User talk:AlexanderVanLoon

Pseudo-Aristotle
I did follow the link to Pseudo-Aristotle, but not all readers will do so.

The danger I saw in the old wording was that a reader would think there was an identified Pseudo-Aristotle or a small class of them, and that the article was giving positive information by attributing the work to him or them. In other words, saying "this is by Pseudo-Aristotle" suggests not only "this is not by Aristotle" but also an attempt to answer "if Aristotle did not write it, who did?".

In particular, it might make the reader class the work with more ancient pseudo-Aristotelian material such as the De Caelo or the De Plantis, which have at least some tenuous claim to form part of the Aristotelian corpus; like attributing a painting to "school of...".

In an ideal world I would leave the article saying simply "it was certainly not by Aristotle, but by someone in Renaissance times or later", and mention "Pseudo-Aristotle" only in the list of references at the end. Failing that, something like "certainly not by Aristotle, and must therefore be allotted to the class of Pseudo-Aristotelian works". But I regard even that as unnecessary and tautologous. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 17:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that I shouldn't have assumed that every reader will follow the wikilink to Pseudo-Aristotle. However, I'm uncomfortable with referring to him with the definite article "the" instead of the indefinite "a" because the latter indicates a group of unknown authors and former indicates a single known person. The article already mentioned it was first published in 1684, which prevents people from associating this work with Pseudo-Aristotelian works of classical antiquity. To resolve both our issues, I have just edited the article to have the relevant sentences read as follows:


 * It was first published in 1684 and written by an unknown author who falsely claimed to be Aristotle. As a consequence the author is now described as a Pseudo-Aristotle, the collective name for unidentified authors who masqueraded as Aristotle.


 * Possibly you may still consider this to be tautologous, but it is the lesser evil as it now explains to the readers what is meant with Pseudo-Aristotle (and therefore solves your/our first problem). Is this change acceptable to you? I think this is a good compromise. I'll copy our discussion to the talk page of the article so others can find it easily. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 14:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre


 * Hi Saffron Blaze, I assume you refer to my edit of Termessos. The original caption called the theater an amphitheater, which I doubted. Before I changed the caption I had already read the article you linked. It says that an amphitheater is circular, i.e. surrounds the central area. When I look at the image in the article for Termessos, I clearly see that the seating ends at the far end of the theater and shows ruins of the buildings behind the stage. So I assume it must be an "ordinary" Greek theater or Roman theater, depending on whether the seating was built on a hillside or self-supported. I can't see it clearly in the image – my guess is that it's built on a hillside – so I simply called it a "theater". If you think I'm mistaken, please explain. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 20:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The point I was trying to make was that in modern usage all these ancient theatres would now be called amphitheatres,as with the Hollywood Bowl. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, but then the question is if we should follow the modern use or the ancient use of the term on Wikipedia. I argue in favor of the latter because it is more distinctive and specific. Most importantly, scientific sources also conform to the ancient usage AFAIK. For example, see Aspendos: it specifically mentions a Roman theater and cites a scientific source which uses the same terminology. For more examples, see Roman theater (structure) were the term Roman theater is used – and the term amphitheater avoided – consistently. If you still disagree with me, maybe we can discuss it at the WikiProject Archaeology talk page and ask for the perspectives of others on this issue? --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 08:08, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I noted there does appear to be some internal coherency in the term's usage that may be worth preserving. I also checked a few online sources and it is clear your interpretation is the technically correct one although everyone agrees that amphitheatre's common usage is less exacting and this is reflected in many dictionaries. However, I am happy to let this drop as the articles do draw the distinction for those so interested to find out. Thanks for your patience. Saffron Blaze (talk) 12:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

BTW, is this you? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/CharlieRCD Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Nope, I'm commons:User:AlexanderVanLoon and use only that account. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 17:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Noted, but it is odd that the user edited an image of mine of the Aspendos theatre while this conversation was taking place and it is his/her first edit in years. Saffron Blaze (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, I think it's curious. However, according to Special:Contributions/CharlieRCD he has been more active on Wikipedia with his edits. I'll leave a comment on his talk page to ask him for an answer. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 12:40, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a question that Wikipedia itself can resolve. Amphitheatres, at least in the classical sense of the word, were "large, circular or oval open-air venues with raised seating," devised by the Romans. The prefix 'amphi-' refers to the fact that, unlike Ancient Greek theatres, such buildings were enclosed on 'both' sides, or all the way 'around' - they are generally oval or circular. So while an amphitheatre count as a type of theatre, a classical greek theatre is most certainly *not* an 'amphi'-theatre. This is an extremely common error and possibly an example of a hypercorrection. CharlieRCD (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we already came to that conclusion. In this case precision should trump common usage. However, it was your appearance in the middle of this that raised eyebrows. Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:35, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Etruscans all up in this

 * Thanks :) I'm very satisfied with the articles I wrote on the individual tombs in the necropolis (which are linked in the article). But the article on the necropolis itself still needs a lot of improvement in my opinion. I hope to work on that in the coming months. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 07:27, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Cocintum
Well, Cocintum was the greek name of Punta Stilo (Foreland Stilo), where was settled Kaulon first, and Stilida, the ancient city of Stilo. Castelvetere turned in Caulonia the name for a mistake. For the references, i suggest: Marcuscalabresus (talk) 19:41, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Damiano Bova, Bivongi.Nella valle dello Stilaro, Bari, Ecumenica Editrice, 2008, p39",
 * Caulonia2000, Davide Prota,
 * Ricerche storiche su Caulonia, Cavallo Napolitano, 2000, p70-71.

Last but not least: I wrote myself an article: Kaulon. Your article is focused on the ancient city instead of mine focused on archelogical site. I suggest to join the two articles! Marcuscalabresus (talk) 19:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I totally agree that the two articles should be merged; I've done so yesterday and today, just a while ago I finished it by making the Kaulon article redirect to Caulonia (ancient city), after transferring the relevant information. I've also edited Caulonia to correct the information there. To keep discussion a bit more central, could you please take a look at Talk:Caulonia (ancient city) and comment there if necessary? Also, I'd prefer using the first and third source (the link of the second source is dead, too) you give because printed sources are generally more reliable. Unfortunately I can't read them myself because I have no access to them, but do I understand correctly that I can give these two sources right after the end of the first paragraph of the "Modern period" section in the Caulonia article? --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 11:08, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, you can.Marcuscalabresus (talk) 12:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I've just made the change then. I didn't use "Ricerche storiche su Caulonia" because that work seems to be quite old, despite the fact that it was republished in 2000. I just gave Bova, which is recent. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

As you like!Marcuscalabresus (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation page for the siege of Syracuse
In connection with my previous communication, elsewhere, to you today, and my partial reversions today, please note that you are incorrect (without doubt, for now) in your inference that the "List..." (which the bot mentions here) is redundant. IMO you're wrong (but not stupid or evil) if you argue it becomes redundant when and if you deliver on your intention to write the other articles; i will probably explain if you ask. I care much less about the list than about getting the Dab right, so my energy is with the Dab page, not the list. However, the list still exists at this moment, and i am creating its "See also" entry on the Dab page. Tnx. --Jerzy•t 19:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Jerzy, I agree that I was mistaken on the guidelines for the disambigutation page and the set index article. I'll leave the set index article for what it is, but I noticed some problems with the disambiguation page. You apparently had commented out the link to the already existing article Siege of Syracuse (311–309 BC). I corrected this and smaller problems with the grammar. I also wrote articles for two of the sieges which were still missing. I took care to ensure the disambiguation page still conforms to the guidelines after my changes. Please let me know if you protest some of my recent changes today AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 01:27, 10 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi; IIRC i was writing a msg to you when somehow i lost my edit in progress and then realized you'd written to me while i was writing to you! Thanks for your diligence in studying the byzantine (tho relentlessly logical) topic of WP Dab'n (and perhaps the more permissive and intuitive WP:SIAs). I sometimes criticize colleagues for "reckless" editing, but IMO one can go way off in the wrong direction in acquiring OJT on Dabs, while remaining completely innocent of recklessness: it's kind of like the difference between walking into a minefield that has a big sign "Minefield - keep out!" (which is reckless) and into one with no sign. I just hope i wasn't too terse in, uh, notifying you of the absence of the "sign".   I should get around to a little more that might be useful to you, but in the meantime it's good to hear your editing is apparently going smoothly. Cheers! --Jerzy•t 16:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

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My page-move bork-up
Hi AlexanderVL, My apologies: oh dear, what a mess I made of that! Despite being a "sysop" - something I find quite hilarious - I am not very good at technical things like that. I'll try to fix it up myself, but it may take quite some time for me to get my head around what I did wrong. Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:31, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * @Shirt58, if this is difficult to solve for you, maybe you can ask another admin for help? --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 21:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the page moves themselves, but the move from Peperoncini > Friggitello resulted in all the redirects to the former being redirected to the latter. I reverted them but you might want to check that they're pointing to the correct article. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * @Xezbeth, thank you for taking action! --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

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Page move for Lucanians
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Thanks! --  Dane talk  01:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

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