Talk:Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War/Archive 8

Request for Natasha Adamios
You obviously know quite a bit about Farrokh and seem to know academics who know him, so this shouldn't be too time-consuming. What we need are published reviews (journals, the New York Times, etc) on either or both of these books because so far no one seems to have come up with any. Could you please try to find out if there are any? The lack of them is causing a problem. Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 06:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Doug,

I do not know Kaveh Farrokh as you imply. I have read of his works and know Iranscope as these links were forwarded in past 2 years or so among Greek chatgroups. His name has come up with respect to articles, especially his critique against Spiegel. I have however, not made the analysis of the minutae of Kaveh Farrokh my life's work. I do not have the items you seek. As I noted already, my intention was to ensure balance and fairness. At least I had put a stop (I hope) to the Ad Hominom attacks that were taking place here - especially after inserting Lendering's views into the discussion. This is what raises powerful questions here, and I still have not recieved a satisfactory answer to that.

My issues are focused on the process here - not the person of Kaveh Farrokh. I am concenred but what is takingplace here can happen to anyone. I am fully aware of your attempts to appear “objective”. As noted before, your statements belie your previous actions and hence raise questions as to your latent intentions.

1)You cited Lendering as an on-line reference and generated a discussion that was nothing less than low-level Ad Hominom attacks of Farrokh. Some of these comments are simply rude and have little to do with academia:

2) When I pointed out that Lendering makes mistakes on Persia (he also does with Greece but I am not bringing this up here) and is unreliable, you attempted to state that you were not basing the discussion on Lendering. This is illogical: you introduction of Lendering’s biased review is recorded here. That “review” (as noted already) is biased, rude and unfair. But the real issue is that the Lendering review is full of mistakes (funny as it keeps trying to say how Farrokh makes “hundreds of errors”).

3) You attempted to discredit Dr. David Khoupenia. When I pointed out his affiliations, you then attempted to change the tone of the discussion by stating that “oh but his review is posted on Farrokh’s website”. That was a deliberate (?) half-truth designed to misguide readers. Iranscope posted Khoupenia’s review – and Iranscope belongs to Sam Ghandci. Farrokh website was briefly on-line on early 2008 before it was hacked. Yes, he had a link to Iranscope, but why is that a crime? You make no issues about Lendering self-referencing and I do not see you attacking Jona Lendering’s website.

4) The next attempt was to imply that on-line references are invalid. That may sway or swindle some of the general readership but as I noted, on-line references are fully valid if these are from independent sources. As in cases 1-2, you did not directly address the issues, but answered defensively. In this case you now state that you want to have reviews in printed journals. Even if that were to appear, you would most probably find fault with that as well,

The tone of this discussion group has the signature of Joan Lendering, who clearly has a self-serving agenda. This is what raises questions as to the true intentions here. You feel entitled to post very selective and biased views (by Lendering) yet feel unsettled when inconsistencies are revealed.

Finally, you certainly have the luxury of having a lot of lot of time on your hands. I have noticed that you respond almost immediately to each and every posting and the same may said with respect to the other names on this discussion, panel, etc. I do not have the time or energy to spend as you do to work at launching attacks against one man. Lendering’s attacks on Kaveh Farrokh appeared at the same time as the Spiegel and Daily Telegraph articles were published. When Farrokh retorted against these publications, Lendering simply increased his attacks all over the internet. It is only logical that he would like to manipulate Wikipedia as well.

Once again, I have concerns with the process taking place here - although the main thrust here now has become "is this person notable"? is. Again I am no expert on Persia, nor am I legal expert not do I have the time you gentlemen do engage in petty discussions against one person. I have my statements in name of balance and fairness. Natasha Adamios —Preceding unsigned comment added by Natasha Adamios (talk • contribs) 13:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've replied on Talk:Kaveh Farrokh‎. I see that we still have no evidence of any published reviews, which is the main thing I was interested in. I've also made the point in my reply that there may be WP:BLP violations that require the removal of some of the text above. I don't think so, but I want to think about it. Doug Weller (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Amazon "reviews"
Several editors seem to insist on inserting a piece of text full of weasel words. Note that WP generally does not include titles (such as "professor") in a text. In addition, although Amazon certainly is a verifiable source, it is not independent, as they obviously would not print a text staint "this book is rubbish". Their business is selling books, after all. I have not insisted on removing these references from the article completely, just in neutralizing the gushing text about it. I have called these "reviews" blurbs for lack of a better word. If sompeone can find a reliable and verifiable source for any of them, that could be linked to in the article (although literally citing them would be both silly and borderline copyvio). --Crusio (talk) 08:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * "blurbs " is your own OR interpretation, Amazon.com calls "editorial reviews", so they're both reliable and verifiable. If you're worried about Amazon not printing negative reviews, then feel free to find reliable and verifiable sources criticizing the book (obviously not weblogs), and add them to article. --CreazySuit (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not OR, but I agree that Amazon.com calls them something different. To be verifiable you need to be able to find the original source and red the missing bit. I found the source for the Persian Mirror one, . But Amazon is very misleading in that it lists credentials where the credentials look good, but not when, as in this one, the author is a chemistry grad student in New York writing in Persian Mirror which describes itself as "The modern magazine for Persian Weddings, Cuisine, Culture and Commentary". It lists some academic credentials but not Timothy Baghurst's, and his qualifications for commenting on the book seem to be that he is an assistant professor in the Health Science, Kinesiology, Recreation and Dance Department at the University of Arkansas. In short, we have out-of-context comments from people, some of whom are clearly not qualified to write serious reviews of the book and in those cases we are not given enought background to realise this. Doug Weller (talk) 09:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Review from Iran's Cultural Heritage News Agency
Here's a review from Iran's Cultural Heritage News Agency, haven't seen in the extensive discussions, though I may have missed it.John Z (talk) 22:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The embarassing thing here is that  Farrokh's goal to give to ancient Iran its rightful place in history is a good one without any doubt, and he apparently receives a lot of goodwill simply from trying to do that. The problem is that Osprey should probably have asked an actual scholar of antiquity to attempt that feat, as opposed to an Iranian jingoist. We can discuss whether this book passes WP:BK, but it would in any case be commendable to expand our coverage of the various Osprey publications in general instead of getting stuck over one rather unfortunate volume. --dab (𒁳) 18:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * In contrast to Lendering's case, farrokh's book seems to be peer reviewed. Ina ddition Professor frye, such a big name has written a foreword to it. It does not matter if an ignorant type such as lendering writes a negative review. It is only good that a controversial figure writes a bad review. It makes a book only more interesting.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * A foreward is not a review - Frye seems to share common viewpoints with Farrokh, which is I believe why he wrote the introduction. I was not able to find any scholarly reviews of the book other than Lendering's review which was in a scholarly magazine. Are you saying you know of one? dougweller (talk) 23:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "...seems to share...", ...I believe..."
 * Sounds like original research to me. Frye is a well-known scholar in central Asian studies and the founder of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. Lendering is nothing compared to this guy, give me a break Doug. Khoikhoi 06:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well two things. It adds to farrokh's credibility if someone like Frye has the same views as him, or are you saying that frye is not credibla???? lendering does not even have a foreword by any important and credible scholars. The other question. yes I remember I read once a review of Farrokh in a Persian journal. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

A forward is not a review. Frye wrote a piece entitled The Mighty Persian Warriors and allowed Osprey to preface Farrokh's book with it, that's all. --dab (𒁳) 14:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion
This article fails every criterion of Notability (books). As such, I've nominated it for deletion - please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes, Iranian Organization for Cultural Heritage, even VOA or BBC are nothing. But it is a big deal if Lendering is discussed in the Duch news paper NRC Handelsblad, or in a joke students' news letter such as Ad Valvas. Double standards.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Babakexorramdin, can you please shut up about Lendering for five minutes? At least he took the trouble to read this book. And Lendering is a perfectly good scholar, who has himself been accused of being guilty of a "fashionably unsympathetic portrayal of Alexander" in an attempt to boost the popular image of Ancient Persia. Thus, Lendering actually has aims similar to Farrokh's, and he is just bemoaning Farrokh's incompetence at serving these common aims.
 * I see no reason for deletion when we can have redirection. This is one of 21 titles of the Osprey "General Military" series. We can state it's about the military history of Ancient Persia, and that the only review we were able to find considered it crap. That's really the essence of this topic, and no standalone article is needed to convey it. --dab (𒁳) 14:11, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Can you be more polite? This, however shows the true face of lendering, who has grudges against Iranians. http://onzemaninteheran.com/?p=549--Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

A review on an exhibition at Leidse Rijksmuseum van Oudheden ? This is relavant how? Pretty please stop obsessing over Lendering and let us clean up this mess here. Do you understand how much time you have wasted everyone? Hours of discussion at Talk:Kaveh Farrokh to the effect of a slight improvement of the Osprey Publishing article. You have managed to waste all this time while your userpage was saying you had "left Wikipedia" -- quite an achievement. Way to go to improve the reputation of Iranians in general. Now please consider leaving your nationalistic baggage at the door and start helping write the pedia. --dab (𒁳) 14:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Look first of all it is my time which is wated here because of continuous bullying by his defenders. As you see, whenever we reach an agreement they come back with more and more. Plus, I am nationalistic? I do not know.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you mean Lendering, I haven't seen anyone defending Lendering, what I've seen are people defending this encyclopedia and others, eg you, specifically attacking Lendering. dougweller (talk) 15:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry to say this but what I have seen here are personal attacks and accuasations of nationalism etc... It is not abbout the content any more--Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

O please grow a skin Babakexorramdin. The issue is that this article is a cheap excuse for coatracking about alleged anti-Iranian bias etc. It's a free ad for a mediocre book. This isn't what Wikipedia is for. We try to fix the issue here, and it is you and your fellow patriots that keep making this about Lendering and about your personal pride. It has become clear that this is just another Osprey book, and one of the poorer ones at that, so we should just redirect this title. Your pride, and Farrokh's, and Iran's, isn't at stake here. We are trying to keep this encyclopedia tidy, that's all. --dab (𒁳) 08:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Merged
I've summarized the gist of this article in a paragraph at Osprey_Publishing. I argue it captures all this article has to say, after you cut the promotion attempts. Now if we could get a similar paragraph on the other books of the series, we'd really have improved coverage of the series. Yes, this book deserves a brief summary. No, it isn't notable enough for a full standalone article. --dab (𒁳) 10:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Osprey is a great publisher. It has literally hundreds of titles (actually, about 1,200). This is just one of them. I invite anyone actually interested in encyclopedicity (as opposed to idle patriotic pov-pushing), to come over to Osprey Publishing and help out with improving our coverage of literature on military history in general. This would be time much better invested than to keep bickering about this Farrokh character. --dab (𒁳) 10:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

A "no consensus" AfD outcome does not "amount to keep". Indeed, if an article fails to meet WP:NOTE it can be merged as a matter of course without any afd. I am willing to grant this book may be borderline within WP:BK, but that's far from obvious. --dab (𒁳) 10:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)