Talk:Marițica Bibescu

No Romanian article yet!
As a Romanian editor I'm appaled that there's no article about her in Romanian - and no, the one you're talking about is her daughter. Honestly I'm going to start working on this soon, so if ever a Romanian - or any for that matter- reader sees this, please go check out the page and make a quick fix (link-related, templatey, linguistic) if needed. Thank you!

Double Plus Ungood (talk) 02:13, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * if you plan to translate this text, you might need the various quotes in the original Romanian. I will retrieve them for you, if you want me to, but I might not be very prompt about doing it. Dahn (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I generally stay away from Romanian wikipedia, because they seem incapable of enforcing quality standards, and sometimes appear unwilling to. In their defense, it does not surprise me that they don't/didn't have an article on Princess Bibescu, as the sources dealing with her are somewhat arcane, and interest in her life (and in all the history of Wallachia or Moldavia between 1821 and 1848) was only revived recently. She is a footnote to an era that is generally skipped over in historiography. What bothers me is that they have an article on her daughter, which appears whimsical: she was not notable under any standard or definition, not even as notable as any of her other children. Dahn (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that is ridiculous. It's both weird and somewhat awesome that nothing has been written there about her yet. Personally I would rather try to do my little part regardless, but I left Romania pretty young and won't deny that my Romanian isn't Nobel-worthy. Thanks for the heads-up on the community; I know what to expect when editing now. I also might take some time before getting into this, but let's keep in touch here as to our progress when we can. Again, thanks a lot! Double Plus Ungood (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I think you may find it easiest to put it all in a sandbox, either here on on Romanian wikipedia, and let me know where I can find it. I could edit there directly, if you allow/need me to. Dahn (talk) 08:45, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

"Constantinople"
The trite, idiotic battle about name changes should take place elsewhere, if it must. As we stand, Constantinople leads readers to an article that barely covers anything relevant to this time period (and probably only gives the short glimpse that it does because someone with the same political POV dumped it into that article as well); the "main article" there being History of Istanbul. The creative tidbit of whether or not it was officially called "Constantinople" or not is irrelevant to that fact -- for one, we should simply not mislead readers by pointing them to articles that do not cover the subject matter; what's more, the name not being "officially" Istanbul, particularly in a state that simply had no official nomenclature, does not mean that "Istanbul" and variants weren't already used before 1923, at roughly the same rate as the Turkish approximations of "Constantinople". In 19th-century Romanian, the city was generally known as Stambul or Țarigrad, and Stamboul was a widespread English version. And, btw, if this edit warring were honest in its claim to approximate the "official" name, then the redirects for the Turkish period would be to Kostantiniyye, which is still not Constantinople.

Supporting this POV-warring with citations to books of no relevancy to the topic of the article, and without even bothering to replicate the format already used for the other references, is borderline disruptive, in its attempt to make the edits look like they're in good faith. Please stop. If you want to change the nomenclature, and you think you have a case, go and do it at a proper venue, don't massacre unrelated articles. If you gather consensus that all references to Istanbul before 1923 should be links on Constantinople, and that the history of Ottoman Istanbul should also be summarized there, do that and I'll change the links myself. Otherwise, this is nothing other than disruption of the WP:POINT kind. Dahn (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Jeez how am I edit warring, I made one simple edit ONCE and you're acting like trashed the article. The city was not called Istanbul in the 19th century, this is not POV and I provided a reliable source so stop acting like a hysterical child who thinks they own this page.--Comnenus (talk) 14:01, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I never mentioned edit warring over this particular page. I referred to the existing naming dispute and your numerous contributions to it (in fact you openly acknowledge on your user page that your leading preoccupation is to change the names for the city according to your definition of what is "correct"). Instead of engaging in this (childish) trench warfare, you are invited again to go and do the rational thing: go and seek a policy change that would make it a naming practice to refer to historical Istanbul as "Constantinople". Otherwise, it is POV-pushing. As for me not owning this page: it doesn't mean that I or anyone else have to tolerate content degradation and artificial naming disputes of zero relevancy to the topic; I have no objection against constructive edits. Dahn (talk) 14:20, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * It's not POV pushing, I've provided a reliable source (more reliable the your opinion) that states what the cities name was before Ataturk's nationalist reforms. It strikes me that this has more to do with your own issues with the name and/or owning of the article. The only thing I missed was the link under Constantinople which I will fix.--Comnenus (talk) 14:47, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's evidently not my opinion, I do not have an opinion on what name we should ultimately use. It is the fact that currently the article on Constantinople does not include any info on the period discussed here, meaning that adding links to that article misdirects the reader who wants to find the relevant information. For the use of either name and however (in)consistent, we already have Names of Istanbul (but is it really news to you that English sources were already using "Stamboul", not just "Constantinople", back in the day?). Your source, incidentally, does not apparently say that the official name was Constantinople (it was not: if was several things, of which the closest to Constantinople was Konstantinyye), just that Istanbul, under this spelling, was only made official in 1923 -- and, btw, this view is questioned by other sources, cited under Names of Istanbul, which note that Istanbul was also one of several names in what would count as official use under Ottoman norms.
 * But either way, this is not the place for that dispute. You either make it into a policy, weighing in the consensus for all the articles (in which case, if you change the consensus, I will change the links myself to point to the relevant article), or drop it; what you do not do is to travel around wikipedia changing it where it suits your fancy. And if you do change consensus and make this a policy, then adding "references" here would be redundant -- we would simply change it here as well without adding the reference. As we stand, you are using this article as a soapbox to promote your views on what name we should use for the city. That is unacceptable. Dahn (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And just in the event you should raise the objection that the sources cited in Names of Istanbul don't count when put up against the misquoted source you push over here, I will confront you directly with sources saying explicitly that Istanbul and variants were in official Ottoman use before 1923, and that what you insist on referring to as "Constantinople" was one variant, appearing as Konstantinyye: Murat Gul, Philippides & Hanak, Cohen & Stein, Steven Richmond, Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, Çelik. This should at least establish that the situation was complex, and that your simplistic claim as to what constituted "official usage" is POV-pushing -- yes, even with a reference for that one POV. So argue your POV and make the case that we should necessarily use "Constantinople" elsewhere, let me know what comes up. Dahn (talk) 17:05, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Lol it's pretty obvious that you have a quite strong opinion on this matter considering you've spent the afternoon angrily ranting (with some minor insults) at me over ONE minor edit, either that or I touched a nerve by daring to edit YOUR article. I may or may not bring this up elsewhere but considering I'm a sporadic editor I doubt it and frankly I have better things to do with my time then argue with people like you who take this way to seriously.--Comnenus (talk) 18:11, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no intention of arguing with you over this or any other issue: my intention is that you stop your stream of edits and your proclamation about what is "correct" use, read a bit outside your POV, form an informed opinion, and, if you need to, argue the case on some of the pages where they actually settle naming policy. If the outcome is that we should use "Constantinople", do understand, as it is the third time I am writing this down: I would have no objection whatsoever. You may have a point for you claims: there is an objective merit to settling this matter one way or another. But one would have to do it transparently and considering all relevant data, not to mention without stating false claims. And, as we stand, the consensus seems to be that Constantinople covers Byzantine history, and Istanbul covers whatever follows; as long as that is the case, and as long as the reader will find the relevant information under Istanbul, I cannot allow you to redirect one into the other, at least not in articles I took the trouble of bringing up to a decent level. You can of course carry on with this pathetic trolling, for which you somehow find the time, at least as long as administrators will allow you; but what matters is that you understand the point (which you seem to finally do). Regards, Dahn (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Re: Szathmari's miniature portrait of Princess Bibescu in Romanian dress
Just curious, but why is the portrait (see the infobox in the lead) painted in the style of a Hindu goddess? Was this intentional? Taking a wild guess, but the painting date of 1845 seems to line up with the interest in Orientalism in art in general. Viriditas (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)