and produce clean articles, it is my opinion that we should adopt a slash-and-burn (WP:TNT) approach and blank everything that doesn't satistfy required standards. --dab (𒁳) 13:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I have come 3swordz (talk · contribs) before, and received the impression of a highly unreasonable editor completely unamenable to common sense. --dab (𒁳) 13:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi fellow editor, please intervene, as I have had to issue a final warning here, due to his personal attacks. See his latest attack here. I have tried to be patient with this editor but he persistently does not assume good faith, and persistently attacks my motives for editing. Thanks --Sikh-History 14:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with your policy. Jatt Sikh was a clasic example of such an article. I fear it is going back to being a joke. Thanks --Sikh-History 14:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to see what he considers a personal attack. It is SikhHistory that up until recently repeatedly deleted cited info because he feared a "phallus-contest," and called me a racist. As for common sense, "dab," referring to our conflict, realizing that Aum and Ik Onkar are two different things is common sense. As soon you started to try to smear me by associating me with disreputable scholars, in addition to the constant strong-arming, I just gave up; I was content to make my case in that page's archive for all interested to see, and leave. I will not do so here, just because SikhHistory thinks cited, important statistics on Jatt Sikhs is nothing but showboating.3swordz (talk) 23:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

3swordz discuss the article and not the editors. Reflect on your own behaviour and how you can make better articles, rather than attacking editors. Back to topic. I would like to see dab peer review Jatt Sikh and add/remove content to make it encyclopeadic. Thanks--Sikh-History 13:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

a)I was under the impression "dab" was discussing me. That's quite an oversight, but I suppose he's an admin whose favor you're trying to cull, so whatever. b) better articles means adding relevant info about Jatt Sikhs, a significant community, not the just the info you want to see and covering up the rest. c) if "dab" has an ounce of integrity he would not delete such relevant info and top-shelf citation, grudges notwithstanding. ps please don't use the phrase "peer-review," lol. we've been over this, academic journals are scholar-written and scholar-reviewed, hence "peer." get it?

As for the first statement in this section, I've told you at least six times now that PRJs don't have ISBNS and don't follow book citation formats. Then you call it a personal attack when I say you seem unfamiliar with them, while failing to address "racist," the only explicit personal attack in this engagement. 3swordz (talk) 11:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Note throughout this 3swordz, you are discussing editors and not the content. Therin lies the problem. Thanks

Speedy deletion nomination of VISIS

A tag has been placed on VISIS requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about about a person, organization (band, club, company, etc.) or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable. You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Fæ (talk) 11:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, apologies for the template above. I have applied CSD as the previous version of VISIS appears to be a disambiguation page for VSIS, not quite the same thing, and the page is currently used to promote a non-notable consultancy. It may be worth having an AFD if someone thinks it's needed. Fæ (talk) 11:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

you could also just revert to the disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 11:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Brahmin

The article needs to be semi-protected, I suggest. Mitsube (talk) 07:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It's a mess anyway. I suggest anything that isn't satisfactorily referenced should be removed, and after that we can semiprotect against renewed addition of unreferenced stuff. --dab (𒁳) 13:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that in the next couple of days and get back to you. Mitsube (talk) 02:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Alright I did it, can you semi-protect it now? Mitsube (talk) 07:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Kambojas etc still a sprawling mess

Have been looking again at it all today. Do you remember we discussed a book that Satbir was vehemently defending, "The Kambojas through the Ages" by one Kirpal Singh Dardi, a retired civil engineer? It's still cited in 70 articles. Dardi himself has a biog in Indian Kamboj educationists and writers, an article that somehow survived AfD but is tagged for merger. It all seems to have started with a big copy-paste effort in around September 2005, by User: Sze cavalry01 and prolific IPs. One legacy is the misspelling "Stein Konow", still found in 7 articles. The reference text on Indian epigraphy by Sten Konow is cited in very many articles - venerable scholarship, I'm sure, but perhaps to be treated as primary. What is to be done? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

So, it seems we have Mr. Dardi who decided to port his work to Wikipedia in 2005. Or a case indistinguishable from that. As we have pranced around with Sze cavalry01 and socks enough to clamp down on him and ban any future socks on sight, this is just a matter of cleaning up any of his crap wherever we come across it. Good work spotting this, Judith. I am at present too fed up with the Indian gotra-cruft to lend a hand, but I am sure I will get back the strength to do a little bit of that soon. --dab (𒁳) 08:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

My problem with doing more, apart from time, is that there is scholarship in there, even if it is mainly a nationalistic rehash of Victorian speculation. I think all Dardi's works have been published in Punjabi. He wrote a history of the rivers and canals of Punjab, which might be considered a reliable source on the subject. I suspect it is his fans rather than himself that pasted the material onto WP. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Did a few fairly bold things today. See what you think. At the moment all that I think I know about the Kambojas is that they were a tribe, probably in the Iron Age, probably in present-day Afghanistan and/or present-day Pakistan, probably speaking an Iranian language, mentioned in a Purana and in the Mahabharata, mentioned in inscriptions, a king's name on inscriptions is consistent with a king's name on coins, associated with horsemanship, gave name to Cambodia by some circuituous means, name survives as a surname or clan name. How many articles do you have to read to glean that? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

indeed. This is the way I see it too. Plus, the survival of the tribal name into modern times, especially the circuituous means by which it ends up in Cambodia, is where the serious WP:FRINGE concerns come in. It is one thing to obsessively list every mention of kamboja in every Sanskrit text, it is another to construct a theory of "Kamboja migrations" out of the blue. And this is what our customer set out to do. This is a matter of WP:NOTE. It may be true enough that this 'theory' was published by Dardi and other Kamboj family historians, but it certainly does not qualify as academic quality historiography. --dab (𒁳) 15:02, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a view on the usefulness of works by Buddha Prakash? What about material derived from them in Puru and King Porus? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Name of Cambodia - look in the references - best info I could find online. PiCo (talk) 23:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Names of God in Old English poetry

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

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of God in Old English poetry. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

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

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

de:Schwertkampf

Hallo, du hast am 10. März 2010 ein Redundanzbapperl an de:Schwertkampf gepappt. Ich habe gestern etwas dazu auf der entsprechenden Diskussionsseite eingetragen. Vielleicht hast du Lust, auch etwas dazu zu sagen. Grüsse,--Stanzilla (talk) 13:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stanzilla (talk • contribs)

Danke für den Hinweis. Da du mit mir einig zu gehen scheinst, was diese Artikel betrifft, glaube ich ein weiterer Kommentar meinerseits ist überflüssig. Vielen dank, --dab (𒁳) 13:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories

Thanks very much for your interest in, and recent edits to, Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories. I mentioned on the articles talk page that I think a merger to Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact would be appropriate. I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Cheers, ClovisPt (talk) 16:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

my thoughts are that you are right. Regarding such content as can be salvaged from the article, which, scrutinizing the referencing, will probably not be very much. --dab (𒁳) 16:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for input

Please see Talk:Ebionites#Possibility of bringing the article back up to FA. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Advice on getting format consensus?

Care to give me some advice here? Cordially, SergeWoodzing (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

sarasvati river

Hi, dab! can you have a look on sarasvati river article, when I read it 1 year ago, it was quite good with suitable references, but now it has rewritten like a story with very less reference and information, see difference here. I will recommend you to set back this article to your last modificstion to this article.otherwise wikipedia will seem like a place of stories,thank you--202.141.47.146 (talk) 06:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any obvious problem with these changes. --dab (𒁳) 15:15, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Sanskrit & Wikipedia Telugu

Greetings dab, I recently made two "user friendly" introduction pages for both Wikipedia Sanskrit & Wikipedia Telugu](the latter is not entirely complete as yet). Here is the Sanskrit one and the Telugu one. Do you know where I could get the translations that are used for the toolbar functions, side bar functions etc. (essentially, all components of the interface) on Wikipedia for these versions, as I suspect they're standardized and lying around somewhere? I think the Sanskrit page may be particularly useful as when I looked at Wikipedia Latin, I noticed a statement somewhere that most articles are contributed by students learning Latin - as such, Wikipedia Sanskrit would most likely find most of its most sincere (and unbiased) contributions made by those who are doing so simply to better their skills in the language. --Gnana (talk) 22:20, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Let me point you to Help:MediaWiki namespace, I think you will find all you need there. More info at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki You will need admin privileges on the sa: and te: wikis to be able to change the sidebars and menus etc.

Yes, projects in "dead" languages like la:, sa:, ang:, got: etc. tend to be less about getting the content right than to find people who are capable of writing decent prose in the language at all. It's about language geeks who enjoy their hobby together, it's not so much about actually writing informative articles. --dab (𒁳) 23:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Removed PROD on Troy (given name)

I have removed the {{prod}} tag from Troy (given name), which you proposed for deletion. I'm leaving this message here to notify you about it. If you still think the article should be deleted, please don't add the {{prod}} template back to the article. Instead, feel free to list it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Thanks! --Mike Cline (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

PROD on Pseudo-scholarship

Hi. I am recommending deletion of a page you created. See Talk:Pseudo-scholarship. Anthony (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Mediation for Jat people

Hello, my name is Ronk01, I am considering taking the casefile for Jat People, but it almost looks like this case might need something a bit more formal. If you have any comments regarding this, please note them on my talk page. Otherwise I will take the case and attempt to mediate. Ronk01 (talk) 00:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't need anything "formal", it needs people willing to address the content as opposed to the wikidrama. The best you can do here is sit down, sift through the sources, and help build the article. Time invested in "mediating" wikidrama is not just time wasted, it is an investment in even more time wasted in the future because it conditions people into sticking to wikidrama. --dab (𒁳) 09:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the article seems to have some pretty serious issues regarding sourcing. Ronk01 (talk) 03:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Page move Conical straw hat --> Conical hat

Hello there fellow editor. Please see this and advise. Thank you very much. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Indus Valley Caste System

Dear Mr. Bachmann,

I have found some evidence that the Indian caste system may have its origins in the Indus Valley civilization. Please see my comments on the talk page for the "Caste System" article. Hokie Tech (talk) 16:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Conical hats abound

Please see Talk:Conical_hat#Hang_on_on_the_page_delete. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:04, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Please see the talk page again. I have another plan that make put this whole thing to rest. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Please correct the Assyrian article.

It's written that there are 7,5 mln Assyrians but in fact there is 0 mln Assyrians as Assyrian is an extinct east semite ethny.

The so called "Assyrians" are in fact christians of various ethnies (Arab, Aramean, Kurd, Turk, American, Swede...)

So please correct this article.

Best regards.

Erkin Kopkoray

Humanbyrace (talk) 14:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

yeah, read the article. And try to keep your petty parochialism off user talkpages. --dab (𒁳) 14:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Please protect the Germanic mythology article

A screenshot of a vandalized version of the Germanic mythology article was put on a widely visited Hungarian far-right, anti-semitic website ( http://kuruc.info/r/22/60527/ ). They keep putting the Holocaust as part of the article. It is just purely pathetic, but please keep an eye out for that one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.237.156 (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

that's just a single instance of vandalism. If it recurs we can semiprotect, but our first reaction should be blocking the IP, not locking the article. --dab (𒁳) 19:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again

Thanks again for your help and patience. I hope the article is now okay. Also, if you think of a better name for Conical Asian hat, please let me know. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. To be honest, I do find "conical Asian hat" rather awkward, but we do not seem to be the first to use the term so I think we can well leave it there before somebody comes along and makes a viable suggestion for improvement. --dab (𒁳) 07:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Origins of Christianity

In light of these comments, would you take a look at Origins of Christianity and provide your thoughts at Talk:Origins of Christianity? Thank you. --Richard S (talk) 08:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The name Armenia

Is something wrong with the referenced content that you deleted from the article? If so, why with no reasoning? Aregakn (talk) 08:28, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

"The exact etymology of the name "Armenia" is not confirmed, and there are various researches that list it to older toponyms or ethnonyms"? Sorry, this isn't even English, not to mention unreferenced. If you have material you wish to present for inclusion in a specific article, you may also use The Article Talkpage.

Please be advised that due to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Ararat arev, anonymous Armenian nationalist trolling will lead to indef bans very swiftly. --dab (𒁳) 10:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Be advised, that I don't like threats thrown at me, especially when they are baseless.

"Isn't even English" is a claim with 0 basis. If you're a philologist, you'd have better explained that claim in a proper manner. As for now, you just made naked claim.

As for the other claim that the above sentence is unreferenced, I'd say is manipulation, because one doesn't need to reference the info that already is referenced in the article. You see in the division of etymology, that there are different researches about the toponym. those are referenced there. Now tell me that the sentence "The exact etymology of the name "Armenia" is not confirmed, and there are various researches that list it to older toponyms or ethnonyms" is not something that is already in the article.

I am taking the whole discussion to the talk-page. Aregakn (talk) 19:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I did not make the rules around here. You disregard the rules, you will be in trouble. That's hardly a threat, just a statement of fact. As for anonymous editing, I don't see how this concerns you, you are editing under your single account only, aren't you? Further, I am not disputing the etymology of Armenia is unknown. I am merely objecting to the gratuitous repetition of what is already in the article in broken English. --dab (𒁳) 21:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I see you didn't notice I said that the discussion is placed on the talk-page of the article. Take your comments there so we can continue. Aregakn (talk) 10:28, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

What is wrong with you? Comments on the article topic belong on the article talkpage. Comments on your behaviour belong right here, in user talk space. --dab (𒁳) 10:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Tell me, when one reads this sentence "Please be advised that due to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Ararat arev, anonymous Armenian nationalist trolling will lead to indef bans very swiftly." do you think it's a general note? A general note of this kind is either not said, or not said from in the 1 sentence as an answer to my question, but in any way should have been rephrased. The way you said it does not leave even 1 doubt it was an accusation. And now, trying to justify yourself by putting it on me, and starting to talk about my behavior sounds ridiculous. No, I don't take any guilt on me, I take your offense in the manner it was said. Now because I didn't (yet) start talking about behavior and there is nothing that you can talk about my behavior, concentrate on the content of the talk-page. Aregakn (talk) 06:47, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I informed you of the background of the problem, assuming from your comments that you were not aware of it. I don't understand your problem. If you're just going to pout and sulk because of questions of "tone" and "manner", I don't have time for you.

I will reply to points on article content. I will neither pause to point out grammatical mistakes in English (by editing en-wiki you are by default expected to be literate in English. If you are not, any help you receive in this department is purely the courtesy of other editors), nor will I pause to fuss over your personal sensitivities and grievances (if you think you have a valid complaint, take it to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts). --dab (𒁳) 13:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It will be the opposite. Aregakn (talk) 13:55, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

you are right, I could take you to "Wikipedia alerts" instead, but after six years on Wikipedia, I am not quite that touchy about having people troll my talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 14:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you have forgotten my very first message and how you answered it, so one more attack makes no sense. Your edits about the endonym are wrong again, thought the general contribution is to be thankful for. Anyway, leitraot Aregakn (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I will request one more time:

• if you have a problem with my conduct, report me to WP:ANI
• if you find a factual mistake in my edits at Name of Armenia, explain your point on the article talkpage. Make sure you stick to addressing the point itself.

Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 14:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental Meditation movement

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following is a summary of the remedies enacted:

• All editors who are party to this case are instructed to read the principles, to review their own past conduct in the light of them, and if necessary to modify their future conduct to ensure full compliance with them.
• Editors are reminded that when editing in controversial subject areas it is all the more important to comply with Wikipedia policies. In addition, editors who find it difficult to edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and to adhere to other Wikipedia policies are counselled that they may sometimes need or wish to step away temporarily from that article or subject area, and to find other related but less controversial topics in which to edit.
• Any uninvolved administrator may, in his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor editing Transcendental meditation or other articles concerning Transcendental meditation and related biographies of living people, broadly defined, if, after a warning, that editor repeatedly or seriously violates the behavioural standards or editorial processes of Wikipedia in connection with these articles.
• Uninvolved administrators are invited to monitor the articles in the area of conflict to enforce compliance by editors with, in particular, the principles outlined in this case. Enforcing administrators are instructed to focus on fresh and clear-cut matters arising after the closure of this case rather than on revisiting historical allegations.
• From time to time, the conduct of editors within the topic may be re-appraised by any member of the Arbitration Committee and, by motion of the Arbitration Committee, further remedies may be summarily applied to specific editors who have failed to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.
• User:Fladrif is (i) strongly admonished for incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith; and (ii) subject to an editing restriction for one year. Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After three blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month.
• Should any user subject to a restriction or topic ban in this case violate that restriction or ban, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year, with the topic ban clock restarting at the end of the block.

Discuss this

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Der Berg hat gekreißt und hat eine Maus geboren. --dab (𒁳) 19:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

On GAC etc and experts

You seem to have misunderstood what I said. I support the inclusion of experts and professionals as much as possible, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of people on Wikipedia aren't experts, and that most experts have no interest in Wikipedia. I think this is well illustrated by a recent study into the WP:FA process where experts in a particular field were contacted to see if they would give their opinions on relevant articles. Of 160 people contacted, just 22 replied. That would certainly suggest that for most professionals Wikipedia doesn't register as anything serious, although your mileage may vary. One of the proposals that resulted from that article was that the FAC process would benefit from at least attempting to approach the relevant expert for input; unfortunately the result of the discussion was a resounding "so what". There was concern that academics might try to force their own point of view on an article and might not understand FAC standards. In my opinion this was insulting to academics, suggesting they’re incapable of seeing alternatives to their own point of view. I think the article could have been a catalyst for improving FAC and getting more experts involved in Wikipedia, however my opinion of the outcome is that reactionaries decided we're better off without and that the person conducting the review of FAC didn't understand what was going on anyway; the archive makes for disappointing reading. Instead of asking how FAC could be improved from the review, it was decided that the review was just plain wrong and that FAC was managing fine.

I must admit that before then it I'd never seriously considered approaching an expert to help with writing an article or assessing it as I assumed they'd have no interest. I intend to ask next time I take something to FAC. The 22 out of 160 success rate doesn't leave me optimistic I'll get a reply, but there's no harm in trying and I believe a response would greatly benefit an article. Wikipedia:Academic peer review is marked as historic, so there's no organised way to approach people in academia. WP:MED has some external reviews, but this is the exception rather than the norm. WP:MILHIST, one of Wikipedia's biggest projects, has no structure for getting expert help. The British Museum is involved in improving links with professionals, but it remains to be seen how successful that will be.

FAC and GAC are Wikipedia's key content areas, but it's no secret that they suffer from a general dearth of experts. The critical input someone who is familiar with the general topic area is far more valuable than someone who is not familiar. This is not uniform, medicine articles for instance seem to have been developed by a group of professionals and adhere to high standards, but it varies across subject areas. I am an FAC and GAC apologist – the standard of articles that successfully pass through those areas are vastly above the average for Wikipedia. That said, I know they have weaknesses. I think ideally Wikipedia would be able to pay professionals with experience in a particular field to check over GAs and FAs to ensure they are accurate and of a high quality. When I said "we're all amateurs working in our spare time" I should perhaps have used more careful phrasing. "Amateur" can have several implications, one of which is that none of us is professionally a Wikipedian, ie: we do not get paid to edit. It is not necessarily a comment on whether or not Wikipedians in general are qualified in a certain subject, although my implied meaning was that for the most part Wikipedians do not have professional experience in the areas they edit. Mostly. It was not meant as a slight against yourself, so there was no need to take offence, so I apologise for that. If you have suggestions to improve either, or just expert retention in general, I'd be interested in hearing them. Nev1 (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry we got off on the wrong foot at the Great Divergence talkpage, Nev1. I am not familiar with your background on Wikipedia, but I appreciate your dedication to article quality. Having been active on Wikipedia for six years, I have seen the rise, and in my opinion decay, of the "GA" label. It started out as a useful, unbureaucratic way of labelling articles as "good" for people who had the expertise to recognize they were good. This made it something much more ad hoc and less weighed down with formal details than FAC, and it was useful to have two complementary ways of labelling article quality, one on a project-wide formal scale, one among knowledgeable editors active in a given topic. Then the wikibureaucrats moved in and GA became just a clone of FA status, completely useless in my book. The two procedures could just be merged and FAC could award "A" and "B" grades, for example.

There are many experts active on Wikipedia, but they just won't care about this grading system, because it is too broken. I speak for myself and also for others, I am an expert in some (but by no means all) topics I edit. I recognize other experts when I see them. These people are here for the content, they recognize each other, and they are perfectly capable of producing excellent content. But as a rule they are going to be extremely unimpressed by and uninterested in the GA process, because they are here to produce content, not to be made to jump through formal hoops like first-graders. The GA people more often than not are indeed amateurs, trying to "review" articles that have been written by actual experts in the respective fields. There needs to be more recognition of this situation on the GA side. --dab (𒁳) 07:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Odin Brotherhood

Sir, since you are clearly knowledgeable about paganism, and enjoy administrative privileges, may I ask for your assistance? Someone named [Enric Naval] who has never contributed any information to any pagan article is obsessive about deleting all information about an important Odinist group from the Germanic neopaganism. He bases his decision on the deletion of a bad article on the group. The deletion was made in 2005.

If one goggles Odinism [14], the Odin Brotherhood is found at or near the top. If one goes to amazon.com and types Odinism, the Odin Brotherhood is found. [15]

The group has several web sites, at[16], and [17], a Facebook page [18], a discussion forum with four hundred members ( he has blacklisted the Odin Brotherhood forum), a Portuguese-language forum and blog [19] in Brazil, a Spanish –language version in Mexico. Frankly, no entry on Odinism is complete without it. In Dr. Gordon Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions, the standard book on the subject, his article on the Odin Brotherhood says that the group is a non-racial Odinist group with approximately 1,000 members around the world. [20]

Could you return the brief entries on the Germanic religion page? If I replace them, wiki-bully will use his power to delete whatever I do. (That is the reason that I post this anonymously.)

Thank you, kind person, for your help!

--98.115.232.48 (talk) 07:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

ok, I understand you just want to mention the group within the Germanic neopaganism or perhaps the Asatru in the United States article? Because if you want to recreate the deleted article you will need to take it to WP:DRV. Please read the comments made at the time of deletion, especially

I must respectfully disagree with HroptR, Dieter, and any other folk who wish to redirect the article in question to any Germanic neopaganism article here at Wikipedia, as that would lend a false credibility to Dr. Mirabello's book which it does not deserve. I base that judgement on having read the book itself, my education in relevant subjects, and finally on the rules governing Wikipedia articles. Odinism is, to my POV, a valid variant of Germanic neopaganism in our time, and to grant The Odin Brotherhood the status of being a valid academic reference, or even a commonly used spiritual source text for that religion would be quite inaccurate.

The problem is that the OB bases itself on a book by one Mark Mirabello, whose article has also been deleted, with the title The Odin Brotherhood. This is the Germanic-neopaganism equivalent of Wicca, involving claims of a pre-Christian religion driven underground and surviving in secret until today. These claims have clearly no merit, but we could treat Mirabello's books as notable fiction or pseudohistory if they were notable. My view is that we have articles about even less notable books, but even so I can see Mirabello's book isn't particularly notable even within neopaganism. If you have evidence to the contrary, it would be a case for deletion review. Otherwise, I can at best see a brief one-line mention here, to the effect that "Mirabello (1992) claimed to have had contacts with a secret society which preserves a medieval tradition of Odinism" (or similar), the reference for this could be Hardman and Harvey (1995). Such an addition wouldn't violate any rules of Wikipedia. Just keep it concise. --dab (𒁳) 07:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

here is my suggestion. --dab (𒁳) 19:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Your edits, because they are more conservatively phrased, are an improvement.

--98.115.232.48 (talk) 06:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Celts

Your reverts are not helpful. The article is in a poor state, and I note that you have been involved with the article for some years, and are the major contributor. This suggests that perhaps you should allow others to work on it for a while to see if they can improve it. It would be good if you could join in discussions and give your views, and even better if you were able to engage with the collaborative nature of Wikipedia and build on other people's contributions. But if you prefer to revert, then your efforts are not appreciated, and it would be better for the article and the readers who come to the article if you took a break from the article. Let it evolve without you for a while. It would be less stressful for everyone concerned, and it would genuinely give people a proper chance of making progress on a stuck article. If, after letting others work on it, you come back in three months time and you find that the article hasn't become a Good Article, then you can discuss restoring the article to your prefered version - until then please allow the collaborative and cooperative nature of Wikipedia editorship show what it is capable of. SilkTork *^YES! 22:04, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I will be happy to watch you improve it. So far, your attempts do not look very promising. You don't even manage to explain what you think is wrong with it. Rest assured that I will welcome real improvements, just as I will keep reverting deterioration. I am waiting for you to show what you are capable of. Please make an effort though. --dab (𒁳) 23:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Re:Gujjar

Hi fellow editor. I need you assistance on this article, with a particularly inflexible editor. Thanks --Sikh-History 12:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Link to Patheos in Neopaganism section

Hi, I added a link to the Patheos Pagan Portal & Blog in the Neopaganism external links page and you removed it. I realize you deleted several other links as well, and understand the need to maintain order in that section. However, I would like to ask that you reconsider the removal of the Patheos link. Patheos is a new entrant to online interfaith discussion arena, and has been compared (favorably) by major media outlets to Beliefnet (to which a link on that page exists). I am not affiliated with Patheos, but, I like how they have treated Paganism and believe others who follow Paganism would agree and thus feel it is extremely appropriate to appear in this page's external links section. I suspect that you deleted this link along with the others categorically, without having closely reviewed it, and I can understand that since I added the link as an anonymous user. But, again, I would implore you to take a closer look, and reconsider. If nothing else, please at least visit the Patheos Pagan portal, examine the content for yourself, before categorically dismissing it. Thanks for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samangean (talk • contribs) 16:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Please come to Talk:Neopaganism and we can discuss this, with the understanding of the WP:EL guidelines. These things aren't set in stone, and while patheos.com doesn't yet have a Wikipedia entry, it is certainly a valid candidate for EL. --dab (𒁳) 11:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Saffron terror

can you please have a look at the edit war going on at Saffron terror. I believe a user is acting against the consensus he himself agreed. I can't further undo his edits because i have already done 3 RVs in the previous 24 hours. Thanks .Arjun^codename024 18:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Help with celtic reconstructionist paganism

Hi dab. I'm a big fan and have always felt your editorial decisions are well balanced and accurate. Unfortunately I've got myself involved in a mud-slinging competition with user:pigman over at celtic reconstructionist paganism (I'm accusing him of overstepping WP:COI lack of WP:NPOV, WP:OWN and ignoring results of GA reviews and RFCs in favour of adhering to the views of a handful of SPAs who follow his promotional agenda. He's accusing me of being a troll, hounding and ignoring consensus). Personally I'm not all that interested in playing politics. What I'm really looking for is your guidance on the article itself, is it using primary sources appropriately (I feel it over-relies on them, and often has synthesis issues using them)? is it written in the appropriate tone (personally I feel it's too essay like) are there NPOV, GNG issues? etc. Thank you. Davémon (talk) 09:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

In my view the "CR" article was always a bit dodgy, as it was essentially written by proponents, based on primary sources. I got involved in this to some extent, and the CR people were really defensive about their article, but as they were generally sane, reasonable and objective, I decided it wasn't worth the bother trying to impose the letter of policy. User Pigman in particular is indeed in danger of brushing COI, OWN and so on, and you can of course try to throw the book at him and will have policy on your side, but the question is whether this is going to be worth all the bother and bad blood for the improvement in objectivity or neutrality.

Since "CR" is mostly an internet phenomenon, it is very difficult to find anything reliable on it at all. Left to my own devices I would probably decide it was a merge candidate. I have a good familiarity with much of neopaganism, and let's face it, most of the "surge" since the 1990s is simply internet-paganism. Searching the internet gives you an inflated picture of the size and extent of neopaganism because most of it only ever takes place on the internet. I have so far not been convinced that "CR" has much substance beyond online fora and personal websites. But I also don't want to be a jerk over this and decided to stand aside while people compile the article. --dab (𒁳) 13:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Sigh, when I say that CR is one of the least of Wikipedia's worries, I think of things like what SilkTork (talk · contribs) is up to at the Celts article, apparently in "best faith", chipping away at years of many competent editors' efforts with a beatific smile, but obviously innocent of any clue whatsoever, or even an idea that it would be helpful to get a clue before tearing down an article with a seven years' history. I thought I was dealing with an ill-advised but well-meaning newcomer to Wikipedia, but it turns out this editor has had admin privileges since 2008. Things like this make me want to despair of the project sometimes. But of course such glitches are statistically rare, Wikipedia is a big boat and will not capsize because of such incidents. --dab (𒁳) 14:29, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I think what I am trying to say is,

just because "anyone can edit" you are excused from getting a clue first.

thank you. --dab (𒁳) 14:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

No, thank you! Firstly, for putting all of this into perspective, which I fear I have lost over the past 6 month or so. I really started out with the well-intentioned aim of making the article better (and by better I mean more neutral, more secondary sources, less original research, less weasel words etc. etc.), but found that any attempt at this was reverted at nearly every step and all manner of personal attacks were made to disuade my improving the article. So, after directly asking pigman about his involvement, and recognising the conflict of interest, I think it seriously annoyed me that two admins could keep an maintain a soapbox article like that, it seems like such an abuse of everything that is great about wikipedia. Sigh. Secondly, thanks for responding on the article talk-page and clearly restating the problems, I hope the keepers of the page get over their issues and actually improve the article, it will make CR a lot more credible in the long run, never mind. Davémon (talk) 20:12, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Celts

Sadly, it turns out you do not have even a basic grasp of the issues involved, let alone the topic itself. I am all for WP:BOLD, but you have been bold, and you have been reverted and told to please do your homework. I am not the main author of the Celts article. But I know enough about the topic to realize when the article defaced by well-meaning but clueless edits. The article has had its present scope and basic structure since six years or more[21]. If you want to change it, you will not only need excellent reasons but also an excellent and stable consensus to go ahead. You don't just shift around major articles on major topics on a whim. To begin with, present excellent tertiary sources to support your proposal of how to arrange articles.

I know you do not propose to act as an administrator at the article, and neither do I, but I am nevertheless dismayed to see ill-advised and erratic editing of this type by a Wikipedian with admin privileges. But I can only assume that you have a history of constructive contributions and that with some patience we will be able to communicate in good faith. The first step towards this goal will be your stopping to edit-war away from the consensus version. I will be happy to see improvements to the article, with the understanding that they will be based on academic references and up to academic standards. Seeing you add random nonsense to the article, such as a description of the Celts as "early Indo-European" does not really raise my hopes that you are capable of such contributions, but I will be happy to be proven wrong in this. --dab (𒁳) 13:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

You are shown as the main person responsible for the article at it stands. I'm pleased that you have an interest in the topic, and that you wish to be involved in making this topic accesible to the general public. I think you would have a valuable role in taking part in discussions on how to move the article forward. But reverting an experienced editor is not helpful - especially when your reverts do not take into account all of the work that has been done - your tendency is to press the revert button without considering what has been done and why. Improvements to an article can take time, and progress needs to be discussed rather than reverted. By reverting you are preventing the article from moving forward, and are suppressing the involvement of others. Reverting is an aggressive, unhelpful action. Your comunications are terse, and your edit summaries are provocative: "vandalism?". If you are not to allow an experienced editor who has a succesful track record in taking articles to Good Article and featured Article status to edit the article, then I feel we need to look at the advice contained in Wikipedia:Ownership of articles.

I've had a look at an early version of the article - [22], and that is presented in a manner that is easier for the general reader to understand. Indeed, there are a few features in that version that I introduced and you have reverted. The origins of the Celts is the first section, and the section on terminology is further down. Also, that the Celts were/are part of the Indo-European language family is presented very early on.

I accept that not all my edits are going to work. I also accept that I am not an academic expert on the topic. However, I am a professional writer - and have been a professional editor; I have considerable experience of researching a topic and presenting the material in a readable manner; I have taken a good number of articles to GA; and I am willing to get involved in improving this article. What is needed is a little time to work on the article without you reverting. I would ask that you either work with me, and discuss your concerns without reverting, or stand back and allow the article to develop without your attention for a while. There is a fair amount of work to do - though I feel confident that I can take it to Good Article status in three months if you either cooperate or at least stop reverting. SilkTork *^YES! 18:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

sir, if you want to help turn the article into something "readable", be my guest. What you have been doing so far is not copyediting, you have made changes to the content, and in a topic you clearly have no knowledge of. This is a serious topic, written from an academic perspective. People invoking the "general reader" usually mean to say they assume their readers are illeterate morons, or perhaps children. Please consider the simple: project for this.

If in spite of the fact that neither your interests nor your background knowledge align with the article topic you insist in "helping", you are indeed welcome to do this, but you will need to accept that you are going to collaborate with such editors as are actually familiar with the topic and capable of assessing the scholarly literature. The Celts article is a topic of scholarly historiography, archaeology and historical linguistics. If you are interested in discussing "Celtic" in popular culture, please consider creating Celts in popular culture.

You have so far not bothered to point your finger to actual stylistic sins that make the article "unreadable" in your opinion. I am indeed open to hear your opinion on this, as long as you understand that "I am a professional writer" isn't sufficient to establish that you have a point. You need to sit down and explain the problem itself.

I am not interested in your "FA" or "GA" track record. What counts are your edits to this article, and they have been spectacularly abysmal. That you may have written (or "helped" writing) FAs in completely unrelated topics doesn't say anything about the quality of your contributions to this topic. You would do well to remember, sir, that the main purpose of an article is its content. If you are going to degrade or sabotage the article content, you can "copyedit" as professionally as you like, the article will still be worse off than before.

--dab (𒁳) 08:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Sluzzelin -- merci villmal. Ich habe wohl ein Lehrergen, angesichts dumpfer Renitenz werde ich erst richtig wach. --dab (𒁳) 09:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Urartu

The article has a long history as a magnet for nationalist sock armies. The solution would be to slap the trolls, not to lock down their edits. There have been 3RR violations. Generally, our approach to this is blocking the offending accounts to buy the article some peace, not locking the article, if possible even in the revision favoured by the offending editor. Full protection is a last resort measure when things are really getting out of hand between multiple editors. It is not the preferred method to deal with 3rr violations. --dab (𒁳) 09:33, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

My main intention on protection was to de-escalate the matter. I fully intend to issue sanctions at WP:AE once I have given people a hearing. Stifle (talk) 09:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. May I suggest you begin by figuring out who was in 3RRvio. May I also suggest that you restore the pre-edit-war version of the article before locking (status quo ante)? Because you have frozen it in a random revision in mid-edit-war. --dab (𒁳) 10:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll certainly look into that. I will be intending to issue sanctions in terms of placing users on a limit of one revert per article per three days, and requiring an explanation of the revert in at least 50 words in English to be posted to the talk page within 30 minutes of the revert.

As for reverting the page myself, please see the image attached. Stifle (talk) 10:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I assumed I could skip the part about "I know about the 'wrong version'" but apparently not. Look, in cases of teenage nationalist trolling, there is such a thing as a wrong version. Detached administrative agnosticism isn't helpful in such cases. I am also not asking you to make a call to pick one of the warring parties' versions, I am simply asking you to restore the stable version of an article on a serious scholarly topic before a bunch of kids went to town with it. --dab (𒁳) 10:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what is right, wrong, or indifferent about the topic, and indeed I couldn't care less about it. However, assuming that you would consider your latest edit to the page to be acceptable, this diff shows that the only differences between your last edit and the protected version are the removal of two sentences and some changes to the Armenian nationalism section, which I am not in a position to assess. As such, either you can change it yourself (which I will not object to) or request someone else to do it, by way of editprotected or other. Stifle (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I can appreciate that it is difficult to understand edit-wars in articles you couldn't care less about. This is a basic problem with the "uninvolved admin" paradigm. If you know nothing about the issue, you will be unable to make a call, and if you do have background knowledge and venture to make a call, you will be open to knee-jerk accusations of "involvement".

I have myself lost track which of the Armenian accounts is doing what and I admit there is no clear "status quo ante" here, so fine, if it's going to be locked, it can as well stay locked as it is. What I am trying to impress on you is not the "wrong version", but the long-term aspect of this. This article has been under siege by a sock-cloud literally for years. Locking it for a couple of days is doing nothing as long as the offending accounts aren't penalized. But if you mean to stay on the case and have only locked it to buy yourself some time to sort it out, by all means carry on the good work :) --dab (𒁳) 10:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I am certainly staying on the case; I just want to be sure that I don't sanction anyone prematurely or without giving them the chance to defend themselves, and that the edit war isn't escalated while I try to get to the bottom of it.. Stifle (talk) 10:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Now unprotected, and Nakh placed on 1RR. I am not altogether confident that this will not flare up again soon, and perhaps I am showing an overabundance of good faith, but I would rather not chase off any redeemable editors. Stifle (talk) 15:18, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I know, it's a mess. It will flare up again. The problem is that most editors involved in this do not even care about the article subject. They are here for Armenian patriotism, not for a scholarly discussion of an Iron Age culture. Which means that 95% or more of edits and discussions concern an aspect that isn't even on topic. What we need to do is achieve an editing environment that is benign for people trying to work on the topic, and unforgiving for those trying to derail the article with the Armenian nonsense. Thanks for your efforts in any case. I do hope you will keep watching the article. --dab (𒁳) 18:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Mitanni

I restored to a more stable version (Indo-European origin), favored by you and User:Paul Barlow. See Talk:Mitanni, regarding the linguistic terms/sources I provided and explained as best as I could. Its not my responsibility if someone doesnt understand it. In Graeco-Aryan, I also clarified what Armeno-Aryan is referring to, exclusion of Greek, and subgroup with Armenian and Indo-Iranian. I added additional sources of the family tree [23] which has the same Armeno-Aryan subgroup (also type in "Indo-European" in google every search has that tree), when I saw your discussions in your contribs regarding the IE tree etc etc. Forsts23 (talk) 18:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

THanks, but the superstrate was not just generic Indo-European, or even Indo-Iranian, it was Indo-Aryan. The relevant article is Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni. The Armeno-Aryan thing has nothing to do with this. If Armeno-Aryan existed, that was a thousand years before the rise of Mitanni. Mitanni is in turn a thousand years before the development of Proto-Armenian, so it is safe to say that Mitanni has nothing whatsoever to do with either Armeno-Aryan or with Armenian.

Seriously, the Armenian nonsense is getting on my nerves now. I guess summer holidays have started? I understand most of these Armenian trolls are expat tech studends in California or the like and we seem to get a rise in puerile nationalist trolling at the beginning of summer. --dab (𒁳) 18:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

There are certain names of the Mitanni kings which are not Indo-Aryan. If you notice the kings names like Arta-tama (Rta- prefix change in Indo-Aryan, Sanskrit etc), and Artashumara. These are not Indo-Aryan. If you read in Talk:Mitanni, I explained the sources/scholars/linguists point out the Mitanni names are Armeno-Aryan, the term we see in the Indo-European tree [24] with exclusion of Greek, as I saw in your discussions that you mentioned also, and realized. Forsts23 (talk) 18:45, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

No, sorry, this doesn't make sense. A jpeg of a tree is not a "source", and apparently you do not understand what it is depicting in the first place. --dab (𒁳) 19:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This is your direct quote ->

"...actually, no, you are right, this reference uses "Armeno-Aryan" for an actual grouping "Armenian + Indo-Aryan + Iranian" (to the exclusion of Greek), even tough this is not graphically represented in the diagram. Sorry, I misinterpreted your "between", but I see not you meant "intermediate", which is perfectly correct. --dab (𒁳) 10:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC) " [25]

<- from your contribs you discussed with User:Paul Barlow. You are correct, its Armeno-Aryan with exclusion of Greek, as the Handbook of Formal Languages[26] mentions, same with the Indo-European tree[27]. I suggest you go do your research on these links I provided, they are the same Indo-European tree shown with the same branches. Forsts23 (talk) 19:31, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Why do you keep posting here? I realize this is what it means. It has still nothing to do with your edits at Mitanni. Try to edit a topic you understand. Don't tell the grown-ups to do their "research" when by "research" you apparently mean "look at this jpeg I googled". --dab (𒁳) 12:04, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

A note

Hello Dbachmann,

Regardless all the contributions you are currently making, I'd like to ask you to refrain from attacks on national and ethnic bases: "I understand most of these Armenian trolls are expat tech studends in California or the like and we seem to get a rise in puerile nationalist trolling at the beginning of summer". Whatever prejudice you might have on ethnic backgrounds you should probably leave them behind the doors of Wikipedia.

You do not need to repeat your advice-direction about reporting to ANI because it can always be done. But I don't see a good, cooperating community that goes to "ANIs" all the time so I decided to address your tolerance towards ethnic and racial groups as well as good faith once more. Thanks, Aregakn (talk) 21:07, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm loving the "probably". Itsmejudith (talk) 21:12, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It may have escaped your attention, but the attack or value judgement, such as it is, is contained in the "troll" part, not the "Armenian" part. But you would probably need to remove your head from where it is currently tucked away to appreciate this. --dab (𒁳) 12:02, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

• "The problem is that most editors involved in this do not even care about the article subject."
• "They are here for Armenian patriotism, not for a scholarly discussion of an Iron Age culture."
• "What we need to do is achieve an editing environment that .... unforgiving for those trying to derail the article with the Armenian nonsense"
• "I understand most of these Armenian trolls are expat tech studends in California or the like and we seem to get a rise in puerile nationalist trolling at the beginning of summer"
• "..that was lost in your stupid edit war"
• "..As for the tedious "patriotism" issue, you are the ones that won't let that die, not me"

Do you need more to see your personal attacks on editors and 0 good faith ever seen from you?

You had said "..these Armenian trolls" The abuse is "trolls" yes, but the adjective is a nationality. So I insist that you absolutely refrain from such comments!

Re your last abusive comment towards me here; it'll be the last I endure. Aregakn (talk) 12:34, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Aregakn, as you can see I have a busy talkpage, so please stop spamming it by quoting myself back at me. Our Mitanni/Urartu articles are trolled by immature Armenian partiots, yes. This is hardly novel, and you would be aware of the fact if you had read the Ararat arev link I gave you. Of course these articles aren't trolled by Dravidian, Vietnamese or Inuit nationalist trolls, doh, it is in the nature of nationalist trolls that they only ever edit articles pertinent to their national myths. Our articles about the Indus Valley Civilisation, for example, have nevecr been touched by Armenian nationalist trolls, even though any number of mature Armenian editors may have edited them, I wouldn't know. THe IVC articles are troubled by Hindu nationalist trolls, not Armenian ones, doh.

You will note that I am supremely uninterested if you are Hindu, Bantu, Inuit or Jew, just as long as you stick to building an encyclopedia as opposed to keeping people from building an encyclopedia because you have issues about your nationality. --dab (𒁳) 12:40, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Wadi el-Hol pictures etc.

Hey, I was hoping you could briefly answer a question to the best of your ability.

If everything goes according to plan, I am going to Wadi el-Hol this upcoming Tuesday, and I will be back Wednesday morning (local time in Egypt). Again, assuming everything goes according to plan I will have several dozen pictures of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions and a half dozen 'primary source' tracings on transparency papers. I will need at least most of these for the paper I am working on.

Here's the question: Is anything I release under an open license online incompatible with academic publication and vice versa? In other words, to release some pictures online, would they then be prevented from publication at least legally?

Thanks, Michael 41.196.220.112 (talk) 17:13, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

apologies, i forgot to login. Michael Sheflin (talk) 17:14, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Not at all -- if you release something under the GFDL, you retain copyright and you are free to release it elsewhere under different conditions. Of course releasing it under GFDL will mean that other people will be able to use the images in their publications without consulting you. But they will be obliged to make explicit that they are using GFDL images while you can re-release the images under any licence you like. IANAL, so it will be best for you to consult the GFDL directly, but I am confident this is the way things are. If you are unsure, I suggest you could release an image under the GFDL in a scaled-down resolution, sufficient for online use, but retain the full resolution image suitable for print publication. --dab (𒁳) 10:01, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

ok great. i'll be back wednesday morning and i'll try to upload some then. i'm having internet problems. cheers. Michael Sheflin (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't want to just disappear, but I also don't want to further pollute your talk page. Basically, Darnell threatened to call the police if I approached the site. I am probably going to eventually put in a request to the (Egyptian) Supreme Council of Antiquities. Until then... Michael Sheflin (talk) 05:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Categorization

(moved from my talk page)

Re this, I share your impression that the categorization is a mess. But I do not think you have improved the situation. Category:Sanskrit literature and Category:Sanskrit texts should perhaps be merged. As long as they aren't "texts" should clearly be a subcategory of "literature", not vice versa. --dab (𒁳) 16:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the reasoning… As I understand it, "texts" includes anything that's in Sanskrit, while "literature" is specifically plays, poetry, works of fiction, etc. "Texts" not classified as "literature" would include the Vedas/Upanishads, grammatical and mathematical texts with no literary merit, etc. Why do you think texts should be a subcategory of literature? What counts as literature but not text? Shreevatsa (talk) 16:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

PS: I was following the usual idea of kavya, by which they are "totally different" — the Vedas etc. are "never performed as literature, [..] never read as literature [..], never selected for inclusion in literary anthologies" — but ok, some modern scholars, and the Sanskrit literature article, do consider the Vedas as literature too (they may be objectively literature, but aren't within the literary culture). Anyway, still, grammar, astronomy, and mathematics are texts but not literature, IMHO. Maybe we can simply rename "Category:Sanskrit literature" (with scope as it stands now), or add a hatnote? Shreevatsa (talk) 16:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

(More): I took a look at other languages, and am mystified. Category:French-language literature includes Category:Swiss literature (which is not all in French!), and also includes (through Category:French literature and Category:French books) stuff like Category:French dictionaries and Category:French encyclopedias, which surely would never win a Nobel Prize in literature? Similarly with Category:Italian literature, etc. This is obviously some strange usage of the word literature that I wasn't previously aware of. Maybe you can throw a light? Chinese does have a Category:Chinese literary works ("Works that fall within the field of Chinese literature") within Category:Chinese literature, so presumably the latter includes works that not literature? Shreevatsa (talk) 09:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

well, no, discussing "what is a text" we are in "lit crit" territory of course, which makes my hair stand on end, but the idea is that the text is the content of the .txt file while the "literature" is the huge social, intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic sphere the text taps into. In this sense, texts are merely a surface projection of Literature.

I think this is about a popular vs. a philosophical use of the term "literature". Of course in the context of Sanskrit, we do not mean "literature" as in "what you can buy in a book shop", we mean "literature" as in, the entire body of texts that is associated with a particular culture. Perhaps OED can shed light on this: literature:

2. Literary work or production; the activity or profession of a man of letters; the realm of letters.

3. a. Literary productions as a whole; the body of writings produced in a particular country or period, or in the world in general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to writing which has claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect.

3 b. The body of books and writings that treat of a particular subject. [viz. any subject, including mathematics, cooking or farriery]

I think what you mean is the restricted meaning of 3a., "now also in a more restricted sense". This is, I would suggest, rather obviously not the scope of an "X literature" category. What our "literature" categories should aim for is meaning 2., "the realm of letters", or at least "the body of writings produced in a particular country or period" (except in the case of Sanskrit we will also have to bother with the additional complication of the oxymoron of "oral literature").

For our purposes, I suggest this should mean that "texts" categories should include articles on specific texts (works) exclusively, while "literature" categories will also include categories of authors, plus articles on literary criticism, literary critics, publishers, book fairs, secondary literature on literature, in short the entire academic discipline of the study of literature. --dab (𒁳) 09:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm ok, I see what you mean. (The confusion isn't solely mine of course; "literature" is used rather often in the restricted sense, as in the even entries at wikt:literature.) What you suggest is definitely more in line with Wikipedia's existing category structure and needs, though. I'd still like to have the plays, poetry and fiction in a separate category, but it's not so important right now. With hindsight, apologies for messing up the situation further :-)

(Aside: I'm not sure "oral literature" is such an oxymoron since I'm not sure why the act of writing is over-emphasised. I'd think any composition made of words and letters can be considered literature or text even if not explicitly written down... but nevermind.) Shreevatsa (talk) 10:13, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Illyrians

It's starting again: [28] [29]. I would rv myself, but it would likely start a shitstorm. Athenean (talk) 20:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

And again, right as I predicted: [30] [31] [32]. Athenean (talk) 06:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Dab, just read the talk page Talk:Illyrians#Talk_subpage.3F. Cheers! --_Sulmues ^{Let's talk} 12:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Folkmoot merger

Interesting that no one commented on this for more than a year. And when I did, someone strongly opposed a merger, even though it's about as much of a stub as it is possible to be. Not even any sources, although I started to use the entire text in my own article about Folkmoot USA.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Cyrus cylinder

It's nearly two years now since you posted an appeal to the fringe theories noticeboard concerning problems with the Cyrus cylinder article. You might be interested to know that I've done a lot more work on the article since then and have nominated it for featured article status - see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cyrus Cylinder/archive1. Any comments would be most welcome. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:23, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I stand corrected :)

Re: [33] :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 13:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Scythian religion

Hi, dab. I just added this to the mainspace. Seeing as you started the article, I thought you'd appreciate the notice. I kept all of your original information, but had trouble digging up sources (not that I'm picky about them; I don't think there's anything controversial there). More work remains to be done, obviously (for example, I haven't touched the issue of cannabis yet, which clearly needs to be mentioned; also, I've probably quoted far too much). I was curious, however, as to whether a series of redirects is in order: someone could conceivably search for one of the names of the Scythian gods or perhaps Enarei, and would draw a blank at present. Or is it more proper to have a series of stubs in this case? (There is some etymological chatter regarding the pedigree of the individual god-names, which would be a tad over-kill in this article IMO but could conceivably fit in respective stubs. For example, see this, this, and this on Tabiti, or this, this on Argimpasa.) Any assistance would be much appreciated. Cheers, --Aryaman (talk) 18:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this! I'll try to get back to it at some point. --dab (𒁳) 11:15, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Iranian peoples for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 01:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Astrology and Computers vs. Horoscope Software

Dab, I know that you are a good guy. Would you please consider what I wrote at the end of the talk page for Astrology and Computers, which you changed to Horoscope Software? John Halloran (talk) 02:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

It's my suggestion. I follow the WP:BRD cycle, this was B, if you go for R, I will try D :) --dab (𒁳) 08:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Belatedly seeing this BRD note now. I attempted the B move but it gets the error "a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid". Is it that a move can only go to a new page, it can't revert because the old name is persisted somewhere? I'll request help as indicated on that page. Bn (talk) 03:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Dab, I just want you to know that I have great respect for the work that you do. I added a probably off-topic section to the Astrology Software talk page that was meant as a compliment for you, about editors who have A Love for Knowledge vs. A Love for Rules. John Halloran (talk) 20:38, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

John Halloran's concern that the title "Astrological software" invites more spam touting particular software products seems to me to be well taken. I concur with him that we should move the article back to "Astrology and Computers". Your only comment on this change in the history of the article is:

I do not think that "Astrology and Computers" is a valid article title. This page has the single purpose of giving an overview of astrology software, past and present. --dab (??) 08:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC) (?Requested Discussion of Restored and Improved Content)

Why is it not a valid title? Is the objection that it implies special-purpose hardware for astrology? Seems a stretch to me, but if that's the case, maybe "Astrology and computer software"?

I'm ignorant of process. What does it take to move an article? Bn (talk) 01:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Duh. I found WP:Move#How_to_move_a_page. But I don't want to do it without understanding your reasons and finding consensus. Seeing how busy your talk page is, I won't urge you back into the difficulty with user Verbal. Sooner or later the repeated issues on many pages will rise to appropriate notice, and he does do good work despite them. Bn (talk) 01:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Astrology software

Please restore the well founded and justified by policy tags. I find your WP:BATTLE mentality and failure to assume good faith is harming any improvement to the article. Please show good faith and self revert. Verbal chat 14:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The WP:BATTLE attitude is all yours. This is an article where peaceful cleanup without much friction or opposition from the original authors could just happen smoothly if you didn't feel it necessary to throw your weight around for no good reason. Please read my comments and try to appreciate my point.

As an example, try to follow what happened with the "accuracy" claim. I misread 'hundreds or thousands' as 'hundreds of thousands' and rambled about how this was a REDFLAG. John calmly pointed out my mistake. You went ahead and removed the statement under "redflag" anyway. If this had just been between John and me, the mistake could have been pinpointed in a spirit of collaboration, and the phrasing could have been tweaked to sound less like puffery, no problem at all. Most ink on the page spilled at the moment is just due to your unnecessary badass approach. --dab (𒁳) 14:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Your comments are unnecessarily inflammatory and accusatory and are wrong in fact. Please revert. You've really pissed me off upset me with your unfounded accusations and personal attacks, but I'm always prepared to take the moral high ground and will try not to rise to your bait. I really didn't expect this from you. Please strike your comments and refer the evidently justified tags. Verbal chat 14:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I apologise for saying pissed off above. Verbal chat 19:53, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind. It just doesn't go too well alongside the "moral high ground". Also, add back your precious tags if you must, I have made my point, twice, and making it a third time for the benefit of somebody who decided not to get it will just be a waste of time. --dab (𒁳) 21:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel offended by this, but as you know wikipedia has policies and guidelines that the article doesn't meet (or in the case of COI does meet) so requires tagging until they are addressed. Verbal chat 22:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not offended. I find it a little pathetic that you should try to lecture me on policy. Again, you did not read, or you refuse to react to, the point I made.

You are abusing Wikipedia's cleanup tags. When you find a passage you think is motivated by COI, you remove it. After the editor responsible for the passage reverts you, you are free to place the cleanup tag. In this case, you have removed the offending passage, and the editor responsible for it has been happy to accommodate you with constructive discussion on talk. In the face of an expert editor who shows impeccable behavior, you insist on slapping the article with COI tags. This is behaviour calculated to alienate expert editors, and in my book one of the gravest sins a Wikipedian can commit. Without expert editors, we are nothing. If an expert refuses to collaborate or to respect policy, we may occasionally need to discipline them. But expert editors who are willing to comply with our policies when challenged are our most valuable asset.

In a similar way, you are abusing Wikipedia's "notability" tag. If an article is unreferenced, we use {{unreferenced}}. If an article has arguably poor references, we use {{refimprove}}. If an article topic arguably falls short of WP:NOTE, we use {{notability}}. Note how we have three distinct tags for three distinct cases. Try to meditate on the reason for this for a moment. According to your (simplistic, pseudo-naive, antagonistic) line of argument, {{refimprove}} should actually transclude {{notability}} a fortiori, because as you put it, any article devoid of reliable sources cannot establish the topic's notability using reliable sources. Now try to appreciate why this is a less than intelligent or useful approach. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 07:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

While you ignore the facts about John's attitude towards me, despite my being polite and civil towards him - behaving impeccably, you might say - I find it hard to listen to your opinion. But I shall, and I'm afraid I disagree. There is a valid argument that this topic may fail NOTE, hence the tag should stay. The references need improving (the website refs are not RS at all), hence refimprove. COI can be removed once the content is sourced. Here you've accused me of abuse, being simplistic, pseudo-naive, pathetic and antagonistic. You also accuse me of calculated behaviour to alienate other editors. This is untrue, and a massive failure of good faith. What would you call John's attacks against me? These attacks by you are not appropriate behaviour and I ask you to stop them, and address the issues, rather than attacking the messenger, defending the behaviour of those who have attacked others (he has calmed down now), and responding to straw man arguments on the talk page. You have made some good edits which I support, but your conduct has been far less than stellar in this case. It was not my intent to lecture you, but to provide the justification for which you had asked. I'm sorry if I've offended you in some other way recently. Can we have a truce on this and actually move forward improving the article? Verbal chat 08:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

To show good faith and in an effort to resolve all this, I would not object to the COI tag being removed so long as the notability and refimprove tags remain. Verbal chat 08:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I was going to suggest leaving the COI tag in place as long as the notability tag is removed, but if you like we can also compromise the other way round. This is quickly turning into a competition for dominating the article between the two of us, and we need to cut this short more urgently than any other concern there may be :o)

I would maintain that John's COI is open to discussion, even if it is unnecessary to parade this at the top of the article: these tags are for the benefit of the readers, warning them that some content may be flawed. The "COI" warning tells you "some content in this article may have been written by an editor touting the subject". You are basically using the tag to tell the reader "there used to be a problem with this article in the past, and there is a guy on the talkpage who really gets my goat". This is not what this tag is intended for.

Otoh, it is my opinion that regardless of who John may or may not be, the article topic is of undisputed notability. If you want to argue that the topic of astrology software (as a class of applications, not any given individual application) fails WP:NOTE I would very much like to see some rudimentary argument in support of this, as I really completely fail to see what could give you this idea. By now we have good references establishing that this is a respectable class of commercial software with a history of more than 30 years. --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"Linguistics" page protection

re: [34] Just wondering, do you think the protection is still needed for this article? It's been over a year and perhaps Pending Changes might be a good option at this point? I ask because of recent editsemiprotected request on the talk page. -- œ^™ 00:36, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I would not object to unprotection. We can always re-protect if the troll returns. The move protection can easily remain in place as there is no conceivable reason for moving the page. --dab (𒁳) 10:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Nabataean

Ecxuse me but maybe you could help us to make sure that it's a Nabataen aside of Greek in this inscription? The picture was made near Petra. Thank you in advance. --Koryakov Yuri (talk) 17:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

sorry, I cannot answer this authoritatively off the top of my head. IANA Arabist, I would have to do some research. I'll let you know if I find out. --dab (𒁳) 10:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Problems with Physical Anthropology/Genetics section on Hittites page

Hey D,

Their was a study that came out by a researcher named A. Arnaiz-Villena concerning Anatolian DNA in relation to "Turks"(present day that is), Armenia, and Kurds. The study felt that most of these people are not genetically different and can be grouped into an ancient Mediterranean population genetic stratum that was likely present during the time of the Hittites. Elite dominace by invaders led to ethno-linguistic differentiation. However, according to mystery user "76.246.25.138" this was not the case and now a pointless edit war between he and myself has ensued. I have copied and pasted the exerts of the study in the discussion section that I have used in the article. He claims the study is biased and so am I for including "Turks" as they are purely "steppic" and not "Mediterraneans". The study fully addresses this potentially confusing issue yet the mystery user still feels the need to exacerbate the situation. Could you please take a look or have some other willing and able admin take a look into this? Thanks.

Geog1 (talk) 22:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks D. Swing around back to the discussion at Hittites page when you get a chance. Just want you to fully understand the situation.Geog1 (talk) 13:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

One more thing: I agree that the text should be brought over to Anatolian genetics but the study also talked about how the the Indo-Aryan/Iranian/whatever you want to call it invasion of the Medes/Mitanni was one of elite dominance. Hence no genetic evidence for they appearance in the region due to small numbers. Is there anyway we can salvage this? I also think the studied garbled the Sea People invasion date in relation to the Medes/Mitanni at some instances.Geog1 (talk) 16:12, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

"Medes/Mitanni"? There are about 800 years between the two, a bit much for a mere slash.

Look, your idea that it makes sense to disuss "genetic evidence" for any of this is WP:SYNTH to begin with. Any "genetics" section needs to be justified by the existence of genetics studies dedicated to the very article topic, not the mention in passing of some group in some random genetics paper. --dab (𒁳) 10:58, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Medes and Mitanni were mentioned in the study in relation to Indo-Aryan migration within the region. Plus the study garbled dates here and there. I don't believe that discussing things in talk counts of POV synth. Regardless I'm trying to keep bad info out as much as you. Again though admin intervention is usually needed.Geog1 (talk) 13:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Pariksit and Rta

Hi dab, these are essentially my first, admittedly humble, contributions to wikipedia of substance. I added a translation of an Atharva Veda excerpt referencing Pariksit translated by Michael Witzel (I only copied and pasted the translation to the page, all the stuff after that is someone elses stuff). here it is - Pariksit#6 And I did something similar for Rta(Rta#1), with my edit before the quote. Your feedback and time are much appreciated. --Gñāna (talk) 17:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I think your edits are fine, thank you. --dab (𒁳) 10:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Re etymologies with not just Latin characters in them

Hello there. If you have the time, check this and give me some advice. Eipnvn (talk) 11:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Eipnvn asked me a similar question and here is my answer. In addition, I support the current format as shown in the examples I provided, hence Greek trans. in brackets but not the meaning of the word. A Macedonian (talk) 12:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

there is no single prescribed format, I suppose, but I would do it like this:

The word paranoia derives from the Greek παράνοια paranoia "madness".

The word ''[[:wikt:paranoia|paranoia]]'' derives from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] {{lang|grc|παράνοια}} ''{{lang|grc-Latn|paranoia}}'' "[[Insanity|madness]]".

In this particular case, where the English word and the transliteration of the Greek is letter-for-letter identical, perhaps giving the transliteration is slightly redundant anyway. --dab (𒁳) 15:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Eipnvn (talk) 07:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

95.133

Hi Dbachmann, FYI, concerning our meeting earlier today at 95.133.1.156 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), see also

95.133.243.223 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Same ISP, same content, same articles, almost same MO. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 18:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Heads up

I intend a fairly radical re-organisation of entries at Gypsy (disambiguation) when I get a little time. Since you have taken a particular interest in this article lately, I just wanted to give you a courtesy notice. I don't anticipate any of my changes will be particularly controversial, but don't want to 'step on toes'. I'll flag it at the TP before getting started. Best. RashersTierney (talk) 10:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

no problem, thanks. --dab (𒁳) 10:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Good work at above. You did a more comprehensive job than I was contemplating. RashersTierney (talk) 15:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Rta

Hi, dab. After I noticed the wiktionary template on Rta, I set out to see if the article could be saved. Since yesterday, I've fleshed out a temporary lead and the etymology section. Though much more remains to be done, I think there's enough material out there to warrant an article - maybe even a good one - and I hope you would agree. The problem is, I'm a bit stuck regarding how to move ahead in regards to encyclopedicity on this, and that's something I know you excel in. I feel myself swerving off into "essay" mode, and I'd appreciate any pointers you could give on a sensible article outline/structure. Cheers, --Aryaman (talk) 12:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S.: Some online sources which may be of use include: Ara (2008:115-119), Holdrege (2004:215-216), Brown (1972:61-63).--Aryaman (talk) 12:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no doubt that there could ultimately be a good Rta article in its own right. My suggestion is just to merge with Asha as long as we do not have material for such an article. If my tag inspires you to write the Rta article, this would of course be the best of all possible outcomes. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 14:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. Since my last message, I've written three more sections, and it seems the article is beginning to take shape. If you have the time, drop by and see what you think of it so far. The next move is to write up something on the connection between Rta and Dharma on the one hand and Rta and Sat/Satya on the other. And yes, the tag was inspiring. :) Thanks again, --Aryaman (talk) 15:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

James the Brother of Jesus (book)

Hello. Since you created the article, I thought it would be appropriate to have your input on the proposed retitling as found on the talk page. Also, if you want to starting dredging through the Ebionite controversy again, once again ongoing, I think everyone would welcome your input. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Oracle

Hello, just thought I'd leave a note to let you know I left some comments at Talk:Oracle about the splits you proposed for Oracle. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. - France3470 (talk) 07:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Germanic Europe

Sorry dab, but this edit really wasn't great, and left the article in a significantly worse state. There was a huge amount of unsourced, dubious and debateable material in the 9k you added.

On the larger scale it exacerbated the confused scope of the article by again making it a mix of linguistic, historical and political definitions with no clear rationale explained to the reader. But in detail it was even worse: Arubans may have Dutch passports, but the island is not in Europe by any definition. Alsace is listed in the language section, then has "all" of its inhabitants counted as "germanic minority" (hilariously inaccurate, and a sudden jump to the ethnic from the linguistic), gives a figure of one million which is certainly a massive (and unsourced) overestimate of the number of Alsatian speakers, and to top it all - the link Alsatian was piped to the article Germans as if the two are interchangeable (see South Tyrolians going to Austrians too). Germany appears in the list of countries with non-Germanic minorities, but the Netherlands does not - this does not make sense under any linguistic or ethnic definition I can think of - and the United Kingdom is just omitted (probably for the best, as trying to separate out the Germanic from the Celtic influence will be complicated case of them all). Even describing Belgium as unequivocally Germanic in the political section you added is hardly uncontroversial, and Finland pretty much unsupportable.

It's one thing to use sources with different definitions of Germanic Europe, but when you add unsourced material it's impossible to even tell what definition was being used. You even removed an unreferenced section tag from the religion section, without adding any references.

If you really, really want this "information" (which confuses and misleads more than it "informs") to go in the article, feel free to start a discussion on the talk page first to justify its inclusion but more importantly, you need to do the hard work of copy-editing, correcting and sourcing it first. Best, Knepflerle (talk) 18:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I have not so much "added" this as restored it. I appreciate some of the points you raise, but they can just be fixed, no reason for a blanket revert.

Yes, I will try to do the "hard work" necessary. You are free to either tag or blank the offending parts.

I think there is a misconception on your part, you seem to assume that "Germanic Europe", Slavic Europe and Latin Europe somehow have well-defined boundaries. These terms just describe cultural or ethno-linguistic spheres, and these of course overlap. The Alsace is clearly within both the Latin and the Germanic sphere. I fail to see a problem with that. --dab (𒁳) 18:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Restoring is as good as adding, especially for material that was poor quality in the first place - the person (re-)adding material still needs to provide sources per WP:V. You can't put that volume of dubious material in an article and expect everyone else to sort out the mess with no stronger rationale than "it was there before". Put it this way - a blanket revert which doesn't remove a single sourced statement, but removes several factual errors is justified.

I'm under no misconception as to the rather fuzzy boundaries of these areas but, if anything, this should make us even more careful with our wording and more stringent with our sourcing. It should be clear which criterion is used for each section (and consistent for each - no jumping between linguistics, politics and ethnicity like in the tables you added), and the source for the information given.

I also certainly was not saying that the Alsace shouldn't be mentioned in an article on Germanic culture. I was instead pointing out that almost everything included about the Alsace in that edit was unexplained or just wrong, and every bit of it was unsourced.

I don't believe trying to "fix" the intrinsically flawed old material is an efficient way of proceeding; better would be to write coherent, sourced material from the outset by proposing themes for sections on the talk page, and then collecting the sourced data together. Anyway, this conversation should continue at Talk:Germanic Europe, if indeed it need continue at all. Best, Knepflerle (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Right. Look, you have blanked good material along with material that was flawed. You are exaggerating. But I have no desire to continue this discussion, I will sift through the material again and add restore only the valid bits. In exchange, I suggest you go easy on the hyper-criticism. --dab (𒁳) 20:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Has RegentsPark misused sysop powers?

Hi Dab, I hope you don’t mind me asking you about this, but I think you’re more likely than anyone else to be able to provide some perspective about it, especially since it’s something we’ve discussed before. In our discussion there, you wrote “I think RegentsPark is out there on a limb here, as it isn't at all usual to "protect until cleaned up". I don't want to wheel-war over this, but I will let him know how I see this and on what conditions I plan to invervene.”

There’s recently been an issue of RegentsPark using his sysop powers for something that I think should have been left up to an uninvolved administrator, which I’ve discussed with him on his userpage here. As I explained there, I don’t think RegentsPark can justifiably claim to be neutral and uninvolved in race and intelligence articles when he’s been involved in the debates over them heavily enough to be listed as an involved party in the arbitration case, and has expressed strong opinions about article content in the evidence he’s presented there. I don’t have much of an opinion either way about the particular dispute that led to the article being protected (over whether to include the numbers for variation in average brain size), but I’m very concerned about RegentsPark’s neutrality.

Mikemikev is intending to start a noticeboard thread, possibly at AN/I, asking that RegentsPark’s use of Sysop powers be reviewed. I’m kind of ambivalent about whether this is a good idea, though, because I don’t know how much leeway is typically granted to admins in situations like this. Do you have an opinion? --Captain Occam (talk) 13:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

well, as I am not up to speed with the R&I saga, it would be helpful to give me a few diffs. I can form an opinion if you like, but I don't want to spend an hour researching what happened. --dab (𒁳) 09:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I’ll explain it in a little more depth, although most of it is also described in the thread in RegentsPark’s user talk that I linked to.

For around two days, there was an edit war over whether the article ought to include the actual percentages for differences in average brain size between races, or whether it ought to just state that a difference exists without providing numbers. Muntuwandi reported the edit war at AN3 here, which resulted in the page being protected. Verbal, who was one of the people involved in the edit war, considered the “wrong version” of the article to have been protected, so he requested here that the article be unprotected. In response to Verbal’s report, RegentsPark reverted the article through page protection, restoring Verbal’s preferred version.

I’m not sure whether that’s an acceptable action or not. Neither version of the article appeared to have consensus; I can understand the sentiment that contentious information ought to be excluded until a consensus can be reached for it, but I was under the impression that using sysop powers to revert through page protection was reserved for dealing with blatant vandalism and BLP violations. I’m also not sure whether someone who has as strong opinions about this topic as RegentsPark does (as he’s stated in his evidence for the arbitration case) is uninvolved or neutral enough in this dispute to be using his sysop powers in a way that supports one side in it. According to Tariqabjotu’s comments in the page unprotection request, RegentsPark’s actions in this case were highly unusual. Mikemikev has brought this up at the administrators’ noticeboard, though, and the opinion there seems to be that RegentsPark was acting properly by doing this.

Can you offer an opinion about whether this action was an acceptable use of sysop powers? If your opinion is that it wasn’t, I’d also appreciate you letting me know what the appropriate way would be to deal with this problem. As I said, I don’t have a strong opinion either way about the actual content in question, but it definitely bothers me to see admins using their powers non-neutrally if that’s happening here. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Arnaiz-Villena

I have asked to one of my students to write in my name (AAV)

I have thought an alternative to edit the 3rd enbezzlement paragraph.Please.let me know your opinion or,please, do some editing yourself : "=False accusations= Several types of unproper and delictive conducts were directed against Arnaiz-Villena and some other people from his group.They were made public by members of staff of “12 de Octubre” Hospital,who are today still in office.They were coincidental with the Palestinian paper censorship.All accusations were declared by Judges to be unjust,unfunded,forced or interested. (see Discussion).However ,they caused a great damage to the concerned people and their families. See [[35]] and [[36]]"

--On the other hand Palestinians paper reference (3) is disrupted,who is interested in disrupting it? It is disruptrd in the AAV page .How can one Edit without trace?. I expect your news thruogh Symbio. If you read the paper,cocentration camps are referred to the ones in non-Israel countries. In Spanish,settlers and colonists do not have 2 different wordsSymbio04 (talk) 19:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. We cannot just take your word for anything. Also, personally I feel the public outrage over the Palestinian thing was kind of hypocritical, but the fact that the journal has withdrawn the paper stands. I also think you have brought this upon yourself. So you did a study on the genetic similarity of Jewish and Palestinian populations. Why couldn't you just publish the objective results? Instead you had to sex up the paper with references to the Middle East conflict. This is bad science. Of course the reaction was completely over the top, but you also kind of asked for it. --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

AAV is a top international expert on HLA genes (or tansplantation genes),particularly in HLA-G and HLA and anthropology.All our anthropology papers have the same format A bit of history etc,I.e.;what anthropologists want.It was a great surprise for AAV the reaction with the Palestinian paper (written long before,it came out coinciding with the Twin Towers terrorist attack).AAV has never been in Muslim countries,only in Morocco when he was very young before finishing studies.His two bosses in London were Jewish and he learnt all what he is doing from them.We had to put some of the Palestinians history according with a Bible Atlas bought in Jerusalem when AAV was invited by his Jewish friends to give a seminar about our findings that Ashkenazi and non-Askenazi Jews were very similar (after 15 years they are making a fuss now about this “ new discovery”). Tell us where we can send the Jews paper to you (it was in Tissue A tigens 1996) Also,we have done a lot about birds phylogeny and about the equivalent to their HLA genes. AAV time in linguistics is not waisted .We followed a methodology (unorthodox,which pdf can be downloaded from AAV page). All that was is described as Judge sentences by us etc are with names and dates(fully documented).It is easy to verify.Dumu Eduba started (see June 9th 2010) and Dumu Eduba must finish with this.Now,he does not want:then he should be obliged to leave this 3rd paragraph as it finished and remove the proven false acusations.Please,help him.Thank you.Symbio04 (talk) 19:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Dab,we understand WP.All details about case outcome and termination have been given.Do you want we show the scanned documents? We only will send them to a full name or a lawyer, Please,ask Dumu Eduba to finishing the case he started.Or please ,We would suggest you edit appropriately yourself the 3rd paragrph.Thank you.Symbio04 (talk) 10:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)