User talk:Benwbrum

Tell me what you think about my changes. Have I screwed everything up?

Hello. Yes epigraphie is a more general term. In English, there exists also the word epigrpahy (at least in Webster)

In French : épigraphe means something written on stone and epigraphy is the study of inscription. These two words may refer to Greek, latin,... inscriptions.

Hope my English is not too broken. Any other question ? (I am nearly a native speaker of French)

Youssefsan 01:45 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

I answered your request at Talk:Michael_Bellesiles. --Uncle Ed 15:20, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As for User:Zestauferov, if you'll check his contribution history, you'll see it's all Cryptogeography and mad connections between unconnected peoples and amateur linguistics. At any rate, you're correct about Hetto-Iberian and Hattian and Heberite etc. Wetman 02:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * So what is the appropriate course of action? I've gotten into edit wars with loons before, and it's really no fun at all.


 * I agree. Someone just has to raise a warning flag, but I'm not going to waste too much energy on this person. But he is deleting sound mainstream information and replacing it with his grandiose fantasy connections. And no one dares speak up because he's very abusive. Wetman 02:53, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ben, as one of those on Mr Z's "they're out to get me" list, let me explain the frustrations I've had with this individual.
 * 1) When I first encountered him over the Sea Peoples article, he insisted on pushing his mixure of fantasy & David Rohl into this article. Requests for him to explain where this material came from resulted in his calim that I "obviously" couldn't keep up with the latest publications in Russian, French & Georgian. He never explained why he couldn't take the time to introduce this material to the English-only world, though.
 * 2) When I confronted him over his (now gone) Heberite article, asking him detailed questions whence he drew his research, this resulted in his petulant cry that he was leaving Wikipedia, never to contriubte again. That wasn't the reaction I wanted (I just wanted him to provide his sources), & so basically ignored him for a few weeks, hoping he'd get over his "insult".
 * 3) Repeated requests on various Talk: pages (including his own) to document his assertions have been ignored. An odd response for one who claims to be a professional educator & scholar.
 * 4) Re-writing the David Rohl article brought forth accusations that my writing was "blatantly Anti-Rohl. The current article is obscenely biased and full of false facts and hearsay." Much of the information I used for the article either came from Rohl's own web page -- where he proudly details much of his pre-academic career -- or his books which I read. He hasn't answered my request for clarification.

I've pretty well decided to try to ignore him. I don't need the aggravation. I probably will chase down all of his fanciful articles relating to the Bible & replace them with material that would actually get a passing grade in a college freshman class, but only because I believe we deserve accuracy on Wikipedia. -- llywrch 01:20, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I saw your point on my Talk: page, Ben, & I came here to say that you might have a point (I'll admit that many of Mr Z's stubs are acceptible) -- & then I saw his comment below.


 * [shrug] I guess the only way one can get along with what Mr Z posts is to agree with him -- or ignore him; any other policy simply leads to conflict, which is failed to be resolved due to his lack of cooperation. (Look at the record for yourself.) I hope you have better luck with him than I had.


 * P.S. I don't have any objection to space being devoted to Velikovsky on Wikipedia; he is a well-known individual whose opinions & theories require inclusion. My objection is when his theories & speculations are presented as proven fact. -- llywrch 21:32, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi in answer to your question on Habiru just type tilda ~ four times ~ ~ ~ ~ without any spaces for the full date and signature. I won't bother reading what Wetman & his cronies have written in detail but I did notice that Llywrch has mixed and matched answers I have given him on varying subjects in different places to create his own fantasy. But you don;t have to take my word for it, just look through my history of contributions and see what I have written on the discussion Talk pages if you are really interested. At a glance your talk page here does seem like you are involved in back-biting. Anyway I won't judge you if you won't judge me. Also you can have fun playing with your user preferences. The link is under your unser name at the top righthand corner of the screen. All the bestZestauferov

Wikisource
Hi Ben. Thanks for your comment on your talk page. The truth is that I also liked the same suggestion you liked, about a sort of neutral domain for source texts in ancient languages. When I said that only an annotated text is "useful" I was thinking of the fact that that is simply the only way I've seen such texts published (they always seem to have scholarly apparatus). But maybe I overstated the case. In any event, a neutral place for the source-texts is a cool idea. Dovi 16:59, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, an unannotated text is better than a badly annotated one. Also, the raw text made publicly available gives everyone the chance to make an annotated edition, contrary to cases where scholars sit on unpublished texts for ages (Thebes tablets). The texts I put on Wikisource have of course all long been annotated (but contrary to the texts themselves, the annotations are copyrighted, of course) dab 08:59, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Old Hittite
I think the text was converted from the TITUS edition: On the basis of several editions electronically prepared by J. Tischler, Dresden, 1993; revised edition by H.C. Melchert, Chapel Hill, 1998; TITUS version by Jost Gippert, Frankfurt a/M, 1.6.2000 / 9.6.2002

Preliminary remarks of H.C. Melchert's version: Revised by Craig Melchert after a file supplied by Johann Tischler, whose generosity is gratefully acknowledged. I am responsible for all readings and morpheme analyses in the present version--HCM.

although I am not sure if the text is identical to the TITUS one. Note that there are strings "0xc3", ..., "0xc7", "0xab" in the text. These are letters with diacritics that were badly converted. I was still going to find out what they were and replace them. Also, the encoding could be more unicode-ish (S-hacek for $, subscript indices etc.). I think it will be easier to make these transformations before splitting up the text. regards, dab 08:59, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * re copyright, I am not a legal expert. The Texts themselves are obviously not copyrightable. But since the transcription actually contains more information than the original tablet, it may be. I don't think that there is any legal precedent for this case, because of the peculiarity of cuneiform transcription. In practice, these texts are freely circulated and quoted, with the academic courtesy of acknowledging the original transcriber. In the case of this digital text, its history may be complicated, and it may be a convolution of several transcription whose history is not veifiable. It seem that the text at least partially contains work by Melchert and Tischler, but we cannot claim that it is Melchert's or Tischler's text, since other changes might have been made.


 * re perl script: the text as it is on wikisource now is itself the result of a perlscript of mine. The leftover 0xab type things were signs for which I was not sure what it should be. it is not automatically correct to replace it with the xab html-entity &#171;, rather you should figure out which sign it should be. The remaining html encoding you intend is of course good practice. I was going to do that myself sometime, but it was not on my immediate todo list, and I will be glad if you beat me to it.

regards, dab (&#5839;) 08:33, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Akkadian picture
It is from Heise. I figured akkaditum.png would be public domain because it's simply an image of a text string, using a standard font. But I might be wrong... if I am, tell me and I'll redraw it independently, though that would be a drag. - Mustafaa 23:26, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I've got no idea of the legalities.  I tried to contact him about using his image library around 1995 for a different project, but never got a response.  Was hoping that you had. -Ben 23:35, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A quick note
I have just archived part of the 1984 Talk page and arranged it for ease of reading - nothing changed, deleted or otherwise tampered with in terms of text. I also responded to the issues posed on both your new section and the original theme and also on stuff that should not be in the article. I now have to leave the Internet for a few hours and I may not be able to return to Wikipedia to respond to anything new until tomorrow. MPLX/MH 19:34, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

University of Houston
I saw your edit tag and I was not sure what to make of it. Dr. Kenneth Brown is widely quoted as being an archaelogist and also concerned with the subject of anthropology. These events took place in and around the year 1987. Is it your point that such a department never existed, or that one does not exist now, or that he was called an archaelogist who worked for UofH but not in a department by that name? Help me out please because I am trying to build the article and the last thing that I want to do is to build in errors. MPLX/MH 16:39, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ben, I have just gone back and listened to the soundtrack of a recording made from a TV interview with Dr. Brown about all of this and in his very first words he describes himself as being "Dr. Kenneth Brown of the Anthropology Department of the University of Houston ..." Unfortunately when I was using sources from the Houston Chronicle and Daily Telegraph they stressed archaeology and not anthropology. With regards to the silly aspects, Brown recited that he felt that he had stumbled into a political hornets nest and that his new lab was suddenly threatened with closure if he did not back off this particular investigation. I also have a political cartoon strip from that time which makes fun of the entire episode ... In the first panel is Charles I granting the patent to Heath; in the second is a ship wondering whether to drop anchor on the east coast or the in the Gulf; the fourth shows Cromwell taking away the patent and the fifth shows ... "Meanwhile - not so long ago in a city not so distant ... (bubble: "Look what we got here" - worker with Houston Public Works t-shirt), (bubble: "The Carolana Colony right under our own Fire Department lot!"), (bubble: "Well, do we tell the Mayor or do we bury it?") I am going to see if I can scan it and place it on line since I can get the copyright clearance on it. MPLX/MH 17:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have just begun uploading a transcription (stop-start-stop-start) of the 4FTN interview. (I may have included a few typos that need to be weeded out!) I will at some try to get a frame off the TV program and post it on Wikipedia. For a lot of reasons I can't go into I can tell you from first hand knowledge that this subject has met with tremendous hostility in the past from "the powers that be" for a variety of reasons and both Brown and then 4FTN got caught up in the backlash. Wikipedia is wonderful because it is difficult to censor and it may be one of the greatest contributions to egalitarian freedom that has ever come along. It has its Jeffersonian (or was it Franklin?) warning though about being great if we can hold on to it. MPLX/MH 18:10, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Chomsky article
Thanks, Ben! Russil Wvong 18:05, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Austin Wikipedia Meetup
I have proposed an Austin meetup group for Wikipedians. Please join me at Mozart's on 2005-04-11. Bovlb 05:50, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

I guess that I'll be the one with the dorky "Wikipedia Meetup" sign. ☺ My preferred spot (weather and crowds permitting) at Mozart's is outside, on the lower deck at the far left (from the bar, walk towards the lake, and go down the stairs). It's a little hard to find, but you tend to get space and privacy. Do I need to mention that Mozart's has free WiFi? Bovlb 04:42, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Next meetup is next Monday (2005-05-09); see Meetup/Austin. Hope to see you there. Bovlb 23:42, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

Factor/Factory
Ben -- Yes, I changed factor to factory because I thought it was a typo. Undoubtably others will think so too (because it's not one of those "typos" that's easy to glance over -- it took me a couple readings of the sentence to figure out what was intended), so I would recommend included a parenthetical note that "factor" is what snuff factories were called. However, it does seem odd to me that snuff factories would be called factors -- do you have a reference? (Or more than one, to discount the possiblity of a typo in your ref.) Just curious, not trying to force the issue. &mdash; Adam Conover &dagger; 01:53, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, you are certainly more knowledgeable than myself on the subject, so I'll certainly defer to you. I would still make a parenthetical comment explaining the spelling, though, as it is confusing, and will be edited again otherwise.   &mdash;  Adam Conover &dagger; 01:40, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Easter POV
Over at Talk:Easter a while ago you linked to an article citing an Australian (IIRC) researcher who had something definitive to say about Bede's "Eostre", and it was my impression at the time that this was the direction scholarly consensus was headed at the time. There's a disgruntled person over there now who's slapped an on it becuase it doesn't takes Bede or Grimm seriously enough for him and because I reverted an edit where he tried to turn it into almost as much a neopagan holiday as a Christian one. I wonder if you have any more references on current thought regarding Bede? Or do you recall the researcher's name and institution from the article? I think I can support what I said about Grimm (Tom Shippey's work on Tolkien is main source) and (IIRC) I can use Ronald Hutton against Bede, but other references might help. I have to admit that although I'm willing to take him on at the moment, this weekend will probably be far too full for me to devote as much attention as this is likely to require. Csernica 02:40, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Babylon & Zmmz

 * You're not wasting time. We each get 3 reverts.  He has already used at least 12 reverts to the "global empire" flakiness just in the last day...  Where we can really use your input is at Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR to hopefully get an admin's attention... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

About Texas Rev.
Greetings.

I'm posting here to let you know I left a reply to you on Tex. Rev. talk

Sir Milas Boozefox The Third 21:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Near East warfare taskforce
I see you’re a member of WikiProject Ancient Near East. Might you be interested in WikiProject Military history/Ancient Near East warfare task force? See its talk page at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history Neddyseagoon 15:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Tobac
Ben, I've usually seen the heat introduced at ground level, then allowed to rise, and be vented at through the roof. I believe the previous wording suggested the heat was introduced at roof level. Cheers 24.0.86.182 15:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Texas in the Civil War
Ben, thanks for your kind words regarding my rewrite of the new section of the article Texas in the Civil War. I have added a small section per your comments regarding June 1865 and the Federal reoccupation of Texas. By the way, if you would like to contribute more Civil War material to Wikipedia, please use the style guide User:Hlj/CWediting and feel free to discuss or suggest any articles or changes to existing articles to the Civil War Task Force (WP:ACW). Regards! Scott Mingus 19:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

the dialects of Akkadian - please state your source
Hello Benwbrum,

On 05:04, 27 April 2002 you created the article Akkadian language. That first revision contained the following text:

Akkadian is divided into dialects based on geography and time.


 * 2500 - 1950 Old Akkadian
 * 1950 - 1530 Old Babylonian/Old Assyrian
 * 1530 - 1000 Middle Babylonian/Middle Assyrian
 * 1000 - 600 Neo-Babylonian/Neo-Assyrian
 * 600 B.C. - 100 A.D. Late Babylonian

This fragment has persisted in the article to this day. You gave no source for this information, and the current revision does not cite any source either. I'd like to request that you add a reference to the source of that information.

Thanks, Itayb 12:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding the reference. :)
 * I've slightly reorganized the references to this source on the page, making them more specific and interrelated. I hope you approve. Itayb 19:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what exactly you object to, and on what grounds.
 * Do you object to the very mentioning of the online resource? If so, it's not just a matter of reverting from my reorganization to the previous revision, because it already contained a link to this resource in the "External links" section. I've just changed its location to make the connection between it and the book reference more obvious.
 * But, if in fact you object to mentioning the online resource, then what are your reasons? I'll tell you what my reasons are for mentioning it: it's easier to verify statements (such as the one i asked you to cite a source to) that are based on this source, when it's available online. It has proved very convenient to me, for example. Unlike you, i don't have the book at home, and it spared me a trip to the library, assuming that there's a library nearby that holds a copy of the book; it is not improbable that many libraries around the world don't have a copy. Alternatively, i could have ordered this book for $17.50 (at Eisenbrauns), not including delivery (assuming they make deliveries to Israel, where i live). Even pretending that i weren't broke, you can't expect me, in my opinion, to buy a book whenever i want to verify the validity of a claim i bump into on a Wikipedia article. But you should encourage me, in my opinion, to do my best to verify as many such claims as possible.
 * Are you concerned that the site linked to violates copyright by displaying this material? If you have good reasons to suspect so, then by all means, remove any trace of this link. But please take into account, that only a small portion of the book is available via that URL, and the main page (the one linked to from the Wikipedia article) explicitly recommends buying the book, and gives a link to a book marketing site, which sells it. Itayb 08:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe I overstated my objections. I completely agree with you about verifiability, and have seen transparent access to sources resolve at least one nasty edit war (though it took a lot of typing to do it: User:Benwbrum/Hapiru. I guess I have two concerns about the reference to the scanned book, which you might be able to help me with.
 * Are references supposed to be aimed at the sources actually used in composing the article, or other sources that say the same thing? Though come to think of it, even if the former, then my distinction between an online version to an earlier edition and a not-terribly-useful bibliographic citation is probably still silly.
 * I'm a bit concerned about the tentative nature of the scanned book -- it appears that the webmaster is considering taking the scans down. If that happens, the citation may get lost.
 * Perhaps we can just have two references by that statement: one to the citation and one to the website. That way a change to the website wouldn't lose the citation.
 * -Ben 14:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Would you consider the following suggestion satisfactory?
 * The foot note does not link to the the contested URL. It simply states "Caplice" and the page number relative to each edition, say: "Caplice, p. 5 (1980), p. 42 (1983), p. 111 (1988, 2002)"
 * The References section remains almost as it is now, except that the last parentheses read: "(The 1980 edition is partly available online)"
 * If, at some future time, this link gets broken, that's no big deal: the person observing it could simply delete the link; it is, after all, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, isn't it? Itayb 15:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your suggestion goes beyond satisfactory -- it's perfect! -Ben 20:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Almost Done. I didn't mention the pages relative to the later editions, though. Please fill in the missing details as best you can. Thanks Itayb 20:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please review some references i've styled in the Ge'ez article
I'd appreciate it, if you reviewed some references i've styled in the Ge'ez language article, and told me your opinion about them in relation to the issues you've raised above. The references i refer to are: [CHA], [PAN03] and [PER]. Itayb 10:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Norman
Yes, I'm aware. I try my best to make the distinction clear, though at times it is somewhat difficult, especially during the transitionary period between Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French. Thanks for the reminder, all the same. As there is a lot of misunderstanding, even within Academia as to the difference between Norman and French, this is particularly important issue to try to get right. The Jade Knight (talk) 10:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll add that my expertise on the differences between Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French is rather limited. I'm fluent in French and quite familiar with modern Norman, but that isn't enough to pick up on some of these nuances, I'm afraid.  I'd be good if we had an Anglo-Norman expert around.  The Jade Knight (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Easter
Christmas is arguably more important, at least in terms of its far-reaching cultural effects. My change to the article doesn't deny Easter's importance; it merely alludes to importance of other Christian holidays. C1k3 (talk) 23:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey! Ben! I encourage you to return Easter debate on Etymology. I eagerly await your references for Ostern, the pronunciation of Iesus, the humor in my KJV reference, and a ton of others. Unless your willing to admit that I and my editing are correct!!!!. Your thoughts, both for and against, are greatly treasured by this dedicated user, and this pious Christian.

Sincerely, (and seriuosly)

Nate5713 (talk) 23:10, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Article Feedback deployment
Hey Benwbrum; I'm dropping you this note because you've used the article feedback tool in the last month or so. On Thursday and Friday the tool will be down for a major deployment; it should be up by Saturday, failing anything going wrong, and by Monday if something does :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Contests
User:Dr. Blofeld has created WikiProject Africa/Contests. The idea is to run a series of contests/editathons focusing on each region of Africa. He has spoken to Wikimedia about it and $1000-1500 is possible for prize money. As someone who has previously expressed interest in African topics, would you be interested in contributing to one or assisting draw up core article/missing article lists? He says he's thinking of North Africa for an inaugural one in October. If interested please sign up in the participants section of the Contest page, thanks.♦ -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 01:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Akkadian Pardesu
I was surprised to see the Persian Gardens article say that Akkadian borrowed the word from Persian. However, I was not sure how did the transition go from Akkadian to Greek?

It has to be during the Persian expansion into Mesopotamia, followed by the Hellenic expansion Mesopotamia? (500s ~ 200s) BC this era Aramaic became the Lingua Franca of the Persian Empire (in the West), so interaction with Greeks was common.

The Hebrew variant seems to be an earlier Aramaic variant without the Greek Suffix, while the Arabic could be later with Greek influence suffix Firdus? The Letter P & F switched many times in Semitic, so its difficult to use as a diagnostic marker because P & F are very close in Semitic, but the Greek Suffix that left its legacy in Middle Eastern Indo-Europeans & Semitic speakers in the region. The Armenians & older Iranian forms didn't use the same Hellenic suffix, that started appearing in words more often after the Hellenic era.

I assume you are an expert on Akkadian, which one comes first Wall? (Pardu) or Cool? (Pardu), in modern Semitic Pard is still dominant and used for Cool, while Parda shifted to Wall or Tent door & is becoming less used today. The desert concept of Paradise was the opposite of heat (shade) or (cool), but it difficult to know which one come first. Akkadian itself is so upstream in Proto-Semitic, which many of the words in the Levant region have some connection to Proto-Hurrian or other extinct languages spoken in the region prior to Proto-Semitic. Lishanashanta (talk) 15:43, 19 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, Lishanashanta. I think you mis-read the article, which states: _The Avestan word pairidaēza-, Old Persian *paridaida-,[note 1] Median *paridaiza- (walled-around, i.e., a walled garden), was borrowed from Semitic: Akkadian pardesu _


 * So the Semitic word (probably from Akkadian or one of its cousins) was borrowed into Persian, not that the Persian word was borrowed into Akkadian. Ben (talk) 02:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The current version is after my edit, prior version said it made its way to Akkadian from Persian, I just informed you of the edit to make sure I was not missing something. Lishanashanta (talk) 06:05, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Mountairy/Mount Airy
Kindly pay attention. The statement is cited, and the citation gives Mountairy in its "Variant Names" section. Nyttend (talk) 01:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

SXSW2019 Meetup
Hi! You're listed as someone who wants to be notified of meetups in Austin. I'm coming to town for SXSW so I'm calling a meetup this weekend. See Meetup/SXSW2019. Hope to see you there! --ESP (talk) 14:55, 5 March 2019 (UTC)