Talk:Lotte Motz/Archive 1

Concerned
I am concerned about the removal, and subsequent mislabeling, of biographical information relating to this scholar's life and work, obtained from published sources honoring the subject of this article. Such information casts pertient light on the motivation of this scholar and her particular point of view. The redactor appears to be "white washing" this scholar's credentials and history, perhaps in an attempt to elevate her work. The majority of the biographical information was taken directly from the book Myhological Women which the redactor is familar with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.100.237.167 (talk) 23:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * By “whitewashing” I presume you are referring to deliberately deceptive editing by omission, such as has been plaguing the Viktor Rydberg article. Here is the distinction: On the Rydberg page, quotations from scholarship critical of Rydberg’s mythological theories have been uniformly deleted or misleadingly qualified in order to create a false impression of the value of that work.  Here, the only criticism of Motz’s work has been by you – and your personal opinions are neither noteworthy nor authoritative.


 * Your undocumented assertion that Motz “attacked” Germanic scholars because she was a Jew is plainly anti-Semitic as well as unauthenticated, and has therefore been deleted (twice). If you can find a single scholar who has made such a claim (and has not died in an Allied prison), feel free to cite to that authority.  Otherwise, this is not a forum for your hate-mongering.


 * Similarly, the implication that a leading academic journal like Saga-Book would publish a biased obituary of Motz, based on the fact that two of the three scholars credited for the obituary were members of her family, is both offensive to Professor Simek and the Viking Society, and frankly ignorant of the conventions of scholarly publishing. Again, if you can find any authority who makes such a claim, feel free to cite to that authority in the article.  Your personal opinions are of no interest.


 * Several other undocumented claims and editorializing throughout your tendentious “edits” have been deleted on the same grounds. Find some authority to support your opinions, or keep them out of Wikipedia.  If you seriously believe that Prof. McKinnell has “refuted” Motz on any substantive issue, feel free to quote his work in the article, to demonstrate that you understand what he has said and the context in which he wrote.


 * The lengthy cut-and-paste from the tribute to Prof. Motz published in Mythological Women is plagiarism, and has been deleted as such. This tribute is clearly referenced in the article, and anyone who wants to read it can easily do so, without your pasting it into the piece in lieu of the original text that covered the same ground.  I have inserted some short quotations from the tribute concerning points you raised, but without your deceptive editorializing.  Rsradford (talk) 21:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Do try to follow Wikipedia rules and focus on the subject of the article, and not your fellow editors. This is not a personal matter. There is no need to demonize and mischaracterize the efforts of others here. Motz's work is a personal favorite of mine. I own several of her books. They are provocative, precisely because her thinking is outside the box. Obviously, we have differing views on the significance of Motz's contribution. You would do well to support your opinions with verifiable sources. All citations to the works I have used have been indicated. Quoted texts appear in quotes. The views of other scholars regarding her work, regardless of your opinions, are verifiable. I do not feel it is appropriate to include lengthy rebuttals of Ms. Motz's conclusions by other scholars on a site devoted to her, nor will I do so simply because you demand it. The referenced works have been cited. You, of course, are welcome to balance these with other works of scholarship that agree with your views, assuming there are any.

Your unfounded charges of plagarism, hate-mongering, and anti-semitism are inflamatory and unverifiable. Please refrain from further personal attacks on other editors. Ms. Motz's heritage and personal history are well documented in published biographical sources. To hide by omission or to suggest that such experiences did not affect her adult attitudes and opinions would not only be irresponsible, but misleading. I have cited information from verifiable sources, and noted them as such. Further removal of pertinent biographical information can rightly be considered vanadalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 02:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Jack (formerly Anon IP 97.100.237.167), the purpose of a discussion page is to discuss revisions to an article. If you are unable to follow the discussion on this page, please stop defacing the article with your anti-Semitism, plagiarism, and unsupported assertions.  See the discussion of each of these points under the relevant headings below.


 * Anti-Semitism
 * Your anti-Semitic comments have again been deleted, for the reason that was explained to you on 17 April 2008 (see above).  If you can find any scholar who agrees with your "evaluation" that Motz's extensive scholarship on Northern folklore and mythology was in any way related to – much less determined by – her Jewishness, please post those sources in the article.  Otherwise, please peddle your race-hatred elsewhere.


 * Plagiarism
 * Your extensive (and pointless) plagiarism from Mythological Women has again been deleted, and will remain so. If you are unfamiliar with the meaning of plagiarism, please consult any standard scholarly resource on the subject.


 * Unsupported assertions
 * As was pointed out to you on 17 April 2008 (see above), it means nothing for you to claim that a given scholar was critical of Motz's work, if you cannot quote a single passage by that scholar in support of your assertion. I have reviewed two of your supposed "references," and confirmed that you either do not understand what Professors McKinnell and Clunies Ross wrote, or else deliberately chose to misrepresent their work.  I have created a new section headed “Scholars on Motz,” to discuss these and other references to Motz’s work in contemporary scholarship.  If you can provide quotes to support your “interpretations” of negative commentary on Motz’s work, feel free to include them there.  If you cannot do so – or if, as you have done before, you are deliberately cherry-picking negative references from works that include both positive and negative evaluations – please do not feel compelled to share your opinions of work you do not understand.


 * Editorializing
 * Your egregious editorializing has been deleted throughout. For example, your claim that the contributors to Motz’s festschift “seldom concur with her conclusions,” and that contemporary scholars “are little influenced by her work” are plainly counter-factual and far beyond your capacity to evaluate.  Regardless of whether your anti-Motz editorializing is motivated by racism, malice, or simple ignorance of the literature, it has no place in an encyclopedia article. Rsradford (talk) 04:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

April 29, 2008: Mr. Reaves (aka “Jack the Giant-Killer,” aka Anon IP 97.100.237.167), we get it. You don’t like “Jew scholars” writing about Germanic mythology. What you don’t seem to grasp is, nobody cares what you like. Unless you can find some published scholar, anywhere in the world, who supports your bizarre opinions concerning Prof. Motz’s work, those opinions have no place in an encyclopedia article. See the listing of detailed issues above, before continuing to deface this article with your malicious "edits." Rsradford (talk) 16:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks on other editors are against Wikipedia's rules. Why is RSRadford allowed to make such attacks, and remain and editor? This person is obviously a troll. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.193.49.130 (talk) 20:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

May 1, 2008: Really, Mr. Reaves! If you can provide any documentation for your opinions, as requested above, please do so. If you cannot, please stop vandalizing the article from anonymous IPs! Rsradford (talk) 20:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Reaves, please grow up. If you cannot find a single published scholar in the entire world who supports your foolish, racist diatribes concerning Prof. Motz, shouldn't that tell you something? Isn't there some topic you know something about, which could form the basis for a new article? Rsradford (talk) 03:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yawn.

Mr. Radford, who died and appointed you editor-in-chief of the Lotte Motz entry? Why such intense paranoia? I'm simply trying to have a civilized debate on the topic. This is not a one-handed operation.

You cannot simply delete my contributions to a balanced criticism of her academic context and agenda. If you would like to rebutt with additional scholarship, assuming there are any who support your radical views, please do so. I just saw Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed with Ben Stein. There are some really radical views out there, no doubt.

You are free to edit the material if you wish, otherwise, do not continue to attempt to delete it wholesale. If you don't like what they say, take it up with the scholars who said these things. I have only quoted them. Your charges of plagarism are particularly offensive, as I have cited my sources accurately and thoroughly unlike your opinion-heavy pieces. I have serious doubts that you have the ability to grasp the meaning of what you read, as you have a tendency to extract the worse or most extreme positions of someone, such as your comnments on Rydberg and Motz, respectively. You miss the point entirely.

Why the emotional tirade? What is your attachment to this author?

I should not need to remind you that you are not the editor-in-chief of this entry. My contributions are all sourced, and you have yet to demonstrate otherwise. Why not step up to the plate and provide some evidence with verfiable references? You have already demonstrated your lack of ability in correctly understanding and applying the meaning of Old Norse texts in your 1988 article on the Holmgang. Who are you to question the ability of others. What are your professional credentials in this field again? I have forgotten if you had any. ;-)

Mr. Radford, I invite you to make a positive contribution to the site, but I cannot with good conscious allow well-cited sources to be edited out or distorted to such ends. We disagree on the impact of this scholar. Regardless, I feel we both have valueable information to contribute to the site. Let's keep it friendly and quit the name-calling and charges of plagaism and anti-Semitism. Such verbiage is not useful, if you truly aim to resolve this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 20:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Mr. Reaves, this is not a playground for your amusement. The specific problems with your repeated bad-faith "edits" -- anti-Semitism, plagiarism, unsupported assertions, and editorializing -- are set forth above, waiting for you to address them.  If you can find any published authority, anywhere, who supports your racist and rather foolish opinions concerning Prof. Motz and her work, please quote them.  Otherwise, stop vandalizing this article. Rsradford (talk) 22:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Outside view
Via WP:COIN. OK, there are two versions on the table: call them A and B. Sorry, but I go with Rsradford's version B and with many of his criticisms of the A. I wouldn't call the A version anti-semitic, but it does carry a distinct implication - via the initial framing about Nazi persecution and the reminder about the Master Race - that Motz had some hang-up, rooted in her persecution as a Jew, making her hostile to German scholarship. We shouldn't be able to tell from the text the opinion of the editor - but in the A there are a number of other little editorial digs such as the "feminists of a feather" comment and the WP:SYNTH of framing Motz's interest in female mythological figures with the "wake of the second wave of the International Women's Movement" (implying that interest to be some kind of dismissable Wimmin bias).

I also doubt that the Tribute cited is a reliable source - www.runewebvitki.com is a personal website, not a peer-reviewed publication. Note also that a large part of it is a copyvio from the the OUP blurb for The Faces of the Goddess (here). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 11:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Claimed plagiarism
Rsradford, which section are you saying is a cut-and-paste from In Honour of Lotte Motz? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 03:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I am currently attending a conference and do not have access to the commemorative volume. I will provide documentation of "Jack the Giant Killer's" extensive plagiarism from that work when I return to my office next week. Rsradford (talk) 16:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * In response to your query: the second and third paragraphs of the article so closely paraphrase the corresponding paragraphs of the essay, "In Honour of Lotte Motz," as to constitute plagiarism. Three sentences have been copied virtually verbatim, and the rest appropriates so much of the structure, choice, and sequence of ideas from the memorial essay as to be obviously derivative.  The two paragraphs in question are quoted in full below:


 * "Lotte Motz, née Edlis, was born in Vienna in 1922. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school).  In 1941 her mother escaped to America with Lotte and two younger brothers, settling in New York City.  Working throughout her studies, Lotte Motz completed high school and college and received a B.A. in German from Hunter College, City University of New York, in 1949.  She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University and completed her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she obtained a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955. She moved to Oxford in 1959 where her husband Hans was a lecturer in engineering.  There her scholarly career began.  She undertook a Bphil in Old English wich introduced her to Old Norse.  Her love of the subject never left her.


 * "When in 1971 she returned to America with her daughter Anna, she obtained an academic position in the German Department at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where she was a highly popular and respected teacher. Later she taught German at Hunter College until in 1984 she contracted bronchiectasis. She subsequently had to give up teaching and eventually returned to Oxford with her daughter.  Although she was very disappointed about giving up her beloved teaching, and leaving New York City, she pursued her scholarly activities all the more vigorously in Oxford, continuing to attend international conferences and write prolifically." Rsradford (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be yet another attempt to remove the information one editor objects to in the article, further elevating Motz's status from that of minor academic to serious scholar. Noticeably, Radford consistently refers to Ms.Motz as Prof. Motz when the biography specifically states that, due to bronchitis, no doubt brought on by heavy smoking, she was unable to teach and thus turned to writing. Is it common practice to refer to a former teacher as Prof. years after her retirement, or is this simply another tactic designed to elevate her status? References to Lotte Motz are few, thus Mythological Women remains the primary source for biographical information regarding her. All statements contained in the article are factual, and contain references to their respective sources. All references have been accurately cited, even Radford hasn't challenge that.

What is Radford's specific issue with detailing Motz's personal life, her childhood trauma, her religion, educational background, etc? This is information relevant to understanding this author's novel approach put forward by the compilers of the tribute work in question, Mythological Women. It should be remembered that Ms. Motz's own brother and daughter contrubuted to this work. As a tribute, it should probably be disqualified altogether, but contains the only published biographical information concerning this one-time "prof.", and therefore must be included if there is to be any article at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 05:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's fine to include the information, but it needs more paraphrasing (I wouldn't call it plagiarism, but the deal with Wikipedia is to produce a new reference work where you shouldn't be able to see 'fossils' of the source material.
 * no doubt brought on by heavy smoking
 * It's abundantly clear you don't like her, but there's no need for gratuitous rhetoric to portray her in a bad light. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 11:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Nor is there need for lying. "Jack's" claim that Prof. Motz "turned to writing" after she was no longer able to teach is belied by the bibliography appended to the article (assuming he has not yet deleted it), which shows more than a two-decade overlap of Prof. Motz's scholarly publications and her professorial responsibilities. Rsradford (talk) 22:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Nor is there need for lying. "Jack's" claim that Prof. Motz "turned to writing" after she was no longer able to teach is belied by the bibliography appended to the article (assuming he has not yet deleted it), which shows more than a two-decade overlap of Prof. Motz's scholarly publications and her professorial responsibilities. Rsradford (talk) 22:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment

 * Note: RFC bot appears to be down. This RfC won't post to the main list until the bot runs again. I've made an inquiry to someone who has worked on it in the past. EdJohnston (talk) 16:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Please tone down the personal attacks

 * Words such as 'malicious' and 'bizarre' should be avoided when referring to other editors. Forthright remarks on actual content is still permitted, but please don't comment negatively on other editors' mental state or capacity to understand things.  Further comments placed on this page that contain personal attacks may be removed without further ado.


 * Even if you think you know who a certain editor is in real life, don't use that name here if they haven't revealed it publicly. EdJohnston (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Factual errors and editorializing in current version of the article
The current version of the article, as "revised" by User:JacktheGiant-Killer contains several factual errors and instances of "Jack's" anti-Motz editorializing that should be corrected and/or deleted:


 * "She also was the first scholar in recent history to question the validity of the name Nerthus in Tacitus' Germania, a document at the heart of Germanic studies, restating a long-defeated academic argument that Nerthus was merely one of the possible manuscript readings."
 * First, it is nonsense (as well as undocumented) to assert that Tacitus' Germania is "at the heart of Germanic studies." It is of no more than peripheral interest, except to specialists.  Second, Motz's observation on this point is not "repeating" a "long-defeated argument."  It is a straightforward factual observation, as Prof. Simek has noted.


 * She incorrectly claimed that Jacob Grimm had chosen the reading “because it coincides phonetically with Njorðr” [2]
 * There is no support for "Jack's" claim that Prof. Motz was "incorrect" in her interpretation of Grimm's treatment of this point.


 * "When what Grimm actually said was “the manuscripts collated have this reading. ...I should prefer Nertus to Nerthus, because no other German words in Tacitus have TH, except Gothini and Vuithones.”
 * Obviously, this statement has no relevance to Prof. Motz's argument, which did not dispute what Grimm said, but provided an interpretation of why he said it.


 * In response, John McKinnell reiterated the generally accepted linguistic evidence establishing this reading, followed by Grimm and others, quickly quelling the growing stir.
 * This entire sentence is nonsense. McKinnell published nothing "in response" to Prof. Motz's argument concerning Grimm's motivation; there was no "growing stir" for McKinnell to "quickly quell," and despite repeated requests on this page (see above), "Jack" has been unable to quote a single word from this supposed "source" to support his use of it here.


 * In 1993, Motz’s was one of more than 20 score of scholars who made contributions to the 760+ page, reference work, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia [5], as well as by a posthumous festschrift in her honor.
 * More of "Jack's" editorializing. He inserted this sentence to overwrite a previous one specifying the topics on which Motz was asked to contribute to the encyclopedia, which is significant in the context of "Jack's" continuing assault on her academic credibility.  Moreover, it is obviously nonsense to state that Prof. Motz "contributed" to her own posthumous festschrift.


 * Fellow feminist, Prof. Jochens refers her readers to Motz’s articles for a general understanding of the poem in her Old Norse Images of Women.
 * More of "Jack's" editorializing. There is no evidence that either Prof. Motz or Prof. Jochens were feminist scholars, much less that this had any relevance to Jochen's citation to Motz as an authority on the poem.


 * McKinnell disputes Motz’s primary thesis, noting that “[t]here is no need to identify Menglöð with Gróa, and the attempt to see Gróa’s spells as an initiatory ritual distorts the obvious meanings of several of them.”
 * Here, "Jack" has deliberately deleted a reference to McKinnell's simultaneous positive evaluation of Motz's 30-year-old article, to create the false impression of a "dispute."


 * "In her works, Motz expresses such sentiments as "We only know that there must have been a fuller store of myth in which the goddesses were powerful and wise, skilled in warfare, and able to direct the fate of men." [19] To further such speculations, Motz integrated features of mythologies in Europe and beyond, reaching as far as Alaska and Japan for contrasting material exposing her papers to criticism that similar phenomena can easily have different meanings in different contexts.[20]Motz, however, was undeterred by this criticism.[21] Understandably, her work has been described as "provocative".[22]
 * More editorializing. "Jack" has extracted a single sentence, taken out of context, and represents it as somehow typical of Prof, Motz's "works."  He then labels the out-of-context sentence a "speculation," and asserts that her entire comparative method was undertaken "to further such speculations."  This is pure propaganda, as is "Jack's" condescending insertion of "Understandably" before his truncated and out-of-context reference to Prof. Motz's work as "provocative."


 * "Shortly after her death, Motz became the subject of a posthumous conference held at Bonn University in 1999, leading to a commemorative volume of 11 articles, largely in German, concerning female entities in Northern mythology.
 * The volume in question bears an English title, and contains contributions written in both English and German. Presumably, "Jack" intends this deceptive characterization of the volume to discourage English readers from consulting it.


 * "At this lively conference, her ideas were again "ventilated" arousing vigorous debate, the speeches frequently overrunning their allotted times.[24]"
 * "Jack's placing of quotation marks around the word "ventilated" is presumably intended to suggest that Motz's work was criticized or disputed at her own festschrift! Although this sort of subtle slanting of the facts could only be effective with readers who have no experience with festschrifts, that is apparently the audience "Jack" is targeting.


 * "Other contributors included her brother Herbert Edlis and her daughter Anna Motz."
 * "Jack" is here apparently trying to suggest that the festschrift was somehow attributable to Prof. Motz's relatives, neither of whom contributed a paper (although they served as resources for the obituary/tribute by Prof. Simek that opens the volume).


 * Although they respected her as a colleague, the contributing scholars seldom concur with her conclusions.
 * This is Jack's personal opinion, that he has repeatedly failed to document. To date, "Jack" has given no indication that he has even read anything by most of the scholars who contributed to the volume.


 * Notably, John McKinnell, one of the English language contributors to the conference, was a long-time critic of Motz's work.
 * This statement is not only undocumented, it is flagrantly false -- deliberately so, given that "Jack" has deleted from the article favorable commentary on Motz's work by Prof. McKinnell.


 * "Regarding her interpretation of Svipdagsmál as "a ritual induction of the young hero into a mother-goddess cult," McKinnell refuted her conclusions point by point."
 * Again, flagrantly and knowingly false. "Jack" has repeatedly failed to document this distortion (see earlier requests on this page.)


 * "It was also Dr. McKinnell who quietly corrected her speculations on Nerthus, with a thorough review of the textual and linguistic evidence establishing Nerthus as the best reading of the name of the earth-goddess found in Tacitus' Germania, ch. 40."
 * Yet again, "Jack" has been unable to quote a single word from this supposed "source" supporting his use of it here (see earlier requests on this page).


 * It is obvious that the sole purpose of "Jack's" edits has been to present a knowingly false and distorted representation of Prof. Motz's scholarship and her status in the academic community. There is no justification to allow any of his false or undocumented statements, qualifiers, and insinuations to remain in the article.Rsradford (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 17:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've posted an RFC on this. I could spot some editorialising (given away by the polemical flavour) but this is so specialised that it needs other informed opinions. If none is forthcoming, it might be better for the moment to cut the article back to a basic bio containing only material that's undisputed (i.e. what she worked on, but not any kind of attempt to synthesise where it fits in the scheme of things). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

While pointing out the mote in my eye, Mr. Radford apparently fails to see the beam in his. Besides being filled with factual errors and editorializing, it contains some rather unusual practices for accounting the worth of a scholar.....

The section "Scholars on Motz" as written by Radford, is basically a reckoning of how many times Motz’s work has been cited  in the bibliographies of other published works. This approach is unprecedented in Wikipedia or any other similar reference work. Radford names approximately 6 scholars who cite her, ironically while drawing attention to the vastness of the field of published scholars participating in the work ''Medieval Scandinavia” (more than 200 in the late 1980s). If Motz really had such a vast influence on other scholars, why don’t more of them list her works in their bibliographies, or better yet actually cite her work? Data can be spun in many ways. Mr. Radford's spin is self-promotional as he touts the works of Ms. Motz on his pagan webpage, while going to great lengths to denounce those of Viktor Rydberg's. This is stealth self-promotion. Neo-pagan poltics do not belong here.

'[Motz’s status among her peers was recognized by her selection to write three entries in the 1993 reference work, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia'' ref  Garland (1993), ISBN 0824047877, pp. 622, 629, 713. ref ]'''

This is exaggerated honorific language, which will be repeated in the article. It could just as easily be stated that Motz was hired (assuming she got paid) to gather and restate scholarly opinion on 33 of the more than 1000 topics selected for the MS. Compiled in the era of the electric typewriter, the 760+ page tome was a massive undertaking, requiring scores of hands to complete. There are contributions by over 200 scholars in this bulky Encyclopedia. The majority of the scholars are relative unknowns in the field. Motz is afforded no special place or rank. Her name is included alphabitically. Some contributors wrote more than she did, some less. There is no evaluation of Motz’s status here. She is a simply published scholar in the field, one of many.

As also noted in the Bibilography appended to the Lotte Motz entry, her contributions to the Encyclopedia are to the articles on Svipdagsmal, a poem not generally included in modern translations of the Edda; a sub-entry under Supernatural Beings on “Elves, “Dwarfs” [sic], and Giants”. and an entry on Volund, a legendary smith, not considered a part of the Old Norse pantheon. In regard to Norse mythology proper, her contributions are peripheral at best, if we are to judge by her "Assignments" in MS. These can be explained in other ways, equally as speculative. Mr. Radford has chosen to present what amounts to hack-work as singular feats of scholarship.

It need hardly be mentioned that none of the short articles show any originality, nor are they intended to as Encyclopedia entries. These 3 short articles include extensive bibliographies by a wide array of scholars from the 1900 forward. In the case of the article on Supernatural beings, the bibliography comprises half of the entire one-page article.

The next entries in “Scholars on Motz”  amount to tallies of bibliographical citations which include any of the more than 50 articles penned by Motz.

[John Lindow cites to four of Motz’s works in his entry on “Dwarfs” in the Handbook of Norse Mythology, ref ABC-CLIO (2001), ISBN 1576072177,  p.101. ref ]

This is not an accurate statement. There are no actual citations of the work in the article. These are bibliographical citations. Lindow actually refers to only one of her articles as bibliographical ( “New Thoughts on Dwarf-names in Old Icelandic)” and then notes that she also wrote other articles on the subject. I’ll quote it in full if you’d like.

'[Jenny Jochens draws on six of Motz’s titles in her Old Norse Images of Women'', ref Univ. Pennsylvania Press (1996), ISBN 0812233581, p.309. ref ]

[ Andy Orchard refers his readers to sixteen of Motz’s works in the Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend, ref Cassell (1997), ISBN 0304345202, p.215. ref ]

[Rudolf Simek cites to twelve of her publications in his Dictionary of Northern Mythology. ref D.S. Brewer (1984), ISBN 0859915131, p.406-407. ref ]'''

The phrases “draws on”, “refers his readers to” and “cites to” are all variant ways of saying her works are cited in very few bibliographies. It is not surprising that other scholars include some of her “scores” of "provocative" articles in their bibliographies. Two of these are Dictionaries which survey the entire range of Old Norse scholarship. More telling however, these scholars do not cite these works in their main texts.

Another bibliographical “citation”:

[Lotte Motz’s influence on younger scholars is especially evident in the citations to her work in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), including Henning Kure, “Hanging on the World Tree: Man and Cosmos in Old Norse Mythic Poetry,”ref Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 63-70 (citing to Motz, “The Cosmic Ash and Other Trees of Germanic Myth” for her survey of sources material).]

Lotte Motz’s influence on younger scholars is especially evident to Mr. Radford because two ‘younger’ scholars include her works in their bibliographies? Again, this is an over-inflated claim. If the influence was really evident perhaps he could point out where her ideas actually influenced theirs.

['Randi Haaland, “Iron in the Making–Technology and Symbolism,” ref Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 79-85 (citing to Motz, The Wise One of the Mountain'', for her interpretation of “the dual nature of the blacksmith as reflecting the dual nature of the material in which he works”). ref ''']

The citation is out of context. What dual natures are they referring to? A smith is animate and his material is inanimate. I fail to see the shared duality.

[Sharon Ratke and Rudolf Simek, “Guldgrubber: Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?,” ref Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 259-263 (citing to Motz, The King, the Champion, and the Sorcerer, for her identification of the god Freyr as a wealthy and powerful deity). ref ]

Mr. Radford cannot really be serious here. A much better citation would have been to Snorri’s Edda which is the actual source of this information.

If these are Motz’s major contributions to scholarship, a section on Scholarship on Motz is unwarranted. It is apparent to me, at least, that Mr. Radford, as a pagan activist, is unduly attempting to inflate the true level of recognition of Motz’s work.

Now, the one actual citation included here, which I drew Mr. Radford’s attention to, is so embellished it is almost unrecognizable. From the original citation:

[Margaret Clunies Ross refers to a series of articles published by Motz in the 1980s as arguing that “the giants represent a group of older deities, pushed into the background of Viking Age consciousness by peoples’ changing patterns of worship.” ref Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, Volume 1: The Myths (1994), p. 50] '''[Clunies Ross notes that Motz’s argument “introduces an element of speculation into our understanding of Norse myth for which there is no textual or other evidence,” ref Ibid., p.50. ref ]'''

Mr Radford has developed the following original argument:

'Margaret Clunies Ross refers to a series of articles Motz published in leading journals in the 1980s as arguing that “the giants represent a group of older deities, pushed into the background of Viking Age consciousness by peoples’ changing patterns of worship.” ref Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, Volume 1: The Myths'' (1994). Odense, ISBN8778380881, p.50 n.10 (citing to Motz, “Gerðr: A New Interpretation of the Lay of Skirnir,” Maal og Minne 1981:121-136; Motz, “Giants in Folklore and Mythology: A New Approach,” Folklore 93:70–84 (1982), and Motz, “Gods and Demons of the Wilderness: A Study in Norse Tradition,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 99:175-187 (1984)). ref '''

The inclusion of the meaningless phrase “leading journals” is again exaggerated language meant to elevate her status as a minor academic. Clunies Ross actually writes “in a series of articles (1981; 1982; 1984). Mr. Radford has greatly embellished this direct language. Obviously Motz did not publish in pagan journals of the sort Mr. Radford is familiar with. These are the topical scholarly journals in the field. No one is questioning the fact that Motz published more than 50 scholarly articles in her career.

'''[Clunies Ross notes that Motz’s argument “introduces an element of speculation into our understanding of Norse myth for which there is no textual or other evidence,” ref Ibid., p.50. ref while acknowledging the possibility that the ancient beliefs “may have allowed for the classification of more beings in the giant category in some traditions, particularly regional, Norwegian ones, than in that version of Norse mythology that Snorri Sturluson in particular handed down to us.” ref Ibid., p.50, n.10. ref ]'''

The inclusion of the weak statement about the “possibility of ancient beliefs” is meant to mitigate Clunies Ross’ expressed view. Anything is possible, right? But what she actually states is: “I cannot discover any evidence within the myths themselves that they are supposed to be reminiscences of an older kind of deity, once worshipped in Scandinavia. The only support for this way of thinking comes from texts that are obviously indebted to Medieval speculation.” (ibid, p. 50, note 10)

As a professional lawyer, Mr. Radford may be more adept at chosing his words, but there is little substance here and a lot of hyperbole. Apparently, he depends on the ignorance of the readers on this esoteric subject and their inability to verify his statements to make such hollow claims as “Lotte Motz’s influence on … scholars is especially evident”

Precisely, because it is not evident, Mr. Radford has had to resort to bean-counting.

'''[Elsewhere in the same volume, Clunies Ross cites Motz as being the first to recognize that the dwarfs of Norse mythology “were an all-male group,” an insight that Clunies Ross herself develops into an important theme. ref Ibid., p.165 n.12; 168. ref ]'''

Perhaps Mr. Radford would care to elaborate on exactly what that important theme is. Of course, in doing so, he will reveal the extent of Motz’s apparent feminist leanings. I can sum it up in two words: Negative Reciprocity. In a nutshell, after more than 200 years of Old Eddaic scholarship Motz was the first to state the obvious: there are no female dwarves. Then, to no surprise, another scholar with a feminist view developed it into a theory that male gods seek to control and ultimately usurp the female power of reproduction.

[Motz’s early essay on the Eddic poem Svipdagsmál[14], published in Arkiv för nordisk filologi, examined competing theories concerning the origin of the work and advanced a novel interpretation of the hero Svipdag’s journey to Menglöð’s hall.]

I must compliment Mr. Radford on his choice of the word “novel” here. Certainly, her theory was “novel”. [The quality of Motz’s analysis was recognized by her being assigned to write on the poem for Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia[16] ]

Besides being a restatement of an earlier unfounded claim, this is simply more subjective language by Mr. Radford. Who exactly recognized the “quality” of Motz’s scholarship? What was that “quality” exactly? Who “assigned” her to write the non-original article on Svipdagsmal for the Encyclopedia? Perhaps she volunteered for the job, and being short-handed the editors reluctantly accepted her among the 200, as she was one of the few, if not the only scholar who had written on the subject recently. This is precisely the kind of polemic language Mr. Radford has objected to. The claim is unverifiable.

'''[Prof. Jochens refers her readers to Motz’s article for a general understanding of the poem in her Old Norse Images of Women.[17] ]'''

Another bibliographic reference? Jenny. Jochens and Margaret Clunies Ross, like Motz are writers who focus on female issues, and can rightly be classified (not dismissed) as feminist scholars.

[John McKinnell acknowledges that Motz’s analysis “makes some telling points,” including that Menglöð is not a helpless maiden, and Svipdag seems to unlock “something destined for him,” rather than achieving a sexual conquest.[18] Motz was also correct that Menglöð welcomes Svipdag “back”; the poem’s editors had excised the word without justification.[19]]

Since Menglod is probably the goddess Freyja, this seems a fair assumption on her part. Any responsible scholar would not depend on an edited version of the poem to draw conclusions. The word “back” (aptr) is found in the manuscripts of the poem and required for the meter. Viktor Rydberg made the same argument. The point is not disputed. Obviously, Motz is correct. That is too obvious to require stating.

[However, McKinnell disputes Motz’s primary thesis, noting that “[t]here is no need to identify Menglöð with Gróa, and the attempt to see Gróa’s spells as an initiatory ritual distorts the obvious meanings of several of them.”[20] Instead, McKinnell interprets Svipdagsmál as one of six Eddic poems that “feature consultations of ‘Other World’ figures who are literally or symbolically dead.”[21]

These are not contrasting views. The word “instead” is intentionally misleading. Clearly, Svipdagsmál is one of six Eddic poems that “feature consultations of ‘Other World’ figures who are literally or symbolically dead.” This is not interpretative. Instead, the unprofitable occupation of merging Eddic characters as happened under Motz’s pen, however, is a novel interpretation of the two poems that is refuted by Prof. McKinnell.

It is obvious that the sole purpose of Mr. Radford's edits have been to present a knowingly false and distorted representation of the quality and influence of Ms. Motz's scholarship. There is no justification to allow any of his biased and misleading statements, his "new math" accounting practices, or falsely flattering insinuations to remain in the article.

Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Response to the Lengthy Legal Brief
Hi Gordon,

I thought you asked Mr. Radford to support his exaggerated claims of plagarism. I appreciate you stopping the unwarrented personal attacks.

Obviously it will take me some time to respond to this lengthy diatribe. I can support the material I have contributed, and will immediately embark on doing so.

Rather than cutting the article back to basics, why not simply cut it back to the cited material? I have supported many of my contributions and will gladly support those he objects to. My only interest is creating a balanced, informative article on Lotte Motz, a scholar whose books grace my own collection. Her works are thought-provoking. She was an intentionally "provocative" scholar and this should be reflected in the article in the interest of truth. I find Mr. Radford's original work to be a rather "fluff" piece, whitewashing the details of her work and life. As a pagan activist (google his name) and creator of the Galinn Grund website, Mr. Radford has a vested interest in promoting Ms. Motz's views. In doing so, he has "rounded her edges" so to speak.

You will note that Mr. Radford has provided few citataions to support his claims. For example, he says:

Motz was one of the first scholars to seriously question the tri-functional theory of Georges Dumézil, demonstrating the inadequacy of that paradigm to explain many aspects of the Norse myths.[2]

As a citation he refer to one of Motz's works. There is no evidvence that Dumezil's "paradigm" was inadequate. That's Mr. Radford's opinion. In fact, it is one of the cornerstones of the modern Indo-European scholarship.

He has said things are not supported, but provided no evidence of an opposing view. You have asked me to support mine, and if given sufficent time I will do so, beyond what I already have.

My specific objection is that Mr. Radford has chosen not to edit my contributions, but rather deleted them wholesale in an effort to control the content of this article. If I have used excessive langauge, feel free to edit it. I have no objection to anyone editing my contributions. I object to Mr. Radford's de facto control of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 23:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not interested. All I can see is two editors equally determined to control the article - and you are just as guilty of wholesale reversion. It's generally a deeply bad sign when editors write essays defending their stance. As I've said, I think your version of the article shows a distinct spin, and there are allegations of complete untruths that need investigating.
 * I suggest waiting to see what other views the the RFC brings, and you stop reverting now or I'll post this to Administrators' noticeboard/3RR, which involves a deal of hard work and will piss me off and make me a lot less sympathetic toward either side of this dispute. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I support Gordon's ideas of shortening the article to a version that can be reliably sourced. It does not come as a complete shock that the two people editing here who actually know something about Rydberg seem to have arrived with strong points of view. We just have to keep that POV under control to assemble a neutral article. EdJohnston (talk) 02:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a difficult one (sorry about my irritation). Both editors certainly know the subject well, but it comes down to differing opinions on how to assemble the secondary material. But there should be no dispute about what she wrote. The Faces of the Goddess might be a useful work to highlight, in that it's characteristic of her arguments, appears to be the one that gained the nearest thing to a mainstream profile, and what it says is readily verifiable . Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with the edit, I think you have created a nice balance between the various views. Thank you for getting rid of the section on scholarship. In my opinion, a collection of bibliographical refernces does not qualify as "scholarship" Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I also support the idea of shortening the article to a version that can be reliably sourced. Indeed, if you want to review the history of this article, that is exactly what I orginally created -- and that original version is still perfectly adequate to put Wikipedia readers on notice of Prof. Motz's importance in contemporary Germanic studies.  The current version of the article, however, is essentially "Jack's" version.  All references to genuine scholarship have been deleted, and the bulk of the article consists of demonstrably false assertions, undocumented personal opinions, unverified "citations," and deliberate distortions.  Although I have already identified most (but by no means all) of these defects, they continue to disgrace Prof. Motz's memory.


 * I would also point out that The Faces of the Goddess is very far from representative of Prof. Motz's body of scholarship. Indeed, this work is not cited even once by any of the essays in Prof. Motz's festschrift, Mythological Women.  If you wish to focus on her most representative and noteworthy volume, which has received the greatest attention in the academic community, it should be The King, the Champion, and the Sorcerer. Rsradford (talk) 19:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Certainly, "Faces of the Goddess" is Lotte Motz's best known work (verifiable through a web-search). Indeed, it is not representative of her work, which is perhaps why it has found the widest favor of her many writings. When she was not "attacking the icons of Germanic scgholarship", Motz specialized in commentaries on obscure legendary charcters and episodes in Germanic lore i.e. Svipdagsmal, Frau Holle, dwarves, etc. Her book "The King, The Champion, and the Sorcerer" amounts to a large article. It is a small (6" x 8"), 148 page, glue-bound paperback. As you can see, from the deleted section on "Scholarly Influence", penned by Radford, very few of Motz's articles on mythology have been included in a a handful of bibliographies, and only actually cited in a a couple of specialized works on mythology. Recall that Radford said she wrote "scores" of these articles, when the truth is she penned 2.5 score. Obviously, Radford is attempting to artifially inflate her work.


 * Since when are "dwarves" obscure? Sugarbat (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Generally, when any of Motz's articles are cited, it is because the subjects she wrote on are obscure. McKinnell, for example, was expounding on Eddic poems which involve contact with the dead. For the sake of completeness he had to include Svipdagsmal. He turned to Motz's article because she is one of few modern scholars who comment on the poem. The poem is generally discredited as a late imitation of Eddic poetry with a "fairy-tale motif". Since the early 1960s, Svipdagsmal is no longer included in English translations of the Poetic Edda. Notably, McKinnell strongly disagreed with Motz's primary conclusion, which identifies the object of the protagonist's desire with the hero's own mother. The conclusion is not only novel, but absurd. No one supports it. As Radford noted, she had to turn to a "wide range" secondary material to support this Freudian fantasy, mainly because there is no evidence in the poem to support it. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 01:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Once again, we have the benefit of "Jack's" amateur analysis, in lieu of the views of actual Olds Norse scholars, which he deletes immediately when anyone attempts to insert them into the article. The quality of his perspective is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that he is unable accurately to count the number of Prof. Motz's articles that are included in the Selected Bibliography (which does not include her entire scholarly output).  Or is the next step to delete all references to Prof. Motz's actual publications, and base the article entirely on "Jack's" uninformed opinions and deliberate distortions in lieu of the facts?


 * The statement that "very few of Motz's articles on mythology have been included in a handful of bibliographies, and only actually cited in a a couple of specialized works on mythology" is patently absurd and could be attributed to Jack's ignorance of Old Norse scholarship in general, except that he himself has deleted references to scholarship that disproves his claim.  Rsradford (talk) 12:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Personal Attacks
Once again, Mr. Radford, stop the personal attacks! The purpose of this page is to discuss the content of the entry. This entry isn't about "Jack". No one cares whether you think you know "Jack." Respect the talk page guidelines, as requested. I am not the one who deleted your bean-counts. I have sourced what I have said. Accept the fact that your attempts to label my contributions as anti-semetic, plagarism, or illiterate don't have any legs, and refocus on the content of the entry. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

My recent change to the article
Since none of the false, misleading, and/or unverified statements inserted into the article by "Jack the Giant-Killer" have been addressed since I identified them on May 9, I have made the appropriate corrections. Note that in each case where I provide quotations from the sources "Jack" cited, it can be seen that he has misrepresented or distorted the author's meaning, always to advance his negative portrayal of Prof. Motz and her scholarship. Accordingly, where "Jack" has been unable to provide any verification for his "interpretations" of cited sources, I have deleted those interpretations. Obviously, if "Jack" or anyone else can provide quotes from the sources in question that support "Jack's" interpretations, those statements should and will be reinstated. Rsradford (talk) 04:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the recent change to the article by RSRadford
The strong language ('false, misleading, and/or unverified') is unwarranted and suggests bias on the part of the editor, RSRadford. Again, all of my previous contributions have been sourced. Mr. Radford has now peppered the article with so many lengthy direct quotes from the memorial volume, it is nearly indistinquishable from the memorial work itself. On one hand, he has accused me of plagarism by citing the work, and on the other includes so many quotes from the memorial biography that we may as well reprint the article in its entirety here.

Let's not forget that "Mythological Women" is a memorial volume intended to honor the subject of this article. By cut-n-pasting quotes from it as heavily the current redaction does, the entry imports the POV of the work, destroying its own NPOV. After Mr. Radford's recent edits, I am once again in favor of cutting this article back to the basics. I am formally requesting an editorial descision on the matter.

A few examples will serve to illustrate the point:

'''As an Austrian-born Jew, she escaped to the United States in 1941 along with her family upon fleeing the Nazis. She, her mother and two brothers eventually settled in New York. Unable to attend Gymnasium (High School) in Austria, she completed high school and college in New York, receiving a B.A. from Hunter College. She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University, completing her degree at the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955.'''

The request for verification here is puzzling. Sandwiched between citations to this work (Mythological Women), an additional citation from the same work (page 9) is hardly necessary. The author states "as a Jew [she] was denied the right to attend Gymnasium."

The same work says she was unable to teach after contracting a smoking-related illness. Thus it is inappropriate to address her as "prof." at this point. None of the sources cited follow this practice. Perhaps Mr. Radford was once a student of hers. Such fawning titles add to the slanted POV.

'''Prof. Motz was among the first scholars to "take a serious step beyond the Three-Function theory developed by Georges Dumézil nearly four decades ago." She was the first scholar in recent history to question the validity of the name Nerthus in Tacitus' Germania, pointing out that Nerthus was merely one of the possible manuscript readings, "thus opening up new paths of thought on early Germanic religion." '''

Two lengthy citations, one from a memorial work and another from a review of the same work, can rightly be construed as overkill. Why not cite the author of the review? Is it one of the contributors perhaps? This quote needs to be properly cited or removed.

Motz’s early essay on the Eddic poem Svipdagsmál, published in Arkiv för nordisk filologi, examined competing theories concerning the origin of the work, before advancing novel interpretations of the hero Svipdag’s journey to Menglöð’s hall.

'''Drawing on a wide range of comparative folklore and mythology, Motz proposed that the poem described an initiatory ritual into an earth mother cult, symbolizing the seasonal return of vegetable life to the earth. '''

The so-called "examination of competing theories" ends at the top of the second page of the 20+ page article. Plainly this 'examination" is a review of the previous scholarly thought on the work from 1898 until 1966, the range of Motz's citations. There is no examination of these theories, just a brief review of their conclusions, as expected in an introductory paragraph to an article of this type. There is no evidence in the article that Motz drew on "a wide range of comparative folklore and mythology." Reading her article, which I have before me, she cites other similar Old Norse works, a standard convention when expounding a view on any Eddic poem. In its common useage, there is no "comparative" material here. This term is generally reserved for cross-cultural comparisons. The current verbiage creates a false impression of scope.

'Jenny Jochens cites Motz’s article for a general understanding of the poem in her Old Norse Images of Women''. , and her expertise on this topic was recognized by extending her the honor of writing the entry on the poem for Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia.'''

These statements are editoral in nature. I am not aware of any source that characterizes Motz as an "expert" on this subject, and there is no evidence that any "honor was extended" in being chosen to write an encyclopedia article. RS suggests that Jochens, another author who focuses on the female in Old Norse sources, cites her work for a "general understanding of the poem." Are we to believe she does this in a single footnote? Surely this is more hyperbole, of the kind described above.

'''Elsewhere in the same volume, she cites Motz as being the first to recognize that the dwarves of Norse mythology “were an all-male group,” an insight that Clunies Ross incorporates into her own theme, "negative reciprocity." .'''

According to the source cited, which I also have before me, the insight seems to be Ross' own. She cites both Jochens and Motz as contributors to it. Excluding the reference to Jochens and slightly modifying (plagarizing?) the language of this citation in prose creates the false impression that Motz is the acknowledged source. That does not appear to be Ross' intent.

'''Although Prof. Motz's work initially ranged across the fields of Old Norse and Germanic mythology and folklore, her research interests came to focus especially on female figures in Norse and Germanic mythology, notably the nature and function of giantesses in that tradition. '''

Motz published only 11 articles (of the "scores" she would produce") by 1980. Her biography makes it clear why. Her output increased, when her tenure ended. Nearly one-third of these early works, particulary the first, concern female characters in the eddas and sagas. By 1980, she focuses almost exclusively on the female. Her memorial biographer states this plainly. Rather than mischaracterize it in this way, why not simply quote the memorial work directly once again?

A clear editorial pattern has developed here: quote when it's favorable, spin through restatement when it's not.

' She sometimes'' saw buried remnants of shamanic initiation in narratives in which young men encountered female trolls, which could be interpreted as "inscrutable and frightening female guardian spirits." '''

The word "frequently" used in the cited source has been changed to "sometimes", again creating an inaccurate impression of this scholar's view.

'''This exposed her papers, like all work in comparative mythology, to criticism that similar phenomena can easily have different meanings in different contexts. Motz, however, was undeterred by this criticism. As was noted in her memorial volume, "[I]t is left to others to take up the provocative thoughts she presented us with ...; she has given scholarship in this field a new impetus.". '''

The phrase "like all work in comparative mythology" is highly subjective, and again not part of the source. The point of Motz's Faces of the Goddess is to debunk the comparative method behind a universal mother goddess by exposing a number of opposing global analogs. It is not a work in comparative mythology in the traditional sense, and thus cannot correctly be grouped with such works. The addition of this inaccurate statement and two more quotes from the "memorial volume" appear to be an attempt to mitigate the actual scholarly views, dismissing this work. The heavy direct citation of a single work (Mythological Women) now can rightly be charcterized as promoting a POV and borderline plagarism.

'''Shortly after her death, Motz became the subject of a posthumous conference held at Bonn University in 1999, leading to a commemorative volume of 11 articles concerning female entities in Northern mythology. '''

This is redundant. It has already been mentioned in two paragraphs. A posthumerous conference producing a single festscrift was held in her honor. No one disputes that. How many times do we need to say this? The words "largely in German" have also been excised from the text. The statement is accurate, why cut it?

'''At this lively conference, "ideas were ventilated, vigorous discussions arose and papers frequently overran the allotted time." Those in attendance recognized that such intense passion would have been to their honoree's liking. Attendees contributing to the work included: Alexandra Pesch, Margrethe Watt, Rudulf Simek, Ute Schwab, Else Mundal, Wilhelm Heizmann, Anatoly Liberman, John McKinnell, Lise Præstgaard Anderson, and Ándís Egilsdóttir.'''

Another lengthy citation from the same memorial volume, and the omission of the contributions of her family from the work, amount to spin. The NPOV has now been altered, adopting the POV of the memorial biography.

Would an official editor please clarify how much of a single honorific work can be directly quoted and/or cited, before it is considered promoting that work's point of view? This quotefarm, once again, needs to be reduced to the basics Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Your plagiarism has been documented, yet remains in the article. If you do not understand the difference between quoting and plagiarizing, you should not be altering encyclopeda articles.


 * The quotations that I added replaced your deceptive mischaracterizations of those very passages. Why should you be concerned that readers are allowed to see what those writers actually said, rather than being subjected to your negative "spin" on Prof. Motz and her work?


 * I am unaware of any professor who, after retiring from a distinguished academic career, is no longer referred to as "Professor." Can you cite any examples?


 * First you falsely characterized Jochens as a "feminist scholar," then you falsely accused her of being a "pagan scholar," and now you complain that she only refers her readers to Motz's work in a footnote(!) Again, if you are unfamiliar with the practice of using footnotes to refer one's readers to the leading works on a subject, you should not be altering encyclopedia articles.


 * Being asked to draft an entry on a given topic for a specialized encyclopedia is prima facie evidence of expertise in that subject.


 * The word "frequently" was deleted from your earlier edit (twice) because you cited only a single example, and I know of no others. Do you?


 * As all readers and editors are aware, it has been only you who has deleted quotes to scholarship, in this and other articles, and replaced them with your own "spin."


 * As I have previously noted, I would be content to have the article restored to its original, concise format. If you insist on broadening its scope, however, it should not be by mischaracterizing and "spinning" the topic, but through quoting or objectively paraphrasing the words of published authorities who know something about the topic. Rsradford (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

My May 16 Revert of “Jack’s” Edits, No. 1
Since “Jack’s” recent strategy has been to pepper the article with a volley of false, deceptive, and undocumented assertions en masse, I thought the most appropriate response would be to revert them en masse. I will deal with each of his edits individually here seriatim as time permits, so that in case any of them turn out to be supportable, they not be weighed down by the others.

"In her later years, unable to teach, she turned to writing."

Patently false. As has previously been pointed out on this page above, the selected bibliography appended to the article includes 25 scholarly articles and one book published by Prof. Motz before she was forced to retire from teaching. Given the time lags entailed in the submission, peer review, and publishing process, it is reasonable to infer that at least three additional articles were written prior to her retirement. “Jack’s” implication, that Prof. Motz did not begin publishing until she left academia, is unsupportable on its face. It goes without saying that no such statement appears at p.9 of Mythological Women, as “Jack” claims – which is why he provided no quote from that source. Rsradford (talk) 18:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

My May 16 Revert of “Jack’s” Edits, No. 2
“At the posthumous conference held at Bonn University in 1999, which lead to the festschrift, a commemorative volume of 11 articles largely in German, concerning female entities in Northern mythology, her ideas were once again 'ventilated, vigorous discussions arose and papers frequently overran the allotted time.’ ”

Intentionally false and deceptive. Although “Jack” has been corrected on these points before, he has deleted a quotation to the source that illustrates the deceptiveness of this passage. Seven of the scholarly papers published in Mythological Women are in English; only four are in German. Moreover, as the quote "Jack" deleted makes clear, there is no reference in this volume to Prof. Motz’s ideas being ‘ventilated’ at her memorial conference. This can only be a deliberate falsification of the source material by “Jack.” Rsradford (talk) 18:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have made a good faith effort to edit the entry and restore the NPOV, which RS's contribution skewed by heavily quoting a 3-page tribute to Motz. Because he disagrees with a single point, he has reverted the article to one of his old edits. This behavior is unacceptable.

The book in question most certainly uses the word "ventilated". The passage reads: "She always enjoyed discussing her own and others' views and did so with fervour. It is this spirit which made the conference in her honor a fitting tribute. There ideas were ventilated, vigorous discussions arose and papers frequently overran the allotted time. Such a workshop would surely have been to her liking."

I have redited the article, taking RS's comments into account. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

My May 16 Revert of "Jack's" Edits, No. 3
'“She speculates that Jacob Grimm had chosen the reading because'' it coincides phonetically with Njorðr.' But this is obviously incorrect, as Grimm himself states: 'the manuscripts collated have this reading. ...I should prefer Nertus to Nerthus, because no other German words in Tacitus have TH, except Gothini and Vuithones.' More recently, John McKinnell, has reasserted the generally accepted linguistic basis for this reading."'''

Misleading/deceptive verbiage. The previous version of the article correctly stated that Motz argued that Grimm, in accordance with the extreme Germanic nationalism that motivated his Deutsche Mythologie, had chosen a particular manuscript reading because it would permit the appropriation of Norse mythology for a German nation that sorely lacked a mythology of its own. She may have been correct in this argument, or she may not have been. But it is clearly more than idle speculation. Grimm’s philological justification for his choice (which he invented on the spot) is clearly irrelevant to Motz’s argument concerning his motives, and cannot rationally be cited as showing that Motz was “obviously incorrect.” McKinnell “reasserted” nothing. In the work “Jack” cites, McKinnell gives no indication that he has even read The King, the Champion, and the Sorcerer, and certainly does not respond to Motz’s argument. He merely repeats Grimm’s derivation in his own treatment of Nerthus, as do other scholars. It has nothing to do with Prof. Motz whatsoever.Rsradford (talk) 19:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

At what point may a user be blocked for bad-faith editing?
A few minutes ago, I once again pointed out that "Jack the Giant-Killer" is deliberately falsifying the article with his claim that Prof. Motz "turned to writing" after she could no longer teach. This statement is patently false, as can be confirmed by the bibliography appended to the article, and there is nothing that remotely supports the claim in the source "Jack" cites for it.

Yet after this explanation was posted above, "Jack" simply reinserted his demonstrably false claim into the article.

If this differs from the behavior one would expect from a troll, I miss the distinction. Can anything be done? Rsradford (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

More name-calling and personal abuse. The "bad faith" is obviously on the part of RSRadford. The tribute biography, p. 9, clearly states:

"Later she taught German at Hunter College until in 1984, she contracted bronchiectasis. She subsequently had to give up teaching and eventually returned to Oxford with her daughter. Although she was very disappointed about giving up her beloved teaching, and leaving New York, she persued her scholary activities all the more vigorously in Oxford, continuing to attend international conferences and write prolifically."

Again, this editor has falsely accused me of plagarizing the article, and now criticizes me for summarizing it. Apprently he wants only the good bits put in this article, and anything he perceives as negative to be omitted. 21:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Your plagiarism from Mythological Women has been documented and cannot be disputed. Indeed, the only factual information you have posted to this article has been plagiarized -- pointlessly so, since you pasted it over a non-plagiarized account covering the same period of Prof. Motz's life.


 * Your claim that Prof. Motz first "turned to writing" after she could no longer teach is plainly false, as can be confirmed by the bibliography, and is not supported by the passage you quoted above. Assuming you are sane, you can only be playing some sort of game by blatantly inserting false information into the article, and "documenting" it by citing to passages that do not even remotely support your claim.


 * Again I appeal to the regulars: Is there any mechanism to block a user for repeated bad-faith edits and apparent game-playing? Rsradford (talk) 22:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Radford has now performed three reverts in a 24 hour period, along with the repeated personal abuse, and taking charge of the entry. Can someone block this behavior? 13:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs)

Trimmed to stub
Enough. I've trimmed the article to its (hopefully) non-contentious stub, and am going to ask for protection in this form. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gordon,

The stub, originally composed by Mr. Radford, is contentious. There was an earlier edit by yourself or another editor which sought to revise the article in a neutral manner. That edit would be preferable. 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Contentious in what way? It's just a brief biography and a bibliopgraphy. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 14:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Contentious in that it draws exclusively from the 3-page tribute work now, with editorializing by RS. Primarily, it creates a false impression of how many works she wrote. She did not write "scores" of scholarly articles, but rather approximately 50. The stub also erases all of the relevant contributions made since it was created. The biographical information is of such a general nature as to be misleading. There is much relevant scholarship (outside of the 3-page tribute) that has been omitted. Do you plan on restoring this at some point? Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 14:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm reviewing this talk page because I'm curious about the background of the editor disagreement here. I'm puzzled by the above objection -- with regard to "scores" vs. "50."  Are the editors aware that a "score" is, literally, 20?  Therefore, "50" would be at least two "scores"?
 * It just seems such a weird little thing to get upset about? Sugarbat (talk) 23:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's a subtlety regarding how many "scores" implies (in relation to a dispute about the importance of the author). It's an archaic measurement anyway: best move is to say precisely how many, which has been done. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * With all respect, no, it hasn't. What has been done is to count the number of papers in a partial bibliography, and represent that as Prof. Motz's total scholarly output, which is incorrect.  It's important to "Jack" because of his vested interest in denigrating and downplaying the contributions of real Old Norse scholars, knowledge of whose work undermines his efforts to promote 19th century Romantic fantasies (see Victor Rydberg).  It's not important to me except that, as currently written, it's inaccurate.  But as I said before, it's a trivial inaccuracy compared to what was injected into the previous incarnation of the article. Rsradford (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to wrap up, if you don't care for "scores of scholarly papers," it would also be correct to say "at least 50 scholarly papers" or "more than 50 scholarly papers." The problem with "around 50 scholarly papers" is that it implies the number is close to 50, which is really not known; or that it could be less than 50, which is clearly excluded. Rsradford (talk) 15:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Number of papers corrected. It erases everything that you (plural) can't agree on. The deal with protection - assuming it's granted - is that text is discussed, and an admin will put it in on request when the form is agreed. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good Gordon. Thanks.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 21:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As usual, "Jack" is knowingly lying. The selected bibliography, which lists only a portion of Prof. Motz's scholarly output, includes 50 articles and 3 encyclopedia entries -- which by itself is enough to make "scores" an accurate assessment.  A full itemization of her published scholarship would go well above 60 articles -- but of course "Jack" would then complain about listing her more obscure works in the article .  Nevertheless, thank you Gordonofcartoon for reducing "Jack's" ability to maliciously sabotage the article to such a trivial matter. Rsradford (talk) 00:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Can we insist that the personal attacks stop as well? This has gotten old. 04:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs)

If Radford is to have his way, then this article will always remain a stub, largely written by him. That is unaccceptable. It seems Radford wishes to elevate her academic career, by omitting as much detail as he can regarding her actual credentials and career. Certainly, a thorough review of her education and degrees is relevant. If he wishes to argue facts, then I welcome a debate. The information in the current revision is factual information obtained from a published biography of Ms. Motz. What is Radford's problem with stating the fact that Ms. Motz was Jewish and a Holocaust survivor? Does he not accept this as factual? Is this an entry on the person, Lotte Motz, or not? Certainly, the facts regarding Ms. Motz's life are relevant in an encyclopedia article devoted to her. She is a remarkably colorful character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 00:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Your long history of bad-faith edits to this article speaks for itself. Your sole interest in Prof. Motz is to identify her as a "Jew scholar" whose work on Germanic mythology should therefore be discounted.  This contemptible project is what led to the article being reduced to a neutral stub in the first place.  Revisiting your previous vandalism to the article will simply result in repeating the same cycle it has already been through. Far better to let it remain a neutral stub listing Prof. Motz's works. Rsradford (talk) 17:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks tight now Radford. I have never engaged in bad-faith editing. Your insistence on elevating Motz's education and listing such insignificant things as bibliographic citations as evidence of her supposed influence was what led to the article being cut back to a sub. You were warned about edit warring twice. Regardless of your personal opinions, Motz's career and life are the subject of this entry and will be expanded upon, despite your obstruction. What is your problem with her being Jewish? Her biography states the fact several times. The past is the past. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 20:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you think everyone you deal with is a fool? We have all seen you go through this cycle previously.  First you will plagiarize from Mythological Women to get Prof. Motz identified as a Jew.  Then you will insert your own "original research" that because she was Jewish, she "attacked" German scholars.  Then you will invent imaginary articles "refuting" Prof. Motz's scholarship, "quelling" imaginary "stirs."  We have all been there before.  If you have any genuine interest in the subject of Old Norse mythology (as opposed to 19th-century racial-nationalist fantasies), please find a school that is willing to enroll you in an introductory course. Then you may be able to make a useful, good-faith contribution to the article.  Rsradford (talk) 20:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

More personal attacks. Not surprising. The entry isn't about me, so you can stop the personal attacks any time. The fact is Lotte Motz got a PhD in German. Not a stretch considering she came from a German speaking country. And she was Jewish. These are not disputed facts. Regardless of what you think my motives are, this factual information belongs in the entry. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Your motives are obvious to everyone who has followed the sorry history of this article. However, if you wish to continue playing your 6-year-old games, it's obvious nobody will be able to stop you until you are blocked. Rsradford (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

For Discussion: Motz's Education & Background
'''As a Jew, she was denied the right to attend high school after the Nazi's annexed Austria in 1938. Two tears later, her mother left Austria with Lotte and her two brothers, settling in New York, where she eventually received a B.A. from Hunter College. She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University, before completing her studies at the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955. She moved to Oxford in 1959, where her husband Hans took a job lecturing engineering. While there, she undertook a Bphil in Old English, which introduced her to Old Norse. Returning to America with her daughter Anna in 1971, she obtained an academic position at Brooklyn College in the German department, and later taught German at Hunter College. After contracting bronchiectasis in 1984, she gave up teaching and returned to Oxford with her daughter, where her research interests came to focus on female figures in Norse and Germanic mythology, especially "the fates of female figures in folklore and myth."[1]'''

This is the current revision, as it now stands. The stub is too vague to serve as an entry on this scholar.

Since Motz is presented as a scholar, a concise accounting of her academic credentials is essential. The stub is unclear on this matter. Motz was a German professor, and a native of a German-speaking country, yet she commented on Old Icelandic documents.

Radford specifically objects to Motz being identified as Jewish. This information comes from a reputable biographical source (the festschrift, Radford cites). Since the entry says she escaped from the Nazis, it is certainly relevant to say why. The Nazis' persecuted homosexuals, slavs, people of color and other minorities, as well as Jews. To avoid possible speculation that Motz was a lesbian or other minority, it is necessary to include this information.

Does Radford care to dispute the facts or simply engage in further personal attacks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 05:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Since you have repeatedly shown yourself unable to grasp the meaning of plagiarism, I have cured your plundering of Mythological Women by quoting the relevant biographical material in full. Your move.  Based on your last performance, I believe this is where you denounce the "Jew scholar" for her "attacks on the icons of Aryanism?" Rsradford (talk) 22:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks Radford. It is a violation of copyright law to quote a source as extensively as you did without the permission of the publisher. As the owner of an educational non-profit that has faced such issues, no one should know this better than you. You have proven the accuracy of my revision by quoting the source verbatim for Gordon. Since you have now provided evidence in support of the factual material in the revision, your objections are clearly baseless. If you read a bit further, you'll see that the same source also says that Motz "was never afraid to attack the icons of scholarship," not Aryan scholarship as you believe. This is a fact, supported by evidence, not an opinion. What drives your continued obsession with Aryans and Jews any way? What do you hope to gain by continuously waving that flag? Your efforts to smear me as a racist are unfounded and offensive. Keep your venom to yourself. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:16, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As the director of a nonprofit library I am intimately familiar with the requirements of copyright, although the subject is obviously a total mystery to you. I had a good laugh with the authorities when you filed your false report of copyright infringement against the Galinn Grund foundation.  We all agreed you are apparently just a harmless nut job, although of course we could have been mistaken.  If you really lack the education or intellect to understand the difference between plagiarizing and quoting, you have absolutely no business here defacing encyclopedia articles.  You have showed in the past that your sole interest in Prof. Motz is to portray her as a "Jew scholar" defacing "Aryan scholarship," so I thought you might want to cut to the chase.  Obviously, if you would rather repeat your previous vandalism step-by-step, no one can stop you.


 * I have once again remedied your plagiarism by replacing it with quotes from the work you plan to distort. Rsradford (talk) 21:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

More unwarranted personal attacks. Stop the name-calling and stick to the topic of the entry. Indeed, your sense of humor escapes me. Unless you obtain the publisher's permission to excerpt large portions of their copyrighted text, you are in violation of copyright law. Your claims of plagarism are nothing more than an effort to censor the article.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * FWIW, a paragraph from an extensive prose source is not a violation of copyright, but clear fair use by any reasonable academic standard. DGG (talk) 01:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"Jack"'s insistent plagiarism
Despite having been repeatedly cautioned against plagiarizing from the book Mythological Women, "Jack" seems hell-bent on inserting his plagiarism into the article, while simultaneously refusing to allow quotations from the same source that would cure the problem. Since the only rationale "Jack" has offered for these actions is that he claims to be ignorant of both copyright law and plagiarism conventions, it seems the only way to resolve the problem is to restore the article to the neutral stub first advanced as a solution by Gordonofcartoon on May 17, 2008. I have accordingly done so, with a minor correction regarding the number of Prof. Motz's scholarly publications. Rsradford (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

More gamnes by Radford, see the discussion regarding the number of articles above. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:01, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Must an editor tolerate...
To date, Radford has not produced one shred of evidence to refute the facts of my revision. Instead he has engaged in a sustained ad homineum attack hoping to silence opposition. He has now taken it to the next level.

Radford recently carried this over onto the "Viktor Rydberg" talk page, where he is now making open threats, based on my edits here. While he claims to represent academic authority, on the Viktor Rydberg entry, he is now bent on filling the entry with unverifiable quotes and innuendos, implying that the author was a pedophile, as retribution. Radford also hosts a self-published article titled the "Rydberg Religion" which states the same thing in much more explicit terms. Radford's push to include this salacious material on Wikipedia's Rydberg entry came in response to my recent attempt to add factual information to the Lotte Motz entry. Now he has posted an outright threat. It is now evident that Radford is engaging in stalking and harassment.

Radford wrote:

'''Your personal hatreds and phobias are your own problem, "Jack," and are not a basis for censoring this article. If you have an issue with the encyclopedia GLBTQ as a source, you should deal with it at the relevant Wikipedia article, glbtq.com. I have once again restored the "Sexuality" section. If you deface it again, I will refer your homophobic vandalism to Wikipedia's LGBT Project. Rsradford (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)'''

Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 01:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Obviously, none of the above rant has even the slightest relevance to this article, other than graphically confirming that "Jack" has no good-faith interest in improving it. Since this is not the place to urge another editor to seek psychiatric help, all I can do is to once again restore the article to a neutral stub and call on Wikipedia to place this article under protection. Rsradford (talk) 03:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It simply shows your unwillingness to construct a consensus and improve upon the entries you edit. I am willing to discuss the facts of the entry with you and seek concensus, but you choose to name-call, threaten and demean those who disagree with you here and elsewhere. Your underlying motives are not a concern to me. If you drop the hate-speech, I'm willing to work at a concensus with you. But you must stop the hate-speech first. Once you do, we can move on from there. Do you disagree with the facts of the entry, as they stand? If so, let's discuss it.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 13:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS NOW, "JACK!"  The record is quite clear: there have been no "threats" or "hate speech" by me.  I strongly object to your gratuitous accusations, which constitute personal abuse in violation of Wikipedia's expectation of civility.


 * For the 10th time: Your proposed addition to the stub plagiarizes the work, Mythological Women. See Plagiarism for the ethical issues this implicates. You have twice deleted quotations from this same source that would avoid the plagiarism issue. What compromise do you suggest?


 * The source you cite clearly identifies Prof. Motz as the author of four books and "well over 50" scholarly articles. Is there a reason why you have persistently altered these numbers without a supporting citation to any authority? Rsradford (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Radford, as an objective observer, I concur that you have engaged in your share of gratuitous personal attacks here and elsewhere in violation of Wikipedia's policies. The same source you cite states that Ms. Motz was Jewish and only possessed degrees in German and a "Bphil" in Old English. Why do you persistently block this information? Being Jewish and educated is nothing to be ashamed of. Your actions seem to suggest you believe it is. Finnrekkr (talk) 15:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * An examination of your own posting history hardly confirms that you are an objective observer, "Mr. Finnrekkr." It should be obvious that I have no objection to anyone adding the information that Prof. Motz was Jewish, or listing the degrees she held, if those facts are considered relevant.  My objections to Mr. Reaves' edits are based on two facts: (1) he is plagiarizing, and insists on doing so; and (2) the last time he inserted a reference to Prof. Motz's Jewishness into the article, he followed that up by stating his own theory that her path-breaking work in Germanic mythology was explained by the fact that, as a Jew, she had something against Germans.  (A theory which he has posted not only in this article, but elsewhere on the Internet, btw).  I see no reason to repeat the mistakes of the recent past as if they never occurred.  That said, if you want to add the facts that Prof. Motz was a Jew, and list her degrees, with appropriate citations to your sources, feel free to do so when the article emerges from protection. Rsradford (talk) 17:43, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * as I have commented above, an addition of a relevant sourced quotation of one short paragraph from a published book is not plagiarism, but accepted fair use. DGG (talk) 18:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean it would not be a copyright violation, if it were quoted directly from the source, as I have tried to do. That is correct.  But it is definitely plagiarism the way "Jack" is trying to do it, since it tracks his source point-by-point and sometimes word-for-word, without quoting.  There is no "fair use" exception to plagiarism, which can apply to anything more than three words. Rsradford (talk) 20:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * at Wikipedia we're a little more informal, and it may sometimes be ok to put quotes around phrases, with a reference to the source. I suspect several hundred thousand wikipedia articles are written in this fashion. DGG (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Edit
In light of Mr. Radford's statements and his citation from the book "Mythological Women," I purpose the following edit. The information appears accurate, and does not appear to be "plagarized" in any way as Mr. Radford claims:

Lotte Motz (August 16, 1922 – December 24, 1997) was an Austrian-American scholar who published five books and around 50 scholarly papers, primarily in the fields of Norse mythology and folklore.

As a Jew, she was denied the right to attend high school after the Nazi's annexed Austria, a German-speaking country, in 1938. Two years later, her mother left Austria with Lotte and her two brothers, settling in New York. She eventually received a B.A. from Hunter College. She did a single year of graduate work at Stanford University, before obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955 at the University of Wisconsin. Following her husband, she moved to Oxford in 1959. While there, she undertook a Bphil in Old English. Returning to America with her daughter Anna in 1971, she obtained an academic position at Brooklyn College in the German department, and later taught German at Hunter College. After contracting bronchiectasis in 1984, she gave up teaching and returned to Oxford with her daughter, where her research interests focused on female figures in Germanic mythology, especially "the fates of female figures in folklore and myth."

After her death, Motz's work became the subject of a conference held at Bonn University in 1999, which led to the publication of a commemorative festschrift containing German and English language articles on female entities in Northern mythology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Finnrekkr (talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Give it a rest, "Jack!"


 * For the 11th time, you are plagiarizing your source. You claimed above that you were willing to work toward consensus.  That's not what you're doing.  As I asked previously, what compromise are you willing propose? Rsradford (talk) 20:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS NOW, "RADFORD"!!! Get over yourself.

You are unwilling to include mention of Motz's Jewish faith, because it undermines your personal thesis. This upteenth cry of plagarism is a smoke-screen to cover your unwillingness to allow the facts of your contrarian hero's hertitage and education to be clearly expressed. Your vaulted "Prof. Motz" was a German teacher from a German speaking country. She was a Jewish victim of the Nazi's annexation of Austria, who fled to New York, only to grow old "attacking the icons of [Germanic] scholarship." She had little influence outside of feminist and lesbian circles, who adored her anti-establishment, pro-womyn articles. I have rewritten the material numerous times and regardless, all you can muster is a weak knee-jerk cry of "plagarism." The facts are the issue here, not your viewpoint. Motz was Jewish. She had a PhD in German, and taught German. She had a "Bphil" in Old English from Oxford, which produced such stellar "Old Norse scholars" as Carolyne Larrington,another womyn's author. Do you disagree with these facts or will you persist being an obstructionist? Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 05:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Moving On
Now that the personal attacks have been formally addressed and dispensed with, let's get on with the business of editing the entry. I believe it is imperative that Motz's background and educational credentials be accurately outlined, as she is presented as a scholar. Thus, I purpose the following revision of the entry:

"As a Jew, she was denied the right to attend high school after the Nazis annexed her native Austria in 1938. Two years later, her mother left Austria relocating with Lotte and her brothers to New York. Motz eventually received a B.A. from Hunter College. She did a single year of graduate work at Stanford University, before obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955 at the University of Wisconsin. Following her husband, she moved to Oxford in 1959. While there, she undertook a Bphil in Old English. Returning to America with her daughter in 1971, she obtained an academic position at Brooklyn College in the German department, and later taught German at her alma mater, Hunter College. After contracting bronchiectasis in 1984, she gave up teaching and returned to Oxford with her daughter, where her research interests focused on female figures in Germanic mythology, especially "the fates of female figures in folklore and myth."[16]

The charge of plagarism is unfounded. These are biographical facts obtained from the work cited. Of course they mirror their source to a degree, repeating its facts as accurately as possible. Because her "innovative" articles are frequently cited by a particular web-based sect of Asatru, an accurate account of her credentials in a reliable source, such as Wikipedia, is warranted. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 03:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Since there can be no concensus, a fuller citation of the source here, may be useful to a third party editor to determine whether the accusation of plagarism has any merit. The article, written by a close personal friend shortly after her death, is gushing, thus it is necessary to distill the facts, to avoid its emotional hyperbole. Thus, I strongly object to a strict quotation of it and its biases. As a minor scholar, there are no other published biographies regarding Motz, and thus nothing else to turn to. Although she commented on Old Icelandic documents, her training was in the Old English and German philology. Obviously, this is relevant information. The statement about "well over 50 scholarly articles" is dubious as the most complete bibliography available the 370 pg. festschrift, lists only 51 "scholalry articles", when the four books, two book reviews, and three encyclopedia entries are withdrawn. The reckoning "well over 50" appears to be more of her friend's hyperbole. His 3-page biographical article, the one in question, states:

"Hers was hardly a typical academic career. Her life was similar to that of many others in the 20th century who were driven from their homes and led the life of refugees. Lotte Motz, nee Eldis, was born in Viena in 1922. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school). In 1941 her mother escaped to America with Lotte and two younger brothers, settling in New York City. Working throughout her studies, Lotte Motz completed high school and college and received a B.A.in German from Hunter College, City University of New York, in 1949. She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University, and completed her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she obtained a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955. She moved to Oxford in 1959 where her husband Hans was a lecturer in engineering. There her scholarly career began. She undertook a Bphil in Old English which introduced her to Old Norse. Her love of the subject never left her.” “When in 1971 she returned to America with her daughter Anna, she obtained an academic position in the German department at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where she was a highly popular and respected teacher. Later she taught German at Hunter College until in 1984 she contracted bronchiectasis. She subsequently had to give up teaching and eventually returned to Oxford with her daughter. Although she was very disappointed about giving up her beloved teaching, and leaving New York City, she pursued her scholarly activities all the more vigorously in Oxford, continuing to attend international conferences and write prolifically.”

“Lotte Motz’s field was originally Icelandic and Germanic mythology and religion, and most of her four books and well over 50 articles relate to Northern mythology. From about 1980 on, though, her papers show a distinct interest in the fates of the female figures of folklore and myth,and she published several fascinating studies on giantesses. Later, she turned her interest towards the female deities of ancient north-western Europe, and two of her books, namely The Beauty and the Hag (1993) and her most ambitious work, The Faces of the Goddess (1997), were dedicated to the female in mythology, the former against its Germanic background, the latter across various cultures. In both these books she challenged the notion of a unitary mother goddess archetype. At [sic] also widened the range of sources used in these studies, until she had intergrated features of mythologies from all over Europe and beyond. This made her work even more interesting to read and more assessible to criticism from other fields. It also exposed her papers to the usual criticism of the study of comparative religion, namely that similar phenomena can quite easily have different menaings in different cultures. Motz however was not deterred by criticism and she was a passionate seeker of truth and justice. One of her greatest strengths as a scholar was that she was never afraid to attack the icons of scholarship if she believed the truth to be elsewhere. She was thus the first scholar in recent history to question the truth behind the goddess Nerthus in Tacitus' Germania, the name being only one of several possible manuscript readings, thus opening up new paths ofthought on early Germanic religion. Lotte Motz was certainly the first scholar in our field to take a serious step past the Three-Function-Theory developed by Georges Dumezil nearly four decades ago. These views were developed in her fourth book The King, the Sorcerer and the Champion (Vienna 1996) and two of her last articles on Thor and his Thunder Weapon (both 1997). Her research in this direction was sadly interrupted by her death and it is left to others to take up the provocative thoughts she presented us with. Lotte's innovative ideas live on past her death; she has given scholarship in this field a new impetus."

Since the charge of plagarism is a contentious one which hampers editing of this entry, an editorial descision is needed here. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Administrative Decision Required
An Administarive decision is required to break the log jam here. Looking at Jack the giant killer's suggested revision and the actual passages quoted by both Radford and Jack, I see no evidence of plagarism. Large quotes from the citation are not necessary, and would inherent the pro-Motz bias of the writer. In my humble opinion, this repeated charge has no basis in fact and indeed appears to be an effort to block editing on the entry. DGB, can you please make a ruling so we move forward with the editing process here? Finnrekkr (talk) 14:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems quite amusing the "Jack"/Finnrekkr" fears that quoting from the source in question would "inherent the pro Motz bias of the writer" (whatever in the world that's supposed to mean), yet his proposed solution is to selectively plagiarize from the same source {!} My proposed solution: if "Jack"/Finnrekkr" lacks independent knowledge of Prof. Motz sufficient to enable him to provide biographical data without plagiarizing, the article should
 * remain as it is; or
 * quote the relevant passage from Mythological Women, which obviously would not entail a copyright violation. Rsradford (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Or the third option: Have an administrator look at the passage cited and the proposed revision and determine if there is any substance to the accusation of "plagarism". Saying a thing repeatedly does not make it so, and STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS NOW RADFORD!!!! Unless you have proof that I am "Jack," your unfounded accusations of our identity are simply another personal attack. I am not Jack, or Carla. You have also claimed that Jack is me, and that Carla O'Harris is Jack, on the Viktor Rydberg entry as well. Stick to the topic at hand, and quit the attacks on fellow editors. Finnrekkr (talk) 19:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * While I so far have yet to agree with, I always disagree with sock puppetry and so does Wikipedia policy. Considering the swarm of red names that have no other edit history than around these these two articles (Viktor Rydberg being the other), I think it's reasonable to be concerned about sockpuppetry here. You are saying , , and are not a single person? I think a CheckUser would be reasonable and appropriate here to dispel or support the notion that I am sure everyone here is suspicious of. bloodofox: (talk) 20:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * For the record, I have never said, here or anywhere else, that and  are the same person.  They may be, but it would be an elaborate ruse, since they have long jointly hosted a dog-and-pony show at the "Viktor Rydberg" Yahoo Group.  What I have said is that, and  appear to be the same person. Rsradford (talk) 20:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sigh* How soon they forget : "Please don't lie about my edits, too. The revision you are complaining about was done by your alter-ego, "Carla." Rsradford (talk) 17:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)" But no, Jack and I are not the same person. As far as a "dog and pony show" go, well ... you only wish you were so creative. But then again, perhaps I ought to be flattered that I've been promoted from a member of a dangerous cyber-cult to a ringleader of a circus. Would you like to be the dog or the pony? Or are you the clown?CarlaO&#39;Harris (talk) 10:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware of the Yahoo Group pretext to all of this - it would explain the names seemingly coming out of thin air. Still, if someone wants to submit these names to a CheckUser I can understand why. bloodofox: (talk) 21:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Please do. In the interest of truth, check our names. Radford simply wishes to discredit those who oppose him. Radford has a long history of participation in Googlegroups. Don't take my word for it, do a search for the name "Rorik@yolo.com" for extensive evidence of this. Relevant to this site, however, false claims of his oppoenents' identity is a method he has used on Wikipedia before, as Carla just demonstrated, despite his denial. As a professional lawyer, no doubt, he is keenly aware that such tactics are effective in delaying progress on matters he opposes. Now, can we get on with the business of editing this entry, or must Radford's foot-stamping and false charges continue to obstruct progress here? I have purposed a revision. Will an independent moderator please decide whether it is plagarism or not?Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Since being vilified by trolls appears to be a mark of distinction on Wikipedia, I gratefully acknowlege "Jack's" and "Carla's" contributions. The fact that neither of them understands the meaning of the term, "alter-ego," is very much in character.  These sorts of personal attacks, of course, have long been their standard method of deflecting attention from the subject at hand, which currently is "Jack's" use of the sock-puppet  to evade the three-reverts rule.


 * There is no dispute that "Jack's"/"Finnrekkr's" proposed edit to the article is plagiarism -- any academic writing text will document that fact. The only question is, should the source he is trying to distort be quoted in full, or should the article be left as it is?  I, too, would welcome an administrator's decision. Rsradford (talk) 16:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought you might say I misunderstand "alter ego". Since this is a wikipedia discussion, why don't we refer to wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter_ego : "An alter ego (Latin, "the other I") is a second self, a second personality or persona within a person. ... The term alter ego is commonly used in literature analysis and comparison to describe characters who are psychologically identical, or sometimes to describe a character as an alter ego of the author, a fictional character whose behavior, speech or thoughts intentionally represent those of the author. ... The term and concept also frequently appear in popular fiction, such as in comic books, for the secret identity of a superhero, vigilante, crime fighter or villain. Related concepts include avatar, doppelgänger, impersonator, and split personality." If you meant to say something else, Mr. Radford, perhaps you ought to communicate more clearly. CarlaO&#39;Harris (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * A troll is one who seeks to distract attention from the article under discussion by, inter alia, making false personal accusations (such as that I claimed you and "Jack" were the same person). It didn't work.  Please return to discussing the article. Rsradford (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Certainly there is a dispute about what constitutes plagarism or we would not be having this discussion. Once again, Radford STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS. No one here has "villified" you. I simply object to your misidentifications, false accusatations, and name-calling. Finnrekkr (talk) 17:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is absolutely no dispute about what constitutes plagiarism -- for that matter, you haven't bothered to advance a non-standard "definition" of the term by which your proposed edit would not be considered plagiarism. The dispute is over whether your plagiarism should be allowed in the article.  Rsradford (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

How about someone check mine, Carla's and Jack's accounts, as well as Radford's and DAB's, to establish if the any "Sock Puppetry" is going on, and then make some kind of descision on whether there is plagarism in the purposed edit. It would be nice to move forward and get past this log-jam Radford has created. Finnrekkr (talk) 01:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Continued Personal Attacks
After repeated warnings about making personal attacks on fellow editors, Radford wrote:

"Since being vilified by trolls appears to be a mark of distinction on Wikipedia, I gratefully acknowlege "Jack's" and "Carla's" contributions."

I do not appreciate being called a troll. Neither myself nor Carla deserves this continued abuse. Why is this allowed to continue? Radford is obviously trying to obstruct attempts to edit this entry. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is game-playing. I am confident that anyone reviewing this page will have the intelligence not to be misled concerning the source of the "personal attacks" and "abuse."  Now, do you have any substantive justification you would like to advance in support of your proposed edit? Rsradford (talk) 21:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The inertia here is stifling. Can someone with a backbone make a descision on the charges of plagarism? I see none in the purposed revision. Radford seems to be the only one with any objection. If Ms. Motz is to be presented as a scholar, an accurate account of her education is clearly in order. Since her jewishness has been verified in a reputable source, and no one here disputes the fact, what is the objection to mentioning it? Surviving the Holocaust was a significant event in this deceased scholar's life. The charges of plagarism are the sticking point, and since neither side is budging, an administrative descision is necessary. What is the hold up?Finnrekkr (talk) 01:42, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As I commented earlier, I do not consider it plagiarism, but suggest a rewriting of that section anyway, and then everyone should be satisfied. DGG (talk) 02:35, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite?
[copying to new heading] As I commented earlier, I do not consider it plagiarism, but suggest a rewriting of that section anyway, and then everyone should be satisfied. DGG (talk) 02:35, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's the way it should work, and I have already stated I have no objection to mentioning Prof. Motz's ethnicity and degrees, with an appropriiate citation. Indeed, I have twice inserted this material into the article as part of a quote from Mythological Women, but "Jack"/"Fennrikkr" has twice deleted it, because he prefers to paraphrase from the same source so closely as to be obvious plagiarism.  Here is another alternative rewrite:


 * Motz was posthumously honored with a conference held in her memory at Bonn University in 1999, which led to the publication of a commemorative volume of scholarly works on female entities in Northern mythology. ::Lotte Motz (August 16, 1922 – December 24, 1997) was an Austrian-American scholar who published four books and well over 50 scholarly papers, primarily in the fields of Norse mythology and folklore.


 * As a Jew, Motz was forced to flee her native Austria upon the rise of the Nazis. She earned her B.A. from Hunter College and did her graduate work at Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology from the latter institution in 1955. She taught at Brooklyn College and Hunter College. Subsequently she earned a B.phil in Old English from Oxford. Her research interests came to focus on female figures in Norse and Germanic mythology, especially the nature and function of giantesses in that tradition.

Rsradford (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * :OK, the next question is, what else do people want to add? DGG (talk) 18:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That is indeed the 64 kronur question. One look at the earlier history of this article shows pretty clearly where the folks who have fixated on Prof. Motz's Jewishness want to run with it, but now they must speak for themselves. Rsradford (talk) 18:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hola DDG: The section has been rewritten several times now, see above. I stand by my last purposed revision. Clearly it is not plagarism by any standard definition, as you acknowledge. Radford's rewrite is unacceptable because it omits too many details, and is obviously designed to mask her qualifications.

1) Motz did not write "well over 50 scholarly articles". The most complete bibliography lists 51. This is simply another attempt to artifically inflate her output (ala "scores"). 2) Motz received a BA in German from Hunter College, where she later taught German, until contracting bronchiectasis in 1984. "German" has been summarially dropped to make it appear she had training in Old Norse, her chosen field. She came from a German speaking family, and German speaking country so this wasn't much of a stretch. 3) In 1984, when she left Hunter College, she quit teaching professionally, and thus was no longer a "prof." The source is very clear on this. It says she "had to give up teaching" and mentions how disappointed she was about "giving up her beloved teaching." 4) The source only states that she "obtained an academic position in the German deparment at Brooklyn College." It does not say she taught there. 5) "Forced to flee" Austria upon the rise of the Nazis is dramatic hyperbole. Her family left two years into the Annexation, and restrictions on schooling were cited as the reason. The source itself says she lived the life of a "refugee," which is equally dramatic, considering she moved to New York. This was not a poor family. Her primary hardship, according to the biography, was that she had to work while going to school, something most Americans do.

The additional information about her husband and daughter, and the reason for her moves from Austria to New York, from New York to Oxford, back to New York, and then back to Oxford gives the entry a human touch and adds some color, absent in Radford's terse rewrite. Clearly, this was a woman of some means with international connections, no "refugee." There is nothing unusual about including this kind of personal information on Wikipedia; most scholars' entries provide a wealth of such details.Everything here is verifiable and cited as such. Don't forget this source is the only biographical account of this minor scholar, so naturally it will be cited extensively, if anything of substance is to be said of her. Radford's efforts to omit its information, but extensively quote its effusive prose seems rather disingenious in light of his contributions elsewhere on Wikipedia. To see how Radford handles similar information, see the Viktor Rydberg entry. His revision of May 6th creating a new section on 'sexuality' there is illustrative of his usual approach. It should be obvious by now, that there can be no concensus in this environment. The process here is deliberately being slowed down. The false charge of plagarism is simply the latest effort in a long line of foot-dragging measures here. It is standard practice on Wikipedia to add biographical information from verifiable sources. The source is reputable, has been cited, and all parties have agreed on its contents. There is simply no reasonable basis to drag this process out any longer. You have ruled that my proposed revision is not plagarism. Thus, there is no need to revise it further. I cannot accept the butchered rewrite purposed by Radford, as it smacks of deception in my opinion. In previous revisions, we have seen where the folks who are fixated on reckoning bibliographic citations as tokens of Motz's "vast scholarly influence" want to run. I cannot support their efforts to construct a launching pad for more of the same. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 03:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Several of the above comments seem to reflect lack of familiarity with ordinary academic conventions (such as continuing to refer to retired professors as "professor," albeit emeritus). Similarly, the criticism that Prof. Motz obtained a B.A. in German before obtaining her Ph.D. and beginning her teaching career seems, well, inexplicable.


 * In any event, since the critic seems to know nothing at all about Prof. Motz or her scholarship except what can be gleaned from the brief biographical sketch I referred him to in the first place (which notes that Prof. Motz authored "well over 50 articles"), how could he possibly object to quoting directly from that material, as I have twice attempted to do previously? Since no copyright issues would be implicated, why does he insist on plagiarizing the source instead of quoting from it?


 * BTW, DDG, I do not believe it is correct to say you "have ruled" that the proposed revision is not plagiarism; your comment seemed to me to confuse plagiarism with copyright violation. Indeed, I believe it is very likely that if you allow the proposed revision to be inserted into the article, the very individual who is advocating the edit will anonymously report it as plagiarism, in hopes of having the article deleted.  Why not skip that step and just quote?  Here, once again, is the more extensive non-plagiarized version of the edit:


 * Lotte Motz (August 16, 1922 – December 24, 1997) was an Austrian-American scholar who published four books and well over 50 scholarly papers, primarily in the fields of Norse mythology and folklore.


 * “After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school). In 1941 her mother escaped to America with Lotte and two younger brothers, settling in New York City. Working throughout her studies, Lotte Motz completed high school and college and received a B.A.in German from Hunter College, City University of New York, in 1949. She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University, and completed her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she obtained a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955. She moved to Oxford in 1959 where her husband Hans was a lecturer in engineering. There her scholarly career began. She undertook a Bphil in Old English which introduced her to Old Norse. Her love of the subject never left her.”[1]


 * “When in 1971 she returned to America with her daughter Anna, she obtained an academic position in the German department at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where she was a highly popular and respected teacher. Later she taught German at Hunter College until in 1984 she contracted bronchiectasis. She subsequently had to give up teaching and eventually returned to Oxford with her daughter. Although she was very disappointed about giving up her beloved teaching, and leaving New York City, she pursued her scholarly activities all the more vigorously in Oxford, continuing to attend international conferences and write prolifically.”[2]


 * “Lotte Motz’s field was originally Icelandic and Germanic mythology and religion, and most of her four books and well over 50 articles relate to Northern mythology. From about 1980 on, though, her papers show a distinct interest in the fates of the female figures of folklore and myth,and she published several fascinating studies on giantesses. Later, she turned her interest towards the female deities of ancient north-western Europe, and two of her books, namely The Beauty and the Hag (1993) and her most ambitious work, The Faces of the Goddess (1997), were dedicated to the female in mythology, the former against its Germanic background, the latter across various cultures. In both these books she challenged the notion of a unitary mother goddess archetype.”[3]


 * Prof. Motz was posthumously honored with a conference held in her memory at Bonn University in 1999, which led to the publication of a commemorative volume of scholarly works on female entities in Northern mythology.[4] “It was out of their great respect for Lotte Motz that a dozen scholars from all over the world came to Bonn” to participate in the conference.[5] “There ideas were ventilated, vigorous discussions arose and papers frequently overran the allotted time. Such a workshop would surely have been to her liking.”[6] Participants included Irmtraud Fischer, Alexandra Pesch, Margrethe Watt, Rudolf Simek, Ute Schwab, Else Mundal, Wilhelm Heizmann, Anatoly Lieberman, John McKinnell, Lise Præstgaard Andersen, and Ásdís Egilsdóttir.
 * Rsradford (talk) 18:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

further comments

 * I didn't come here to rule, and I haven't done so. Nobody here has authority to rule as an individual on whether something is plagiarism or copyright violation, or on what the content of an article should be. Yes, in the discussion above, you are right that I meant "copyright violation" in some cases. The key point is that I advised and continue to advise that the section should be rewritten.
 * Some of the objections raised above are indeed irrelevant-- to quibble over whether 51 is more than 50? I normally think it better to not give exact counts on a bibliography because there are frequent errors in both omission and inclusion. To  discuss here how relevant her background is to her scholarship is besides the point entirely. We are not at Wikipedia to evaluate her academic worth or her intellectual merits. We describe what she did, we do not comment on whether she is or is not a "minor" scholar, or try to decide just why her family left Austria.
 * The extent to which family background is relevant for a bio like this is always arguable, and I've seen people object equally when it is or is not present. Her notability is her work, and the personal background is context, but I think our practice is that it should not predominate in the article. It is however important to avoid peacock terms--for example, one can not say "a popular and well respected teacher" without specific authoritative sourcing- Nor do I think it wise to include peripheral information to give the effect of inflating or deflating a reputation.
 * As a matter of style, we do not build up articles out of quotations--there's a manual of style guideline to that effect. (Nor is it usually all that good an idea in any serious context.) They are intended to be used for specific effect only, or as a precise statement of a point. This is exactly analogous to not using a press release as an article even if we have copyright permission. The tone in which an individual scholar can write a biography is not appropriate to an encyclopedic article. Go rewrite it in neutral terms and make a good and dignified restrained and encyclopedic article.  DGG (talk) 00:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So far as I'm concerned, it already meets that criterion, and I agree that the personal information is completely irrelevant to Prof. Motz's scholarship, which is what makes her noteworthy. Thanks for your advice.

Rsradford (talk) 04:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all good advice DCG. I agree the article should not consist of lengthy quotes drawn from a single gushing source. Since my edits are not plagarism and do not violate copyright restrictions, your suggestion they be rewritten again doesn't make sense. Additional rewrites will not settle the conflict with Radford, as his efforts on the Viktor Rydberg entry demonstrate. My purposed edits include factual information. More than one version has already been purposed, so I am not inclined to provide an additional rewrite for no particular reason and without any result. I stand by my last purposed edit. Since Radford and I cannot reach a consensus, why don't you suggest a revision based on the material from the source Mythological Women, which has already been quoted here extensively without dispute? It is important to me to see her academic achievements cited accurately and thoroughly, and a precise account (as far as the facts are known) of why her family left Austria--- without the dramatic flair. These are important because her works and her credentials have been overinflated and her personal biography has been exploited on private pagan forums over the years to promote a particular view. I would like to see the record set straight at a reliable forum like Wikipedia, without omission and without falsification. I believe I can trust you to do this. 24.27.215.5 (talk) 02:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll try my own synthesis of the academic part. The surest way to deal with people leaving during the Nazi period is to say the year they left, and stop there. DGG (talk) 04:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be the best solution. Any forward progress at this point would be a refreshing change. I find it ironic that you state that your purpose here is not to "rule", but have used your authority to shut down all editing on the entry for several weeks now. Finnrekkr (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Heading off the inevitable objections
The recent revisions have left out many details of Motz's life, including her maiden name and an accurate account of her education and scholarly qualifications. I have sought to clarify these, with strictly factual information. Since there will no doubt be objections, let's head them off up front. I wrote:

'''Motz was posthumously honored with a conference held in her memory at Bonn University in 1999, attended by 12 scholars. This workshop led to the publication of a commemorative volume of scholarly works in German and English on female entities in Northern mythology.[2]'''

The book Mythological Women clearly states that this conference was attended by "a dozen" scholars. To avoid charges of plagarism, I have paraphrased it as 'twelve.' The text also refers to this "conference" as a "workshop," lest anyone feel I have mischaracterized it.

This workshop was also verifiably organized by her family and friends. Herbert Eldis was her brother. Anna Motz was her daughter and Rudolf Simek was her friend, as he clearly states in the introduction to the book. Together they also penned the commemorative article in the Saga-book. Since there is no other way to tell these were her family and friends, it is necessary to state this. As this is basic verifiable information, and was part of the stub, I see no reason to delete it, as a recent editor has.

Regarding how personal information is handled in this entry, I think the Viktor Rydberg entry provides an excellent example. As a public figure, all aspects of a scholar's life and education are certianly relevant, as today these are considered important factors when analyzing any scholar's work. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

ADMIN INTERVENTION REQUESTED
Can we put a stop to the name-calling and race-baiting at once?! No one here is an "anti-semitic troll", nor is this kind of inflammatory language helpful in anyway. Radford has been repeatedly warned about this kind of anti-social behavior here. I've had enough of it.

The fact that Motz was Jewish, and that this lead to her leaving Austria are clearly stated in the biographical sketch accompanying her festschrift. These facts are not in dispute. It's ironic that Radford who raised claims of plagarism earlier, now directly quotes the verbiage of this source, simply omitting the clear statement that she was Jewish.

It was previously decided here that the best way to handle the Nazi issue was simply to say that the Motz family "left." There is no direct evidence of a dramatic "escape" or that the family was "forced to flee." The family left two years after the annexation, and certainly had the means available to do so as they moved to New York. There is also no reason to import the direct verbiage of the overly-familar biographical sketch penned by her personal friend, Rudolf Simek, which states she led the life of a "refugee." This was a woman who was educated in America, eventually earning a PhD in and teaching German, her native tongue. She moved to Oxford England, not once but twice. Clearly, she was no "refugee" so the dramatic descriptive language, entirely understandable in a bio-sketch penned by a personal friend, is uncalled for here.

Radford writes:


 * Forced to flee her native Austria upon the rise of the Nazis, Motz earned her B.A. from Hunter College and did her graduate work at Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a Ph.D. in German and philology from the latter institution in 1955.

I re-edited his revision, because it is another transparent attempt to editorialize and artifically inflate Motz's status from that of minor scholar. It has already been established that she wrote 51 scholarly articles, so this "well over 50" nonsense is clear hyperbole. Radford also omits her maiden name (Eldis), a standard feature in entries on married female authors, and the fact that her brother Herbert Eldis helped organize the workshop mentioned in the entry and wrote the article about her in the Saga-book of the Viking Society. These omissions appear to be designed to obscure those relevant and significant facts. Obviously, her family was well-connected.
 * Lotte Motz (August 16, 1922 – December 24, 1997) was an Austrian-American scholar who published four books and well over 50 scholarly papers, primarily in the fields of Norse mythology and folklore.

Radford has also trimmed the published circumstances surrounding the workshop. By all accounts, it was largely a family and friends affair. The source clearly says that 12 scholars attended it, many of which were her personal friends and collegues. The book itself contains 11 articles, 4 in German and 7 in English, another fact Radford has airbrushed out.


 * According to the eminent Old Norse scholar Rudolf Simek, Prof. Motz was "never afraid to attack the icons of scholarship."[2] Among other breakthroughs, she was the first to question the validity of the once widely accepted Indo-European tripartiate function theory proposed by Georges Dumezil more than forty years earlier. She was also the first scholar in recent history to question the common identification of the goddess Nerthus and the Scandinavian god Njord.

There is no question that saying "among other breakthroughs" is editorializing, since Motz made no significant "breakthroughs" much less these two. As Simek states, she was prone to "attacking icons of scholarship" and garnered some fleeting attention for doing so. A decade after her death, none of her many theories are widely accepted or has lead to any significant discoveries (the definition of a "breakthrough"). The closest thing to a breakthrough is her observation that the dwarves were all male, an insight one feminist scholar siezed upon.

And to say "the eminent Old Norse scholar Rudolf Simek" is is editorial hyperbole. Simek was her personal friend and says so in the biographical sketch opening the work, which he edited. He obviously enjoyed her fiery personality, as he mentions it several times.

To illustrate the intent to editorialize, I would simply point out that in a recent revision on the Viktor Rydberg site (7/3/08), Radford changed the wording "noted Dutch scholar Jan de Vries" to "the Nazi sympathizer and scholar Jan de Vries" because de Vries supported one of Rydberg's theories, which Radford vehemently opposes. It is commonplace for Radford to elevate those he supports and denegrate and defame those he opposes. This is characteristic of his editing style, evident on the Viktor Rydberg entry, and here.

Since Radford has now opened a new cycle of editing on this entry with racial epithets and direct assualts on other editors, after repeated warnings to not engage in this kind of behavior,  I would hope DCG or another Admin here would take immediate action to avoid the ugly situation which necessitated freezing editing on this  entry in the past. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 23:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

ADMIN INTERVENTION REQUESTED -- SECOND THE MOTION!
As is clear from his pattern of edits to this article, "Jack the Giant-Killer" knows nothing whatsoever about Prof. Motz or her scholarship, beyond what's contained in the brief biographical sketch I included as a reference in the original version of this article. His revisions are purely negative and destructive, motivated entirely by his personal racial hatreds and other animosity.

Incredibly, "Jack" has actually defaced the bibliography with his juvenile grafitti, apparently intended to imply that Prof. Motz' obituary in "Saga-Book" was "biased" because two of the co-authors were members of her family [!] Similarly, his misleading characterization of Prof. Simek as Prof. Motz's "friend" is intended to undermine the credibility of two of the leading figures of Old Norse scholarship, with a single malicious blow.

Likewise, "Jack's dismissive "assessment" of Prof. Motz's scholarship reflects nothing but his own ignorance of this field. I have previously added details of the profound effects Prof. Motz's work has had on contemporary Old Norse scholarship, opening whole new research programmes in the post-Dumezil world.  Yet "Jack" of course, deletes any such references immediately, arguing that the truth is "irrelevant" when it conflicts with his own ignorance and prejudices.

If it is not possible to block "Jack's" malicious and bad-faith edits to this article, it should be protected permanently. Rsradford (talk) 16:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please tone down the rhetoric, Mr. Radford. I am simply attempting to achieve an accurate unbiased account of Motz's life and works without the rose-colored wash. Your revision omits too many important details, and uses too many melodramatic phrases which have no basis in fact, as outlined above. Unlike you, I am not trying to create an impression, merely giving the readers the details so they can make up their own minds. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, there is an undue level of emotional attachment to the Motz entry present here. For examples of the kind of 'juvenile grafitti,' 'dismissive assessments,' and 'misleading characterizations' described above directed toward another widely published university professor, see RSRADFORD's revisions on the Viktor Rydberg entry. There, Rydberg's supporters are characterized as "Nazi sympathesiers" and his opposers are "immenent scholars", much as we have seen in reverse here. Mr. Radford draws his information about Lotte Motz from the same source we all do, the only biographical source published about this minor scholar. I have a copy of it here on my desk. It is comical for him to suggest that family members would write an unbiased obituary. Radford omits even Motz's maiden name so no one will make the connection that Herbert Eldis was her brother, because even he knows the truth of it. Rudolf Simek himself says that he was Motz's personal friend in the biographical sketch, thus we cannot consider his opinions as unbiased. The tone of the sketch is overly familiar and unequviqually sympathestic. He describes Motz as "living the life of a refugee," more than 50 years after leaving Austria, and even after establishing herself as a German professor and later as a published scholar.

Radford's aim, in my opinion, is to obscure or omit information which does not adhere to his reverant POV concerning Motz and her contrarian scholarship. Motz did not "open whole new programmes." That is simply false. Her efforts, in many cases, were literally to tear at established lines of argument, replacing them with nothing. In every instance, she raised more questions than she answered. It is not unlike a modern trial lawyer attempting to invoke "reasonable doubt" by throwing up every possible scenario no matter how unlikely in an effort to make a name for himself. The revision as written is purely factual. There has been no attempt on my part to falsely elevate her status by omitting verifiable and factual details. The same cannot be said of Mr. Radford's.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 01:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you had any contact with the academic world, you would not need to rely on a 3-page essay for knowledge of Prof. Motz's scholarship and influence. On what basis can you possibly deny that her research was path-breaking and opened many new intellectual vistas, when you do not appear to have read any of her works, or those of any of the many scholars who draw on those works every day?  Drop the silly "lawyer" metaphors and start producing some published scholarship that supports your personal opinions on this subject -- as if there were any! Rsradford (talk) 07:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Stop the endless personal attacks and focus on editing the entry. All details in the current revision are verifiable. 18:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Fine, let's focus on your latest effort:


 * 1. You changed Prof. Motz's identification from an "Austrian-American scholar" to a "Jewish-American scholar."  No more need be said about your motives or intentions here.


 * 2. You falsified the number of Prof. Motz's publications, despite the fact that the only reference you are aware of -- the brief memorial essay in Mythological Women -- correctly states that she published "well over 50" scholarly articles.


 * 3. You contemptuously refer to Prof. Motz as "Lotte," as if she were a child or a member of your immediate family.


 * 4. You falsely state that the memorial conference for Prof. Motz held in Bonn was attended by only 12 scholars, when in fact twelve of the papers presented at this conference were subsequently published.


 * 5. You persist in gratuitously identifying Prof. Simek as "her friend," to insinuate that this eminent scholar would be less than truthful in his scholarly publications relating to Prof. Motz.


 * 6. You falsely assert (again) that Prof. Motz challenged "the truth" behind Tacitus' account of Nerthus, when in fact she challenged Grimm's choice of that particular manuscript variant of the goddess's name.


 * The purely negative, derogatory, and contra-factual nature of these edits once again underscores the need for administrator intervention to place this article under permanent protection. Rsradford (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Repeated Protests Verifiably Unfounded
How long do we have to endure these baseless protests? All of the information contained in the revision is verifiable.

All quotes are from "Mythological Women", edited by Rudolf Simek and Wilhelm Heizmann (2002)

1. "After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, she as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium". The word Jewish is not derogatory.


 * Given the repeated anti-Semitic attacks on Prof. Motz on this page by a pair of tendentious and malicious editors, your changing her identification from "Austrian-American" to "Jewish-American" speaks for itself. Since you apparently know nothing about Prof. Motz beyond what is contained in the 3-page mini-bio I included as a reference in this article, please tell us:  Where in Mythological Women is she identified as a "Jewish-American scholar?" Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The article states she is Jewish, this is not a derogatory term as you insist. Where would you like to include this fact?


 * It is derogatory when it is used solely for purposes of anti-Semitism, as the history of previous "edits" to this article makes perfectly clear. Please explain how you believe Prof. Motz's ethnicity is relevant to her scholarship.  In other words, what in your opinion distinguishes the work of a "Jew scholar" from that of an "Aryan scholar?" Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

2. The bibliography accompanying the book lists 51 scholarly articles and 3 encylopedia entries. This is a personal bibliography compiled by her brother, and is the most thorough one composed to date. Do you know of another?


 * The "personal bibliography" included with the mini-bio is neither intended to be, nor represented as, comprehensive. The text -- which you acknowledge is your only source of information on Prof. Motz -- plainly states that she authored "four books and well over 50 articles" (p.10).  If you wish to add to the article the fact that "a 'personal bibliography' included in the book Mythological Women includes four books, three encyclopedia entries, 51 published articles, and two drafts not yet published at that time," feel free. Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It is the largest such bibliography and the most comprehensive, and the only verifiable one. If you know of other sources which verify your preferences, please cite them. To date you have not cited anything in support of your personal editing preferences on this entry, besides "Mythological Women." Secret inside information known only to you is not a verfiable source.


 * To reiterate: you have confirmed that you know nothing whatsoever about Prof. Motz or her scholarship beyond what is contained in the brief profile in Mythological Women. That source -- which is your only source -- plainly states the number of her publications as "four books and well over 50" scholarly articles.  There is no reason for you to depart from the facts stated in the only source at your disposal, other than your malicious interest in denigrating an outstanding scholar because of her ethnicity.  This is underscored by your failure even to cite the full number of publications included in the partial, 'personal bibliography'. Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

3. Lotte Motz is her name and the biographical sketch refers to her throughout as Lotte Motz. Similarly the most recent festschrift of Margaret Clunies Ross titled "Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World" repeatedly refers to the scholar as "Margaret" in the introduction. She is 65 years old. In my experience, persons holding a PhD as a rule these days abhor titles, and prefer to be called by their first names.


 * There is only one reason for you to refer to a scholar like Prof. Motz as "Lotte," and it is the same reason you wish to refer to her as a "Jew scholar." Would you edit Wikipedia's article on Hitler to refer to the subject as "Adolf?"  Please show Prof. Motz at least as much respect.

Your obsession with Jews and Hitler is pronounced. The article itself refers to Motz as "Lotte Motz." I object to your artifical and inflated "Prof. Motz" throuhhout. It is comical to speak of Motz in the first paragraph as a schoolgirl in America and refer to her as "prof." as if she was born with a teaching certificate "prof." It sounds sycophantic. Within the context of an article on Hilter, it would be appropriate to refer to him by his last name. In the case of world leaders, the use of the last name is more common. But as I said, the recent festschrift for Old Norse scholar Margaret Clunies Ross, a comparable example, refers to her as Margaret throughout. One thing is for certain. Someone would not repeatedly say "Fuerher Hilter" as you do "Prof. Motz" unless of course he were some sort of sycophantic follower of the person. There is no modern precident for calling a scholar or former university professor "Prof." throughout a biographical work. I would prefer Motz or Lotte Motz.


 * Really? I thought you had already demonstrated your preference for referring to her as "Lotte."  It is only because of Prof. Motz's scholarship that she is noteworthy today.  The biographical information in the encyclopedia article is not a popular narrative about "little Lotte's" girlhood experiences; it is a factual account of Prof. Motz's origins.  There is no conceivable reason to deny her the honorific "Professor" to which she is entitled, other than a general interest in denigration. Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

4. "It was out of their great respect for Lotte Motz that a dozen scholars from all over the world came to Bonn to take part in a conference on the female image of diety." Note the source refers to her as Lotte Motz, not the artifical and incorrect "Prof. Motz" (she was no longer a "prof." after 1894, when she stepped down due to illness, and the same source says that ""she did not, however, hold one of the chairs in the field.") A "dozen" scholars, of course means "twelve" scholars. It further states "Such a workshop would have been to her liking."


 * We have already established that you are unaware of the fact that retired university professors traditionally continue to be addressed as "Professor," and normally continue to be included in faculty directories as "professor emeritus" long after they have ceased teaching. How will the article be improved by your continuing to ignore such routine academic conventions? Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You are apaprently unaware that this is not a convention of encylopedia entries, or the preference of the scholars themselves. We have also established that "a dozen" scholars attended the conference. You quoted the article saying it. Can we stop beating this dead horse?


 * As for the dozen attendees, I really don't care. We can stop beating the "Professor" horse when you cease denigrating Jewish scholars. Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

5. Rudolf Simek identifies himself as her friend. Again "friend" is not a derogatory or demeaning term that I am aware of.


 * There is no legitimate reason to qualify Prof. Simek's scholarship regarding Prof. Motz by labeling him "her friend," any more than there is for defacing the reference section by scrawling in the relationships of the authors to Prof. Motz.Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, your preference and your characterization of my motives are not relevant. Neither are verifiable or accurate. It is verifiable, however, that Motz and Simek were friends.


 * It is the relevance of that fact, and the use to which you are trying to put it in the context of your overall pattern of edits, that is at issue. I have inserted the following line into the article:


 * According to her friend and fellow scholar Rudolf Simek, Motz was "never afraid to attack the icons of scholarship if she believed the truth to be elsewhere."[fn]


 * While this identification is gratuitious, it is not misleading. Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

6. Simek himself, as you and Jack both quoted from the sketch, states: "She was thus the first scholar in recent history to question the truth behind the goddess Nerthus in Tacitus Germania." Reading the article, it is clear that she attacks the work on several points, not just the name. You are again incorrect on this point.


 * If you wish to quote Prof. Simek on this point, feel free. If you wish to represent that you have actually read Prof. Motz's work on this subject, please give an example of what you believe to be her questioning of "the truth" behind the Nerthus tale. Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You admit it is verifiable. So what's the objection, exactly? I see you have now re-edited this as a block quote into the entry. I must object. We already decided that lengthy quotes from this work are not appropriate, and your concern for plagarism prevents us from closely following the wording of the source. Again, you are subtly attempting to bypass things we have already decided by concensus here.


 * "We" have never decided that partial quotes from your only known source are inappropriate, and no such decision was reached here by "concensus." A word which, oddly enough, is misspelled in exactly the same way by "Jack the Giant-Killer" -- but of course, you have assured us that you are not "Jack," so it must be true.  In any case, your interest in citing only enough from your source to serve your own purposes must yield in this case to the full comment concerning Prof. Simek's evaluation of her scholarship. Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

These statements are not "lies" or "false and misleading" as you repeatedly claim, so there is no need to be subjected to another of your bitter and demeaning posts questioning the motives of other editors on this entry. Finnrekkr (talk) 13:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I do not question your motives, because they are perfectly clear. Rsradford (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Your continued personal attacks, are still in violation of Wikipedia's policies.Finnrekkr (talk) 17:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * How can not questioning your motives (which are in any case amply documented by the editorial history of this article) violate any policy? Rsradford (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * response from outside.

I think any more discussion like that in the above section would be disruptive. And that applies to both parties. As for the points at issue, all relatively trivial: I expect that this will settle the matter. Time to stop this concern over wording. It would be more important to try to write a paragraph or two in a positive way about her actual theories. And to trim down the bibliography to her major works. DGG (talk) 03:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) The Nazi persecution of the Jews is usually considered racial, not religious; the possible motivations of her family's departure are many, and hardly affect her notability. I've simplified the wording here.
 * 2) I think the adjective "friend" is unusual in this context. The comment is hardly that of an enemy. I've removed it.
 * 3) The full quote is considerably clearer-- I've kept it
 * 4) We normally do not repeat titles like Professor or Doctor in articles about the people, unless essential for clarity. Nor do we repeat the first names. We use the last names alone. Furthermore, we use the names only ocassionally, preferring "he" or "she" to avoid sounding like a public relations blurb. I have edited accordingly.


 * Your rewrite is fine. Per your suggestion, I have trimmed the bibliography to her four books and articles published in four or five of the top scholarly journals in the field. Rsradford (talk) 15:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Your rewrite is also acceptable to me, as it retains the relevant information regarding this scholar and her education. I would like to see more details of the workshop added, as I feel it has been misrepresented here. I agree with your suggestion that the bibliography can be pared back further as well. When her works are cited, they generally refer to a handful of the articles, notably the article on Svipdagsmal which McKinnell refutes. Of her 4 books, "Faces of the Goodess" is by far the most cited. At least two of the others amount to oversized articles, and are rarely cited. There is no real reason to include them among her most important works. I'll consult a number of compresensive bibliographies on Old Norse scholarship before making the appropriate adjustments. Finnrekkr (talk) 22:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I don't see why we shouldn't include a complete list of her works. Also, everything here needs inline citations or can be removed for any reason. bloodofox: (talk) 22:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments:
 * routine biographic facts are accepted from self-published sources like a cv, unless they are actually specifically challenged. It would not hurt to have a specific reference to that section in general--presumably there is an appropriate one in the Festschrift, as usual.
 * I'm not sure what you want to have added about the workshop that you think corrects any present misrepresentation.
 * We do not routinely list all published papers of academics, though we usually do list all books. Typically, for scientists whose main work is published journal articles, we list the most cited five. We never list miscellaneous presentations, book reviews, etc. We will sometimes list all the published works of a really major literary author. I see no reason why this article should be treated in any exceptional manner.   DGG (talk) 03:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I am fine with her CV being the reference, as long as it's referenced somewhere. Half of the small amount of information about Motz that is here currently isn't, and it should be easy to do if there are just a couple of sources. I'd do it myself but I don't have access to the material. Is there some policy about listing complete works or is this an unwritten convention? bloodofox: (talk) 06:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Overwriting "Jack's"/"Finnrekkr's" latest contribution
I have revised the article to restore balance and NPOV following "Jack's"/"Finnrekkr's" latest visitation:

All of these points have been addressed in the current version of the article. Rsradford (talk) 16:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It has already been agreed that Motz's ethnicity is irrelevant to her scholarship. The sole point of inserting this gratuitous label is to allow "Jack" to assert (as he has previously, both here and in other Internet forums) that Motz's scholarship in Germanic mythology is fundamentally suspect because she was a Jew.  This is not a good-faith argument, and "Jack"/"Finnrekkr" should not be allowed to use this forum to purvey his anti-Semitism.
 * Simek's description of Motz's scholarship belongs in the "Life" section, not the "Reception" section.
 * After first insisting on qualifying Simek's assessment by labeling him "her friend," "Jack" has now deleted the neutral designation, "fellow scholar," provided by DGG. Agenda, anyone?
 * In the context of published scholarship, it is preposterous to designate Schjødt's 2003 comment as "more recent" than Vennemann's 2002 evaluation. Obviously, "Jack" has no idea which comment was first submitted for publication, nor does it matter.  His intention is obviously to imply that Schjødt's views somehow superseded Vennemann's, whereas there is no reason to believe that is the case.
 * It is pure POV-pushing to label Schjødt as "disagreeing" with Vennemann. To an impartial reader, Schjødt's statement that Motz "turned the Indo-European theory upside down" is not a criticism of her work.
 * There is no conceivable justification for "Jack's" vandalism of the bibliography of Motz's scholarship.


 * I've made a slight trim and consider the article stable. Perhaps everyone involved can tell turn their attention to all the other important academic subjects and academic people on which Wikipedia needs articles DGG (talk) 02:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * My sentiments, precisely. Rsradford (talk) 15:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * First of all, if you think Finnrekkr is a sockpuppet, report it, then he'll be banned. Otherwise, it's pointless and confusing to anyone reading this: just call him by his user name. Motz's ethnicity may be irrelevant to her work but it is relevant to her Wikipedia article. If Motz or her family or what have you stated she was Jewish, it should be added. This is hardly a smear. bloodofox: (talk) 02:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * A (hopefully) final point on ethnicity: Neither Motz herself, nor any of her biographers or obituary writers ever referred to her as a "Jewish-Austrian-American scholar." I have explained the reason she was described in these terms by the editor who has now been designated a "proxy," and you can confirm the truth of my explanation by scanning the history of revisions to the article.  While it might be appropriate in some contexts to bring a subject's ethnicity into the article, doing so for the purpose at issue here is not, imo.
 * Rsradford (talk) 16:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, so where is this stuff about her being Jewish coming from then? Is someone just making it up or is it cited from somewhere? bloodofox: (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not disputed that Motz was of ethnic Jewish stock. Previous versions of the article have included the following line from the book, Mythological Women: "After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school)."  I understand DGG's position to be that this fact is irrelevant to Motz's scholarship, which is the sole reason she is sufficiently noteworthy to be the subject of an article.  My objection is to labeling Motz a "Jew scholar," a "Jewish-American scholar," or a "Jewish-Austrian-American scholar," because I see that as the first step in an anti-Semitic game that has been played here and elsewhere by another editor who has been active here under a variety of names. Rsradford (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * We don't willingly exclude information about a figure when writing an article about them, no matter what they're notable for. Articles on figures on Wikipedia include biographies with all relevant information. If she self-identified as Jewish, there's no reason to hide that, no matter the perceived agenda of someone who wants to include it. Did she self-identify as Jewish or was her family Jewish? Normally what happens if someone doesn't self identify as Jewish here, they're described as coming from a Jewish family. It seems to have played a big role in her life given her relocation. bloodofox: (talk) 18:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've read most of Motz's published works, and I don't believe she ever mentioned her ethnicity one way or the other; it wasn't an issue outside of her personal life. As I said earlier, the brief biographical sketch in Mythological Women includes the comment quoted above, which I presume to be true, whatever its relevance. Rsradford (talk) 19:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The biographical sketch from the book Mythological Women, quoted in full above twice, identifies Motz as Jewish. It isn't a "racist" statement. As such, she was unable to attend school in Austria, so her family left for New York in 1941. It is factual information and there is no reason to exclude it other than Radford's stated preference and admitted prejudices. A recent book calls her an "Austrian scholar." The term Austrian-American is incorrect as she was born in Austria, largely educated in America, and lived in England most of her adult life. Her "scholarship" was largely written in Britian and published in European journals. The bibliography, as EdJohnston noted, is bloated with a glut of minor articles and needs to be pared down. As you see, my efforts to do so continue to be characterized as "vandalism" by "Prof. Motz's" number one fan. Finnrekkr (talk) 00:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is obviously no justification for "Finnrekkr's" random spray-painting of the selected listing of Motz's published scholarship, which has already been pared to include only her books and papers published in the elite academic journals in the fields of folklore and mythology. The relevance of Motz's supposed ethnicity is under discussion on this page.  It is noteworthy that "Finnrekkr" insists on labeling Motz a "Jew scholar" based on a single, unverified comment in a 3-page biographical sketch, while simultaneously fighting tenaciously to prevent any mention of Viktor Rydberg's homosexuality -- a quality attested by two encyclopedias, three biographers, several other published scholarly works, and a cover story in Lambda Nordica, the gay studies journal of the Scandinavian University Press!  Why the double standard on the relevance of personal identifications, "Finnrekkr?" Rsradford (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 16:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * the above exchange really confuses me. given that she is of Jewish background, which seems to be well established, it is being asserted that saying so weakens her academic position because it provides a reason for European-based Germanists to not take her work seriously, as someone who is expected to have a lack of understanding of the culture. sound strange to me, for to me it can better be seen as a reason to take her work more seriously, as someone who is free of the enthnocentricity of the culture being studied. Unless there is some evidence though that these criticism were published--one way or another--by people outside Wikipedia in reliable sources, which I doubt very much the case, such speculations do not belong here. Let's leave this rest. We do not usually mention ethnic identity except when there are sources for its relevance. We often mention  national identity for identification purposes, but that information is clearly present in the article. 02:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC) DGG (talk)


 * I concur.
 * Rsradford (talk) 16:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Her biographer saw fit to mention it, thus I see no reason not to include it here. As DAB says, perhaps it will enhance her academic position in the minds of some. The need to exclude the well-established fact that Motz was Jewish is a personal bias. In other entries, such things as sexual orientation have been included. Why is religion and cultural background any different? I also find it odd that an English language source uses a German term to describe the Nazi annexation of Austria. Even the biography written by German scholar Rudulf Simek does not do this. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You are the only person here who seems obsessed with Motz's Jewishness, or finds her ethnicity essential to evaluating her scholarship. Please see DGG's comments above, and be guided by them.
 * Rsradford (talk) 19:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Conventional Use of Citations?
Is it conventional to list every work in which the author has been cited in a general encyclopedia article?

I have attempted to pare down the unruly mass of minor citations, which breifly touch on Motz's work or simply list her in their bibliographies. Obviously, more will need to be done, but it would be nice to hear the thoughts of others in regard to how best complete this undertaking. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 16:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You have been blocked for so long you may have forgotten, but it was you who asserted that the articles in Prof. Motz's bibliography were not cited by contemporary scholars, and should therefore be deleted. Now you complain that there are too many examples of contemporary scholars citing to Prof. Motz's articles.  Isn't there some subject you know something about, on which you could start an article?
 * Rsradford (talk) 20:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit Warring
After spending several hours revising this page, I return to find that Rorik Radford has blindly reverted it back to his previous revision with the comment "Repaired Jack's latest vandalism." My revision in no way falls under Wikipedia's definition of "vandalism."

It is utterly ridiclous to include every bibliopgraphic citation of an author's work in a general Encyclopedia entry on the subject! This is an obvious effort to inflate the influence of this minor scholar. I graciously attempted to revise the unruly mass of bibliographic citations, which in truth should be eliminated unless they can be substanicated by actual quotes from the works. If any of these scholars truly "draw on" her works in any meaningful way, it would not be difficult to demonstrate.

Why is this allowed to continue without any administrative oversight? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack the Giant-Killer (talk • contribs) 05:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Whether minor or major is a matter of judgment, and is not one we are to make. We a neutral about this. I restored the shorter biographical paragraph, which is sufficient, and avoids speculation upon motives. I kept the change next section ,which properly omits a few relatively puffy adjective. Will the two of you please stop reverting each other. You asked for an admin to step in,and I have once more done so. Enough is enough/. I ask both of you to contribute to this article by suggesting changes on the talk page, not further editing the article until there is consensus for the edit at the talk page. Further edit changes in these sections will be considered as edit-warring. DGG (talk) 09:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a good resolution. The current version of the article is not entirely accurate (Motz's works are not "listed in the bibliographies" of the scholars in question; they are substantively cited and built on), but it's better than having the page continually vandalized.  If someone happens along who has any contact with contemporary Old Norse scholarship, I'm sure it will be possible to start improving the page.
 * Rsradford (talk) 20:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

DCG, I would not expect you to make a judgement on whether Motz was a minor scholar or not. That's not the issue. Is it appropriate to list every bibliography which includes one of a scholar's work as an example of her influence? I have not seen this done anywhere else but here. Thjanks for reducing the editorial comments inflating her work. It was sorely needed. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Judiasm & the lack of specific training in her chosen field
I fail to see the issue with stating that Motz was Jewish. This is stated directly in the biography included in the memorial festschrift. Both Rorik (RSRADFORD) and myself agree on the verbiage of the text, and have each cited the text at length on this page. It's not a matter of dispute. Motz was Jewish, and as a Jew was persecuted by the Nazis, and denied access to an education in Austria. For that specific reason, her family left. This according to her close friend and "fellow scholar" Rudulf Simek.

The only dispute is whether to include these facts here or not. Since we have a verifable source, what's the issue?! I doubt the general reader will have any clue what the term "Anschluss" means without clicking the link. The biographical sketch in question refers to the same event as the "Nazi annexation" of Austria. I feel there is a deliberate effort to airbrush the facts here, for whatever reason.

On this entry, the same editor systematically reverts any attempt to include the fact that Motz was Jewish. I have attempted to state this in a number of different ways to meet his stated objections, but no matter what we seem to agree on, it disappears within a revision or two. I find that offensive. Judisim is not some sort of blemish to be hidden. Judism is a respectable religion. If a memorial biography saw fit to include Motz's hertitage, I see no reason to omit it here. We have a verifiable source. Apparently, there can be no consensus with this editor. He will not budge on the issue. So DCG, its up to you to break the logjam.

There is also the matter of her eductaion. She was trained in German, which was her native language and verifiably had no formal training in Old Norse or Icelandic literature, the field she made a career of commenting on. That is relevant. The same editor has previously blocked any attenmpt to clarify these facts, also plainly stated in the memorial festschrift. I've provided quotes to support this and will be glad to do so again. The facts are not in dispute. The only dispute is with a single editor who wishes to polish them to a fine sheen.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:29, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Your industrious efforts to portray one of the most prolific 20th century scholars of folklore and mythology as unqualified are bordering on the ludicrous. The idea that earning a Ph.D. in German is a trivial accomplishment for a native German speaker is comical enough in itself; but the fact that you are unaware that German is one of the primary languages of scholarship in Germanic mythology is the material of farce.  Not to mention, of course, her second degree in Anglo-Saxon, which most scholars would also consider somewhat relevant to her field of expertise.
 * Rsradford (talk) 20:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no desire to portray her as unqualified. I am only interested in accurately portraying her qualifications. There is no need to put words in my mouth. Since we agree that earning a PHD in German and teaching German isn't a trival matter, you should have no objection to adding these facts to the entry. It seems we also agree that her BPhil in Old English should be mentioned. At last, we are making progress! So now can we agree to revise the article to include them? Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 22:19, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Revision
I propose the following revision:


 * As a Jew, Lotte Motz was unable to attend school in Austria after the Nazi annexation in 1938, thus her family left Austria in 1941 for New York City. She earned her B.A. from Hunter College, completed one year of graduate studies at Stanford University, before  obtaining a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin   in German and philology in 1955. She later earned a Bphil at the University of Oxford in Old English, which introduced her to Old Norse. Motz obtained an academic position in the German language department at Brooklyn College and also taught German at Hunter College. After she retired from teaching due to illness in 1984, Motz's research interests came to focus on female figures in Germanic mythology, especially the nature and function of giantesses. Motz was selected to write three entries in the 1993 reference work, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia.

My goal here is to establish her background, because it is colorful and interesting, and a puts a face on Motz, who otherwise seems rather two-dimensional. The biograpphical sketh includes all kinds of details about her life.

Since she made her living as a scholar, I think it's relevant to be precise about her formal education. She attended a year at Stanford; she did not "complete her graduate studies" there, and Simek plainly states that the Bphil in Old English introduced her to Old Norse, which became her passion. What's the issue in saying that? I'm willing to discuss it. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:53, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Give it a rest, Mr. Reaves. As has repeatedly been pointed out, you (by which term I include your puppets) are the only person who is obsessed by Prof. Motz's Jewishness, or finds it in any way relevant to her scholarship.  No doubt when the ban is lifted on your puppets "Finnrekkr" and "Carla" they will immediately add their voices to your chorus of "Juden! Juden! Juden!"  Needless to say, the fact that you will then be speaking with three voices will no more establish a "consensus" than now, while you can speak with only one.
 * Rsradford (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

'''This is not an issue I am willing to compromise on. Race-baiting and falsely painting those who disagree with you as neo-Nazis doesn't change the fact that her friend and "fellow scholar" considered it relevent enough to mention it in the memorial festschrift. Surviving the Holocaust is a source of great pride for many Jews, and rightly so. Genocide is a horrific crime against humanity. THE HOLOCAUST MUST NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. I will not be party to its denial. Since we have a published scholarly source for this information, there is no legitimate reason to omit it. Simek says:'''


 * "Her life was similar to that of many others in the 20th century who were driven from their homes and led the life of refugees. Lotte Motz, née Eldis, was born in Vienna in 1922. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasisum (high school). In 1941, her mother escaped to America with Lotte and her two brothers, settling in New York City." Mythological Women, p. 9.

Omitting the fact that Motz was Jewish and using vague foriegn terms like "Anschluss"(which simply means 'union') to refer to something as historically significant as the Nazi invasion of Austria and the systematic murder of its Jewish citizens is tantamount to Holocaust-denial. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 21:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Is your deep concern for the plight of Holocaust victims also the reason you deleted any reference to Prof. Motz's entries in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia? Is it also the reason you altered the article to falsely assert that the leading scholars who draw on and develop Prof. Motz's work only "mention her in their bibliographies?"  It is quite obvious why you are "not willing to compromise" in your Jew-baiting, Mr. Reaves, but it has no place in this or any other encyclopedia.
 * Rsradford (talk) 03:54, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

That kind of rhetoric isn't helpful Rorik. Is there any legitimate reason you wish to exclude biographical information contained in a published scholarly source honoring this scholar? I cannot think of any. Being Jewish isn't anything to be ashamed of any more than being gay is. Her fellow scholar Rudolf Simek found it relevant. Therefore it is relevant.

I didn't delete the reference to "Medieval Scandinavia", check the record. As for a majority of the references in the current revision being bibliographic citations, the sources speak for themselves. Take Orchard's Dictionary for example. At the end of each entry, he provides a key refring to his bibliography. These references refer to a section called "Bibliography and Further Reading" noting that "the bibliography is intended to provide the adventurous reader with the opportunity to explore the issues raised here in more detail than the scope of the book would allow." He doesn't advocate or endorse their views as you suggest. If so, please show where Orchard says so. To demonstrate the truth of this, you'll notice that Motz even cites her own work in the Encyclopedia articles she pens. It's a standard practice, not a recognition of scholarly achievement. In the Svipdagsmal entry, she also cites works from the 1800s. Are suggesting those are equally as influential? No one is questioning that Motz was a scholar, but if you wish to show her influence, then show how and where her work influenced the works in question. Bibliographic citations customarily are not considered as reaching that bar. In the same vein, Margaret Clunies Ross' theory of 'negative reciprocity', verifiably, is not based on Motz's "insight" that there are no female dwarves. Nor is Ross' theory particularly 'important.' It's a theory, just like Dumezil's theory of the tripartite functions. Ross mentions Motz's insight with qualifications, which indicate that Clunies Ross did not accept Motz's conclusion, as already quoted in the entry. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 01:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggested Revisions
As I check these references, I'm finding more instances of puffery, which were not immediately apparent. The following two refernces should be removed, as they are insubstanical.

Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 63-70, citing to Motz (1991a) for her survey of sources material.

This citation is wrong. Kure's article doesn't begin on page 63, and the page containing the reference to Motz is not given (here and in the other references to this same work). The reference in question occurs on page 68 and reads: "The Ash of Yggdrassil has also been the subject of much scholarly discourse, for a large part recently summed up by Anders Andrén. See also Lotte Motz (1991) and Rudolf Simek (1993) for good surveys of the source material."

Kure doesn't point to any of Motz's original conclusions. This reference adds nothing new, and certainly isn't a sign of "influence on the younger generation of scholars" as originally stated. Citing this work once in the bibliography of the Wiki entry is enough. This reference amounts to citing the same work twice.

Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 259-263, citing to Motz (1996a) for her identification of the god Freyr as a wealthy and powerful deity.

On page 260 of the article in question, Ratke and Simek state: "Such a neck-ring can also be found on small figurines (Hauck 1992:540), which according to Hauck are probably also images of Freyr, who is admittedly described as rich and powerful in medieval sources (Motz 1996: 11-32)."

The real reference here is to medieval sources which speak of Freyr as a rich and powerful god, such as Snorri's Edda, the poems of the Poetic Edda, and Icelandic Sagas. That Freyr was a powerful and wealthy god is not an original conclusion of Motz's. This is actually what the mediveal sources say. Motz surveys these sources in the work referenced. In their Dictionaries, both Simek and Orchard describe Freyr as a powerful god of kings and rulers, and the son of Njord, the god of wealth and commerce. Neither cite Motz as the source. This is clear puffery, not worth mentioning. Simek was her friend, and no doubt included this refernce as a means to memorialize his now deceased friend.

Also, the following reference is incomplete. Jenny Jochens contribution has been omitted:

Elsewhere in the same volume, Clunies Ross cites Motz as being the first to recognize that the dwarfs of Norse mythology “were an all-male group,” an insight that Clunies Ross herself develops into her own theory of "negative reciprocity," an important theme of her book.[17]

'''Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, Volume 1: The Myths (1994). Odense, ISBN8778380881, p.50 n.10,citing to Motz (1981a), (1982a), (1984b).'''

Ibid., p.165 n.12; 168.

This reference occurs in a footnote which reads: "The insight that dwarves were an all-male group has also been contributed by Motz 1973 and Jochens 1989, 354." The current revision is justified as this 'insight' is clearly NOT anything that Ross "develops into her own theory." It's a minor piece of supporting evidence, she attributes to both Jochens and Motz in a footnote. The words "the first to mention" are an interpretation of the text, eliminating Jochens contribution. It is also redundant to say that the theory is "an important theme in [Ross'] book". If Ross had not considered this an important theme, she would not have included it in her book. The point of the book was to promote her own original thesis, not to 'survey' data and state the obvious (i.e. Frey was a powerful and wealthy god, there were no female dwarves, etc) as Motz does.

I'd also like to revise the following sentence:

A number of scholars cite articles by Motz in their bibliographies, including Eric Christiansen’s Norsemen in the Viking Age,[18] and in the recent Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), including Henning Kure, “Hanging on the World Tree: Man and Cosmos in Old Norse Mythic Poetry,”[19] Randi Haaland, “Iron in the Making–Technology and Symbolism,”[20] and Sharon Ratke and Rudolf Simek, “Guldgrubber: Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?”[21]

The word "including" makes it look as if more scholars list Motz in their bibliographies than those named. I suggest placing a period after "bibliographies" and starting the next sentence with the words: "These are....", assumming we wish to retain these references at all. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:48, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to Restore Accurate Assessment of Scholarly Impact
In order to convey an accurate assessment of the reception of Prof. Motz's scholarship among contemporary Norse scholars, I propose the following revision, which would restore important facts deleted (unintentionally or through antisemitic vandalism) from prior versions of the article:


 * Reception of Motz's Scholarship
 * Motz’s status among her peers was recognized by her selection to write three entries in the 1993 reference work, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia. [fn]Garland (1993), ISBN 0824047877, pp. 622, 629, 713.[end fn] Jenny Jochens draws on six of Motz’s titles in her Old Norse Images of Women, [fn]Univ. Pennsylvania Press (1996), ISBN 0812233581, p.309.[end fn] and Andy Orchard refers his readers to sixteen of Motz’s works in the Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. [fn]Cassell (1997), ISBN 0304345202, p.215.[end fn] Motz’s research into the role of giants in Northern mythology has been the point of departure for many subsequent studies. [fn]See, e.g., Steinsland, Gro (1986). “Giants as Recipients of Cult in the Viking Age?,” in Words and Objects: Towards a Dialogue Between Archaeology and History of Religion. Oslo: Norwegian Univ. Pr., ISBN 8200077519, pp. 212-22, citing Motz (1981a), (1981b), (1982a); Simek (1993), Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, ISBN 0859915131, citing Motz (1980b), (1981a), (1981b), (1982a), (1987a); Røthe, Gunnhild (2006). "The Fictitious Figure of Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr in the Saga Tradition," in Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Saga Conference, Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, citing Motz (1987a), (1997a); McKinnell, John (2002). "Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr and Hyndluljóð," in Mythological Women: Studies in Memory of Lotte Motz (1922-1997), Rudolf Simek & Wilhelm Heizmann, eds. Wien: Fassbaender, ISBN 3900538735; p. 265, citing Motz (1993a); Lindow, John (2001). Handbook of Norse Mythology. Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-CLIO, ISBN 1576072177, p.125, citing Motz (1981a).[end fn] Her inquiries into the nature of dwarfs in myth and folklore have also been widely influential. [fn]See, e.g., Liberman, Anatoly (2008). An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press, ISBN 9780816652723, pp.47, 53, 57-58, citing Motz (1973a), (1973-74), (1983), (1993d); Lindow (2001:101), citing Motz (1973a), (1973-74), (1977a), and (1983); Polomé, Edgar C. (1997 ). “Notes on the Dwarfs in Germanic Tradition,” in Language and Its Ecology: Essays in Memory of Einar Haugen (Stig Eliasson & Ernst Håkon Jahr, eds.). The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3110146886, pp. 441-450, citing Motz (1973a), (1977a), (1983).[end fn]


 * Motz’s early essay on the Eddic poem, Svipdagsmál [fn]Lotte Motz (1975), "The King and the Goddess: An Interpretation of the Svipdagsmál." Arkiv för nordisk filologi 90:133-150.[end fn] summarizes previous theories concerning the origin of the work and advanced a novel interpretation of the hero Svipdag’s journey to Menglöð’s hall. Motz proposed that the poem described an initiatory ritual by which a novice is united with an ancient earth goddess, symbolizing the seasonal return of vegetative life to the earth. [fn]Ibid. at 141-149.[end fn] Motz’ interpretation of the poem has been widely cited. [fn]See, e.g., Abram, Christopher (2006). “Hel in Early Norse Poetry,” in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 2:1, citing Motz (1993a).[end fn] John McKinnell notes that Motz’s analysis “makes some telling points,” including that Menglöð is not a helpless maiden, and Svipdag seems to unlock “something destined for him,” rather than achieving a sexual conquest. [fn]McKinnell, John (2005). Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, ISBN 1843840421, p. 204.[end fn] McKinnell acknowledges that Motz was also correct in noting that Menglöð welcomes Svipdag “back”; the poem’s editors had excised the word without justification. [fn]Ibid.[end fn] However, he disputes Motz’s primary thesis, noting that “[t]here is no need to identify Menglöð with Gróa, and the attempt to see Gróa’s spells as an initiatory ritual distorts the obvious meanings of several of them.” [fn]Ibid, p. 205.[end fn]


 * Citing to a series of articles Motz published in leading journals in the 1980s arguing that “the giants represent a group of older deities, pushed into the background of Viking Age consciousness by peoples’ changing patterns of worship,” [fn]Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, Volume 1: The Myths (1994). Odense, ISBN8778380881, p.50 n.10, citing to Motz (1981a), (1982a), (1984b).[end fn] Margaret Clunies Ross objects that Motz’s argument “introduces an element of speculation into our understanding of Norse myth for which there is no textual or other evidence,” [fn]Ibid., p.50.[end fn] while acknowledging the possibility that the ancient beliefs “may have allowed for the classification of more beings in the giant category in some traditions, particularly regional, Norwegian ones, than in that version of Norse mythology that Snorri Sturluson in particular handed down to us.” [fn]Ibid., p.50, n.10.[end fn] Elsewhere in the same volume, Clunies Ross cites Motz as being the first to recognize that the dwarfs of Norse mythology “were an all-male group,” [fn]Ibid., p.165 n.12; 168.[end fn] an insight that Clunies Ross draws on in developing her own theory of "negative reciprocity." [fn]Ibid., p.165 n.12; 168.[end fn]


 * Regarding the relationship between the Æsir and Vanir, linguist Theo Vennemann comments,"“The Vanir are commonly presented as deities of fertility and wealth. This may be correct to a degree, but it is not a complete, or even adequate, description of the Vanir. In this critique I am in agreement with Lotte Motz (1976). Motz, too, stresses the fact that the Vanir are, like the Æsir, a complete divine family with a wide range of functions, and also the fact that the Æsir have a stronger affinity to agriculture, the Vanir to navigation ... She accounts for this difference by assuming that it arose within Germanic as a function of different invasion routes – over land to Denmark, by ship to Sweden and Norway – and of different substrates.” [fn]Vennemann, Theo (2003). “Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides,” in Europa Vasconica/ Europa Semitica. Berlin; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 311017054X, p.631.[end fn]"


 * Jens Peter Schjødt, Associate Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, observes: - "'Motz more or less turned the Indo-European theory upside down and argued that common traits between the Indo-Europeans and the Mediterranean world are due to borrowings from the latter cultures, and that such triats were carried with the wandering Indo-European tribes to the North from the cultures of the Mediterreanean. In a rather strange way the author takes up the old historicist models of especially Karl Helm (1913) and Ernst A. Phillipsson (1953). She thus proposes that the division between the Æsir and Vanir is due to two different peoples arriving in Scandinavia (Motz 1996, 103-24). Although there are interesting ideas in the book it fails to make a convincing case for a historicist solution to be more plausible than the structuralist one of Dumézil, primarily because it does not take into consideration the overwhelming amount of comparative arguments which the French scholar brought forth from all over the Indo-European world, supporting, for instance, the proposition that the relationship between the two groups of gods is one of the basic strucral features of Indo-European mythology. As opposed to most other books on the subject in recent years, Motz is thus occupied which reconstructions of origins, which is, of course, quite legitimate, but she does it in a way that may be held rather old-fashioned.' [fn]'Contemporary Research into Old Norse Mythology' in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, Edited by Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt, and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen, Brepols, 2007, pp. 1-16 ISBN 9782503526140.[end fn]"


 * The influence of Motz's work on the younger generation of scholars is evident in the citations to her work in Eric Christiansen’s Norsemen in the Viking Age, [fn]Christiansen, Eric (2002). Norsemen in the Viking Age. Oxford & Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, ISBN 0631216774, citing Motz (1973a), (1984b), (1991b), (1992), (1994), (1996a).[end fn] and in the recent Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), including Henning Kure, “Hanging on the World Tree: Man and Cosmos in Old Norse Mythic Poetry,” [fn]Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 63-70, citing to Motz (1991a) for her survey of sources material.[end fn] Randi Haaland, “Iron in the Making–Technology and Symbolism,” [fn]Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 79-85, citing to Motz (1983) for her interpretation of “the dual nature of the blacksmith as reflecting the dual nature of the material in which he works.”[end fn] and Sharon Ratke and Rudolf Simek, “Guldgrubber: Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?” [fn]Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives (2006), pp. 259-263, citing to Motz (1996a) for her identification of the god Freyr as a wealthy and powerful deity.[end fn]


 * Motz was posthumously honored with a conference held in her memory at Bonn University in 1999, which resulted in the publication of a commemorative volume of scholarly works in German and English concerning female entities in Northern mythology. [fn]Mythological Women (2002).[end fn] Attendees contributing to the memorial volume include: Alexandra Pesch, Margrethe Watt, Rudolf Simek, Ute Schwab, Else Mundal, Wilhelm Heizmann, Anatoly Liberman, John McKinnell, Lise Præstgaard Anderson, and Ándís Egilsdóttir.

Rsradford (talk) 17:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * no. we are not a citation index. If anything, the current article might need some minor cuts. The purpose of the article is not to celebrate her legacy; the Festschrift did that. DGG (talk) 01:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course, the point of generating the "citation index" was to give the lie to the false claims previously inserted into the article by "Jack" and his puppets, that Prof. Motz's work is not cited by her peers, and that she has had no influence on the younger generation of scholars. I assume you agree that the article should be kept truthful, so what cuts would you propose?
 * Rsradford (talk) 20:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

No such statements were "previously inserted into the article" by anyone, thus there is no need to address them. As the complete citation index demonstrates, Motz is universally recognized as the author of a slew of short articles on Germanic mythology. Understandably, some of her vast output is cited in the bibliographies of comprehensive works on Germanic Mythology. No one is questioning that. What is clear, however, is that her conclusions are not "the point of departure," nor have they had any great "influence on the younger generation of scholars" as one amateur website advocates. In the interest of keeping the article truthful, I propose placing the Simek quote in the Reception section and then summarizing the material that is already there. Weeding through the suggested celebatory prose to decipher what is authentic and what is hype would be a collosal undertaking, hardly worth the effort. Suffice it to say that some of her work is cited in the bibliographies of a number of general works on the subject. I think we can all agree on that. In regard to the longer quotes that have some substance, there is no need to quote the passages at the length they have been quoted here. They could and should be reduced to the essential points and placed within the suggested summary. DGC is probably the best equipped to do this, if he is willing. Then there is the unresolved matter of restoring the factual information concerning the reason her family left Austria, leaving Motz a "refugee" as Simek put it. To obscure this under the foriegn term "Anschluss" is unnecessary obfuscation. Since this information was published in a commemorative volume and penned by a personal friend and a 'fellow scholar,' there is no legitimate reason to omit it here, nor has any been proffered. It isn't unsourced hearsay, nor is it "anti-semetic" to identify a Jewish author and Holocaust survivor as Jewish. I see no reason not to defer to Simek on his point.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 05:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Motz's Limited Influence
This reference excises a significant point: Vennemann, Theo (2003). “Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides,” in Europa Vasconica/ Europa Semitica. Berlin; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 311017054X, p.631.[end fn]

Vennemann says: "Motz only mentions in passing the religious correspondences between the Ancient Orient and Scandinavia and thereby misses the fact that these connnections are strongest with the Vanir. If one takes the difference into consideration it supports the idea that the Vanir represent the Old Semetic religion in the North." The title of the work, in part, is Europa Semitica, afterall.

In no way is that a mainstream conclusion of Germanic scholars. Thus, the fact that Vennemann agrees with Motz undermines, rather than supports, the credibility of her work. Like Vennemann, Motz often suggested that Old Norse mythology was derived from Semitic sources. Proving this connection was an important theme of her work, which makes it surprising she missed this point. In her 130 page 'book' titled "The King, the Champion and the Sorcerer" (1996) she writes:


 * "It is possible to assume that the speakers of the Indo-European language incorporated some mythical motifs of the ancient Mediterranean nations from whom they also learned their agricultural techniques. The wandering tribes would then take their cultural hertitage to the new lands in which they settled. Basing myself on this hypothesis, I have traced elements in the nature of Germanic gods to a Mediterranean base."

Her career was spent ferreting out these assumed influences. However, the fact is the notion that Old Norse mythology derived from middle and near eastern sources has not been mainstream in Germanic studies since the late 19th century, which is precisely why Schjødt labeled her approach "rather old fashioned." Her influence has been very limited because of this. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 05:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Because Motz had only "limited influence," we should delete the references to the many scholars who have relied on her work?!
The foregoing proposals represent the spirit of 1930s book-burning resurrected, nothing more. The person alleging that Prof. Motz's works are only "mentioned in the bibliographies" of other scholars is, of course, the same individual who has deleted specific documentation of the influence of her work on those scholars. My question for DGG therefore remains open: Will the article be allowed to document Motz's influence in such fields as the scholarly understanding of giantesses in ON mythology, or shall we yield to the forces exemplified in the two preceding sections, and pretend this page in the history of ideas never existed? Rsradford (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone familar with the field knows that Motz had very little influence because she sought Semitic origins for Germanic, and more broadly, Indo-European, mythemes, a method now considered outdated. She saw the spread of grain cultivation as the vehicle. Like many of the scholars at the end of the 19th century, who saw the Old Testament as the true history of the world, she saw the Middle East as the origin of civilization. This was her guiding philosophy. The only support I see for her scholarly influence is your statements. In most every case, these statements are not supported by the citations. the vast majority of these citations refer to her works for their surveys of the relevant literature, rarely the conclusions. How are you defining "influence" exactly? Perhaps there is a misunderstanding about what this term actually means. Finnrekkr (talk) 01:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Repeat a lie often enough, and somebody may believe it, right? The citations you deleted documented the substantial influence of Prof. Motz's work on contemporary scholarship, especially in her primary fields of interest.  That you "don't see" it is irrelevant (beyond the fact that you have deleted the evidence), since these scholars' reliance of Prof. Motz's work speaks for itself, whether or not you understand what they are saying. Rsradford (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Why are verifiable Facts being ignored?
The honorary festschrift "Mythological Women" which is the basis for the biographical information regarding Motz, is being selectivelty cited. As all parties agree, this source says:

"Lotte Motz, née Edlis, was born in Vienna in 1922. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school). In 1941 her mother escaped to America with Lotte and two younger brothers, settling in New York City. Working throughout her studies, Lotte Motz completed high school and college and received a B.A. in German from Hunter College, City University of New York, in 1949. She did a year of graduate work at Stanford University and completed her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she obtained a Ph.D. in German and philology in 1955. She moved to Oxford in 1959 where her husband Hans was a lecturer in engineering. There her scholarly career began. She undertook a Bphil in Old English wich introduced her to Old Norse. Her love of the subject never left her. "When in 1971 she returned to America with her daughter Anna, she obtained an academic position in the German Department at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, where she was a highly popular and respected teacher. Later she taught German at Hunter College until in 1984 she contracted bronchiectasis. She subsequently had to give up teaching and eventually returned to Oxford with her daughter. Although she was very disappointed about giving up her beloved teaching, and leaving New York City, she pursued her scholarly activities all the more vigorously in Oxford, continuing to attend international conferences and write prolifically."[1] Rsradford (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The current revision, which DCG stated was "more balanced" omits the facts that Motz:

1) was Jewish 2) that her family left Austria after the "Nazi Annexation" because Lotte was not allowed to attend school 3) attended one year at Stanford and earned her graduate degree at the University of Wisconson. The wording "latter institution" would be unnecessary of this were stated accurately. 4) taught German at Hunter College

As there is a verifiable scholarly source for this information, why cannot it not be stated in this entry? This should not be a matter of debate. Finnrekkr (talk) 20:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Jack-Finnrekkr's Jew-fixation has been dealt with repeatedly, throughout the history of this article.  As DGG has pointed out above (and nobody else has seen fit to question), responsible encyclopedia entries do not randomly identify their subjects as Jews or Aryans because, since the end of World War II, it is no longer believed that these labels are reliable markers for the quality of one's scholarship. Rsradford (talk) 22:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Nor do they randomly identify their subjects as "gay" based on the speculations of literary critics, yet you have successfully pushed for this in other entries and been upheld by administrators precisely because these speculations were stated in a published source. Yet here you object to citing a reputable published source. I find your views inconsistent. Using your logic, there is no reason to mention Motz's move from Austria after the "Union" either, or to obscure her education or the fact that she taught German, since these do not directly relate to her published works. I disagree with your premise that this article is confined solely to Motz's scholarly output. She is a public figure and thus any published details regarding her life are relevent. Her fellow scholar Rudulf Simek found these details relevant. Why shouldn't we? Also, would it be possible to discuss this matter without the false accusations and personal attacks? And lay off the bold type, will you?Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 15:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

comment
I fail to see that she was a public figure; rather, she was a notable academic. The above discussion is getting repetitive and unconstructive. The article is a median giving the usual details about her life for an academic figure. I point out that by the usual academic standards she is notable, but the citations and influences given above are those for a humanities scholar of significant ordinary but not extraordinary notability--she is not, for example, Jung. A Festschrift indicate a notable career, but one routinely follows many notable humanities careers--it shows notability, yes, but not world-wide fame. As is, the discussion of her influence is considerably expanded over the usual, we are flexible here, but this is about at the outer limits. There is no evidence at hand that her ethnicity influenced her work. You each are welcome to ask for another comment, but I very strongly suggest you each of you let the matter rest, and go on to other people and topics in the field. We need many more articles on traditional fields of scholarship. DGG (talk) 04:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought the standard for including something was a reference in a reputable source? Why are we selectively citing the information in the biographical sketch in Mythological Women penned by fellow scholar Rudolf Simek? No valid reason has been giveng to date. The charges of anti-semitism are incoherent, illogical and unfounded. 16:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Finnrekkr (talk • contribs)


 * Give it a rest, "Jack" / "Finnrekkr" / Mr. Reaves. As has been repeatedly noted, Prof. Motz's ethnicity has no relevance to her scholarship whatsoever, and the only person who has ever asserted otherwise is you.  You might also observe that there is a Wikipedia Project on gay studies, whereas there is none on "Jew scholars."
 * Rsradford (talk) 21:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not Jewish scholars have formed a Wikipedia Projekt is irrelevant. A more apt comparison, I believe, would be to say that there is an entry on Homosexuality and an article on Judaism. In light of Motz's tendency to see the Middle East and more specifically Semitic culture as the cradle of civilization, (a theory not current since the late 19th century), her cultural identity is certainly relevant to her work as it naturally explains this otherwise irrational tendency. Rudolf Simek, a friend of Ms. Motz, agrees, as he saw fit to identify her as Jewish in a festschrift honoring her. In the face of the published evidence, your campaign to omit this fact is bewildering. Finnrekkr (talk) 23:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Since you insist on behaving like a troll, I will begin treating you like one and post no more responses to your anti-Semitic provocations. Please understand that Wikipedia is not Stormfront or the "Viktor Rydberg" group.
 * Rsradford (talk) 21:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Your opinion of me and how you choose to treat me makes no difference to me. My sole aim is to help create a factual article on Lotte Motz, without the false adoration. Apart from the continued name-calling and historonics, is there any legitimate reason to exclude the fact that Motz was Jewish— a fact confirmed by her "friend and fellow scholar" Rudolf Simek —from this entry? To date you have provided none. Finnrekkr (talk) 16:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * don't escalate this, please, Radford. There is no inherent reason to conclude that insertion of the ethnicity is anti-Semitic. As for the insertion, Finn, you asked for a third opinion and got on. Ask for another if you like, but perhaps it would be better to letthe matter rest? That's a lot more topics from traditional scholarship that need work here. DGG (talk) 11:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

We have a verifiable statement regarding Motz from a published work of scholarship. What more do you want? It would be nice if an admin could make a decision here. Your vague statements have not been helpful in resolving this issue. Since you acknowledge that Radford's objection is baseless, the information should be included. Yet you continue to block all editing on the entry. I would be more inclined to do the work you suggest needs to be done here, if we had some sort of forward movement rather than this continuous logjam created by a single obstructionist with a personal agenda. Finnrekkr (talk) 21:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Since Radford has apparently chosen to drop out and quit responding, can we move forward with the business of editing this article? I have made several purposed changes in the past. I would like to see them implemented now that the opposition to including factual information and the attempt to pack the article with false citations has been withdrawn.Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 18:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * you do not win content disputes here by exhausting the patience of the other party. You ask for additional opinions. You have received them from several outsiders, and your proposed changes have been firmly and repeatedly rejected.. Jack, stay away from restoring them. Now, which citations do you object to and why--take them one at a time. DGG (talk) 02:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You wrote: "You have received them from several outsiders, and your proposed changes have been firmly and repeatedly rejected." What are you taking about? Several outsiders? Repeatedly rejected? Who? Where? Certainly not on this talk page. There have been 4 participants: you, me, Finnrekkr and Rorik Radford. Bloodofox made a comment as I recall. Only Rorik has objected. What's the problem with stating that Motz was Jewish considering we have a reputable published source? Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 01:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * because we do not state religion unless relevant to the article; cf. the thousands of articles of other scholars. Find a reliable source that says it was relevant to her work. In this case, it was associated in the article previously with clearly irrelevant negative biographical information, and that makes its retention particularly problematic.  DGG (talk) 21:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I also requested that you state the policy where you're pulling this from, but you did not. The thing is, the fact that Motz was ethnically Jewish is relevant to her biography, it's apparently easily sourced, and there's no reason to censor this out. bloodofox: (talk) 23:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

DCG, your call to cite a scholar comes across as rather cynical considering the dearth of scholarship which discusses her or her conclusions, especially considering that you chose to ignore the one source which does cite it. The biographical information in the article is all drawn from Simek's sketch, except that her hertitage has been airbrushed out. It seems rather abritrary to exclude this information from an otherwise factual/reliable source. Simek thought it relevant to mention. Certainly, it is relevant. The fact is that as a child, Motz fled the Nazis, and then an adult, went against the grain of Germanic scholarship since 1900 and actively sought to trace the origins of Germanic mythology to Mediterrian and Middle Eastern sources. It is a standard theme in her work— and obviously a strong conviction of hers. I hardly need a scholar to tell me that her hertitage is relevant to her views. If a Swede concluded that Sweden was the cradle of civilaztion, you'd call him a nationalist. If a person of middle eastern heritage does the same, you call it irrelevant? For example, she writes:

"Freyja, however, shows no relation to the northern landscape: the strong sexuality of her persona, her aspect as a harlot, would have to be derived from a region in which sexual desire and fulfillment were exalted, as had happened in the Mediterranean. The tale of the goddess in her sorrow parallels the tales of the greiving divinities of the ancient world." The Beauty and the Hag, p. 110.

This is a ridiculous conclusion based on an assumption, which no one else (academically speaking) accepts as valid. Judism is a culture and a heritage. It is not something to be ashamed of or diminished as a mere "religion". The "clearly irrelevant negative biographical information" you speak of was the mere mentioning of the fact that she was Jewish and philosophically accepted the middle east as the cradle of civilization. Check the facts rather than relying on your own (biased) memory. I remind you that "several outsiders" have not "firmly and repeatedly rejected" this. Only one did: Rorik Radford. Don't tell me that you have bought Rorik's line that stating a person is Jewish in itself is an anti-semitic statement? That's hogwash. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

As further evidence, the article titled "Jew" on Wikipedia distinguishes the religion from the ethnic idenity. Thereare two seperate entries on these topics. Under Jew, Wikipedia states:

"A Jew (Hebrew: יְהוּדִי, Yehudi (sl.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.); Ladino: ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sl.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד, Yid (sl.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.))[9] is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites or Hebrews of the ancient Middle East. The ethnicity and the religion of Judaism, the traditional faith of the Jewish nation, are strongly interrelated, and converts to Judaism are both included and have been absorbed within the Jewish people throughout the millennia."

Simek identifies his "friend" and "fellow scholar" as a Jew, and says her life was typical of that of a refugee displaced by war. He doesn't speak of her religious practice, but her ethnic identity. Clearly these intense childhood experiences shaped who she was and her views. It is an anamoly among Germanic scholars for anyone to consistently identify the Middle East as the source of Germanic myth and legend. The mainstream view uses Indo-European ("Aryan") sources for comparison. Simek's acount of her background naturally explains this oddity— which is no doubt why he mentioned it at all as it so obvious explains her contrary positions. Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 04:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I recently have read similar biographical sketches in the festscrifts of Edgar Polemé and Margaret Clunies Ross and many personal details of these scholars' lives are discussed— including their complete education, who they married, divorces, where they lived, positions they held, their children, significant historical events in their lives, etc. It certainly is not unheard of for such personal information to be included in the biography of a scholar. This notion that personal details (published in a scholarly fashion) are off the table is patently ABSURD. The fact that Motz was a Jew who survived the Holocaust is part of her biography, and most certainly shaped who she was and her outlook on life as well as her worldview. Rudolf Simek thought it not only important eneough to mention, but significant to understand her work. This policy is motivated by racial prejudice and censorship, nothing more. Finnrekkr (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


 * of course a Festschrift biography gives as much detail as it can possibly find, at least the detail that is agreeable to the person celebrated. It's not an encyclopedia; and we confine ourself to what is important for encyclopedic purposes as a general encyclopedia. I furthermore do not regard them as neutral for anything controversial about the scholar's life or influence. That's not a place where one writes an introduction on how unimportant or wrong someone is, any more than in an obituary.


 * The  arguments about her life are totally out of proportion altogether about the importance of this. I am unable to comprehend the vehemence on each side here. I suppose there must be some specific personal animosity or COI, either about her, or about the other editors--for nothing about her work seems controversial enough to inspire this. The usual way of handling conflict of this sort is to drastically shorten the article. Personally, I think it perfectly natural that a person of any background might want to investigate the subjects she did, and I see no evidence at all that her conclusions were affected by it. Why is the short article here made stronger or weaker by whether or not she is of jewish background? were her family Nazis one could have argued her work was unsual because of that, that she challenged the germanic consensus. were they Chinese, unusual for working on indoeuropean subjects; and so on...  That her conclusions were new is sufficiently brought out without all this.


 * You want to discuss her life, answer me this: she taught at Brooklyn College and Hunter. These were not first rate research universities. Has this every been discussed from the viewpoint of feminism?


 * I've got a qy I just noticed: "Among other breakthroughs, she was the first to question the validity of the once widely accepted Indo-European tripartiate function theory proposed by Georges Dumezil more than forty years earlier. " I'd like a source for that. One that justifies "the first", not the "first student of folklore". I know the theory, I know the criticism of it. VG Childe and other have criticised it from at least the time she did. I certainly encountered it in the 60s as what was a generally agreed on as an oversimplification. The theory affected much more than folklore--very much more. it was discussed and criticised by  people in every field of humanities and history, probably from the time it was published.

Feel free to contact me offwiki about your background and closeness to the work--anything said by email is controversial. And then i want to read/reread some sources myself.

The recent unsigned editor wrote: "of course a Festschrift biography gives as much detail as it can possibly find, at least the detail that is agreeable to the person celebrated."

In light of this, it is ridiculous to keep suggesting that identifying Motz as Jewish is somehow derogatory or offensive. It is directly stated in the festschrift, a source favorable to her. What the source actually says is:


 * "Her life was similar to that of many others in the 20th century who were driven from their homes and led the life of refuggees. Lotte Motz, née Edlis, was born in Vienna in 1922. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 she, as a Jew, was denied the right to attend Gymnasium (high school).  In 1941 her mother escaped to America with Lotte and two younger brothers, settling in New York City."  [In Honor of Lotte Motz," in Mythological Women (2002), p. 9.]

This is a significant formative event in this author's life and it has been so watered down as to be unrecognizable in the current version of the entry. There has been an obvious attempt by one editor to build this scholar into something she is not by falsely inflating references to her work. This effort has been well documented on this Talkpage. Clearly, the facts are being distorted. The fact is, she was Jewish and a Holocoust survivor. This is an important part of her biography which should not be arbitrarily tossed out because of whipped-up "controversy". Jack the Giant-Killer (talk) 02:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)