User talk:CJLL Wright/Archive XXI



=Apr '08=

FA Medal

 * Wow, thanks Maunus- means a lot coming from you. Appreciated.


 * Any suggestions as to the next FA target? --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking about Aztec or one of its related articles. ·Maunus· · ƛ · 06:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Abubakari II
Thanks for your recent edit here. I'd see the change but as I'm off to the States tomorrow haven't had time to work on it. By the way, if you ever need any information from Bernard Ortiz de Montellano let me know. I see John Hoopes has been in touch with you, he's a great guy also with a wealth of information about 2012 (from a perspective I'm sure you'd share) etc.Doug Weller (talk) 10:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Doug, will do. If there's some pseudo-countering source I have difficulty in tracking down, I know where to come to for advice, appreciate it.


 * I had been meaning to get back to that article for a while now, to try and conclude those points I had tried to make that there are considerable doubts the guy even existed, let alone surfed his way ashore at some beach at Rio or Playa del Carmen. I was glad to see at the talkpg there you'd been looking it over, and had quoted from a couple of papers like Levtzion's that I had not been able to access. Unfortunately the earlier discussion kinda got sidetracked by some gratuitous and sarcastic remarks. The other contributor who had been trying to raise the issue didn't help his cause, although I think he actually knew a bit about what he was talking about- if you take a look at the german wiki article de:Abubakari II. he'd worked on, you can see it's a big improvement.


 * Have been glad also to see you weighing in at the Olmec speculations, pre-Columbian contacts, and sundry other articles in need of some sanity checks against pseudo and questionable 'research'. There's still a chunk of material in the Olmec spec article that was added by Clyde Winters aka -the genetics section is one from that quarter I think, that hasn't yet been closely examined.


 * Anyways- see you round, and cheers. (also posted @ ur talkpg) --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Feedback requested in an RfC
Hi CJLL Wright, You don't know me, but I noticed your work in some FAs on languages and linguistics and wondered if you might like to weigh in on an RfC that I initiated earlier this week. I fear that the discussion there has degenerated. I'm aware that you might not know anything specific about the language concerned (which I don't either), but the content issue is more general. I've tried to explain this more precisely in my statement (at the expense of using too many words which I hope you don't find too off-putting). Needless to say, if you do decide to say something, I don't expect you to say anything in support of my position, only to provide you best opinion. Request for comment: When does the literary tradition in a language begin? Regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Fowler- will try to look it over and see if there's anything I can contribute. Probably won't be for a couple of days. cheers --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Megaliths
I could really use some help on the Megaliths article. The Talk page, bottom section on the map, gives a pretty good explanation of my problem, plus the recent edit which in the summary says "Rv deliberate promotion of one narrow opinion". My 'narrow opinion' is the opinion of archaeologists today. I can get more references in a few days when I am back in the UK and have online access to Antiquity, etc and my own library, but I need advice as to handle an editor with a lot of WP:OWN problems. And while I'm at it, have you seen Chronology of Human Prehistory? I'm dubious about the rationale for the article given that there is already a similar one Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures(plus other reasons I've detailed on the talk page), and the creator of the article either doesn't understand or doesn't care about Wikipedia's expectations on sources. (and also see the earlier version and what he wrote about Toba) Thanks. I'm off to the airport in a few hours, won't be online again for at least 24 hours after that.Doug Weller (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure Doug, will see what I can do. Have run out of time today, but will look into it when I get the chance tomorrow. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 14:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Louvre
Hi, I noticed you edited the Louvre article. I would like to mention that we are currently trying to drive the article to GA and hopefully FA status one day. Considering that you may have an interest in the area, I thought I would invite you to join in the collaboration if you feel so inclined! Thanks again for your help! Lazulilasher (talk) 13:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Lazulilasher. Afraid it's a little out of my general area and I've a constantly expanding mental list of things to do around here. However, I may see if I can add anything further relating to the C2RMF institution, which is headquartered in the building. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
The title of the article is in French. Can it be changed to English i.e. Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 09:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks, but I think it should remain as-is. It might be in french, but in common with many other institutions (such as Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Palais du Louvre, Centre européen de calcul atomique et moléculaire, École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, Société Mathématique de France, Institut français du pétrole, and so on) these are as often as not referred to by their formal (French) names &mdash;if written out in full&mdash; in an english-language source. Here, the "most common name used in english" does not itself have to be an english word or translation, if there's also a reasonable appearance of the orig. lang. name across english-language sources. In the case of this institution I doubt it comes up enough times in common english discourse to have achieved a clear "most common [english] name". In any event, most of these institutions are referred to most commonly (in french as well as english) just by their acronyms, which accord with the formal french name and not any english translation.


 * One other reason to prefer the original language name, besides the precedent of those other fr-institution articles, is the inconsistency in how it can be translated into english: are we talking about the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France, or the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, or the Research and Restoration Centre of the French Museums..? (all possibilities that have appeared somewhere). --cjllw ʘ TALK 09:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Concerned about accuracy of new articles
CJLL, I would like to discuss what to do about User:Egyptzo and the several new articles he has created which lack references, citations, and (I believe) accuracy. These articles include: Battle of Tikal and the afore-mentioned Ruler X and Ki (ruler). I was just reviewing Battle of Tikal and it seems to me (ignorant as I am about much of Maya history) that a lot of speculation has been presented as fact. User:Warthog added a citation tag to the article, but Egyptzo removed it.

As an FYI, Egyptzo was recently blocked due to edit warring on the Battle of Kadesh (although Egyptzo subsequently removed that info from his Talk page). I myself have cited a couple of copyvio's he's made. In fact, the quality of his prose is so extremely uneven that I do not doubt that he's lifting entire sentences from written material and clumsily stitching them together.

Although there's undoubtedly correct information in the article, we really can't have unsourced, speculative articles like Battle of Tikal be added to Wikipedia. What can we ( I ) do? Madman (talk) 16:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've removed a lot of copyvio from Battle of Kadesh, and Battle of Tikal is copyvio from http://stage.ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2007/08/maya-rise-fall/gugliotta-text this certainly needs to be stopped.Doug Weller (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've gutted Battle of Tikal as it is almost all copyvio. Even where they aren't copyvio, they are pretty bad and need a lot of work.Doug Weller (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This could take hours. Battle of Pelusium (525 BC) is at least in part copied from http://egypt.annourbis.com/AncientEgypt/chapter24.html Doug Weller (talk) 16:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Doug. I'll try to check further myself.  So, CJLL, this is not the first time he's done this.  My 2 warnings were nearly 2 months ago.  Madman (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Another thing I've noticed is a lot of copying straight from other Wikipedia articles, I am not sure what can be done about that but of course among other things it can perpetuate inaccuracies and unreferenced articles.Doug Weller (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Egyptzo copyvio removed from Chan Chak K'ak'nal Ajaw, Battle of Carchemish, Epulon, Battle of Grobnik field.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, and great work Doug on tracking those down and cleaning up. It's a real pain, and I've shared suspicions abt this user's activities for some time now. A pity, since it seems to me that in the time it surely takes them to scrape text from all over the internet and piece it together, they cld easily rewrite the stuff in their own words. Also share some misgivings re the accuracy of stuff added, whether by copyvio or original. They've been around for a while now, under the current name and also their prior incarnation, so there cld be quite an extensive problem out there.

Seems another admin has blocked them now, tho' personally given the persistence and number of vios I'd reckon 48hrs is a light tap. Will keep an eye on further contribs once they resume, and if any more crop up then I'd be quite prepared to place an indefinite protective block on their account.

The Battle of Tikal article had always read like a fictionalised account- it might be OK for folks like Linda Schele and David Freidel to indulge in some imagined narratives alongside their factual material, like in A Forest of Kings, but that style is completely out-of-place here on wiki. In fact, given that there's absolutely no archaeological evidence for such a particular battle, and at best it can only be inferred from the epigraphic record that the coincidence of Chak Tok Ich'aak's demise is due to some military engagement/takeover. And while some are of that view, not all sources see it that way. There's really nothing AFAIK to substantiate an article on some individual 'battle' that may or may not have occurred, and if it did it's anyone's guess what transpired other than the end result. The data in the infobox is pure fantasy. I would/will put the whole thing up for deletion, once I can round up together accessible sources on the epigraphy.

From what I've seen, a lot of the other "Battle of..."articles Egyptzo has put together are in this vein- chatty narratives, almost eyewitness-like accounts very certain of their facts, although they are talking about events for which the documentation is at the very least incomplete and open to multiple interpretations. It's gonna be hard work for someone to go about double-checking everything, maybe a notice at WP:MILHIST or the Wikiproject Ancient Egypt cld summon someone to take a look at all of those. --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

ps. Looking into it a little more, I'm beginning to wonder whether Egyptzo and the user account over at commons, commons:User:Crucifixion, are not in fact the same person. Crucifixion has uploaded a number of suspicious photos of artefacts claimed to be their own work but which more likely are just harvested from the internet, and curiously Egyptzo has added at least four of those to articles they have been working on. I think the mire of copyvio may be deepening further... will do a little more investigation to satisfy myself before taking this up at commons. --cjllw ʘ TALK 09:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no doubt in my mind that commons:User:Crucifixion is the same person as Egyptzo, since I first had a run-in with him over commons:User:Crucifixion's insertion of a faux-Olmec head he had uploaded into the Olmec article. I somehow traced that back to Egyptzo and have been watching him (albeit not closely enough) since that time.  I am going to nominate the 3 articles listed above for deletion, as well. Madman (talk) 12:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See http://www.geocities.com/vucedol_culture/ where he has stolen stuff and an image for Vucedol culture. I've left the image but am editing the article. He is a menace. I just gutted one article Iuput II and had to put it up for deletion. Haven't done anything but gutted Monkodonja. He should be made to undo all his edits before he can edit again. :-)Doug Weller (talk) 15:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, some sort of 'commmunity service' sentencing would be nice...it's a thankless job. As for Crucifixion, whether or not they are the same person, I reckon every img they've uploaded has been swiped from somewhere else and mislabeled as "own work". There seems to have been some attempt over at commons to review their uploads for copyvio, if I find some time will look into how to reinvigorate the process- been a while since I've edited at commons & am prob a bit out of touch about how they do things around there.--cjllw ʘ TALK 08:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Interest in Robert H. Barlow
Hi CJLL: I want to know if it is a new theory about of the suicide causes of the great investigator R.H.B. My name is Luis Felipe Cariño Preciado and I`m living in Iguala, gro., México. E-mail luiscarinopathotmaildotcom and luisfelipecarinopreciadoathotmail —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.134.175.78 (talk) 00:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Luis Felipe. Afraid I don't really know of particular validated theories regarding Robert H. Barlow's death, I'd only removed what seemed to be to be baseless and unattributed speculation. Sorry can't help out, saludos. --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Crufixion again
Image:Orionart.jpg certainly looks as though he stole it from http://www.geocities.com/vucedol_culture/ where he stole material for his Vucedol article.Doug Weller (talk) 17:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

END OF TALK ARCHIVE PAGE