User talk:Calthinus

(most of my talk has now been archived)

European DNA
Come on. Aryans are not Nazis. It is Indo-European language family and is very different from Caucasian language family. Just because one rotten apple - Hitler claimed to be the pure one, it doesn't mean the terminology which goes way back in time is wrong. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Kavkas (talk) 04:36, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes actually in reality Aryans doesn't refer to Europeans at all but rather to speakers of Indo-Iranian languages- i.e. Iranians and Indians (the only of these that actually live in Europe are Ossetians, Roma and a couple diaspora communities). Hitler and a couple other racial theorists took the word and distorted it. In any case you must know in the modern day people don't consider race to be anything scientific so whether or not North Caucasians "are Aryan" (or even "European") is a totally moot point. --Yalens (talk) 05:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Re: Msallata
I am of the mind that WP:RS trumps WP:OR. If a secondary source says one thing, that is what must be reported, not what editors think to be true. In this situation it translates to this: Msallata was taken by rebels. Unclear situation is probably best now, though I have seen maps made by pro-rebel sources that show Msallata in rebel hands: 1. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm also of the mind that Russian news sources are sketchy, as Russia has worse freedom of press than Zimbabwe. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Your links
Thanks for these. I think you know best what you want to do with the updates, though, so I think I better leave you to them. Cheers. -Kudzu1 (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Azeris is Georgia / Borchali
Could you please explain me why are you keep removing Borchali for the list of separatist movements??--Yerevanci (talk) 02:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence that Azeris in Georgia ("Borchali", what ever) want to form a new state.--Yalens (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Map
By all means, please do post it here. I'd love to see it. -Kudzu1 (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'd just add those in that same shade of purple you have Sweden and Switzerland in now. Looks good though. -Kudzu1 (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

NTC/UNGA voting map
You forgot about Djibouti. It recognised NTC, so map to update.Boniek1988 (talk) 12:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You forgot about: San Marino, Monaco, Brunei, Muaritius, Fidji, Vanuatu (all to purple/pink or whatever this colour is)Boniek1988 (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ahhh... its all the tiny ones that people always forget about. Thanks.--Yalens (talk) 16:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Recognition of NTC Map
I have taken the discussion to the talk page: Talk:International recognition of the National Transitional Council Is there a better description or a map legand you can add for the map you provided so it becomes more clear? I just do not see much diffrence between the two other than certain before and after dates in time? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, we could do the legend along the lines of the other map (the one you favor) if you want. I think its important to show the progression of recognition, as the page it is on will eventually become a mainly historical page (while Foreign relations of Libya will deal with the to-be current situation).--Yalens (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes having the legend like the one I favor makes it easier to read in my opinion, we could just use both maps too like you suggested on the talk page. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Tanzania should also be in dark green . Could you also change the map just above in the article?Boniek1988 (talk) 10:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I spotted that you didn't painted Vatican City dot with blue.Boniek1988 (talk) 01:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Asking for help
Hello, on the page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Croatia and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Croatia we have a bitter debate about the use of minority languages in articles about places in Croatia. Because I noticed that you are also interested in human rights of national minorities I'd appreciated if you found time to share your opinion on this subject with us. Have a nice day.--MirkoS18 (talk) 15:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry... I'm really busy nowadays, so its hard to edit regularly. I will take a look soon, hopefully. Cheers. --Yalens (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

New book
He Yalens. I noticed there's a new book out about Circassian history (well from 2010). It looks good and is not expensive (I might purchase it). I also recommend you read Moshe Gammer's work (I did, it's good). Together it would be enough to create the articles on the two wars, when we finally have the time of course. Machinarium (talk) 19:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * On the other hand the book hasnt that much on the Circassian War, and most of that is already published on circassianworld. Too bad, I'm still waiting for a historian to make a book on the Circassian war, similar to Gammer's "Russian Conquest". Machinarium (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'd like to thank you a lot for dropping me this link. It's not just about the war too, but it has plenty of info, and its good to have a published source to use for wiki (and to read for my own purposes!). Sadly, I've been rather busy lately and unable to edit wikipedia much, but when I do get back around to it, I will hopefully be able to work (perhaps in collaboration) on Circassian history using this. Thanks! --Yalens (talk) 22:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem, but remember that his chapters on the war are available on circassianworld. Another new book is shorter one by Michael Kodarkovsy about a Chechen during the early 19th century. I have a copy of his 'Russia's Steppe Frontier' which is real good, so I might check it out. Machinarium (talk) 02:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Sectarianism in the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising
Hey, I noticed you were recently trying to clean up some of the muddle on the Sectarianism in the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising page. There's an editor there, User:Diroc2, who appears to be an SPA whose English isn't so good. He insists on block-reverting the "Alawites" section to the older version originally written by User:Grimso5, a sock of User:ChronicalUsual, despite intermediate changes, because he either thinks I've somehow "suppressed" information or he's just trying to be an irritation. Anyway, if you could stick around on the page and put in your two bits, wherever you stand on this, I think the outside perspective would be helpful. Cheers. -Kudzu1 (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I found a report by Nir Rosen where he talks briefly about Syrians masking their accents. -Kudzu1 (talk) 20:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Fides, etc.
It's obvious to all and sundry that Fides' reporting is problematic, here. One, I think its integrity is compromised by its Vatican minders' own agenda, and two, I'm not of the opinion that its journalistic practices are sound. Unfortunately, a handful of rabidly pro-Assad editors are going to hold up any efforts to bring due weight to coverage here, so it's really a moot issue what you or I think. -Kudzu1 (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks a ton :)!! --Yalens (talk) 14:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback
Dougweller (talk) 19:03, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Operation Lentil (Caucasus)
Left a message about a couple of things that are totally missing from the article. --Niemti (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Shamil's Jews
I learned it from the Holocaust book The Kindly Ones (Littell novel). Yes, it's just a fake memoir, but it's extremely well researched and was acclaimed as such by many including several well-known historians (see the reception section the article for some praise in this context). Here's the relevant part:

It rained for three days straight. The sanatoriums were filling up with wounded, brought from Malgobek and Sagopchi, where our renewed offensive on Groznyi was being run into the ground by the fierce resistance. Korsemann came to distribute medals to the Finnish volunteers of the Wiking, handsome, somewhat distraught blond boys decimated by the gunfire encountered in the Zhuruk Valley, below Nizhni Kurp. The new military administration of the Caucasus was being set in place. At the beginning of October, by decree of Generalquartiermeister Wagner, six Cossack raions, with 160,000 inhabitants, were accorded the new status of “self-government”; the Karachai autonomy would officially be announced during a big celebration in Kislovodsk. With the other leading officers of the SS in the region I was again summoned to Voroshilovsk by Korsemann and Bierkamp. Korsemann was worried about the limitation of SS police power in the self-governed districts, but wanted to pursue a reinforced policy of cooperation with the Wehrmacht. Bierkamp was furious; he called the Ostpolitiker “czarists” and “Baltic barons”: “This famous Ostpolitik is nothing but a resurrection of the spirit of Tauroggen,” he protested. In private, Leetsch gave me to understand in veiled words that Bierkamp was worried stiff because of the number of executions carried out by the Kommandos, which didn’t exceed a few dozen a week: the Jews in the occupied regions had all been liquidated, aside from a few artisans preserved by the Wehrmacht to serve as leatherworkers and tailors; we didn’t catch many partisans or Communists; as for the national minorities and the Cossacks, the majority of the population, they were now almost untouchable. I found Bierkamp’s state of mind quite narrow, but I could understand it: in Berlin, the effectiveness of an Einsatzgruppe was judged based on its tallies, and a lessening of activity could be interpreted as a lack of energy on the part of the Kommandant. But the Group wasn’t remaining inactive. In Elista, at the confines of the Kalmuk Steppe, Sk Astrakhan was being formed ahead of the fall of that city; in the region of Krasnodar, having carried out all the other priority tasks, Sk 10a was liquidating the asylums for the retarded, the hydrocephalics, and the insane, mostly using a gas truck. In Maikop, the Seventeenth Army was relaunching its offensive toward Tuapse, and Sk 11 was taking part in the repression of an intense guerilla warfare in the mountains, in very rough terrain made even more difficult by the persistent rain. On October 10, I celebrated my birthday at the restaurant with Voss, but without telling him about it; the next day, we went with most of the AOK to Kislovodsk to celebrate the Uraza Bairam, the breaking of the fast that ends the month of Ramadan. This was a kind of triumph. In a large field outside the city, the imam of the Karachai, a wrinkled old man with a firm, clear voice, led a long collective prayer; facing the nearby hills, hundreds of caps, skullcaps, felt or fur hats, in dense rows, bowed to the ground and stood up in time to his threnody. Afterward, on a platform decorated with German and Muslim flags, Köstring and Bräutigam, their voices amplified by a PK loudspeaker, proclaimed the establishment of the Autonomous Karachai District. Cheers and gunshots punctuated each phrase. Voss, his hands behind his back, translated Bräutigam’s speech; Köstring read his directly in Russian, and was then thrown into the air, several times, by young enthusiasts. Bräutigam had presented the qadi Bairamukov, an anti-Soviet peasant, as the new head of the district: the old man, wearing a cherkesska and a beshmet, with an enormous white woollen papakha on his head, solemnly thanked Germany for having delivered the Karachai from the Russian yoke. A young child led a superb white Kabarda horse up to the platform, its back covered in a bright-colored Daghestani sumak. The horse snorted, the old man explained that it was a present from the Karachai people to the leader of the Germans, Adolf Hitler; Köstring thanked him and assured him the horse would be conveyed to the Führer, in Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. Then some young natives in traditional garb carried Köstring and Bräutigam on their shoulders to the cheers of the men, the ululations of the women, and the redoubled salvos of the rifles. Voss, red with pleasure, looked on all this with delight. We followed the crowd: at the end of the field, a small army of women were loading foodstuffs onto long tables beneath some awnings. Incredible quantities of lamb, which they served with broth, were simmering in large cast-iron pots; there was also boiled chicken, wild garlic, caviar, and manti, a kind of Caucasian ravioli; the Karachai women, many of them beautiful and laughing, kept pushing more dishes in front of the guests; the young men stayed packed together at the side, whispering busily, while their seated fathers ate. Köstring and Bräutigam were sitting beneath a canopy with the elders, in front of the Kabarda horse, which they seemed to have forgotten and which, dragging its leash, was sniffing at the dishes to the laughter of the spectators. Some mountain musicians were singing long laments accompanied by small high-pitched stringed instruments; later on, they were joined by percussionists and the music became frantic, frenzied; a large circle formed and the young men, led by a master of ceremonies, danced the lesghinka, noble, splendid, virile, then some other dances with knives, of an astounding virtuosity. No alcohol was served, but most of the German guests, heated up by the meats and the dances, seemed drunk, bright-red, sweating, overexcited. The Karachai saluted the best dance movements with gunshots and that contributed even more to the frenzy. My heart was beating wildly; along with Voss, I tapped with my feet and clapped my hands, shouted like a madman in the circle of spectators. At nightfall they brought torches and it went on; when you felt too tired, you went over to the tables to drink some tea and eat a little. “The Ostpolitiker have certainly pulled it off!” I shouted to Voss. “This would convince anyone.”

But the news from the front wasn’t good. In Stalingrad, despite the military bulletins that daily announced a decisive breakthrough, the Sixth Army, according to the Abwehr, had gotten completely bogged down in the center of town. The officers who came back from Vinnitsa affirmed that a deplorable atmosphere reigned at GHQ, and that the Führer had almost stopped talking to Generals Keitel and Jodl, whom he had banished from his table. Sinister rumors were rampant in military circles, which Voss reported to me sometimes: the Führer was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, he regularly flew into mad rages and was making contradictory, incoherent decisions; the generals were starting to lose confidence. It was certainly exaggerated, but I found the fact that such rumors were spreading in the army worrisome, and I mentioned it in the section of my report on the Morale of the Wehrmacht. Hohenegg was back, but his conference was taking place in Kislovodsk, and I hadn’t seen him yet; after a few days he sent me a note inviting me to dinner. Voss had gone to join the Third Panzer Corps in Prokhladny; von Kleist was preparing another offensive toward Nalchik and Ordzhonikidze, and he wanted to be right behind the first units to protect the libraries and institutes.

That same morning, Leutnant Reuter, an adjunct of Gilsa’s, came to my office: “We have a strange case that you should see. An old man, who presented himself here on his own. He’s talking about strange things and he says he’s Jewish. The Oberst suggested you interrogate him.”—“If he’s a Jew, he should be sent to the Kommando.”—“Maybe. But don’t you want to see him? I can assure you he’s surprising.” An orderly led the man in. He was a tall old man with a long white beard, still visibly vigorous; he wore a black cherkesska, a Caucasian peasant’s soft leather ankle boots tucked into rubber galoshes, and a handsome embroidered skullcap, purple, blue, and gold. I motioned to him to take a seat and, a little annoyed, asked the orderly: “He only speaks Russian, I suppose? Where is the Dolmetscher?” The old man looked at me with piercing eyes and said to me in strangely accented but understandable classical Greek: “You are an educated man, I see. You must know Greek.” Taken aback, I dismissed the orderly and replied: “Yes, I know Greek. And you? How do you come to speak this language?” He ignored my question. “My name is Nahum ben Ibrahim, from Magaramkend in the gubernatorya of Derbent. For the Russians, I took the name of Shamilyev, in honor of the great Shamil with whom my father fought. And you, what is your name?”—“My name is Maximilien. I come from Germany.”—“And who was your father?” I smiled: “Why does my father interest you, old man?”—“How am I supposed to know who I’m talking to if I don’t know who your father is?” His Greek, I heard now, contained unusual turns of phrase, but I managed to understand it. I told him my father’s name and he seemed satisfied. Then I questioned him: “If your father fought with Shamil, you must be very old.”—“My father died gloriously in Dargo after killing dozens of Russians. He was a very pious man, and Shamil respected his religion. He said that we, the Dagh Chufuti, believe in God better than the Muslims do. I remember the day he declared that in front of his murid, at the mosque in Vedeno.”—“That’s impossible! You couldn’t have known Shamil yourself. Show me your passport.” He held out a document to me and I quickly leafed through it. “See for yourself! It’s written here that you were born in 1866. Shamil was already a prisoner of the Russians then, in Kaluga.” He took the passport calmly from my hands and slipped it into an inner pocket. His eyes seemed to be sparkling with humor and mischief. “How do you think a poor chinovnik”—he used the Russian term—“from Derbent, a man who never even finished elementary school, could know when I was born? He guessed I was seventy when he wrote up this paper, without asking me anything. But I am much older. I was born before Shamil roused the tribes. I was already a man when my father died in Dargo, killed by those Russian dogs. I could have taken his place by Shamil’s side, but I was already studying the law, and Shamil told me that he had enough warriors, but that he needed scholars too.” I had absolutely no idea what to think: he would have had to be at least 120 years old. “And Greek?” I asked again. “Where did you learn that?”—“Daghestan isn’t Russia, young officer. Before the Russians killed them without mercy, the greatest scholars in the world lived in Daghestan, Muslims and Jews. People came from Arabia, from Turkestan, and even from China to consult them. And the Dagh Chufuti are not the filthy Jews from Russia. My mother’s language is Farsi, and everyone speaks Turkish. I learned Russian to do business, for as Rabbi Eliezer said, the thought of God does not fill the belly. Arabic I studied with the imams of the madrasas of Daghestan, and Greek, as well as Hebrew, from books. I never learned the language of the Jews of Poland, which is nothing but German, a language of Nyemtsi.”—“So you are truly a scholar.”—“Don’t make fun of me, meirakion. I too have read your Plato and your Aristotle. But I have read them along with Moses de Leon, which makes a big difference.” For some time I had been staring at his beard, square-cut, and especially his bare top lip. Something fascinated me: beneath his nose, his lip was smooth, without the usual hollow in the center, the philtrum. “How is it that your lip is like that? I’ve never seen that.” He rubbed his lip: “That? When I was born, the angel didn’t seal my lips. So I remember everything that happened before.”—“I don’t understand.”—“But you are well educated. It’s all written in the Book of the Creation of the Child, in the Lesser Midrashim. In the beginning, the man’s parents mate. That creates a drop into which God introduces the man’s spirit. Then the angel takes the drop in the morning to Paradise and at night to Hell, then he shows it where it will live on Earth and where it will be buried when God recalls the spirit he has sent. Then this is what is written. Excuse me if I recite badly, but I have to translate from the Hebrew, which you don’t know: But the angel always brings the drop back into the body of its mother and The Holy One, blessed be his name, closes the doors and bolts behind it. And The Holy One, blessed be his name, says to it: You will go up to there, and no further. And the child remains in his mother’s womb for nine months. Then it is written: The child eats everything the mother eats, drinks everything the mother drinks and does not eliminate any excrement, for if he did, it would make the mother die. And then it is written: And when the time comes when he must come into the world, the angel presents itself before him and says to him: Leave, for the time has come for your appearance in the world. And the spirit of the child replies: I have already said in front of the One who was there that I am satisfied with the world in which I have lived. And the angel replies: The world to which I am taking you is beautiful. And then: Despite yourself, you have been formed in the body of your mother, and despite yourself, you have been born to come into the world. Immediately the child begins to cry. And why does he cry? Because of the world in which he had lived and which he is forced to leave. And as soon as he has left, the angel gives him a blow on the nose and extinguishes the light above his head, he makes the child leave in spite of himself and the child forgets all he has seen. And as soon as he leaves, he begins to cry. This blow on the nose the book talks about is this: the angel seals the lips of the child and this seal leaves a mark. But the child does not forget right away. When my son was three years old, a long time ago, I surprised him one night near his little sister’s cradle: ‘Tell me about God,’ he was saying. ‘I’m beginning to forget.’ That is why man must relearn everything about God through study, and that is why men become mean and kill each other. But the angel had me come out without sealing my lips, as you see, and I remember everything.”—“So you remember the place where you will be buried?” I asked. He smiled wide: “That is why I came here to see you.”—“And is it far from here?”—“No. I can show you, if you like.” I got up and took my cap: “Let’s go.”

Going out, I asked Reuter for a Feldgendarm; he sent me to his company chief, who pointed to a Rottwachtmeister: “Hanning! Go with the Hauptsturmführer and do what he says.” Hanning took his helmet and shouldered his rifle; he must have been close on to forty; his large metal half-moon plate bounced on his narrow chest. “We’ll need a shovel, too,” I added. Outside, I turned to the old man: “Which way?” He raised his finger to the Mashuk, whose summit, caught in a cloud bank, looked as if it were spitting out smoke: “That way.” Followed by Hanning, we climbed the streets to the last one, which encircles the mountain; there the old man pointed to the right, toward the Proval. Pine trees lined the road and at one place a little path headed into the trees. “It’s that way,” said the old man.—“Are you sure you’ve never come here before?” I asked him. He shrugged. The path climbed and zigzagged and the slope was steep. The old man walked in front with a nimble, sure step; behind, the shovel on his shoulder, Hanning was panting heavily. When we emerged from the trees, I saw that the wind had chased the clouds away from the summit. A little farther on I turned around. The Caucasus barred the horizon. It had rained during the night, and the rain had finally swept away the ever-present summer haze, revealing the mountains, clear, majestic. “Stop daydreaming,” the old man said to me. I started walking again. We climbed for about half an hour. My heart was pounding wildly, I was out of breath, Hanning too; the old man seemed as fresh as a young tree. Finally we reached a kind of grassy terrace, a scant hundred meters or so from the top. The old man went forward and contemplated the view. This was the first time I really saw the Caucasus. Sovereign, the mountain chain unfurled like an immense sloping wall, to the very edge of the horizon; you felt as though if you squinted you could see the last mountains plunging into the Black Sea far to the right, and to the left into the Caspian. The hills were blue, crowned with pale-yellow, whitish ridges; the white Elbruz, an overturned bowl of milk, sat atop the peaks; a little farther away, the Kazbek loomed over Ossetia. It was as beautiful as a phrase of Bach. I looked and said nothing. The old man stretched out his hand to the east: “There, beyond the Kazbek, that’s Chechnya already, and afterward, that’s Daghestan.”—“And your grave, where is that?” He examined the flat terrace and took a few steps. “Here,” he said finally, stamping the ground with his foot. I looked at the mountains again: “This is a fine place to be buried, don’t you think?” I said. The old man had an immense, delighted smile: “Isn’t it?” I began to wonder if he wasn’t making fun of me. “You really saw it?”—“Of course!” he said indignantly. But I had the impression that he was laughing in his beard. “Then dig,” I said.—“What do you mean, ‘dig’? Aren’t you ashamed, meirakiske? Do you know how old I am? I could be the grandfather of your grandfather! I’d curse you rather than dig.” I shrugged and turned to Hanning, who was still waiting with the shovel. “Hanning. Dig.”—“Dig, Herr Hauptsturmführer? Dig what?”—“A grave, Rottwachtmeister. There.” He gestured with his head: “And the old man there? Can’t he dig?”—“No. Go on, start digging.” Hanning set his rifle and cap down in the grass and headed to the place indicated. He spat onto his hands and began to dig. The old man was looking at the mountains. I listened to the rustling of the wind, the vague rumor of the city at our feet; I could also hear the sound of the shovel hitting earth, the fall of the clumps of earth thrown out, Hanning’s panting. I looked at the old man: he was standing facing the mountains and the sun, and was murmuring something. I looked at the mountains again. The subtle and infinite variations of blue tinting the slopes looked as if they could be read like a long line of music, with the summits marking time. Hanning, who had taken off his neck plate and jacket, was digging methodically and was now at knee level. The old man turned to me with a gay look: “Is it coming along?” Hanning had stopped digging and was blowing, leaning on his shovel. “Isn’t that enough, Herr Hauptsturmführer?” he asked. The hole seemed a good length now but was only a few feet deep. I turned to the old man: “Is that enough for you?”—“You’re joking! You aren’t going to give me a poor man’s grave, me, Nahum ben Ibrahim! Come on, you’re not a nepios.”—“Sorry, Hanning. You have to keep digging.”—“Tell me, Herr Hauptsturmführer,” he asked me before going back to work, “what language are you speaking to him in? It’s not Russian.”—“No, it’s Greek.”—“He’s a Greek?! I thought he was a Jew?”—“Go on, keep digging.” He went back to work with a curse. After about twenty minutes he stopped again, panting hard. “You know, Herr Hauptsturmführer, usually there are two men to do this. I’m no longer young.”—“Pass me the shovel and get out of there.” I took off my cap and jacket and took Hanning’s place in the ditch. Digging wasn’t something I had much experience of. It took me some minutes to find my pace. The old man leaned over me: “You’re doing it very badly. It’s obvious you’ve spent your life in books. Where I come from, even the rabbis know how to build a house. But you’re a good boy. I did well to go to you.” I dug; the earth had to be thrown out quite high up now, a lot of it fell back into the hole. “Now is it all right?” I finally asked. “A little more. I want a grave that’s as comfortable as my mother’s womb.”—“Hanning,” I called, “come spell me.” The pit was now chest level and he had to help me climb out. I put my jacket and cap back on, and smoked while Hanning started digging again. I kept looking at the mountains; I couldn’t get enough of the view. The old man was looking too. “You know, I was disappointed I wasn’t to be buried in my valley, near the Samur,” he said. “But now I understand that the angel is wise. This is a beautiful place.”—“Yes,” I said. I glanced to the side: Hanning’s rifle was lying on the grass next to his cap, as if abandoned. When Hanning’s head had just cleared the ground, the old man declared he was satisfied. I helped Hanning get out. “And now?” I asked.—“Now, you have to put me inside. What? You think God is going to send me a thunderbolt?” I turned to Hanning: “Rottwachtmeister. Put your uniform back on and shoot this man.” Hanning turned red, spat on the ground, and swore. “What’s wrong?”—“With respect, Herr Hauptsturmführer, for special tasks, I have to have an order from my superior.”—“Leutnant Reuter put you at my disposal.” He hesitated: “Well, all right,” he finally said. He put his jacket, his big crescent neck plate, and his cap back on, brushed off his pants, and seized his rifle. The old man had positioned himself at the edge of the grave, facing the mountains, and was still smiling. Hanning shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the old man’s neck. Suddenly I was overcome with anguish. “Wait!” Hanning lowered his rifle and the old man turned his head toward me. “And my grave,” I asked him, “have you seen that too?” He smiled: “Yes.” I sucked in my breath, I must have turned pale, a vain anguish filled me: “Where is it?” He kept smiling: “That, I won’t tell you.”—“Fire!” I shouted to Hanning. Hanning raised his rifle and fired. The old man fell like a marionette whose string has been cut all at once. I went up to the grave and leaned over: he was lying at the bottom like a sack, his head turned aside, still smiling a little into his blood-splattered beard; his open eyes, turned toward the wall of earth, were also laughing. I was trembling. “Close that up,” I curtly ordered Hanning.

--Niemti (talk) 21:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks :). --Yalens (talk) 03:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Uyghur history
See Talk:Uyghur_people

There are sources all over the talk page, and the talk page archive proving the points I raised if you need references. I want concensus before I work on the history section, basically what I think is that the parts about the khaganate and kingdom of turfan be deleted and replaced with stuff from the Karluk and Kara Khanid articles.

It has nothing to do with separatist politics, because both the Chinese communist party and uyghur separatists peddle the same false narrative that the modern uyghurs are descended from the old uyghur khaganate. Both of them resort to lies (communist party says they arent indigenous since the uyghur khaganate was in mongolia and they moved from there, uyghur separatists make up fairy tales on how the uyghur khaganate ruled over all of xinjiang)Rajmaan (talk) 22:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

New book
Hey Yalens, a book on the Circassian Genocide was released last month: I don't know if it's good. It's short and half is about the aftermath, but it doesn't look too bad.

Also I would like to share some pictures with you. First another picture of Khasan Israilov as a kid: from the same community site as before. I also found a picture of the Chechen / Ingush deportation here: showing an Ingush child casualty in 1946. I was never able to find authentic pictures of the deportation before. I've seen some footage but I have no idea if any of those are real. Machinarium (talk) 12:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for the book- I have to find some time to read one of these days :).
 * About the pictures: do we have permission or whatnot to use them here on wikipedia?--Yalens (talk) 16:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The one with a young Israilov is probably free to use (old enough). The others might be used with a fair use policy, because they show unique historical happenings. Machinarium (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

"Chechens to Siberia"
I think the most accurate is to say "Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and western Siberia, as well as scattered through the rest of the Soviet Union". But mostly Kazakhstan. Right now it's only Siberia, but it's just absolutely misleading.

In Siberia, precisely at Krasnoyarsk, "about 4,000 Chechens were incarcerated in forced labor concentration camps". (John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, page 69)

But it was not a place of exile: "A great majority of the Vainakh resettlers were delivered to Kazakhstan (239,768 Chechens and 78,470 Ingushetians) and Kyrgyzstan (70,097 Chechens and 2,278 Ingushetians). In Kazakhstan, Chechens concentrated primarily in the Akmolinsk, Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan, Karaganda, East Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk and Alma-Ata Oblasts, and in Kyrgyzstan in the Frunze and Osh Oblasts." (P. M. Poli͡an, Against Their Will, page 148)

To say "Siberia" captures people's imagination, but it's just untrue. I'll lt you rewrite the article(s). --Niemti (talk) 05:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the main reason Siberia shows up more often on the page is that it's mentioned more frequently in the books and that Kazakhstan has occasionally been considered part of Siberia. But yeah, I've edited the various occurrences to mention both. --Yalens (talk) 02:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Siberia is basically a sort of meme. Like most people when think of the GULAG will think "Siberia", but the GULAG was literally everywhere. Anyway, all kinds of peoples that were mass exiled by Stalin went to Kazakhstan first and foremost, also other parts of the Soviet Central Asia, notably Kyrgyzstan. (Siberia was used a place of exile settlement by the tsarist regime, especially early on when they were still colonizing it - which was actually not unlike the first British colonies in Australia, except with political prisoners.) --Niemti (talk) 05:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

So, I think it's acceptable to write:
 * "the Soviet Central Asia and Siberia, mostly to the Kazakh SSR"
 * "Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and West Siberia"
 * etc. While Kazakhstan is pretty well known, Kyrgyzstan is not really but in fact many more "special settlers" went to Kyrgyzstan than to Siberia. --Niemti (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well the sources have a tendency to mention Siberia first and more, though that shouldn't matter. Is "Central Asia and Siberia" really so inaccurate that it shouldn't be used?
 * Alternatively, we could state the long version (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Western Siberia, with links to the SSR pages and all) once and then replace other references to Siberia and Central Asia to "while in deportation" or something like that to avoid having to clarify this every single time it gets mentioned. --Yalens (talk) 15:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There were probably more Chechens in Siberia. On page 72 of Dunlop's book it says 4,000 Chechens escaped from a concentration camp in Krasnoyarsk in the year 1954 (2000 of whom were then killed). It also mentions several hundred of Chechens went on a strike in the Kolyma labor camps. Machinarium (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And yet there's a fundamental difference between prison camps (and they were everywhere, even in the center of Moscow) and the "special settlers" who were just loaded into trains, then unloaded at the end of the journey in some bare steppe and told they are now to live there. --Niemti (talk) 21:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * For sure, but I'm wondering if during the deportation males were also sent to the GULAG concentration camps. Machinarium (talk) 11:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They went to "Special Settlements", not camps. (Even as "These settlements have been compared to GULAG (Main Administration of Corrective Labour Camps)", were in fact actually run by GULAG until the end of 1944, and those caught trying to escape would be sentenced to 20 years in a camp. One might compare it to a Nazi Ghetto vs a KL (Konzentrationslager) camp.) OK, here are the official figures: Kazakh 380,397; Kirghiz 83,617; Vologda 1,207; Ivanovskaya 787. (Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict Resolution: A Case Study of Chechnya, page 53; The Chechens: A Handbook, page 263) --Niemti (talk) 11:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey Yalens, did you catch my e-mail? Machinarium (talk) 16:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Requesting your commentary at Talk:2012 Benghazi attack
There is a current discussion going on at the above page about changes to lead of the article. You previously helped in working out the present lead on the talk page, so I was wondering if you'd mind commenting on the discussion going on now. Please come along, if you feel like it. RGloucester (talk) 00:39, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Question
Yalens, hello, I just have one question. Why do you insert and use references on Georgia related articles by a charlatan scholar and fervent anti-Georgian Circassian political activist Mr Jamoukha who is well known for his hatred and bias toward Georgians? I noticed you tend to use lots of quotes from his publications to back up some dubious claims (for example that Kakhetians or Kakhs are related to Vainakhs and so on). Is it fair to reference a man that in all despises the entire nation and being politically motivated, intentionally alters the historical or ethnic origins of people who are his nemesis? p.s I highly appreciate your care and contribution for Chechen-related articles. Best. Iberieli (talk) 13:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, hey, you're back. I didn't know Jaimoukha was known to have hatred for Georgians (he does tend to be rather biased in favor of the Abkhaz though). When I added stuff from Jaimoukha way back when, it's mainly because there's little coverage at all on English wikipedia about the history of the Caucasus, and Jaimoukha happens to have books in English. It was a passion of mine back then. When I read books, I usually don't look for motives unless they are hugely obvious (example: Serbs talking about Albanians supposedly coming from Azerbaijan), though I guess maybe I should be more cautious. I don't think his claim about Kakheti (he states it like its not his own, but other peoples', I believe) is necessarily anti-Georgian. All it says is that once there was a Nakh people in Kakheti (who are probably now Georgians). If someone talks about the fact that there were once Celts in Northern Italy who didn't speak a Romance language anti-Italian? I do understand how you can see this as potentially anti-Georgian, I just don't. He referenced historical texts, and in the absence of pretty much any other source material on the matter, it seemed worthy to note.
 * Of course, just because it's not necessarily anti-Georgian doesn't automatically make it correct, as we both know. I do think the section relies way too heavily on one source (Jaimoukha). Since for you, his claims are dubious, maybe you could provide a source disproving them or disagreeing with them, and then we could either show the alternative point of view next to the sections stating what Jaimoukha said...? I would love to have more sources on the matter (the Ancient Caucasus and the origin of the Nakh), really.--Yalens (talk) 00:09, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent answer :) Thanks a lot for finding time and addressing my concern. You did an excellent job on Chechen-related articles and I encourage you to do on because there are tons of information on Vainakhs which is not available on Wiki. Unfortunately, there are very few people who are interested in Caucasus related articles overall. There are of course those who 24/7 are engaged in political rumblings to push their nationalist agendas (Abkhazia articles as an example) but there are few dedicated people like yourself, who should definitely keep up with the editing and adding more information on this fascinating region. I agree with you, there are few quality books on Chechnya and Caucasus in general when it comes to history. That has been my problem when I started to work on Georgian history related articles, in English you basically only get Lang, Allen (1930s) and Suny. Rayfield just published the book on Geo History but its way behind the standard and quality you would expect from University professor from the West. The local Caucasians who study in West mostly avoid specializing in their own cultures, they tend to be more "pragmatic" in career choices. And the few who do (Circassians, Chechens, Georgians, Armenians and so on) are engaged in primitive nationalist interpretations of History or rather who was first in Caucasus and who was greater. Jaimoukha is not the only one. We also have historians like him and they are the problem. Than Professors like Rayfield take their dubious and baseless theories and turn them into interpretation of historic evens which influences the reader to take certain perceptions which in most cases are based on mere speculations by those ethno-nationalist "scholars." Thats the sad reality and I dont see how it will change. I'll tell you how I see the claim about Nakh Kakhs anti-Georgian. The main argument of Circassian or Abkhaz ethno-nationalists is that modern Georgians are newcomers to the region. Kakhetians and Kartlians are the nucleus of Georgian ethnogenesis. If you argue they were in reality Nakhs and not Kartvelians, you create the myth of a "newcomer" which in Caucasus is a favorite derogative. If you ask Jaimoukha, there were no such tribes as Kartvelians in Caucasus and that Georgian national consolidation or the formation of its identity is artificial. Therefore, he will try to argue that North Caucasus tribes populated the South Caucasus (an arguments which suits his views in case of Abkhazia too - how can North Caucasus Apsua tribe live in South Caucasus in the midst of Mingrelian speaking people?). This is clearly a historical revisionism and falsification. And as I mentions he is not the only one engaged in that process. They have certain agendas to fulfill by reinventing history which better suits their political believes. I never in any serious publication seen such claims, even from the fervent Chechen nationalists who claim that the word Sakartvelo (Georgian) transliterated from Chechen as "my backyard" :)  Cheers. Iberieli (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * As for Jaimoukha, I do agree he has some biases, but I think a lot of his work about Chechen history is quite usable (i.e. folklore, the different historical medieval periods, summaries of ancient archaeology, etc...).
 * As for "newcomers", I find this particularly ironic because Circassians themselves are thought (by some, at least) to have migrated to the Caucasus from pre-Hittite Anatolia, in pre-recorded times, and this fact (the "connection to the ancient civilization of Hatti" or whatever) is actually celebrated by Circassian nationalists.
 * As for these "Kakh", I can't really say what my view is on that theory. If we could get the original Vakhushti quotes that Jaimoukha uses, that would be good. Is there any other works dealing with that quote? In any case, I don't think it needs to be so touchy. I know that the ethnic histories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are touchy because both sides want to claim that they were there first, but no reasonable person has a thought of taking Kakheti from Georgia (uneducated silly people can claim it sounds like some "backyard" all they want but its never going to mean anything, especially when most Vainakh nowadays see Georgia in a positive light and have utterly no desire to antagonize their southern neighbor given all the problems they already have. Its a funny folk etymology though).
 * Cheers :). --Yalens (talk) 02:40, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.
This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. The thread is "Turkish people". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot   operator  /  talk 19:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Aiyaiyai, really? Ugh. --Yalens (talk) 19:56, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

RE: Your map
Yes I know that it might do so, but I am updating the map, I will create more clear borders around the colors, so people can get a better view of where the people actually lived. As to Malkh people, their state was destroyed by the Mongols, so this map is set before the Mongol invasions. And for the Kists, they have always lived in Georgia (most likely) though some migration and immigration by other Vainakh might have happened. Hope this clarifies the situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deni Mataev (talk • contribs) 17:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian race controversy
An IP has just posted on WP:AN regarding this article - you seem to be involved. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

talk:TT
I apologize for this []. It seems the section is too huge and something went wrong...Alexikoua (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It's fine, everyone makes funny mistakes when editing sometimes. --Yalens (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

RSN on Ingushetia#Origin of Ingushetia's population.
See WP:RSN. Dougweller (talk) 14:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

AN You may have interest in
This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.
 * I'll read it when I find a moment...--Yalens (talk) 00:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

ArbComm
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Arbitration/Requests/Case and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—
 * Arbitration/Requests;
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Thanks,

Hello, we are still awaiting statements for you regarding Ancient Egyptian Long-Term Editor Misconduct as you are a party, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 18:58, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Can I draw your attention...
to this? BMK, Grouchy Realist (talk) 12:27, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Haplogroup J-M172
I see you removed some copyvio from this article. I've removed some obvious copyvio from the same editor, Kevez9. He also added some stuff about Cro-Magnon and IJ-M429 which he sourced to which mentions neither. Dougweller (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Dzurdzuks
Hi Yalens,

Georgian historiography does not consider exactly the "Chechens" to be the Dzurdzuks but the "Vainakh" peoples and not one specific group. So your redirect is indeed wrong and sourceless. Jaqeli (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, in truth you are right Dzurdzuks are Vainakh, not just Chechens, and thus they include the Ingush too. However they include neither the Bats nor the other historical Nakh peoples, so one can't say that they're equivalent to the phrase "Nakh peoples". I think a redirect to the part of the History of Chechnya which speaks of Dzurdzuks would be best. Feel free to contact me if you have alternative suggestions or objections. Cheers, --Yalens (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, how do you define that Dzurdzuks belong to the Chechen history only? And why not to include it in the History of Ingusheti? Jaqeli (talk) 21:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd actually rather not define it as such. It's simply that the Chechen history page is longer and more detailed than anything we have on the Ingush (keep in mind that before recent centuries, they were one people with one history). I could see maybe putting a redirect to a Vainakh section (currently called "Chechens and Ingush") on the Nakh peoples page though, if you want, though. --Yalens (talk) 21:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That would be much better. By the way the Georgian royal annals call it "Durdzuk" not "Dzurdzuk". Jaqeli (talk) 21:52, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you know why Jaimoukha uses the Dzurdzuk spelling?--Yalens (talk) 21:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What is that? Why? Jaqeli (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Jaimoukha is the author of The Chechens: A Handbook. Perhaps we should change it to Durdzuks though (I have seen the spelling before, but I didn't know that was the official spelling in the Georgian Annals). --Yalens (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * დურძუკ with just D. And why does that author call it like that? Jaqeli (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know; I was asking you. But I would be for replacing instances of "Dzurdzuks" with "Durdzuks". --Yalens (talk) 23:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * All right then. I understand you're Chechen or Ingush? Jaqeli (talk) 12:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess in a sense, yeah. But probably not in the sense you think- I don't live there, for starters. I've explained it to people here before, but I think this time I'd rather not. Wikipedia should be about how we can best make a global encyclopedia working together, not who we are. Having seen how wikipedia works over the years, I think we should avoid getting caught in the whole "I'm Chechen, you're Georgian, he's Armenian, she's Circassian" identity game all the time. That being said, you can be assured that in addition to my interest in the North Caucasus, I also find Georgia's millenia-old civilization fascinating too. I would love to collaborate. I had always thought that working with an editor with access to the Georgian Chronicles would be great for the Nakh-related articles... though nowadays I'm pretty busy, unfortunately.--Yalens (talk) 18:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Simple yes would do. For anything I may help with the Georgian annals just ask and I'll try to help. Jaqeli (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Alright I'm going to take you up on your offer and ask for your help. On pages 30-32 ish of his book The Chechens: A Handbook, Amjad Jaimoukha makes a lot of statements about what Leonti Mroveli says in the Georgian Chronicles including (1) Some Targamos, the mythical ancestor of various Caucasian ethnic groupings including the Nakh, migrated into the Caucasus after Urartu fell, established a state with Lake Sevan ("Ereta") as its boundary, and had a son named Kavkasos with a grandson D(z)urdzuk who supposedly founded Dzurdzuketia, i.e. Chechnya. (2) The Urartians (as a whole, supposedly?) "returned" (they were there before?) to the Caucasus after Urartu collapsed. For awhile I guess I was just taking Jaimoukha on his word... but does Mroveli actually say these things and if so, could I get a page number? Thanks so much for your help. --Yalens (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Circassians
Some other user wrongly disambiguated the Caucasian Laks into Kurdish Laks, while the former was actually ment (including source). Btw, did you read my message on the talk page? There's more to work on the current article than the one Iryna reverted without any reason, meaning I'd suggest we revert it to that one, and work further from it (as it already has many aspecst we wanted to include). - Regards LouisAragon (talk) 00:08, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Boston Marathon bombings
I undid your recent changes to Boston Marathon bombings as the suspects were identified as Chechen, even if they were completely not the sentence that was originally there is correct and the one you changed it to is technically not correct as written, even if they ethnicity is more correct. XFEM Skier (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I would contend that:
 * (1) It has never been proven that the suspects never identified as Avar too (the mother, who seems to have played more of a role in the "radicalization", certainly does). To say that they only identified as Chechen would be OR, unless you've found a source that actually says they disregarded their Avar half (in that case I would say I stand corrected).
 * (2) The media has been heavily criticized from multiple sides for ethnic tokenism and whatnot for overplaying the fact that the two were Chechen and (indeed) ignoring the fact that they were only half Chechen, when as per their testimonies, ethnicity really played no role in their actions (yes, religion did, but that's not the same thing as there are plenty of secular Chechen Muslims, Chechen atheists and even a couple Chechen Christians). Really, I don't think wikipedia should fall into the same trap. In fact, one can make an even better argument to simply remove the ethnic reference completely as it's totally irrelevant to what happened.--Yalens (talk) 21:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * My argument was not with the details of their ethnicity but the way it was included. They were indeed identified as Chechen, whether it was true or not. You changed it such that were identified as half Chechen and half Avar, which is not true. Yes it might have been a mistake to identify them just Chechen, but that is still a fact that cannot be changed. I would support the addition of a properly cited clarifying sentence that were are actually half Chechen and half Avar. Also confusing the matter is the concept of ethnically Chechen versus from Chechnya. I hope you understand my point. XFEM Skier (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * In fact they aren't from Chechnya, they're from Kyrgyzstan... and I believe I did actually provide a citation. I would ask again why it is necessary to even mention their ethnicity (or debated ethnicity) in the lede (as opposed to just in some background section) when it's so controversial. And also, by 'identified', by whom do you mean? By the media?--Yalens (talk) 00:18, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Himara
About the historical demographics section, the Ottoman kaza of Himara incorporated a large number of villages which are not part of the modern municipality. For example villages of the Kurvelesh_municipality and the Shushicë_(river). Here is an old map where the K. of Himara includes also inland regions (especially the predominantly Muslim region of Kurvelesh). The modern municipality is limited in the coastal region, with ca. 7-8 villages.Alexikoua (talk) 12:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Generally speaking Psomas' paper is really of good value. The map you point in p. 249 cites Cassavetes not Virgili (Although it doesn't matter but I can't see where its written about his ethnicity).Alexikoua (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The chart in page 249 cites Cassavetes not Virgili, but he mentions earlier that (on a sentence straddling pages 247 and 248) that the statistics ultimately come from Virgili's work on the 1908 census. I had thought Cassavetes also mentioned Virgili as a Greek, but I just scanned the relevant area of Cassavetes' paper and I can't find it now (sadly my CTRL+F isn't working), and actually other sources say he's Italian. Sorry 'bout that. Maybe I got the idea Virgili was Greek because he's criticized for labeling the population of Metsovo as universally Grecophone Greeks... rather than Vlachophone Greeks, of which Metsovo is known for having many (I'm used to the tendency of Greeks to label all Vlachs Greeks, Albanians to label them all Albanians, and foreignors to label them all a completely separate ethnicity, or Romanian).
 * Thanks a lot for the map, I had actually been searching for a source on the boundaries of kazas in the late Ottoman era :).
 * Also, a question- do you know of the Himara district that Kallivretakis speaks of is the Ottoman kaza or the modern Albanian municipality? [it's on Psomas, page 277, and in Kallivretakis, page 53] --Yalens (talk) 17:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Kalivretakis (& Psomas who cites him) are talking about the modern municipality. Kallivretakis [] (names are bilingual on p. 53). About the villages of the list: Fshat, Shen Mehil and Spile belong to the municipal town of Himara. Kalivretakis also limits the number of Albanian Muslims (AM) in Spile to 1,000, which is the only Muslim population in the municipality.Alexikoua (talk) 21:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah it does seem that the Albanians of the region are Christian... Thanks a lot for the link :). --Yalens (talk) 01:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Albania demographic maps
Hello, Yalens. I noticed the maps you created for Demographics of Albania. I was just wondering where you were able to find statistics at the municipal level. When I was checking out the census results, I could only find stats at the county or maybe district level. Regards. -- Local hero talk 20:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem :). Statistics at the municipal level for Albania as well as many other countries in Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe can be found on this site: http://pop-stat.mashke.org. For the 2011 Albanian census on religion, go here (http://pop-stat.mashke.org/albania-religion-comm2011.htm) and for ethnicity go here (http://pop-stat.mashke.org/albania-ethnic-comm2011.htm). --Yalens (talk) 21:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Truly an interesting census... not to mention the likely under-noting of atheists because Albanians will say "I'm Muslim/Orthodox/Catholic/Bektashi" just because their greatgrandfather was, when really they don't believe anything, we have the magical decrease of 65% Orthodox in the early 1900s to like 15% in the area around Fieri. Things will be interesting when the next census comes out, for sure :). --Yalens (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks a lot. Yea the demographic situation in Albania is certainly a unique one. Cheers. -- Local hero talk 02:53, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * One more question, why did you write it as 'Macedonian/Bulgarian' when the source only states 'Macedonian'? I don't believe 'Bulgarian' was a choice in the census. -- Local hero talk 15:11, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I know that whether the speakers of a Southeast Slavic dialect in Albania are classed as Macedonians or Bulgarians is controversial- Macedonia claims them as Macedonians, Bulgaria claims they're Bulgarians, and they themselves are divided on how they identify, with some (especially the ones of Muslim background) identifying as neither, and then many in Kukës are classed as "Gorani". I didn't want to offend either Macedonian or Bulgarian users, so I put "Macedonian/Bulgarian" as an attempt to be neutral. Nevertheless, you bring up a good point that this census listed "Macedonian". For that reason, I might change it. --Yalens (talk) 20:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I understand the controversy and trying not to offend. Aside from the Gora region (and the Serb/Montenegrins), it seems to be generally accepted that the Slavic dialects spoken in Albania belong to the Macedonian language and its speakers are Macedonians. I've also come across Bulgarian sources have conceded that the Bulgarians in Albania have been "Macedonised". If the map is to be based on the census, however, there is no data regarding how many ethnic Bulgarians live in the country and where they reside, so that's the basis of my concern. Regards. -- Local hero talk 23:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * No problem. Considering that "Macedonian" is what the census actually said, as you fairly pointed out, there is a good case to fix it. I will get to it soon. --Yalens (talk) 00:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, thanks. -- Local hero talk 01:23, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I've been looking at some of the maps and articles you've written and contributed about the topic of religion in Albania. I would recommend you to take a look at the 2011 Albanian census microdata provided by INSTAT. I think that may be able to explain the "mysterious" decrease of the Orthodox population in Albania.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 19:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi actually I've looked at that pretty meticulously, primarily using pop-stat mashke. Really it can't be attributed to only one factor. The Orthodox Church is likely correct it's members were undercounted in various areas -- many people have come forward and said they were not contacted. Noncounting alone, if we accept the maximal claims, would mean the "true" number of Orthodox is 18%. The Church goes further to claim 24%. I think both of these numbers are far too high, although 6% is too low. Real decrease in the number of Orthodox has occurred because of (a) disproportionate emigration of primarily Orthodox ethnic minorities namely Greeks and Vlachs, (b) higher rates of secularization among Southern Albanians than Northern Albanians, (c) a lower birthrate, (d) low level flows of conversion to Catholicism (hence the appearance of Catholics in many traditionally Orthodox areas). These are only partly offset by (a) higher rates of emigration by Muslim ethnic Albanians than Orthodox ethnic Albanians in the South, and (b) conversions of those with Muslim background to Orthodoxy -- these both are citable, but their effect is certainly no more than 30-40,000 persons, while the sources of decrease have higher magnitude. A more probable figure, also backed by other polling data, would suggest the true Orthodox percent lies between 9% and 16%, very roughly. --Calthinus (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I've looked at pop-stat mashke myself, however there is also a microdata sample here, that allows you to do even more, like look at percentages by age groups, calculate fertility rates, intermarriage rates, education rates, socioeconomic level etc. I agree with most of your arguments, but I still believe that the percentage of the Orthodox lies below 9%. If you look at age groups, the percentage of Orthodox peaks at the 81-85 group age, where they reach approximately 14.5%, but at the under 5 group age, it's something less than 5 percent. It seems strange that the census would undercount younger Orthodox in such a way compared to other groups. But what makes me more confident about the census figures, is that I found and downloaded the full Albanian civil registry of 2008 and did a manual counting of 2007 and 2008 births in Albania. I counted as Orthodox those whose father had an Orthodox background and found a figure of approximately 4.6% for both years, which conforms with the figures of the census for that group age. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 18:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Counting all births in 2007 and 2008 seems like a crazy long task. I had some INSTAT indepth stats at one point but they appeared to be a subset as only some 0.6 or so million individuals were included -- not sure why. But it had all the crosstabs and all. This is interesting. I'm not sure I buy that an Orthodox father is a good proxy. For starters the religious backgorund of entire families was often filled out without asking people by poorly trained questioners -- has details, I can also supply refs. Further, many Orthodox public figures (Enca Haxhia for one, admittedly not the best example to pull...) have non-Orthodox fathers. Edi Rama has a name shared by some Muslims, an Orthodox father and mother, a Muslim wife and he's ... Catholic (but doesn't practice). But how is an Orthodox father defined anyways? Under communism everyone was either atheist or "atheist". In terms of actually practicing or even actually believing Orthodox people, who knows, it may be lower than 6%, given that the Orthodox are more educated and more secularized. There are also people who are "half-Orthodox quarter-Bektashi quarter-Catholic" and so forth... and practice multiple religions (as for belief... who knows...).
 * Judging by your userspace I guess you are at least considering names. This can be tricky for both forenames and surnames. Most indicate no religion. For surnames, even if we set aside intermarriage, a significant number have a surname of the "wrong" faith -- late Islamisations means there are Muslims named Gjoni. For Christians, because using Muslim names conferred advantage in Ottoman times (even the Mirditors had a habit of using Muslim forenames when in Muslim ares). For forenames it is also very tricky, as "Western" Christian names are fashionable among the young; Muslim names are not so hip currently and are associated with octogenarians but it's not as if (especially older) Christians never have them. The entire idea that religious demography in Albania is supposed to add up to 100% is probably wrong anyhow -- which means no census will ever be able to capture the complexity of a country where entire regions are "two-faithed", people are "half-Muslim half-Christian", and there are people who might say they're Catholic but mean their great granddad was; meanwhile they are in fact a newly converted Muslim.--Calthinus (talk) 19:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * It's not that long of a task if you strategize it properly before hand. I know about all these caveats you're mentioning, but in 80-85% of cases, someone with a father with Orthodox background will identify with the same religion. In the civil registry I had access not just to the name and the surname of people, but also the name of their father and grandfather. So if someone has a Christian name, but his father's or grandfather's name is Muslim, I did not count him. First of all I created an exhaustive list of Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim names using a software. Using that list I identified specific surnames that only people of a certain religious background have. I did this also for local specificities, as some surnames are entirely Christian in some areas, but may be Muslim in others. Also I did not count Northern Albania since it posed no interest in my undertaking and other areas in Central and Southern Albania that have very few or no Orthodox (Skrapar, Mallakaster, Peqin, Kruje, Librazhd, peripheral Tirana, etc). Then I checked for each relevant municipality manually all the names and surnames to see if there were stuff not picked up by my method or mismatches. So I think there are very few inaccuracies in what I did. I found these figures by district for 2007: Berat 6%, Durres 1.9%, Elbasan 3.4%, Fier 12.5%, Gjirokaster 7.4%, Korce 10.5%, Vlore 10.1% and Tirane 3.7%. The figures for 2008 were relatively similar: Berat 7.1%, Durres 1.9%, Elbasan 3.6%, Fier 12.8%, Gjirokaster 8.7%, Korce 10.9%, Vlore 9.1%, Tirane 3.4%.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There's a structural problem here -- covariance. It has been reported that census workers knocked on people's doors and filled out the entire family's religion based on a name. In fact -- can tell you all about how his entire family became "Muslim" this way (not a single one is)  -- even after they protested saying they don't have faith, as he told me. What you're doing here is very meticulous research but it runs the risk of reproducing the same source of error.
 * Traditionally all of these places except for Skrapari, Peqini, some village clusters around Tirana had some Orthodox (Tirana itself was historically 8%). Skrapari was entirely Bektashi with maybe a few Sunnis in Corovoda, Peqini entirely Sunni except for a very small, negligible number of Orthodox. See Leonard Carcani on Central Albania-- Librazhdi had Orthodox, upper Shpati was full of Orthodox, Elbasani the city was 1/6 Orto, Kavaja 1/5 etc. Kavaja actually is overwhelmingly Muslim nowadays, this much is true. Durres not so much. In 1918 had 36% Orthodox []. Emigration, internal migration, low birthrates etc can explain a lot. They do not explain a fall from 36% to... 1.9% (secularization... is a better explanation here). No I don't think modern Durres is 36%. Maybe 10%. Could go on at length -- one can observe in Berat (historically 43% -- familiar with this one, I"d gestimate 20-35% today, many districts are full of them), Korcha (80%), Lushnja (50%), Fieri(65%)....it's pretty hard to make sense of these estimates of such a huge drop. Yeah Chams got dumped in Myzeqe, but even so, the raw numbers overall, not even percents, are lacking -- and this led to at least one MP denouncing it. Gjirokastra's more believable, your estimate for VLora may actually be high. 1918 census and later censuses before communism are largely in agreement. One thing is possible that there was a large Orthodox relocation to cities due to Ottoman hangover, that was only realized under communism -- it is true that nowadays Ortos are more urban, especially because under the millet system they lacked land. But, that means in the cities they were undercounted -- which is exactly what the Orthodox clergy were complaining about, that in most major cities, 1/3 of their followers were contacted. I don't buy their figure, but I believe the phenomenon of poorly executed census taking... affected every community in some way, most likely.--Calthinus (talk) 21:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Don't forget that Durres and Elbasan have experienced a lot of migration after 1945. Elbasan primarily because of its industry during Hoxha's time, while Durres especially after 1990 has been one of the few Albanian cities to have continuously grown. 1.9% is the percentage in all the county (including villages of Durres, Shijak and all of Kruje). 35% was in the city of Durres according to the Austrians in 1917, which at the time had a population of less than 5,000, while today Durres city has more than 100k inhabitants. Nonetheless if you look at the guys born before 1930 who live in the city of Durres, you'll still find about 20% of them being Orthodox. In Elbasan it was interesting because of the Shpati region, where you have quite a few Muslim surnames that are used by Orthodox, so I had to be more careful there to spot them, surnames like Dervishi or Halili. Once again Korça was 75-80% Christian only in the city, but the whole region was 60-40 Muslim before WW2. If you look at the census figures for the city of Korca in the older group ages, you'll still find more Orthodox than Muslim, but that proportion changes in the younger group ages. This is what I also found in the civil registry. So even if we take it for granted that it was harder to count urban populations, the issue remains that even within urban areas the Orthodox population has fallen quite a lot and decreases linearly by age (which doesn't happen for other groups). My estimate for Vlora also contains Saranda and Delvina, these are county figures (Vlore district is 8.6%, Saranda 14.6% and Delvina 11.4%). Berat once again you say 43%, but that is only the city, the rural population was mostly Muslims there (nowadays it is almost completely). The Myzeqe case is maybe harder to explain, but it is undeniable that the Orthodox population there does not make up more than 20-25% at the very most. It was easier to spot people there, because the surnames tended to be unique to each group and there were fewer people of Muslim background who had Orthodox names compared to southerner areas. I found 12.5% and 11.8% for Fier in 2017 and 2018, while for Lushnje I found 17.3% and 18.5%. In Tirana, for 2017 and 2018 births they make up about 6.5% of the city (11 units) and more than 10% in the central units. In terms of intermarriage, I still found a slight majority of children were born to parents of the same religious background. This was more notable in the Myzeqe area (because of the high concentration of Orthodox there) and in Korce city. Nonetheless, even in mixed marriages, in many cases the child had a Christian or even traditional Orthodox or Greek name, which is evidence of retained identity. I agree with some of the criticisms of the census, but even if done properly, the figures would not have changed that much. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 22:40, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's the qarket! Yeah I thought you were talking about the cities. For the counties, yeah that's much more plausible -- 14% for Saranda is......low (this is a county that still has tons of Greeks in Vurg, in addition to Ortho Albanians and Vlachs around Lukova etc). Unless you mean Saranda city, which is probably less than 14% Ortho. In Berat the only other place you should be finding many Orthos is Vertop, and the areas north and west of Berat which are technically part of Myzeqe, culturally. Korcha county is very different to measure "before WW2" because there was a hug emigration of only the Orthodox to the West... most of which returned around 1930, called the kurbet. Nowadays it's emigration but its of both Muslims and Christians; in Vithkuqi, yes, it's known this led to the erosion of the local Orthodox majority into a plurality, in Devoll -- as well as other places like Lunxheria in the SW -- it seems to be the opposite, whereby Muslims are emigrating, and converting to Orthodoxy in the process -- the net effect of this shouldn't be exaggerated though as the Orthodox have lower birthrates and greater likelihood to leave their faith for other reasons. I fundamentally disagree with the idea of using the names. From the mid 1930s onward naming practices changed (at the same time, ideological atheism emerged-- before communism). "Greek" names... run into ethnopolitical... issues. Not pleasant, very unfortunate. I know many people from Myzeqe. A majority are Christian (the Muslims all happen to ultimately hail from Mallakastra). Not a single one has a "Christian" let alone "Greek" name... but plenty of Majlindas. You do not want to grow up in Albania with a "Greek" name, have fun getting beaten up at school every day, "Jorgaq" (by your Cham classmates, welcome to Myzeqe). Hence a lot of Ortos today prefer not exactly traditional Germanic names like "Leonard" or "Albert" (the "Alb" is "patriotic", nickname is "Albi", etc). Meanwhile, if you see "Emiliano" or "Luigji", I suppose you think it's a Catholic? Because it's usually not. Using the names is somewhat more defensible before 1930, but after that Albanians began abandoning traditional naming practices -- then, the assumption that a name corresponds to the identity you think it does is more likely. Nowadays religious forenames are rare among both Christians and Muslims. Technically Christian names are probably more common among both Christians and Muslims, but much more likely both will be named Majlinda, Flori(ani), Erjoni, Endriti, Valoni, Albani, Mimoza, Adelina, Lindita, Majlinda et cetera. In rural regions old naming practices sometimes still matter, I'I'd imagine especially Tropoja or Mirdita. If someone is Naim or Ismail and not eighty, who knows, it could be a devout Muslim... or an atheist naming their kid after Naim Frasheri or Ismail Kadare (an atheist). Mario and Emiliano and Luigji could be Catholics... or not, since most Albanians love Italian everything. Maybe even a Turcophile atheist/Christian could name their kid Rexhep, who knows.--Calthinus (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I made a lapsus when I said district when I actually meant county, sorry. The Saranda figure is very probably higher among adults, but this was about births in 2007 and 2008. Measuring this, let's say, for those born before 1991 is futile, because everyone was born in Albania back then and you can't know whether someone has migrated or not after 1990, while for those born in Albania during 2007-2008, there is a much higher likelihood that they're still in Albania. In Berat county, you find Orthodox in the urban areas of Berat, Ura Vajgurore and Kucove and in a few villages like Sqepur or Konezbalte. Once again, using just names would have been impossible to complete this task, it's because I could access grandparental names, who were born in the 30s and 40s, that I could pinpoint their background. This thing about being bullied for a Greek name may be correct in central Albania and Myzeqe, but not that much in Korce, Gjirokaster or Vlore, where Muslims have also adopted these names quite a lot due to migration to Greece. Names such as Erion, Majlinda, Endrit were very popular during the 1980s, but they become less widespread after 1990. Among families of Orthodox background, the most popular names after 1990 seem to be variations of Krist-, such as Kristi, Krist, Kristian, Kristina, Kristel etc. Then names such as Maria, Johana, Johan are popular as well. There is also a tendency to occidentalize older names, for example Nikolla to Nikolas, Thoma to Tomas, Stefan to Stiven, Grigor to Gregor. So there is a resurgence of Christian names after 1990 compared to the mostly secularized names that were very common in the 1970s and 80s. But I would like to note that my purpose was not to find the number of believers through names, but to show that the percentage of those with such a background has decreased quite a lot and even if all of them identified with their religious background, the percentage of believers would still be low.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 08:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Considering the next Census is just one year I away (2020), I think it is more reasonable to wait the next census and use the their microdata, since I think it is reasonable to think that the next will be less controversial less problematic. I personally think a low percentage can be considered reasonable in the context of many people of Orthodox background having become secularised, but the large problems the census faced I find hard to ignore. Besides non-religious people, which I think were the most impacted by the census, I also know personally of the some cases were the religion of some Orthodox/Evangelical people was assumed just because they had a "Muslim sounding" family name. I think proof of this can be considered the fact that in all other religious polls in Albania the Orthodox and the Evangelical Christians are always more than the numbers of the Census. I don't think this can be a coincidence because the number of studies is rather large. As for the Civil Registry thing, besides it being itself problematic, I think the only thing you can be certain with your study it that the % of Orthodox people of background has declined, which I think we all agree, but in generall there are just too many variables to take account. I also want to add that both of you are underestimating the number of Orthodox conversions, especially for Albanians who immigrated to Greece and returned. These Albanians have been very prominent in Orthodox clergy but also in general. Vargmali (talk) 14:09, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is all interesting all. the number I've come across for Christianizations in Greece is 30,000 though I suppose it is outdated. Do you have more on this? I suppose there could also be a phenomenon of Muslims or Catholics converting as they move into Orthodox environments (as a matter of fact my Myzeqars... are now atheist or Catholic, as I know them from my time in a mostly Catholic area of the West, even though none originally were).  I think we all agree it's safe to say -- and that your surname study is further proof -- that the share of people originally hailing from the Orthodox millet, so to speak, has fallen in the past century. Furthermore, I also think the number of actual believers, in the Western or Middle Eastern sense of the word, is also rather low and possibly below 6%. The census missed people of all backgrounds, in raw numbers. The question about the "correct" % of Orthodox, then, hinges on what defines a person as Orthodox. If we mean believers, the census is high. For the culturally/ancestrally/etc "Orthodox" this an depend on definition and I agree your name study clearly shows a decrease -- as can be explained by lower birthrates and disproportionate emigration of minorities etj -- but I'm not sure about what it can say about the magnitude. In terms of who the census screwed over the most, it's probably either the irreligious or the Bektashis -- both of which having issues of ambiguous identity definitions (i.e. a good chunk of Albanians are technically deist, but don't know the word) playing a large role. The original INSTAT release had 70% irreligious... and somehow it "mysteriously" dropped to less than 20% (defensible suspicion of mine: family names were used for many people who refused to answer for any reason whatsoever, meaning neither the 70% stat nor the 16% or so are reliable and the truth must lurk somewhere in between). --Calthinus (talk) 17:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I think it is hard to get any data about the religions of Albanians in Greece, but we have from the Italian Statistical Institute data from 2011 that showed that in Italy, Catholics were like 27.67% which I don't think is because of the over-representation of Albanian Catholics in Immigration, but because of convertion. So for Greece I think the numbers could be even higher, since even Bashkim Zeneli, a former Albanian Ambassador to Greece noticed since generally assimilation pressures for Albanians in Greece were and still are quite high. We also the UNDP Albania poll from 2018, which had a religious background question and 13% said they were Orthodox families, which does make sense in my view. That is why we should wait for the next Census and hope it will work better than the 2011 one, which I think it will because thanks to the internet things that happened in 2011 would cause massive media outrage at least for Orthodox. I also hope the situation for the non-religious will improve, but that remains to be seen. Vargmali (talk) 19:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * But we also have the Demographics and Health Survey of Albania that has over 10k respondents and there the percentage of Orthodox is 7%. Also INSTAT has collected info about religious identification before the census through their LSMS (Life Standards Measurement Survey) and they had these percentage over the years for Orthodox: 9.5% for 2002, 8.4% in 2005, 6.4% in 2008, 7.2% in 2012. These surveys also have over 10k respondents. So I think they are better representative than that UNDP poll that probably oversampled urban and educated older folks. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 19:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The UNDP poll has from what I saw a very representative sample which was not more urban that the INSTAT data. The problem with the DHS studies is that they don't focus on religion they give very very low numbers even for Bektashis. However I have not seen the LSMS studies, would care to link them here? I have not found them in the internet. Vargmali (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The question framing is also different i.e. UNDP had background, which is relevant as most irreligious people are disproportionately of Orthodox or Bektashi ultimate extraction. Different questions getting different results-- not necessarily a contradiction. I could easily believe over half of people descended from Ortos patrilineally are not today Orto.--Calthinus (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I also forgot to mention that the Health Survey excludes people above the age of 49, which is quite a big deal considering all data shows that Orthodox people are more represented in the older age categories. So we should take Health Survey for what it is I think. Vargmali (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The LSMS surveys are in the microdata site, same place as the census sample microdata, here. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 22:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I communicated with the professor who studies the 1918 Austrian census data for Albania and he said that in a few months, probably early next year, the full data will be released to the public. So we'll have some more data about Albania that is very interesting. They've already released a small sample of about 9k inhabitants from or around Kruja here in this site. That's where the full data will be released as well. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Scientific racism
Hi, I agree entirely with you that "scientific racism" based on classifying humans into races is rejected as science. However, it is still of historical importance, and should be documented along with other discarded concepts such as phlogiston and phrenology. Also, we need to deal with the fact that the concept was discarded at different times in different scientific communities -- apparently it was still current in Hungary in the 1990s (see Turanian race). And there still seem to be some editors on WP who believe in scientific racism. For example, I recently edited Turanian race to mention that it was an obsolete concept, and another editor re-edited the text to agree that it was obsolete, because the "current" term was "South Siberian race"! I look forward to working with you to improve these articles so that (a) WP clearly indicates that these concepts are no longer widely accepted; (b) WP documents the theories themselves; (c) WP documents the history of the theories. --Macrakis (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I would make a couple points:
 * 1) While I agree it is important to document the history of these theories, I would make what I believe to be a strong case that the page of a modern day ethnic group and its members is not the place to do it. At best, it can seem a little off-topic, going from talk of cultural traditions and modern diasporas to history of outdated scientific racism (which here was not labeled as such).
 * 2) It is true that many wikipedia editors still hold scientific racist works to be valid. For the most part I find this fairly innocent on their part because most come from countries that don't have long and problematic histories of appearance-based racism (including Armenia and Turkey, where a lot of the editors on this page hail from). Nevertheless the topic is dealt with extensively on pages like Scientific racism and Turanid race, and it doesn't really need to have a whole section on a page about modern Turkish people, does it? --Yalens (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. I was mostly arguing that we need to improve Turanid race so that it doesn't read as though it were describing the current scientific consensus. I do think however that it would be useful to include in x People articles a brief reference, along the lines of: "In the now-obsolete system of scientific racism, the x people were classified as members of the y race." I disagree that scientific racism is "innocent" in the Middle Eastern context. Consider for example pan-Turanianism. --Macrakis (talk) 14:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * On Pan-Turanianism, fair point. On putting them on the page of "x people", I think the slight problem with this is that the classifications, flimsy as they were, were often quite varied. For example in teh period of scientific racism the Turkish people had not only been classified as "Turanid", but also "Alpine", "Mediterranean", "Pontic", "Armenoid" and a host of all sorts of other things by different authors. Turanid may be the one that Turkish nationalists seem to favor, but it's nevertheless just as absurd as the rest, if not more. To be fair, if we're going to mention Turanid, and probably have to explain what it meant, we'd have to mention all these others too, and that would just get ridiculous and take up way too much of the page (by which I mean more than just a few sentences, really...). Naw, let's just keep it on the appropriate pages. Speaking of those, I've done a little work on Turanid race. Do you think these sorts of rewordings ("was said to predominate in", rather than "predominates in", etc...), replicated en masse elsewhere on wikipedia, will be enough? --Yalens (talk) 02:06, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * For your first point, I think it's worth mentioning all the classifications--as cross-references to the appropriate pages. Otherwise there is no place for the reader to find this information collected by "people being classified" as opposed to "classification". Something along the lines of: "In various now-obsolete systems of scientific racism, the x's were classified as A race, B race, ...".
 * I'll take a look at Turanid race. Thanks for your work on this. --Macrakis (talk) 14:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Yalens, An article which might be of interest
Hi Yalens,

Recently i have been editing the article Albania–Turkey relations. I have trawled over many sources and hope i have covered most things. Can you have a look just in case, even for a grammar fixup if need be. Also, any comments to making the article better or if i missed anything that should be there. I want to send it to GA soon. Best.Resnjari (talk) 16:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure. Things are a bit crazy for me right now but life should be clearer in three days or so, so I should have it looked over by the weekend. Great work by the way putting all these articles together.--Yalens (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Very far from done but at the moment a couple things that could be mentioned come to mind:
 * 1) Albanians in Albania and in Turkey made significant contributions to the late Ottoman reform movements that culminated in the founding of modern Turkey. Some of these guys later also became Albanian nationalists.
 * 2) At least at some point there was a paradigm of rivalry between "Turkish" and "Arab" Islam in the Balkans (as well as attempts at influence from Iran over the Bektashi), with the "Turkish" tradition (as represented by Gulen, and others) being favored as a moderate counterweight to the Arab and Iranian influences, and one more in line with Albanian traditions. The US and the EU also seemed to favor the propagation of the Turkish tradition for the same reasons, although at least one (Greek) author thinks this changed after the Gezi Park protests. I had a good paper on this at one point (I think it was by Babuna) and there was some news articles in Balkan Insight and the like. I'll see if I can find them.
 * 3) Although "Christian issues" are present in the discussion, the issue of the portrayal of the Ottoman Empire in Albanian history books isn't just a Christian Albanians vs. Turkey thing, as there are plenty of Muslim Albanians who also hold and defend negative views of Ottoman rule including the depiction of Ottomans/Turks as "occupiers" or even "colonizers" (not relevant to the page but there are also plenty of typically secular Turks who despite national "Ottomania" retain negative views of the Ottoman period as corrupt and 'feudal').
 * 4) Oktem's quoted citation about Kosovar and Macedonian Albanians' especially close ties to Turkey due to more recent migration is relevant though I'm not sure if it supports what it's cited for (I'm sure the other source does?)
 * Overall the page is pretty comprehensive and well-cited, which is great of course. --Yalens (talk) 01:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the analysis. Much appreciated. Thing about school text books, i only came across Jazexhi and am not to familiar with Albanian voices who have opposed Turkish relations with Albania as i am from the diaspora. I looked for them and that's what came up in the literature, maybe there is stuff out there in the Albanian media. Very hard and big topic. On the geopolitical end i exhausted the search, its more now at the media articles level to fill in gaps. Yalens, i got a couple of Babuna's articles. I got heaps others. Email me, i'll send you stuff since i noticed you have similar interests on certain subjects that could assist in editing. Best.Resnjari (talk) 18:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure. I'm still busy at the moment (things will probably be freer in the summer), but I'll finish looking through the page. One more thing that would probably be good to include, if only I could find the author : someone did an analysis of the portrayal of Albanians in Ottoman plays and other cultural media, to find that Albanians were on the one hand regarded as vital parts of the empire due to their contributions, their sacrifice of "blood and treasure", and their "Islam, despite the number of Christian families among them", but on the other hand there was a widespread ethnic stereotype of Albanians as "wild" and "hot-blooded/hot-headed". While Turks admired this "Albanian love of freedom", Albanians, and especially Ghegs (probably most of all Catholic Ghegs), were occasionally portrayed as lawless savages who needed to be tamed for their own good. Sadly I can't seem to relocate the source. Perhaps it belongs elsewhere, like in Anti-Albanism/Albanophilia -- note that in modern Turkey there's still a stereotype of hot-headed Albanians versus cool-headed Bulgarians, while Tosks sometimes said the same things about Ghegs, and there's some historical Greek stereotyping of Christian Albanians following the same 'hot-head/savage' trend (despite Ottoman Greeks being vilified by a similar 'bandit' stereotype themselves) -- i.e. Cassavetes, a Greek Epirote, when he's not claiming Christian Albanians are Albanized Greeks, goes on about how Catholic Albanians are crazy and love their guns, firing them at intervals during marriages and Christian services, and so on. Anyhow, I finished looking through the page and overall it looks pretty good. --Yalens (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Albanian 2011 Census
Hello there Yalens,

I was thinking that we should add a subsection about the 2011 Census in the Religion in Albania or a complete new article since it devolves in to many details that might be confusing to readers. What do you think about? Vargmali (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. I'm theoretically busy with some major life stuff but I will probably inevitably end up back on here, so I'm down to work on it, but don't expect consistency. --Yalens (talk) 18:59, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I will add the "Reactions to the 2011 census" subsection for the time being whith all the info of the Census. Vargmali (talk) 08:34, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
Your work on the Albanian religion, especially on the maps has been very good.

Thank you Yalens!

Vargmali (talk) 19:55, 11 May 2017 (UTC) 
 * Thank you sir :) --Yalens (talk) 20:12, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

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Circassians
Are Georgians Adyghe? Seraphim System ( talk ) 04:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No. Neither are Chechens, Azeris, Ossetes, "Dagestanians" (whatever that means, as Dagestan is a very diverse multiethnic area), or Armenians, but all of those were included on the map. Meanwhile, it excluded Georgians, Ingush and various other peoples. It was a bad map and just duplicates information elsewhere on the page. --Yalens (talk) 18:06, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, ok - yes, it sounds like it was a bad map, thank you. Seraphim System  ( talk ) 18:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. --Yalens (talk) 19:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
Thanks man!! --Yalens (talk) 19:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Thesprotia etc.
Some modern demographics about the Albanian settlements (Konispol etc., once part of Filiates kaza) are found here in Kallivretakis; list []. Thus far found nothing serious about Thesprotia, apart from a general conclusion by Tsoutsoumpis p. 121 [], and by Kallivretakis (about Albanian speakers in p. 37-38).Alexikoua (talk) 18:17, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks!--Yalens (talk) 18:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Turkey
No problem with your edit, if you think it improves the article, I have no problem with an editor in good standing restoring content. WCM email 07:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course, that's what it's all about. Props to you for looking out for potential sock vandals though, it's useful for us all :) --Yalens (talk) 07:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Emporia
Nice notice. Emporia is the Greek name for Mborje [].Alexikoua (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks!--Yalens (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Economy of Albania
Hi Yalens. Can you please check that article? I think there are things that don't add up. Whenever/if you have the time, you can check the article history, my edit-summary and my post at the talkpage. Thanks. Dr.  K.  04:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. Just gimme a day or two. --Yalens (talk) 05:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much . No rush. Take care. Dr.   K.  05:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Yalens (talk) 12:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you again Yalens. Looking back at my first revert, aside from the wrong credit rating, some of the stuff I reverted was pure vandalism. It listed, among other vandalism, "GDP (PPP): $3600.524 billion", and "Top export items 2014: Space ships ($560000), Orbital stations($3000), Aircraft carriers($2501)", etc.. Dr.   K.  16:34, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
I've reread my comment at the talk page in that article, and I believe an apology is warranted. From my comment it's not clear that I assumed good faith, and I believe it was unnecessarily harsh. Unfortunately, the lack of good communicative skills is not an uncommon problem for people with predominantly technical background like yours truly. That said, my intent was merely to indicate the problem. Of course, I had no illusions that my cursory read on the topic would make me a better expert than regular editors of the article, which is why I abstained from suggesting the changes to the text to fix the problem. In addition, I lacked some cited books, so I'd have either to find a good library or spend sums like $100 from my family's budget to buy the said books, which is not a decision I should make on impulse. Thanks for your attention, Document hippo (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It's okay, we all make mistakes some time, I make plenty myself. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. --Yalens (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Korce edits
About the recent edits I assume something is missing on the inline (Fraseri). However I would be very cautious to rely on material that was created during the P.R. of Albania era (or revisions based on works of that era). It would be also erroneous to have the 1880s foundation of the first Albanian school in the city in the history section without to mention what was going on before that decade in local education.10:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Frasheri is an especially useful source for Albanian secret societies in the late Ottoman era, given his family connections to the actual people and their heirs. I don't intend to use him for any of the disputed facts. You probably mean to say "unbalanced" not "erroneous". But I disagree- the page already has loads about Greek education in the city before that which duplicates itself left and right. In fact, sentences discussing Greek education take up 12750 characters, about a fifth of the page -- although some of this is because of citations and inlines, that's still a lot on a 65,823 byte page. It should be no more than 10%-- there's much more to the city. And when I first came to the page, the word "Greek" was mentioned more than "Albania", on top of other interesting stats-- that looked bad. --Yalens (talk) 12:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * As for inlines I can do that. Give me a bit, I'm busy, but I'll get to it, I promise. Last I heard, was getting criticized for using too many inlines, so I thought that wasn't cool anymore.  --Yalens (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course Korcha is complex and multifaceted, and thanks to Greek education (even if Albanians hate admitting it) Korcha was the cradle of Albanian nationalism, producing most of its earliest writers. But right now the page looks like its all about nationalism (actually the vast majority of the page is devoted to this)-- there should be more about sports, beer, museums, etc... If anything, we may need to split off and summarize the history and repetitive education blurbs (both Greek and Albanian) as they are taking up far too much of the page. --Yalens (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Really sorry for writing a lot, but I realize there's one other thing that needed a response-- while authoritarian regimes sometimes had a chilling effect on academic writings, I don't think it's fair to question the credibility of all sources from a certain era without considering them and their individual authors, individually. Greece too has suffered from many authoritarian regimes, such as Metaxas or the West-backed military juntas, but I would never go so far as to categorically question the validity of works from either era, as it seems unfair to the authors. --Yalens (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * On inlines one, is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Use of scholarship produced during the communist i have not used on my part (i don't have accesses to it anyway ass academic institution where i live don't have Albanian literature and what i do have  i have forked  out money or gotten through the library congress through my uni), but neither have i used sources produced from the modern except on literally a couple of time that can be counted on a hand in English Wikipedia. If its about something non- controversial, then its ok. On the Albanian element, it was present in Korce and played a prominent role in the dynamics of identity matters relating to the Orthodox and Muslim Albanian (speaking) element in the era and the awakening. On the education section, i do agree its kind of become a bit distracting taking away from the' main article.Resnjari (talk) 13:37, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yalens your addition of K.Frasheri's work lacks some essential features: ISBN, year of publication, publishing house, which revision is used since the specific work was initially printed during the PR Albania era and then reprinted after the restoration of democracy. The full tag doesn't necessary mean that a quote is needed: the 'vn' tag is most appropriate if we need a quote to verify the correspondent information. Anyway thanks for the quotes. I've also noticed that Frasheri's work adapts the usual nationalist rhetoric about "persecution by the Greek Patriarchate". A view mainly accepted in the bibliography of the P.R. Albania-era due to misinterpretation of primary material (see Giakoumis for details).Alexikoua (talk) 18:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * About the education section I wonder why Avramidis' decision "not" to contribute to Albanian education should be written in detail. On the other hand his contribution to Greek education is minimal although he sponsored the foundation of 3 schools etc.. As for the impact on the local population Greek vs Albanian Ottoman era-education appears nearly 50-50, although Albanian education had a minimal impact compared to the Greek one in the daily life of the city: it existed c. 1-2 decades and never exceeded 30 pupils a year.Alexikoua (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes it does, but I doubt he would fabricate simple facts like when an organization was founded. Is that what you think he did? Does Giakoumis say that? We can remove Avramidis. Although many more people were given Greek education, the foundation of the first Albanian schools in Korcha was monumental and highly influential to the history of Albania-- I doubt one can call that a minimal impact. In contrast, in the history of Greece and the Greek people, even if we limit it to the post-1500 history, anything that ever happened in Korcha is in a parenthesis if it gets mentioned at all.--Yalens (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't object the specific event, however works that recycle the usual national rhetoric about persecution and victimization due to the efforts of the "Greek Patriarchate" should be taken under precaution. Giakoumis noticed that this myth is still dominant in some modern-era revisions too: [] ... Inter alia this edition (History of the Albanian People, '02) reproduces the stereotype that ―the religion of Albania is Albanianism and cauterizes the systematic efforts of the ―Greek Patriarchate and the chauvinist milieu of neighbouring states to drown the attempts to use Albanian is Church services and in schools. Such views, based on selective use and superficial interpretation of conveniently selected sources, in spite of existing opposing evidence, point out to a classical example of how a topic viewed merely in a local setting and isolated from its supranational dimensions drives to misleading conclusions, that were widely instrumentalized at the beginning of the 20th century in a collective attempt to construct a national identity just after the establishment of the Albanian state.

By double checking the education section the information that concerns Greek education exclusively (a period of c. 2 centuries) is limited to the first paragraph. The 2nd paragraph describes the first initiatives to introduce Albanian as well as the first reactions & the 3rd goes into detail about the 2 Albanian schools that operated for a limited time & were not so popular in their period of operation: almost every single person involved is mentioned by name (with their background info. in some cases) & some information is double mentioned (the closing of the schools). The later initiatives had more a symbolic impact on Albanian nationalism. To sum up: since our subject is Korce and not Albanian/Greek national histories I believe that Greek education deserves the specific amount of information in the current version.Alexikoua (talk) 21:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * However, "Greek education" seems to have found its way onto other parts of the page, including History where it is incredibly redundant, and the "Modern Education" section which is dominated by "Greek education" among others. I disagree strongly about the significance of Korcha for Albania (and its notability): the first Albanian literature, the first modern attempts at an Albanian alphabet, the first writing of nationalist sentiments, the first establishment of schools that advocated Albanism, the foundation of the first Albanian cultural clubs and then nationalist organizations, and so on... these are so much more than only "symbolic" in significance (but even symbolism can be important). Especially language and folklore have a larger role in Albanian identity than neighbors (filling a gap left by the role of religion), as has been discussed by people like Rrapaj, Glenny etc, these were especially important. ---Yalens (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * As for Frasheri, I agree that his interpretations should be taken with caution. But even many non-Albanian authors note that the Greek school system and the Patriarchate were often partial to Greek nationalist views and acted to propagate them (Palairet, widely used on the page is one, Zickel, Glenny, etc.), while acting in tandem with the Ottoman state to suppress "subversive" activity by other nationalists, especially Bulgarian and Albanian. Of course there are other reasons for not wanting to use languages other than church Greek which were viewed as lower and you're right Albanian nationalist views may neglect this sort of sociolinguistic take on it. --Yalens (talk) 02:44, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * A school that never exceeded 30 pupils and operated for a short term can't have a significant impact on the education of its city (though I do not doubt about the symbolical character of this initiative, it was the very first attempt of this kind). On the other hand pupils in Greek schools numbered 2k+ that time. I disagree that nationalism and all this "secret societies" should be part of education section. However, I fully agree that more culture is needed here (about past and present), for example the theatrical performances and concerts undertaken after the initiative of bishop Photios & the various institutions established by the Lasso fund (apart from schools).Alexikoua (talk) 14:10, 26 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Why are you arguing against things I didn't say? It seems you agree that the advent of Albanian schooling in the city is historically significant. Notability is the question, not whether it had a "significant impact on education in the city"-- a paradigm shift. In principle alone, Photios stuff is notable and fine to have on the page, or a page we could create about "History of Korce", though many Albanians will take Photios stuff as a calculated insult and may be mad at me for saying this.
 * But I'm a bit concerned that every single thing you have proposed is once again Greek. How is it that every single thing Greek is somehow necessary to the page in your view, and every single thing that you want to remove is Albanian? While some Greeks (probably a minority in Greece even, though some guys with big ideas and interesting political views may be quite loud about it) may view "Koritza" as a "Greek city", this is anything but the international consensus, and I have never seen a credible source that asserted that actual ethnic Greeks make up any large percentage of the population. We cannot portray it as such by talking so disproportionately about everything Greek and trying to remove the rest. You would easily convince me if you talked about adding/removing things that didn't stack so consistently by ethnicity. You may still yet convince me. Obviously Greek contributions to the city are quite fine to note, but the way that page has been had strayed deep into the territory of implying dominance, not contributions -- a POV/balance headache. --Yalens (talk) 00:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree about Photios and how "many Albanians" might be insulted about such addition: theater, music performances, foundation of hospitals by the Lasso etc.. are initiatives that are nice to stay and contribute to the rich cultural part of the city. Off course I won't object similar addition of other cultural initiatives in Ottoman/modern-era Korca. I also understand that Albanian historiography terms Korca as "the center of Albanian nationalism"(similar situation about Greek nationalists, though Korca is in parenthesis in their list), but cultural plurality was a dominant feature, especially in the past .Alexikoua (talk) 13:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I mentioned that they'd be insulted because I'm aware Photios' picture has caused conflict on Wikipedia before. The view of Korca's prominence in Albanian history is not restricted to "Albanian historiography" (which by the way prefers "Albanism" and "rilindja" aka "renaissance" to "nationalism" as a term), Korca just happened to be a city where disproportionately many important things happened for Albanians. For Greeks, that would be Ioannina, Constantinople, Athens, even Odessa, etc. Never is Korca included in a primary list, it's hard to think of how it could compare to those. But it's good that we agree about including stuff from all groups on the page. --Yalens (talk) 19:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * To be fair it did appear that my previous assessment of the page missed that this claim was somehow there, uncited for quite some time -- [] -- it's removed now of course.--Yalens (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks a ton, and thanks for your constructive help! I'm gonna wait a week before displaying this one -- don't want to jinx the current lack of edit warring haha. --Calthinus (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
Thanks a ton, best of luck and happy editing! --Calthinus (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Catalonian referendum
Hi Calthinus, hope you are doing well. I am very concerned with the development in the article (see also talk page), and the takeover attempts by the two editors above that at all costs are bulldozing their views. I have been for long in the EN WP and we have seen, like other editors, what is going on in critical Spanish matters. Not long ago, we lastly managed to ban a troll, a typical case of WP:NOTTHERE, after a long period of disruption to the WP that scared away productive editors. I may not be all the diplomatic I should per WP standards but I should urge you not to give up the article. Thank you Iñaki LL (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, hope you're doing well as well. In my opinion, while you may perceive what's going on as a POV push (likewise Carbon and Ballena probably perceive the same of your own edits), my take on this is that both you and them feel like you're on the defensive. A long time ago, I saw some of your work on Basque language, especially with the video concerning the sociolinguistics of Basque usage -- I'm glad that's on the page, and for your work on that. With that in mind, I hope this isn't patronizing, but I urge you to be a bit more diplomatic. I have recently been mainly editing Balkan topics, and I've got to tell you the differences between editors there are often run much deeper than the ones here (the climate also gets a lot worse there than in Iberian topics, with lots of ultimately unnecessary casualties). I think this dispute can be resolved, but the main issue is a siege mentality that is found on both sides. Once again, my apologies if this sounds patronizing-- I am too busy at the moment to try to word this in a way that I'm sure it will come out exactly as I intended. --Calthinus (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Good to hear from you, and thanks for your comment! The thing is I have been quite a bit in some Spanish history and national areas of the EN WP to see enough, to deal with multi-tentacled "hydras", and have more than a taste of what is going on deep within, this may be not the best place to talk about it. I am sure that in the Balkans and elsewhere there are disputes that have run deeper, I have heard testimonies first-hand. Now coming back to this, I would not say there is just some POV pushing, as you may have noticed in the political argumentation used in the talk page to veto relevant information from the lede, but a lot of noise, disruptive editing, and aggresive attitude under a thin layer of 'humility', and bulldozing. You are an experienced editor, so you know well, and you have shown me that have seen or gone through tough and/or tricky disrputes. Now I should slightly disagree with your last comment in the talk page, but will add my point there. Best regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, would not like to bother here, I thought we were on the last stage, but I do think this is not going to end up well, unless you make your point beyond tempering attempts. As I pointed, the first paragraph is irremediably biased, charged in a row with negativity, I tried to find a middle-of-the-road solution, but found a revert and a self-entitled summary line. This is my last plea. Best, Iñaki LL (talk) 22:26, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We don't have to worry about whether it will "end well" as improving Wikipedia is a never ending and continuous process. Now, as for POV in the lede, not just isolating the first paragraph, I decided to count the number of statements that could fall either way, and I ended up with 9 "pro-referendum" and "anti-crackdown" statements combined and 14 "anti-referendum" statements, so there is a bit of a disbalance, but I'm not sure it is quite as drastic as you think. Squinting I would see a POV-character representation of about 1:2, so it's a similar story. There is a lot more that could be done to improve this page, but the sad fact is that I am really busy right now and really shouldn't be involving myself in this.
 * So instead I'll give you my advice. I know you may think that Carbon and Ballena are POV-pushing, and they think you are too. Imo they and you are both being overly defensive-- typical of topics like this. In fact, when I first got on this page, I confess, I thought some Spanish editors were editing tendentiously, but I was hasty in my judgment and in truth some people deserve on apology for that first thought. I believe you for sure that there are POV edit-warriors lurking around the topics, but in my admittedly short experience specifically with Ballena and Carbon, if you stick to arguments about content and policy, and demonstrate respect for them as colleagues they can be accommodating.
 * They do have strong personal opinions which obviously differ from yours (quite possibly from mine too, I'm probably somewhere in the middle), but if you demonstrate that you yourself just want equal representation and aren't trying to impose the Catalan separatist (or Basque) view on the page (as they may think you are), I'm pretty optimistic that you can reach an agreement with them. Ballena compromised with you at least once I saw. You can, and should, build on that -- they aren't East Europe style edit warriors actually both typically edit outside of politics. I have faith in you, and I'll be watching from time to time. Hope that didn't come off as a lecture. Best, --Calthinus (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply, Calthinus. My concern is more about the second sentence and the first paragraph, irremediably charged with negative, lecturing-style wording. I was happy to see for a moment that eventually (only eventually) we reached a common ground with the Ballena yesterday, but that did not happen actually, it was an illusion. Let's see Iñaki LL (talk) 11:04, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Removing comments
I've no problem with you removing comments that the user probably hasn't seen yet. I'm saying it here so as not to further clutter the talk page. You're welcome to remove the stricken comment and my reply if you want. Scolaire (talk) 08:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. ✅ --Calthinus (talk) 16:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Political prisoners in Spain for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Political prisoners in Spain is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Political prisoners in Spain until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Scolaire (talk) 09:08, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

AfD
Just to let you know, you haven't struck through your original !vote. Scolaire (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh crap, thanks. I'm a bit clumsy sometimes. --Calthinus (talk) 14:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I only meant that you should strike the word "Keep" (and maybe unbold the word "Delete" at the end). I think it's a shame to strike through the whole thing, because it was an insightful and useful contribution to the discussion. Scolaire (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Calthinus (talk) 15:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Muhammad Ali Pasha
Prince Osman Rifat Ibrahim's Homepage is a real source, because he is a direct descendant in paternal line of Mehmed Ali Pasha. Please have a Look, His Ancestors was from the Turkish City İliç, www.mohamedali.eu/mohamed_ali.html
 * Does not look like it passes WP:RS.--Calthinus (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

What you mean? didnt understand you answer


 * I'm sorry, my bad I used jargon. I mean that we have certain standards on Wikipedia about what constitutes a good source to use. A website typically doesn't pass unless we have evidence that it does scrupulous fact-checking. On the other hand academic papers and reputed books are much more welcomed. --Calthinus (talk) 01:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Turkey
Sorry, my comment was not directed at you personally, though I understand that it may have felt personal because I used your words as an example of the general derogatory tone about Turkification and Turkish language in the recent discussions. I think as with all sensitive issues editors should exercise some restraint, but this was only a minor example. Do you understand how "thanks to Turkification" can come across that way? You may not have meant it that way, but on the whole I think we should be careful when working on a culture that isn't as well represented in Western Scholarship as other cultures that we write about, and example our own biases (which may be unconscious). There is nothing we can do about the limited depth of scholarship here on Wikipedia, but I would appreciate if we could be careful about the words we use. We don't say "thanks to hellenization ..." we usually say "as a result of hellenization" - at least I do. Seraphim System ( talk ) 01:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I was actually about to apologize to you about that. I was unnecessarily snappy. And I agree that for the sake of sanity on Wikipedia editors should refrain from saying things that are likely to be taken as offensive by other groups. I'm sure I have my own biases. As far as I see it, since you brought it up, the fact that many people in Turkey that had been of other groups identify as Turks, speak only Turkish etc is proof of their Turkification -- assimilation is also often a voluntary process and is very common globally (whether voluntary, non-voluntary, quasi-voluntary, semi-voluntary whatever). But it's a vague word and given the climate of that talk page maybe I shouldn't have said it.
 * Funny thing is, "thanks to Hellenization" is almost certainly a line I have used in the past probably in reference to Arvanites and tbh I shouldn't have (Turks and Greeks might have a different viewpoint on these things than the other Balkan peoples I suspect). To be fair I have seen you say things that likely rub into some people of other backgrounds -- questioning whether Israel can be both Jewish and democratic, "criticism is building against Greece", and (I know this is massively controversial) editing stuff about the Armenian Genocide, all while you're in Turkey disputes with people from those places. Last one I'm saying because if you're in disputes with Armenian editors and you do that, it looks like you're a denier and many of them might even have relatives or ancestors who died in it. Obv you're free to edit whatever you want but some things are just not a good idea because people think you're something that I think you're not. I'm not saying this to reprimand you or anything-- just that it's a bad idea. We're both guilty of making these sorts of mistakes but it's really shooting yourself/myself in the foot. --Calthinus (talk) 01:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that - there is some good advice there. I think generally I have a positive attitude about questioning, I think we should question things, but on Wikipedia we should stick to sources. Regarding Greece, I think there is massive controversy about the positions of their far right party where the controversy about Macedonia has reached the ICJ, and on other issues they describe the Sieg Heil salute as an "ancient greek" symbol - I assume the regular editors in the topic are already aware of these issues.
 * On Armenian Genocide - I know a lot of Turkish Armenians, and they don't feel comfortable disclosing their identity to everyone but Greeks and Armenians have shared their backgrounds with me, and I'm honored that they have shown me that kind of trust, so it comes as a shock to me to be accused of being denialist or Pro-Government position, because that is so far from who I have been my entire life. Regarding recognition, I think Turgut Ozal was willing, but a lot has changed since then. I thought my edits were fairly minor and did not effect the balance of the article - For example I was asked not add citation needed tags without discussion (Edit summary: Go to the talkpage and explain why these facts need verification.)[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Armenian_Genocide&diff=805246185&oldid=805243297] -it did not seem to me that the editors were interested in discussing or improving the article. I don't know where they are from, because they have never told me. Seraphim System ( talk ) 02:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, read the part I deleted too, actually. Honestly I don't want you to end up where some others have that I've seen. On Greece, yes the country has some issues (like unfortunate economic issues helping a crazy fash party with big ideas get more popularity). I don't know if you know, but the Macedonia issue has seen a lot of meh stuff on both sides and to be fair to the Greeks there are Macedonian nationalist groups too who occasionally make coy remarks about whether certain territories (i.e. in Greek Macedonia, the province) should actually belong to Greece, which of course if you're Greek that's a massive provocation. Between Greece and Albania too there is some criticism to be had on both sides. But as far as I see it, singling out one country and saying "criticism is building against you" just feels kind of threatening if you're of that nationality, no matter how justified or unjustified it might. That applies in some other places that have a tendency to be singled out too, regardless of how justified or unjustified it is, it makes people feel bad, which does not make for a good climate on Wiki. Given that Turkey is a country that itself is singled out unfairly for criticism that actually applies to a lot of different countries, and you yourself have been critical of this, I think you can understand that.
 * That's pretty interesting re: Turkish Armenians, I didn't know that so many still held on to their roots. Thing is that on wikipedia people often assume the worst-- on both sides. Sometimes they aren't, but I personally I think in a lot of that notorious "nationalist POV-warring" it's because both sides think they're on the defensive and make the other side into something they're not. --Calthinus (talk) 02:50, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the entire region of the Balkans is full of provocations I think, but I was referring more to the Greek far-rights rhetoric of expansion, which I think can be scary when a country appears unstable. Actually, Greece probably isn't getting as much attention as I think - it is probably more what I have been reading recently that makes it seem that way. I have Armenian neighbors who speak Turkish (but I think Armenian is their first language) and they have been close to my family my entire life. It's actually pretty depressing that a few Armenian militants in the 80s did so much damage to Ozal's agenda where he wanted to actually offer repatriation to the diaspora. Seraphim System  ( talk ) 03:11, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On the Balkans I agree completely, though I'm not sure which country you're referring to. Tbh it doesn't matter. Naturally they damaged Ozal's agenda. What else could be more threatening to their dream of revisionism, than the possibility of reconciliation within stable borders? That shit had to be stopped immediately. Granted as I understand some of that militancy had historically originated as acting in Soviet, rather than specifically Armenian, interests.--Calthinus (talk) 03:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Arnautska džigerica

 * Hvala, ! --Calthinus (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Christian Orthodox population in Thesprotia
Hi!

readding Orthodox which was deleted for no reason, rmv "Greeks" as although source says this, ethnicity of Albanian speakers in the area is disputed and there are many points of view and wikipedia's voice can not be used to support one as per WP:NPOV.

Are you sure? According to the same paragraph, Today, these Orthodox Albanian speaking communities refer to themselves as Arvanites in the Greek language and self-identify as Greeks, like the Arvanite communities in southern Greece.

Thanks for your time. Pavlos1988 (talk) 22:31, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * within that article, written in Greek, you are correct they are described as Greeks. However on a more global scale that is a partisan viewpoint and there are many viewpoints on that (i.e. "Greeks", "Albanians", "Arvanites-as-separate-group-from-both", "internally divided group", "both Greeks and Albanians at the same time", "nationally Greeks but ethnically Albanians", et cetera). We must observe WP:NPOV here-- and not give credence to any one view by stating it in Wikipedia's voice. They do refer to themselves as Greeks when speaking Greek but this can mean the national sense and not the ethnic sense in some interpretations; when speaking Albanian they refer to themselves as "Shkiptar" (Shqiptar in the Cham dialect), so it's confusing. --Calthinus (talk) 22:39, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I believe that self-identification is probably the best solution, but I understand your opinion, so anyway, thanks for your time and sorry if a bothered you. --Pavlos1988 (talk) 23:17, 26 November 2017 (UTC)


 * you can see a similar situation with Greek Muslims in general where this time it is Greeks that are more likely to argue we shouldn't base the name purely on what available sources say about self-identification (and Turks who argue they are Turks because they identify that way, or rather available sources say they do). As for my time, no problem, I waste most of it anyways :). --Calthinus (talk) 23:33, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

similar to tibetian stuff
hi calthinus.i saw that you fixed some mistakes in an article.i think recent addition by an ip has similar issues with the tibetian stuff you removed.see .is it ok or must be removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.168.5.12 (talk) 16:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that page is full of source falsification -- it attributes stuff to sources that do not support its text. By all means, this stuff must be removed if it is not supported-- or if it is supported by source that do not meet Wikipedia's standards for a source of sufficient quality for usage. Thank you for your work in this area. --Calthinus (talk) 16:29, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Xartis
Hi Calthinus, so I guess the main issue I have with your map is that uninhabited areas are shown as "Albanian", i.e. it seems red (Albanian) is the default color. Now for areas in the north, that's obviously fine, but for areas in the south that is obviously problematic. Example: The coast northwest of Palasa is shown red, even though 1) The nearest village is Greek, 2) Toponyms are Greek (e.g. Gramma bay, Acroceraunian Mountains, 3) The coastline is accessible only from Greek towns (e.g. boat trips to Gramata bay depart from Himara town). Thus, the western slopes of the Acroceraunian range should be colored in blue, not red. Same thing with the slopes of the Aeropos/Nemercke: The western slopes in the Pogon region should be colored blue, the eastern red. Also, I think Himara town, which is predominantly Greek, occupies a far larger area than shown in your map, and adjacent uninhabited areas should be colored blue. Alternatively, uninhabited areas should be left blank, but I think the result would be visually unappealing. But I cannot accept a situation where all uninhabited areas are colored red by default. Thanks, Khirurg (talk) 06:02, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm still overdue for some fixes which I said id do "immediately" (oops, I meant "wiki-immediately which is "in a week"). I suppose I can also review the Pogon and Himara regions. I have a version of the file on my computer with the old commune boundary lines. I'll temporarily upload a clipping of that for discussion use probably in a few days, so we can discuss this properly as its pretty fine grained. Thanks for your input. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 06:19, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Calthinus' map does the same thing that Winnifrith's map does with the Greek community (who gives that outline of Greek population in the Himara area -Calthinus actually shows more). Also to take a similar example that been around for many years on wikipedia, the ethno-linguistic map on Greece does not leave as uncoloured or blank the uninhabited areas - and Greece has a lot of uninhabited mountainous terrain, especially the large Pindus area. I should also note that Alexikoua's map does not highlight uninhabited areas (nor Khirug have you asked Alexikoua to make such changes), yet alone the other issues that map has. Many villages that have become depopulated (due to migration and urbanisation post 1992) with no people are in the Albanian speaking zone, especially in the northern highlands that are Albanian with no new population moving in. Calthinus' map should cover the confines of what a village covers, hence whatever geography assigned to it within the cadastre registry as it has officially outlined it and not extra land (i'll also note that some small former Albanian settlements like Mesare which no longer exist are now within the confines of other villages like Greek Vllaho-Psillotere). Calthinus, here are the two links: the very detailed topographic soviet army maps of Albania   and the official Albanian cadastre registry  (click on the maps option at the top of the webpage and it will open up to a page that has a map legend and many cartographic options that contain various in depth military topographic maps and other options to see the cadastre village confines as well) for any small fixes to your map. Best.Resnjari (talk) 09:45, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I appreciate your response. However please be aware I will follow up on this and will not abide by any map that shows uninhabited areas as red. Khirurg (talk) 15:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Khirug, same goes for other maps and i too will follow those up as well for consistency. Best.Resnjari (talk) 15:45, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking to you. And there is no need to obsessively follow me around and respond to all my posts. Khirurg (talk) 16:14, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have this page on my watchlist, as i have many others. I was heavily involved in all the map discussions. Far as i see it, this is a another discussion on the map. In the comment above i provided Calthinus with very good cartographic sources. Soviet army topographic maps are of highest quality (that even something like google maps cannot equal), they even show former settlements (though in smaller and finer print on the map). Additionally the source on cadastre village/town/city boundaries is sufficient for the things you raise. Geography located within a settlement's confines ought to be coloured by the colour of that predominant ethnic group etc and no further than that. Best.Resnjari (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2018 (UTC)



see picture and explanation on the left. --Calthinus (talk) 04:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you mean about "communes", but what about individual settlements, e.g. Himara town? Also, shouldn't we state in the caption that most Aromanians and many Orthodox Albanian-speakers have Greek sentiment? Khirurg (talk) 05:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Himara town is covered blue. I'm pretty sure. The blue-magenta boundary should be the midway point between it and nearby Pilur which speaks Albanian. Then the towns further after that are also Albanian until Dhermi and Palase. The caption idea was Resnjari's compromise proposal I believe. I didnt catch any response to it at the time. I preferred it over fighting but now that we have this side by side with Alexis map which shows Greeks in many more places I dont think its necessary. My aim was to make a map that was simply language and religion-- the verifiable stuff-- not "national sentiment". Indeed it could come off as an anti-Orthodox double standard (defamation of the Albanian Orthodox typically revolves around their supposed propensity toward pro-Greek conspiracies, its all nasty hogwash and also anti-Greek I'm sure you know) if I did that for the Orthodox but didnt discuss all the other such phenomena that existed at the turn of the 20th century. For example there was also pro-Romanian and pro-Albanian sentiment among Vlachs, and an "Ottoman" national identity that competed with the Albanian one among Sunnis in some areas right up until the empire no longer existed. And then nobody likes to admit it but many people didnt have any national identity at all at that time. I'd rather not deal with these things at all on a language and religion map. I figure readers who are interested in the Greeks can already infer those factors and deduce what they need to know in the South-- all Orthodox communities share their lighter shade from the Muslim ones. Sorry for longwindedness.--Calthinus (talk) 05:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. A few more points though: 1) In addition to Himara town proper, there is also Himara fshat, which extends to the northwest, and is almost entirely Greek, 2) I think you have the Cham areas in the south stretch a little too far north, 3) what are the Albanian villages in the Mesopotamos/Livadia/Dhrovian area? As far as I can tell there are 3: Sopik (Orthodox), Pandeleimon (Cham), and Navarice (Muslim) but in the map I see 5. By the way, I found the old commune boundaries extremely helpful. You may consider adding them (or the new ones). It's otherwise very difficult to locate individual settlements. Cheers, Khirurg (talk) 06:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) On Himara fshat I think you might be right actually. My bad. Will look into this.
 * The rest-- I'll be back later with my notes from Kallivretakis with pages on this. Gotta run. Cheers.--Calthinus (talk) 06:17, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Pece and Muzine are Orth, Alb and near Navarice geographically -they form a Albanian speaking cluster in the area. Also one of the blue hatched lines (the most southern one in the whole map) ought to be removed for the Orthodox village of Cifliq, in the deep south. Navarice should not be hatched, not a mixed Albanian-Greek village, but a fully Albanian one. The Soviet army maps and the cadastre records go a good way to making the settlement confines more crisp and fine. The Soviet map also shows the two neighbourhoods of Qeparo (one Orth Alb. and one Greek in Kallivretakis) which are some distance from each other. Instead of having Qeparo hatched as mixed you can actually colour it solidly for both ethnicities depending on the location of either neighbourhood. Best.Resnjari (talk) 09:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Navarice is not hatched, rather it looks like there are TWO muslim villages, which is incorrect. One of the patches (I'm guessing the southern one) should be removed. Furthermore, Navarice is a very small village, and it occupies way too many pixels on the map. Khirurg (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In its cadastre boundary, Navarice takes in a bit of surrounding geography as it covers a sizable area located in hilly terrain with other settlements some distance away from it. See the cadastre map registry and that map + Soviet maps as well.Resnjari (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Forgot to add that Navarice is a large settlement in the area of some 3700 people .Resnjari (talk) 17:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah, whatever. I counted less than 100 houses on google earth, and probably most of those are empty nowadays anyway. Pop. is 489 according to Kallivretakis (and probably much lower nowadays). It's also hemmed in pretty closely to the north,, west and south by Greek villages. Nice source by the way, where did you find it? And are you sure it's 3700 and not 37,000 or 370,000? Anyway, it's not your map so I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time addressing you. Khirurg (talk) 19:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I got it from Albanian media, because the village is in Albania. I don't know if reporters went there during the summer when many people come home from seasonal work abroad, but it still has a significant population. Neighbouring Greek villages also had the same experience of depopulation as well, migrating to Greece and some doing the seasonal return thing in the summer. Thing is no one else has moved into those villages so they are still Greek and the case is the same countless times over for villages in the whole country. Not many villages have undergone religious or ethnic change post 1992. The main change has been depopulation due to urbanisation and migration (at times both factors) Regardless over matters of population growth or contraction, the cadastre registry exists and shows what area is with a settlement's confines. We have the maps and sources to be precise about this. Best.Resnjari (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

(outdent) Ok, hopefully I'll hit everything here.

Himara -- haven't found this "Himara fshat" extending to the west yet at least. However I did mess up. Pilur is to the Northeast not the Northwest. So I need to extend the Greek blue along the coast till the Vuno-Himara midpoint, and move the magenta further down inland to the Himara-Pilur midpoint. I'm bolding this so that I can look at this discussion later and easily see what I need to do despite all the text, so please don't bold anything else in your comments. Sorry for asking that.

Qeparo -- I can't do this if I don't know which one is Greek and which is Albanian. Otherwise sure I can color the neighborhoods in Qeparo separately.

Ciflik -- Resnjari, Kallivretakis has Greeks here. Kallivretakis is my source for the region.

Hatching -- both of you are wrong. Khirurg, they are hatched, not separate villages. Resnjari it means "mixed areas" not "mixed villages". I also use hatched lines to denote insignificant villages of one group surrounded by a dominant other group. I do this all over the map. You can see it with Shipska for Vlachs surrounded by Sunni Albanians. The entire region of Shenpremtja is like this but its because there's almost entirely Vlach villages surrounded by almost entirely Muslim (Sunni, Bektashi) Albanian ones. This happens again with Vlachs in Andon Poci -- exclusively Vlach as per Thede Kahl's map in Schwandler Sievers' Aromanian Awakening. I probably really overdid it there, the hatching is way too big for one small town. I can see now why this might be confusing. Perhaps I will fix it. It requires a lot of work. The Soviet map will be a big help -- thanks a ton Resnjari -- with that as Google Maps (which I was using before) is really sketchy in some areas. Also btw if you actually took the time to count the number of houses in a random village on Google Maps I feel very sorry for you.

Mesopotam(i/os) and Navarice in Dhiver -- Resnjari is right, the two Albanian Orthodox villages are Peca and Muzina. Kardhikaq is mixed Vlach/Greek. Bistrica is just mixed overall-- which at this point I would infer Albanian/Greek/Vlach (ironically the name is a classic Slavic toponym). Looking at the map it's clear that although Peca and Muzina are totally Albanian I have the area around them as mixed as they are surrounded by Greek (Dhrovjan, etc) towns or mixed ones (Bistrica, Kardhikaq). Bistrica (Alb/Vlach/Greek) and Kardhikaq (Vlach/Greek, no Albs) are both portrayed as mixed with the hatching region being smaller. Perhaps if we are going to be sticklers I will need to mark these villages individually-- but I almost want to say I'd rather have hatching as if we do that, I will have to do work locating all the village midpoints, and then after I've done all that, there may be issues like the ones we just saw in the Himara region where I did use midpoints rather than hatching -- mostly because it sorts itself more easily into Albanian and Greek areas than do areas like Vurg or Shenpremtja.

There is not a significant Albanophone pocket in Vurg. Peca and Muzina are close to each toher. But you have to go through Greek areas (either Livine or Dhrovjan) to reach Navarice from them. Navarice is small. Kallivretakis has less than 500 there. Idk about this 3700 from Albanian media. I would rather stick with Kallivretakis' rigorous demographic study than media sources. As per Kallivretakis, the Albanian population of both Mesopotam and Dhiver is small.

The map has a disclaimer that it overrepresents regional minorities. The hatching scheme I used for small and isolated villages that are one ethnicity that is surrounded by a dominant other ethnicity is the same across the map. In Vurg it is dominant Greeks with solidly Albanian villages surrounded. For the rest of hte map it is the "reverse" where Albanians are dominant and we have scattered minorities (most often Vlachs). The scheme ensures minorities are visible but do not make it look like there are significant pockets where there aren't because they are only tiny villages surrounded by others. Hence there is a slight overrepresentation of minorities -- this "hurts" Greeks in Vurg but it more significantly "hurts" Albanians almost everywhere else. Either proposal (fewer pixels as per Khirurg, solid areas as per Resnjari) if implemented would have to be applied to the whole map, not just Vurg, for consistency's sake. That said, it is possible I make mistakes. I'm checking the Soviet maps now.

Sorry for my habitual rambling. Cheers guys, --Calthinus (talk) 03:07, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * forgot to mention-- I thought the version with the commune boundaries made the ethnic distributions hard to see because they're so many. It'd be difficult to correctly make the modern municipality boundaries as some of the lines have apparently changed. What I can do, if you want, is make one that shows the boundaries for cluster of communes with large Greek populations stretching from Himara to Carcove. The only hairball in this area is Xarre, which isn't that bad (i.e. not like some parts of Myzeqe, Vlore, etc). --Calthinus (talk) 05:14, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm not talking about Peca and Muzina, those are easily spotted. I'm talking about the two muslim pockets (or hatches) to the south of them.  As far as I can tell, the only Muslims in the area are at Navarice, which since it is a small village surrounded by Greek villages, the whole area there should be blue per your above explanation.  There is also an orthodox Albanian pocket north of Sopik that doesn't seem to belong. Btw, I didn't count the houses in Navarice, a quick glance on Google Earth is enough to tell that at most there are not more than ~100 houses. At 4-5 people per house (reasonable for the 90s, much less now probably), 400-500 is plausible. 3700 is just ludicrous. Khirurg (talk) 07:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

@Calthinius, ok fair enough. On Qeparo, the Greek part of the village (known by Greeks as Ano Kiparo or Upper Qeparo) is the larger settlement located in the hilly area (the original core of the village), and the Orthodox Albanian smaller part is on the coast. On the Soviet army map its written as Кепарой (in larger print for the upper part and smaller print for the lower part). Hope that assists. Another thing is the Greek stripe you have over Voskopoje. The settlement in the early 19th century was noted as having Aromanians only, and Greek consular reports of the late Ottoman period note it was populated by Aromanian and Orthodox Albanian speakers (the latter having arrived in the settlement after troubles in the Opar area). In the modern area also no Greeks are cited by De Rapper. A correction is needed there. Best.Resnjari (talk) 12:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Khirug, regardless of its size, a small clarification on Navarice. The village borders Greek villages in closer proximity on its western, northern and southern flanks. On its eastern side villages are not close and it instead borders uninhabited hilly terrain (see soviet army map written as Наварнца). This is the same even in Austro-Hungarian topographic military maps of the late 19th and early 20th century showing the same  (written on the map as Avarica). Navarice in the Albanian cadastre registry map has its village confines contain all that hilly uninhabited geography and it forms part of its village confines. Best.Resnjari (talk) 13:09, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Sopik, Pandelejmon, and Navarica are all hatched. The hatching or Pandelejmon happens to connect to the Sunni Cham area to the south. This was actually incorrect-- I placed Pandelejmon too far south, it is in fact roughly in line with Sopik and the area I hatched included Greek Vagalat, so it should be moved further north. Since the hatching in this area is confusing Khirurg, I propose the following solution to you both and :


 * For Navarice, the hatching lines are made to be 2 pixels in width. There will be two of them, with 3 pixels in between. THey will be extended eastward into the wilderness which apparently is part of Navarice's official confines.


 * Pandelejmon is moved 3 pixels north.


 * Sopik and Pandelejmon are connected, and similarly made to be 2 pixels wide, with three in between, and they are connected to fill the space between them as there is no Greek village in between.

Does this work? --Calthinus (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't see the point of hatching since these villages are not mixed. The cadastral area of Navarice should be shown in brown, the cadastral area of the neighboring Greek villages should be shown in blue. These are very small villages and currently they occupy an area on the map far out of proportion of their size. Hatching unmixed village makes things worse by exaggerating the area even more. As for Moscopole, of course there were Greeks there (p. 278). Khirurg (talk) 06:17, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

@Khirug, umm i don't see Greeks, i see Aromanians cited who were divided between those who were pro Greek (sentiments) and those who where pro-Romanian (sentiments). An Albanian Christian presence had established itself there as well and the Greek consular report makes no mention of anyone else. Either Aromanians exist as a group or they never did and where all Greek ? Can't have it both ways. Otherwise we enter POV territory of all Muslim Albanians were "Turk" because some number, in particular Sunni's were very pro-Ottoman, Catholic Albanians as Italians or Latinates etc,, etc. Or for that matter the whole Orthodox Balkans was Greek because until the 19th century all where under the Patriarchate, had Greek liturgy and saw themselves as having a common Orthodox identity transcending other localised ethno-linguistic identities which in some circles is in interpreted as being Greek (however that is defined). @Calthinus, On Navarica, Sopik and Pandelejmon, yeah thats good. Best.Resnjari (talk) 09:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Moscopole was and is an Aromanian settlement, but there were always Greek merchants there before its destruction. Regardless of the past, there is a Greek language institute in the town currently, which means Greek is spoken, so a blue line is due. My point regarding hatching stands. Mixed areas (Delvino, Gjirokaster, Korca, etc...) should be hatched, but I don't see why unmixed villages such as Navarice should be hatched. It greatly exaggerates their significance, when all is needed is to show the cadastral area of the village in the color of the group inhabiting it. Also, Calthinus, I have source that states that as of 1994, there were 8,000 Greeks in Vlore city, which is a plausible figure and not insignifcant. Khirurg (talk) 06:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * On Vlore and Gjirokaster there where very few Greek families in the Ottoman period (Kokolakkis: p.52. "β. Ο διεσπαρμένος ελληνόφωνος πληθυσμός περιλάμβανε... και μικρό αριθμό οικογενειών στα αστικά κέντρα του Αργυροκάστρου και της Αυλώνας.") and the more sizable Greek presence in Gjirokaster and Vlore is a later modern day occurrence. Albanians were a majority then and still are (Kallivretakis notes this for Gjirokaster and De Soto notes this of Vlore  p.3. On Voskopoje, i am glad Khirug you noted that it is a Aromanian settlement. It also has a sizable amount Orthodox Albanians as well (for more then a century now) and in the modern era Muslims too (as per De Rapper). A few Greek merchants who were mobile is still no reason for it having a Greek stripe over it. Yet alone a Greek institute. Tirana has one too. Are we going to place a stripe over Tirana due to that? Albanian Ottoman soldiers (and Turkish ones too) were all over places in what is now modern Greece, but were not going to hatch sizable portions of Greece with Muslim Albanian lines on the ethno-linguistic map (not to mention the sizable number of modern day Muslim Albanian migrants that are there today. The hatching for mixed areas ought to be done in a way that shows a minority, but not a 50/50 split or plurality of Greeks, as that is not the case over a century ago or the modern era. Best.Resnjari (talk) 12:31, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay and  since it seems you both agree that ethnic pocket villages should be solid and agree on the cadastre boundaries as the bounds, I can be pragmatic and do that for Vurg. Don't know when and if I can implement that for Shenpremtja, Opar etc (though I guess one could argue they are different due to the historically pastoral nature of Vlach populations).
 * On Vlore -- thanks for the source Khirurg. Actually, however, Vlora already has Greeks on the map though-- they interlock with the Jews and Muslims in the Western part of the city, and the blue is continuous with the Greek blue of the Narta Lagoon. Still the source is useful as I realize I can't seem to locate my earlier source on Greeks in Vlore (it had them at 6%, if that rings any bells...). 6% was obv below the threshold but I actually made a tiny mark for Vlore's Catholics too (significant as its the only significant late Ottoman Catholic population in South Albania), so there's symmetrical treatment. Resnjari I'm pretty sure it's good to mark: the earlier Ottoman demographics differ markedly from the later ones which the map relates, because the city changed from mostly Catholic to being 33% Jewish in the 16th century, to nearly entirely Sunni after the mass conversion, and then eventually majority Bektashi at the end of Ottoman rule, and there are plenty of nearby Greek populations that likely came to the city as part of urbanization.
 * Gjirokastra -- similarly it's well-known that earlier Ottoman records aren't relevant for the later history of the city which is what the map charts. Greeks from neighboring regions came to the city as part of urbanization (as Orthodox and Bektashi Albanians did too).
 * Moscopole -- admittedly my source for the Greekness of teh city is definitely not the best -- Aravandinos (probs wouldn't survive RSN tbh). If by its destruction, we're referring to the 18th/19th century events then its probably too early (if that refers to Sali Butka's actions, not so). Do either of you know of sources besides Aravandinos which place Greek speakers in Moscopole for some time after ~1870? --Calthinus (talk) 16:32, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Koukoudis is your main guy for the 18th and 19th century as well. He even discusses the emergence of Voskopoje from small settlement clusters of shepherd huts until its destruction many centuries later (it was not Ali Pasha but local Ottoman feudal lords and 3 raids). Koukoudis goes on for pages and pages. Overall the Aromanian population with a Greek religious and literary culture is highlighted. But most Orthodox from the Danube to the Levant during the Ottoman era had Greek religious and literary culture. If where going to be using that as a marker of being Greek that is problematic and going into POV territory. Muslims in the Balkans used Arabic script etc due to Islam, no one would speak of them as Arab. Anyway on the Vlora and Gjirokaster matters, the Greek presence was not big in the Ottoman period and is recent. Their arrival overall to those urban centres is not large enough to have disturbed the ethnic balance and Albanians are still the majority population. Placing Greek lines needs to be done in a way (like you did with Permet) that shows they are there without the implication that the settlement is 50/50 or majority Greek otherwise its going into POV territory. With Aromanians in the Opar etc, just do what you did for Vrug using the cadastre registry. Aromanians overall live in certain settlements and are not to spread out (Enver settled some nomadic one here or there (it mainly affected the Orthodox Macedonian villages like Boboshtica and Drenova causing demogprahic change). For both past and present settlements use Kahl, he did fieldwork throughout Albania and consulted the archive at length for both past and present spread of Aromanians.Resnjari (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In Gjirokaster Greek hatching is every third line (width 2 pixels)-- so it gives a 33-66% percent impression if anything not a 50-50 one I think unless I"m wrong (actually Kallivretakis has Greeks at a slightly higher rate than this I believe although he's more recent). Are you saying this is too much? --Calthinus (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * @Calthinus: I think you have it right for Gjirokastra, your coloring is consistent with Kallivretakis. Regarding Vlore though, I don't think the blue from Narta lagoon extends into the city itself. Regarding Moscopole, well, since there is a Greek language institute in the town, that implies the presence of Greek speakers, and the map shows language, so the small blue stripe is appropriate. I'm also glad Resnjari brought up Tirana, because we do heave sources that there are Greeks in several major cities in Albania, so that should be addressed. Khirurg (talk) 07:14, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Can we really use a Greek langauge institute as source of a Greek language community? Gjirokastra has a French language institute... As for the cities, the map is not for the modern day but pre-communism. The only northern city I've heard of having Greeks is Durres-- but I don't have an RS on that at the moment (Tirana was only 8% Ortho in 1920 and most of these were Albanianized Vlachs from the Southeast) . If you want to alleviate that, please do. --Calthinus (talk) 20:18, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Khirug, my point with Tirana was that having an Greek institute does not make a place be Greek. Tirana also has a Turkish language institute and a Italian language institute. Does not make the place Turkish or Italian. The Greek presence in those places is also new and small. I should note that Calthinus' map is of traditional areas of habitation, not a map on the internal migration pattern (forced or through choice) of Greeks under Enver Hoxha and post-1992. Otherwise maps of Greece showing its linguistic situation today would show some Albanian stripes over Athens and Thesalloniki where sizable numbers of modern day Albanians now reside. Not to mention the many Urdu speaking Pakistani Muslims, Farsi speaking Muslim Afghanis, Egyptian Muslims and of course Bengali Muslims who in all number in the hundreds of thousands in Greece, living in Attica and surrounding areas. See this demographic map, the Argolis area has a lot of Muslims these days that scholars like Micheal Izady are highlighting  (its hatching depicts and 50/50 mixed situation). As you want far flung modern day small clusters of Greeks highlighted like those living in Shkoder and other places, I mean you would be ok with highlighting such things for Greece about newly arrived Muslims outside the traditional zone of habitation of Greek Thrace? Khirug i am very curious though in the attention you have taken regarding this map as to why you have not devoted this attention not once to Alexikoua's map over the years in correcting issues. For example like colouring areas of solid Muslim habitation as being "Greek", a map which you have defended in the past and are in favour of?Resnjari (talk) 07:49, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the correction in Permet. However, it appears that extensive regions are still painted in red while the correspondent scholarship is in straight disagreement. For example the Lukovo municipal unit is purely Albanian, though according to this source [] Einfuhrung in die Albanologie, 2006 (p. 4-5) based on 1957 observations: Kakome is labelled as Greek speaking and the villages of Piqeras, Lukova und Sasaj are labelled as "Greek-speaking pockets". That's interesting because the specific observations were conducted prior to the forced relocations by the People's Republic authorities.Alexikoua (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Kallivretakis, in his fieldwork noted a different reality and compared matters to previous data and concluded its the same as before with few execptions which he noted. In Lukova and Piqeras he found small numbers of Greeks, not the village being outright Greek (i should note that Kallivratakis did another study in relation to Piqeras noting it being Albanian speaking further back as a large number of them migrated to southern Italy in the 18th century due to local troubles) Sasaj is wholly populated by Muslim Albanians, a thing that even Greek army statistics of 1919 noted. The source you have presented is not even clear saying some villages are mixed or Greek speaking but not saying which one or lumping everything into one. For example Fiedler lists Kakoméa-Bametat-Lefterohor-Derviçan-Nepravishtë-Poliçani all that in that category. So you would have no qualms about coloring villages like Batamat, Lefterohor, Dervican and Polican which Kallivratakis lists as being wholly Greek villages being coloured as mixed with Albanian ? But i do agree on on your interesting remark that those villages that are listed about being wholly Greek by Kallivretakis should be hatched as Albanian (as per your source). While Nepravista is Muslim Albanian something that even the Greek army statistics noted in 1919. Your source also claims that there are 25 Cham villages around Konispol ! Can you please list them because that source is wrong. Kallivretakis does not list that (nor do Greek ones), nor do even Albanian sources. Or should one infer by your comments about relocations that there were once 25 Cham villages in the Konispol area and then Enver removed them and thats why now we have lots Greek majority villages in the area. I can go on here., before jumping the gun on other peoples maps, when are you going to start correcting your POV map that colours areas of solid Muslim Albanian habitation as Greek? And what about the omission of other Muslim communities like the Gorani, or Romani for that matter and others too? Alexikoua the Albanian Muslims, when are they going to be shown in your map as existing instead of POV colouring them as Greeks?Resnjari (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Umm Alexikoua you clearly aren't looking at the map closely because it does not show Lukova as clearly Albanian but has Vlachs and Greeks as per Kallivretakis and etc. As for that source, well, I must examine it further but "25 Cham villages around Konispol" looks .... really weird... as pretty much all sane sources about Konispol have 4-5 (one is mixed) not 25 Cham villages around it.--Calthinus (talk) 02:50, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Resnjari: It appears you didn't read my comments correct: Kallivretakis is based on 1990 data while the paper I've provided is based on a 1953 study, prior to the "policies" of the PRA. I assume that the tiny blue dot above Saranda is about Kakome, but the three villages above Kakome are clearly on the red painted area. If we believe the 1957 study the coastal area between Qeparo and Kakome is Greek with the exeption of Borsh & Qazim Pali. I assume you find it weird about the 25 villages around Konispol because Kallivretakis doesn't inlude several minor settlements in his list (Kakome and Perdikar aren't found in Kallivretakis' list too).Alexikoua (talk) 07:47, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I read that data. Did you read my comments? Your source lists 25 Cham villages. Which are they ? Or is it science fiction? It claims Bametat-Lefterohor-Derviçan-Nepravishtë-Poliçani as being mixed villages etc as well. Taking this into account your source is with errors. As it is with errors why should it be considered accurate, or to put it in another way selectively accurate for a settlement or two? Moreover, Kallivretakis' study states that the demographics of the settlements as found in 1992 aligns with previous compared data (going back into the 19th century) except in few exceptions where there was change in the modern era -and he cites those. Kakome and Perdikar are hamlets of larger villages. See the Soviet army topogrpahic army maps. Perdhikar is a hamlet of Karroq (a village listed as wholly Greek by Kallivretakis) and the hamlet within Karroq's village boundaries -see the cadastre registry. Kakome is a coastal hamlet near Cape Qefali  of Nivice-Bubar and falls within its village boundaries -see the cadastre registry. Kallivretakis notes the small Greek community of 30 persons in the overwhelmingly Orthodox Albanian village of Nivice-Bubar. Calthinius' map give a thin Greek stripe already for the area. By the way  when are you going to start correcting your POV map that colours for starters solid Muslim Albanian areas as "Greek", not to mention addressing the many, many omissions of other ethno-linguistic communities in Albania?Resnjari (talk) 08:22, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Another difference with Kaliretakis is that the 1957 study marks Bamatat as Greek instead of Muslim Albanian.Alexikoua (talk) 07:58, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The 1957 data also lists Lefterohor-Derviçan-Poliçani mixed villages and not Greek only. And of course the 25 Cham villages of the Konispol area? Which are they, can you list them?Resnjari (talk) 08:24, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * As I've said the coastal strip between Kakome and Qeparo needs to be corrected if we believe that 3 of the total 5 villages of this area are "Greek-speaking pockets". The only red area between Himara and Kakome is Borsh & Qazim Pali. To be correct the settlements in Kakome-Dervican etc line are marked as "Greek speaking- in particurlar of mixed speech". The population in the Greek speaking settlements after incorporation in Albania speaks also Albanian as a second language. It's better to avoid the science-fiction or anti-Albanian conspiracy scenarios as in Le Monde Diplomatique.Alexikoua (talk) 09:57, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No, nothing needs to be "corrected" as you infer. The source you have presented is wrong like science fiction of 25 Cham villages in the Konispol area. Once again and not surprised you are cherry picking bits you like, avoiding giving an answer on problematic things i have pointed out like many times before on other map related issues. Until you show some reciprocity and clean up the huge POV in your map (like the coloruing areas of solid Muslim Albanian habitation as "Greek" based on world war one Greek nationalist propaganda like Sotiriaides) i think Calthinius should not continue with this thread and its a done deal his map. Oh and Qosja is a nationalist source you used in your map.Resnjari (talk) 10:54, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It's also interesting that Hammond points to Piqeras in his description of the Greek-speaking villages that were attacked during Ali Pasha's time []. It would be wrong to mark this village as predominantly Albanian while it is mentioned as "Greek-speaking" both in the 18th century and in 1950s. I'm afraid that the one whose cherrypicking is exclusively you. I would appreciate if you avoid conspiracy scenarios for the Albanologie department of the University of Munich & Hammnond. Alexikoua (talk) 10:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , yep and Kallivretakis corrects Hammond. Do you want me to copy and paste the whole Kallivretakis study for you. Its in Greek. The village Piqeras was Albanian speaking and so were the people who left for Italy from that village in the 18th century and those that still are there still speak Albanian and are part of the Arberesh community. Funny how that works. By the way Calthinus has not used any Albanian sources (he has a link to all the sources he used), unlike you who uses Qosja and whose particular work has been evaluated in the scholarly community as a nationalist and full of inaccuracies. And the cherry picking of Wnnifrith etc, etc.Resnjari (talk) 11:09, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I would appreciate if you provide some decent explanation of your personal claim, for example you claim now that Kallivretakis corrects Hammond, nevertheless Kallivretakis does nowhere say that he is correcting Hammond. Both Hammond and the Albanologie department of the University of Munich (a more recent publication compared to Kallivretakis) are wp:RS, as well as Le Monde Diplomatique, and Questions Internationales as you have been instructed in wp:RSN.Alexikoua (talk) 11:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I admit that the continuous attempt to derail the discussion by insisting on "my map" can be considered near trolling activity. I don't believe that this is a constructive approach.Alexikoua (talk) 13:58, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well here is the corection. Hammond on page 30 cites as the basis for his information for that sentence that has at the end of it footnote 2 and at the bottom of the page is the source: Evangelides BE 63. Now Kallivretakis who did a whole study (2003 -Νέα Πικέρνη Δήμου Βουπρασίων: το χρονικό ενός οικισμού της Πελοποννήσου τον 19ο αιώνα (και η περιπέτεια ενός πληθυσμού) on Piqeras, its partial refugee flight to Italy in the 18th century and the Arberesh diaspora from that community who in part relocated to Greece in the 19th century and met a sad end due to disease and poverty of their new settlement (see article ), notes the following: p. 223 on Piqeras Arberesh diaspora being Albanian speaking "Τον  Απρίλιο   του   1875,  επισκέφθηκαν   τον  Έλληνα πρόξενο  στην Ancona Γεώργιο Δουρουτη αντιπρόσωποι σαρανταπεντε αλβανοφώνων οικογενειών του χωρίου Badessa, που βρίσκεται στην περιφέρεια των Abruzzi της Κεντρικής Ιταλίας, με επικεφαλής τον Dimitri de Martinio,". p. 224-225. "Ο  πυρήνας  της  ιστορίας  που  διηγήθηκαν  ο  De  Martinio  και  οι  συγ­ χωριανοί  του  στον  Δουρούτη επαληθεύεται   από  τα   πραγματολογικά  δεδομένα.  Υπάρχει  πράγματι  χωριό  Πικέρνη  στην  παραλιακή  οροσειρά της  Νότιας  Αλβανίας,  25 χιλιόμετρα  βορείως  των  Αγίων Σαράντα  και 30  χιλιόμετρα  νοτίως  της  Χειμμάρας,  υπαγόμενο  διοικητικά  κατά  τον  19ο  αιώνα  στον  Καξά  Δελβίνου  του  Σαντξακίου  Αργυροκάστρου  και  εκκλη­σιαστικά  στην  επαρχία  Δρυϊνουπόλεως.  Το τοπωνύμιο  εμφανίζεται  στις ελληνικές  πηγές  με  τις  παραλλαγές Πικέρνη (του) και Πικέρνι (το), ενώ στην  αλβανική  γλώσσα  αναφέρεται  ως Piqeras ή Piqerasi, και  έτσι  το  αποκαλούν  σήμερα  τόσο  οι  κάτοικοι  του,  όσο  και  οι Έλληνες  της  περιο­χής. Στους πίνακες  του Αραβαντινού,  δημοσιευμένους  το  1856 αλλά  με στοιχεία  της  προηγούμενης  δεκαετίας,  το  χωριό  εμφανίζεται  να  έχει  60 χριστιανικά  σπίτια,  των  οποίων  οι  κάτοικοι  ομιλούν  ελληνικά  και  αλβα­νικά. Το  1878  σημειώνονται  100  σπίτια  «ελληνικά»  κατοικούμενα  από «εμποροπλοιάρχους  πλουσίους,  φιλότιμους  και  φιλομαθείς», το  1885 ισάριθμες  οικογένειες  «ναυτίλων  ή σαλασσεμπόρων»  και  δημοτικό  σχο­λείο  «αξιόλογον», και  το  1913  καταμετρούνται   750  κάτοικοι  «Έλλη­νες», δηλαδή  ελληνορθόδοξοι. Είναι  προφανές  συνεπώς  ότι  το  χωριό δεν  εγκαταλείφδηκε  εξαιτίας  της  μετανάστευσης  της  ομάδας  περί  τους αδελφούς  Μαρτίνου  άλλωστε υπάρχει  ακόμη, υπαγόμενο  στην ομώνυ­μη  κοινότητα  της  επαρχίας  των  Αγίων  Σαράντα  και  έχει  917  κατοίκους  (1989),  οι  οποίοι  παραμένουν  Αλβανοί  ελληνορθόδοξοι  χριστιανοί. Χωριό  Μπόρσι  υπάρχει  επίσης,  σε  απόσταση  6,5  χλμ.  βορείως  του Πικερνη, το  οποίο  σε  όλες  τις  πηγές  εμφανίζεται  κατοικούμενο  από  Αλβανούς  μουσουλμάνους."
 * Lets go over your comment "Both Hammond and the Albanologie department of the University of Munich". Hammond was 1967. The Albanologie department which you cite also says 25 Cham villages of the Konispol area. I asked you a question which are they and where are they because no Greek or even Albanian sources give 25 villages for the Konispol area. This goes to the heart of whether your source is accurate in their observations of which they claim. One other thing, at the RSN non-involved editors proposed their solution by having two maps, (and i only agreed to whatever Calthinius would go along with as it was his map, and thats about it) they did not give a final assessment on Qosja (which is used by the other sources in your map), Sotiriades or did they say for  to take on board any changes which you now are so eager to implement on other peoples maps yet are not even going to do on your map (Greek army statistics never coloured large areas of Muslim Albanian settlement as being Greek, yet your map colours it anyway). In light of this, your insistence here on this page for changes to use your own words "can be considered near trolling activity". Best.Resnjari (talk) 23:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * According to your rationale an older source is "de facto wrong" because a more recent is published and corrects the older one (?). You declared that Hammond is wrong because he was published years before, but in the same manner the publication of the Uni. of Munich is the most up to date we have. There is no reason to question that "Piqeras, Lukova und Sasaj" are "Greek-speaking pockets". It's obvious that the traditional Greek presence in the specific villages were much higher compared to Kallivretakis modern statistics (what makes you believe that there were not c.25 villages and hamlets-not mentioned by Kallivretakis as in the case of Kakome&Perdikar- around Konispol?). Also try to follow wp:CIVIL & if you have some concrete objections about the consensus map that presents traditional settlement of non-Albanian communities you can post your suggestion in the appropriate discussion page.Alexikoua (talk) 06:54, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Where are the 25 Cham villages of Konispol??? Give an answer on that instead of avoiding the question like you have done repeatedly on other issues relating to the map and then i'll engage with this. Hammond is wrong (used one source, an old Greek one) as Kallivretakis has done a whole study on Piqeras, comparing the archive + fieldwork. One again  you are cherry picking a source, as you like something in it while not providing answers about other claims it makes. If you stand by its accuracy once again where are the 25 Cham villages of Konispol ? Which are they ? Also regarding what you refer to a "consensus" map, there is no consensus map. What was stated by outside editors at the RSN was that two maps be in the article. Certain editors went with that recommendation etc, all i said on my part was as long as Calthinus' map is in the article, and that i agree with what Calthinus said. Just so there is no confusion on my position, I have never agreed to your map nor to the sources you have used and am of the view that it is POV and based on problematic sources. Now as you don't want to make huge changes to your map, i am curious as to why you are here asking Calthinus to take all your points on board (on sources which once again have issues and you give no replies to questions) considering that no outside editors stated that he should.Resnjari (talk) 07:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This has been already addresed: it's not my job to correct Kallevrakis in case he didn't include a number of hamlets&small settlements in the area (I named Kakome&Perdikar that aren't found in Kallivretakis list). Another issue about the Greek area is that Kakome is mentioned as the NE corner of the compact Greek area but on the map appears as an isolated pocket, so according to this source: 1. the huge gap between Qeparo and Kakome should contain some blue area (3 villages), 2. the compact Greek area should reach the isolated blue dot (Kakome).Alexikoua (talk) 08:54, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * , umm your "correcting" Kallivretakis. Please. Hamlets/village neighborhoods are not included because they are counted as part of the larger settlement by the state and Kallivretakis has gone by that. As i noted above, Perdhikar falls within the village confines of Karroq -a village (which Calthinus has already coloured as Greek and the area where Perdhikar is located as well) noted as wholly Greek (have you even consulted the maps i provided above or even the national cadastre registry?), while Kakome falls within Nivice-Bubar and Kallivretkis notes the small Greek presence there as part of that village. If you want Kakome coloured separately, ok fine, but then no hatched line/s over the whole of Nivice-Bubar. You cannot have it both ways. Also with Bamatat, i have Fatos Rrapaj who was there and notes it as being a Muslim Albanian village, with only two Greek families living in the village (two Greek families does not make a village Greek). The name of the village is in reference to Baba Mato, a Muslim Sufi saint who is buried in the village. As for the other villages, unless you give an answer about the "25 Cham villages" (as to where they are and which ones they are) i am still treating your source with skepticism. And because you still keep avoiding giving an answer on that matter, about colouring 3 villages these too are to be treated with the same skepticism. By the way when are you going to address the POV in your map that colours solid Muslim Albanian areas as Greek (considering that not even the Greek state did such a thing with its statistics in 1919).Resnjari (talk) 09:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thus, it's good that you agree that Kallivretakis does not count "seperately" hamlets/village neighborhoods in general. There should be no concern now why the more recently published academic paper I've provided counts more settlements compared to Kallivretakis. The name of the village is in reference to Baba Mato, a Muslim Sufi saint who is buried in the village. I assume you are kidding, this can't be your best argument for the ethnic composition of a village (Kolkondas for example isn't Greek because a Greek-Orthodox missionary is burried there).Alexikoua (talk) 11:42, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Once again you are inferring something i never said. I gave you additional info on the village (to familiarize yourself with the area), i don't now why you are bringing Kolkondas in this as its far away. Bamatat has only two Greek families, the rest of the village is populated by Muslim Albanians. Now lets explore that paper you placed. Fiedler says this on page 11 regarding Piqeras. "Die  größte  und  weitaus  bedeutendste  Gruppe  der Albanophonen  außerhalb  des  geschlossenen Sprachgebietes bilden heute die Italoalbaner od. Arb(ë)reschen. Sie sind im   Zusammenhang   mit   den   Türkeneinfällen   aus   dem   heutigen  Albanien   und Griechenland seit dem Anfang des 15. Jh. über die Adria gewandert, besonders nach Skanderbegs  Tod  1468.  Bekannt  sind  Wanderungen  1437 nach Ancona,  1448  nach Kalabrien  und  Sizilien,  1534  aus  Morea,  letzte  bekannte  aus  Piqeras  nach  Villa Badessa in den Abruzzen. This is 100% inline with Kallivretakis' study of Piqeras and its Arberesh diaspora. Now that said your source claims Greek speaking islands in Lukova and Piqeras. He does not say they are in majority, minority, etc in relation to Piqeras or Lukova. Its Kallivretakis who clarifies and notes the small presence of Greeks in those villages in relation to the villages large Orthodox Albanian majorities. Sasaj stands out in that sentence and its Kallivratakis that gives it as wholly Muslim Albanian, something that Greek army statistics of 1919 do too. Moreover Kakoméa-Bametat-Lefterohor-Derviçan-Nepravishtë-Poliçani-Sopiku Fielder says are "die angegebenen Orte sind griechisch-bzw. gemischtsprachig". To translate "the given places are Greek or mixed language". Fiedler does not clarify so i am guessing Lefterohor-Derviçan-Poliçani must be bilingual and not fully Greek. Who does clarify? Once again its Kallivretakis. Now Fielder continues with "Breite  kommt  eine  größere  alb.  (çamische)  Sprachinsel,  die  den  ganzen  Südzipfel Albaniens  mit  ca.  25  Dörfern  um  Konispol" or to translate "The width comes a bigger alb. (Cham) linguistic island covering the whole southern tip of Albania with about 25 villages around Konispol"! Once again Alexikoua where are the 25 Cham villages your sources claims exist in the Konispol area??? Also if you think that Kallivretakis is not RS, you always have the option take that there and test it out, you or others. Anyway some replies would be nice especially on when your going to fix your POV map that colours areas where only Muslim Albanians live as Greeks.Resnjari (talk) 12:45, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately for you I'm fully familiarized with the specific area. As for the c. 25 settlements around Konispol you gave the answer yourself about Kallivretakis as you previously declared (Hamlets/village neighborhoods are not included because they are counted as part of the larger settlement...) i.e. Kallivretakis doesn't count them separately. Let me also help you that the villages of Piqeras, Lukova und Sasaj according to Fiedler are griech.-sprachige Sprachinseln/Greek speaking pockets (based on 1957 observations) and this needs to be portrayed on a map about linguistic groups in Albania. It's also interesting that Kallivretakis didn't count a single Greek in Sasaj in 1990, while it was marked as a Greek pocket during 1957.Alexikoua (talk) 13:37, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Once again you have not familairized yourself with the area because you would have known that Bamatat has only two Greek families, the rest of the village is Albanian Muslim, hence the extra detail needed to be provided. Now you claim that the Cham villages are 25 hamlets. Wrong. You see those links i placed above over there, the ones on the Soviet army maps and the ones from even the Austro-Hungarian army maps. In essence they give details of all settlements (small and big). That covers villages and even their hamlets, yes hamlets. Now when ones looks at Konispol, there are no hamlets in the area, only villages, the ones that Kallivretakis gives as well. So once again i ask you where are the 25 Cham villages of Konispol (note your source specifically notes "Dörfern" i.e villages, not hamlets or even neighbourhoods). So since you say you have such good knowledge of the area it should be of no issue to account for all those villages. Please list them as i am so ever curious to know. Also something else you avoided giving an answer on is that Fiedler says Lefterohor-Derviçan-Poliçani are in the list of villages that are "die angegebenen Orte sind griechisch-bzw. gemischtsprachig". Kallivretakis gives them wholly Greek but Fiedler not being sure says they are either just Greek speaking or bilingual. Thats odd. Are these villages bilingual? Does Calthinus need to hatch these places as being Albanian speaking as well. Or are you selectively going to cherry pick the source once again. By the way since you like to tell others what to do with their maps, when your going to fix your POV map that colours areas where only Muslim Albanians live as Greeks (considering that not even the Greek state did such a thing with its statistics in 1919).Resnjari (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears you are deep into OR territory and selectively choose specific parts that fit your national POV. 1. Now you claim that the Cham villages are 25 hamlets., not me it's Fiedler, 2. Bamatat has only two Greek families, it appears that Fiedler dissagrees with you, 3. I understand that the creationg of such a map is a difficult task and I have to thank Calthinus for his time and effort to examine a huge bibliography that can appear "odd".Alexikoua (talk) 08:54, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Still looking through the source. Yes it looks weird. One useful thing that came up in this convo was population movements. Do we have sources stating tjat Greeks were ultimately moved out of places like southern Lukova commune because of these-- and preferably also any ultimate (i.e. not temporary) effects on the distribution of other groups in the region? That would surely be quite useful for this discussion and also elsewhere.--Calthinus (talk) 15:21, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Apart from 18th century and Piqeras cited by Hammond there were settlements of Albanian populations in the villages of Nivice and Lukove (Albanian majority in post-Socialism) as part of the Socialist era policies.Alexikoua (talk) 22:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, here's what I think. I've already fixed Western Zagori as per your edit on that page, and Permet as per you in the previous kerfuffle, as well as Himara per Khirurg, and I will fix Moscopole per Resnjari and Vurg per Khirurg/Resnjari (will get to this, been busy, sorry). Regarding Lukova, this seems really fishy to me. I wouldn't necessarily question the source, but this is clashing with other sources on various points. I don't feel comfortable making the deduction based on Kallivretakis and Fiedler alone that the difference between them is due to deportations that significantly changed the ethnic makeup of the region. Afaik Lukova and Piqeras had Albanophone populations long before this point (Nivice it's quite possible you're right but I'd still have to look through that village's history somewhat). If you want, however, I can extend the blue hatch mark in the south of Lukove commune so it connects to the rest of the blue area. I believe where the blue hatch mark is in fact covers Nivice anyways. Bueno? --Calthinus (talk) 03:28, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Nivice-Bubar in regards to violence committed against the village is placed in the context of the era of conversion of Orthodox Albanians to Islam in the late 18th century and not of some other ethnicity (see Ramet: p. 204. ). Fiedler is not clear (the 25 Dorfen (villages) of the Chams in the Konispol area) on many fronts, while Kallivretkis in his work undertook fieldwork (with a research team) + archival work comparing data he found with past works. Best.Resnjari (talk) 03:55, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Renjari it appears you are still confused about the dynamic character in local demographics: Kallivretakis work is based on 1990s research while Fiedler's fieldwork (published by a top-graded academic institution) offers data about the 1957 demographic situation. You still need to accept that the PRA regime forcibly moved various population groups. That's the case of the coastal villages between Qeparo and Kakome (the latter isn't even mentioned by Kallivretakis).Alexikoua (talk) 12:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Alexikoua, confused ? Hmm, lets see your POV map shows areas of solid Muslim Albanian settlement as "Greek" (something which even Greek army statistics of 1919 on a village by village did not do). The confusion is on your side. The "1957 demographic situation" as you term it based on Fielder is problematic considering that he claims there are 25 Cham villages (the Dorfern) in the Konispol area which no Albanian or even Greek academic sources note. Other mistakes are Fielder lumping villages that Kallivretakis notes as solely Greek as being bilingual etc, etc. Alexikoua, you claim that the "PRA regime forcibly moved various population groups". Yeah sure they did. Enver settled many Vlachs in ethnic Orthodox and Muslim Albanian villages i the area, the same Vlachs which some number have come out these days as "Northern Epirotes". Can you provide sources to specific villages that you want changes made to that Enver altered their demographics or is this another case of original research ? To @Calthinus, exercise caution. Its your map and you are under no obligation to make changes considering that those calling for change don't bother to correct the huge omissions of communities like the Romani, Gorani, Bosniaks etc that exist with their maps yet alone the other stuff.Resnjari (talk) 12:43, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Until now you selectively dismiss a number of academic papers because they simply don't agree with your personal POV, even more weird in the case of Hammond you admit that only some specific parts are problematic and "have been corrected by others" for example the 18th century Greek-speaking village Piqeras (per Hammond). This is not exactly the right way how wp:RS works. Let me also remind you that the PRA regime installed ethnic Albanian communities in the area. On the other hand those "Aromanians" were already living in the region as nomadic groups.Alexikoua (talk) 19:53, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Resnjari: By the way it's the 5th time in this section you mention "my POV map": a clear attempt to divert the topic (not to mention repeated wp:CIVIL breach) though you have been advised to post your suggestions in the relevant page.Alexikoua (talk) 21:15, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Your POV map, its a POV map, i stand by it all. Moreover its you who has selectively chosen a small handful of works (In case you missed it Calthinus' has sourced a lot and all are academic works) and created a map which omits so many communities while POVishly showing others in areas where they don't exist (like for example Serbs/Montenegrins inhabiting the whole of lake Shkodra which is false). As i have said to you when are you going to address the omission of for example the Gorani, Romani, Bosniaks, not to mention all the Muslim Albanians in southern Albania which Greece via its army in its 1919 statistics to the Peace conference at least showed as existing in Southern Albania. Also i am going to post here because you are asking for changes to someone else map (which a sources that is not clear on certian things, i.e "25" Cham villages of Konispol) when they are under no obligation to do so. As i said at the beginning of this thread, one this talkpage is on my watchlist and two this discussion is an extension on the one had on the map. Hence my participation until it is no longer active.Resnjari (talk) 02:31, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am afraid Alexikoua got a point here. I am saying this even if it is aleady too obvious. We, as editors, *may* scrutinize sources, but we can't use this scrutinization to prove that certain other sources that suit certain POVs are better than them. If an editor asserts that a source is problematic, does not make it something more than just an editorial opinion. I could like to hear whether the sources supporting different views do break the Wikipedia's rules, and not whether a source is problematic according, always, to an editor. To me has long become apparent to me what the case here is: not the differing sources, but an editor not willing to accept the inclusion of sources he does not find himself agreeing with. --❤ S ILENT R ESIDENT  ❤ 02:51, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Silent Resident, "an editor not willing to accept the inclusion of sources he does not find himself agreeing with", that is correct hence my comments about Alexikoua's POV map which does not show ethnic Gorani, Romani, Bosniaks, not to mention the omission of Muslim Albanians (something which Greek army statistics in 1919 shows as a reality). I can go on and on and on. Best.Resnjari (talk) 03:10, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * So you do understand that you are the editor in question I am talking about. Good.
 * And your response to my comment is to bring the argument that your approach is justified on the grounds that another editor, in that case, Alexikoua, happens to not have included the Gorani, Romani, Bosniaks and so on another map? Wow. Wow. Simply wow. Now, if you aren't trying to justify your problematic approach against the WP:RS! Could it it so hard for you to explain to me which Wikipedia rules has Alexikoua violated, instead of showing to me even more of your incompetence as an editor regarding Calthinus' map? (And no, don't point me to WP:CIVIL again, WP:COMPETENCE has nothing to do about other's civility towards you).
 * @ Calthinus, I think this whole discussion about the map has pretty much become pointless as it is apparent that Resnjari's interest is to maintain a very specific map POV than be genuinely interested on the maps themselves. This downgrades the whole effort you put into that map and does not deserve it. But Resnjari is right that this is your map - It is your pick. I don't see why is the discussion still going on, unless someone here is enjoying Resnjari posing as RS Judge. -- ❤ S ILENT R ESIDENT  ❤ 04:21, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@Silent Resident, Alexikoua's map has issues for all the reasons outlined above over and over again that i said. Many of you want to have a continuing discussion about one map (hence me also participating), then so are other maps of the srot up for discussion so that there is no hypocrisy. Best.Resnjari (talk) 05:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Silent Resident: Thanks for your understanding. Unfortunately Resnjari insists to divert the discussion on "my POV map" (though the specific Greek region was first presented by Future Perfect on his map) obviously because there is no serious argument to present against Hammond and Fiedler.Alexikoua (talk) 22:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Alexikoua, your map has always been a focus of attention when the map issue has come up, not just for me but many, many editors over the years and now there is a alternative based on scholarship (which is welcomed) to your POV map. As i said before, Alexikoua when is your map going to show the Albanian Muslims of the area, as not even the Greek army statistics of 1919 on a village by village basis does not colour areas inhabited solidly by them as "Greek" (like your map does). I can go one and on.Resnjari (talk) 06:30, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This discussion is still going on because it takes two to tango. Or, I suppose, three, as there's now a threesome. I'm not going to assign blame but it has gone in a direction that is very much the opposite of productive and being the busy person I am, I simply had better things to do, forgive me. Not going to comment on anything else until you all start treating each other like colleagues. Cheers all and don't let wiki take the joy from your life... --Calthinus (talk) 04:37, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

your last post actually raises a question I've had for quite some time. Perhaps you could answer it here. I'm assuming by 's map you're referring to this one right? It has him as the author, yet I don't see a single upload of his to it. Actually, they're mostly all you. I've always wondered -- did he simply give it to you to upload?

Anyhow, regarding Lukova, as I said, I'm not taking a stance on Fiedler but I am convinced that certain aspects of it are "weird" (such as 25 Cham Albanian villages in Konispol-- unlikely and contradicts almost everything else and has not been adequately explained). This is not necessarily a "no". If you have other sources saying the region spoke Greek, or especially sources that explicitly state your earlier argument that the difference between Fiedler and Kallivretakis is due to internal deportations of Greek speakers, please come forward with them.--Calthinus (talk) 22:53, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @Calthinus, i don't know how much you have read of the Fiedler source, but if the 25 Cham villages of Konispol don't add up (where are they, Alexikoua is yet to provide us with that information), not to mention that he lumps some villages in a bilingual category, when Kallivretakis shows them to be solely Greek speaking. Also he refers to Greek speaking pockets etc in villages like Piqeras, etc and does not say whether is a majority, minority etc, etc. Fiedler is not clear and vague (if you can't read German i can translate that whole paragraph for you that he wrote). Kallivretakis did a in depth study that not only involved himself but a whole Greek university research team that went to all those places on foot and spent time there. Not to mention that in his analysis he notes that most settlements were as they were in the past with the exception of a few news ones that the communist regime created. Places like Piqeras, Lukove, Nivice-Bubar do not fall under those. Moreover the small Greek presence is noted in those villages by Kallivretakis which you have done hatching on your map for. Please take these into consideration. If the above editors keep going on about this, they are more then welcome to place Kallivretakis at the RSN and i will engage with them there on the matter in detail. Best.Resnjari (talk) 06:30, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Lukovo & Nivitsa are marked as villages that became mixed during the PRA regime policy due to the settlement of Albanian populations there (marked in Latin letters in this list [] in p. 568-569). It's also interesting that Dimitropoulos -the author of this Thesis- belongs to the same research team together with Kallivretakis (from 2002 []). Dimitropoulos combined with Fiedler (1957 data) offer no doubt about the dynamic demographic situation in the area. Kallivretakis offers post-socialist data. All of them are fine & we need to have them all. If one editor keeps going on about this, he is more then welcome to place a specific author at the RSN. @Calthinus: F.P. initial map [] about Northern Epirus.Alexikoua (talk) 15:37, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * the link doesn't work for me. Could you give me another one, or send it? Thanks, --Calthinus (talk) 17:09, 22 January 2018 (UTC) (no longer necessary --Calthinus (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2018 (UTC))
 * Resnjari: I fail to confirm Kallivretakis "research team" though this wouldn't make him more credible compared to the rest. I can also find some minor discrepancy in his work: he was unable to confirm the ethnic identity of the Pogon villages, same situation with some settlements in Cepo and Zagorie. It appears none can be perfect.Alexikoua (talk) 19:22, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Alexikoua, with the commune of Zagori he notes it as having an Albanian Orthodox majority and Vlach minority (KOMUNA ZAGORI/KOINOTHTA ΖΑΓΟΡΙΟΥ (ΑΧ+β) before he lists the villages -he is quite clear about that. In Cepo commune he only lists the composition of villages that where fielwdwork was done. But if you are curious about those other villages the Greek army statistics of 1919 give them as Muslim Albanian. On Dimitropoulos an interesting source (a post graduate thesis) and i had a look at it and then remembered where we last had a chat about it some years ago on the Carcove talkpage Talk:Çarçovë (@Calthinus -read that discussion in whole so your familar with things). Since you brought it up, here it goes for Calthinus to be acquainted with issues. First off on Kallivretakis regarding the administrative unit of Pogoni, he only cites the demographic makeup in full of Selcke, the rest of the villages he just lists as Christian (in no way is falsifying the composition of settlements) and on page 28 in the context of discussing Aravantinos refers to Pogoni as Greek. Its Fielder who lumps Polican, a Pogoni village in his category of bilingual villages, while all other sources (Albanian, Greek, foreign etc) give those villages as Greek speaking. Anyway with Dimitropoulos there are a few differences on certain settlements with Kallivretakis. For example Kallivretakis notes Gjashte as being a mixed settlement of having a Cham Albanian majority, Orthodox Albanians (300) and Greeks (220) on page 51, while Dimitropoulos gives Gjashte as wholly Muslim Albanian on page 567. So Kallivratkis would be giving more detailed info in that instance or the correct one. Bamatat is given by Dimitropoulos on page 568 as wholly Muslim Albanian, just like Kallivretakis on page 54. Its only Fatos Rrapaj which i cited above that gives a family breakdown of Bamatat village noting only two Greek families that live there, as opposed to Fiedler's vagueness.Resnjari (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2018 (UTC)


 * That all said Dimitropoulos is an issue for a number of reasons. On page 13 he says the following statements "2) χωριά δίγλωσσα ή χωριά που για διάφορους λόγους (εγκατάσταση εποίκων, πιέσεις κ.ά) επέλεξαν την επίσημη κρατκική γλώσσα αλλά παραμένει ισχυρή στους κατοίκους τους η ελληνική εθνική συνείδηση" translated is "2) bilingual villages or villages that for various reasons (settlement of settlers, pressures etc.) chose the official state language, but the Greek national consciousness remains strong for their inhabitants" and lists the following villages Vuno, Pilur, Qeparo, Kudhes, Piqeras, Lukova, Shen Vasil, Nivica, Xara, Mursi etc. No info on this when this "change" occurred considering that people like Hammond who passed through some of these places in the early interwar period (the Albanian state had only come into existence less then two decades and was weak having limited schools etc) found them to be monolingual in Albanian like Pilur or Mursi. Not to mention that Kallivratiks did a whole study on Piqeras and it has a history of being Albanian speaking (and its Arberesh dispora) centuries before Albania was a country. Interestingly that Arberesh diaspora who lives in Villa Badessa, Italy also came from places like Lukova, Shen Vasil and Nivica) yet they speak Albanian over there not Greek. Where did their Albanian speech come from ? Kallivretakis Piqeras study page 226-227 notes: Η Villa  Badessa  έχει  σήμερα  510  κατοί­κους,  οι  οποίοι  είναι  επαρκώς  ενήμεροι  για  την  ιστορία  του  οικισμού  τους.  Σύμφωνα   με  την  παράδοση   τους,  κατάγονται   από   μια   ομάδα   δεκαοκτώ   οικογενειών   που   εγκατέλειψαν   τον   οικισμό   του   Πικέρνη,  κυρίως,  αλλά  και  ορισμένα  άλλα  χωριά  της  ίδιας περιφέρειας  στα  νότια  της  Χειμμάρας  (Λούκοβο,  Άι  Βασίλη,  Νίβιτσα, Klikùrsi) και,  πιθανότατα   μέσω  Κέρκυρας,  έφθασαν  το   1743  στην  Ιταλία,   συνοδευόμενες από  δύο  ορθόδοξους   ιερείς." Also Dimitropoulos does not inform how or when this happened or even give a citation from some other source to trace it. Continuing on he lists on page 13 Lukova and Nivica as places which "adopted" the state language, i am guessing he is refering to the Albanian language as he does not spell it out there. This contradicts what he says about Lukova (p.568) and Nivica (p. 569) placing them in the category of "Εγκατάσταση Αλβανών" or "Installation of Albanians/Installed Albanians". If the Albanian speaking element is all "settled" there, how can it be that the population of those villages adopted Albanian under the Hoxha regime ? Kallivretakis gives Lukova as 2076 Albanian Christian, Albanian Muslim 250 and Greek 120 and Nivica is 899 Albanian Christian and 30 Greeks. Dimitropoulos cites a Muslim Albanian population for both villages while the Greek army statistics of 1919 cite no Muslim Albanians there at that time. When Dimitropoulos refers to "installed Albanians" is he refering to Muslim Albanians ? Some clarity is needed.Resnjari (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Continuing on Dimitropoulos says on page 13. "3) χωριά που οι κάτοικοί τους είναι σήμερα μουσουλμάνόί και αλβανόφωνοι, αλλά γνωρίζουν ότι ένα μέρος τους προέρχεται από τους ντόπιους ελληνικούς πληθυσμούς της περιόχής" which translated is "3) villages whose inhabitants are today Muslims and Albanians, but know that a part of them comes from the local Greek population of the area" and lists Pandalejmon, Markat, Janjar, Sopik, Çiflik, Stjar etc. Dimitropoulos' source is a Greek book published in Albania (2005) and he cites from it as his evidence of this a Greek folk song on Panadalejmon converting to Islam from Christianity. Ok, however there is nothing in that song which refers to some linguistic or ethno-identity change, just a religious one. From that he infers that those Cham villages (Kallivretakis cites them as Cham Muslim Albanian) had a "Greek origin". Is he meaning "Greek" in a religious sense or is Dimitropoulos saying they were "Greek" in a ethno-identity sense ? Another issue is that he cites Sopik as being Muslim. This is outright false as they never have been Muslim (if that was true when did they covert to Islam and why are they Orthodox now?) Albanian sources note it as Orthodox Albanian and Kallivretakis does the same. If you want a detailed breakdown of the families of the villages Sopik is all Orthodox  as noted by Fatos Rrapaj.Resnjari (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Some corrections from the above comments: Dimitropulos paper is a Phd dissertation, Kallivretakis was unable to identify ethnicity in 4 Zagori villages: HOSHTEVE, VITHUQI, LLIAR, DOSHNICA (labelled simply Christian) and Pogon apart from Selcke and in some villages he was unable to identify any ethno-religious background: ANDON POÇI, ÇEPUNA, KODER, TARORINA, VALARE. Dimitropolous (Kallivretakis' colleague in the same research team and supervisor since 2002) sheds additional light in the dynamic character of the local demographic condition. It's also interesting that the village Qasim Pali (next to Borsh) was created by the PRA authorities during the socialist era, thus the clear red area between Qeparo-Saranda should be limited to Borsh.Alexikoua (talk) 13:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually Kallivretakis noted for the whole of the Zagori commune that it had a Orthodox Albanian majority with a Vlach minority. After noting that, with some villages he notes only their religious composition. With Pogon he noted its religious composition and in the article the reference about it being Greek when discussing Aravantinos. With other villages that he cites those that are blank he did not go to, that is why they are blank and also they are located within an area that is Albanian speaking, not Greek speaking (i can get Kokollakis here, or even Thede Kahl for Vlachs living in Andon Poci and Valare). Dimitropolous has issues regarding certain villages and a contradiction on the example which you highlighted such as Lukova and Nivica. In one instance he claims that that the Albanian element is "installed" on the other hand the claims that the villages adopted the state language (Albanian? does not elaborate) due to "pressure" from the state (no source or further explanation). Which is it? Not to mention that he claims a whole host of other villages that are identified in academic literature as Orthodox Albanian speaking to somehow have adopted the "state language". But how can that be when Orthodox villages like Piqeras were Albanian speaking centuries before (and their Arberesh diaspora as well stills speaks Albanian, not Greek) before an Albania existed ? Also what of the Cham villages and Dimitropolous' claim of a "Greek origin" based on a Greek folk song about Pandelejmon village which only refers to religious conversion and not ethno-identity or linguistic change. In 2015 when i brought up the issue on the Carcove page, Alexikoua wrote a comment (making some OR and somewhat personal point of view comments on Markat that Kallivretakis never noted) and then backtracked with the words "have to double check" (although in that comment Alexikoua still deferred to Kallivretakis as the go to source on demography issues of the area). Now if Alexikoua was not confident with that part of Dimitropolous, why should other editors take at face value the rest of his work when there are other issues?Resnjari (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Kallivretakis' work is peer reviewed, Dimitropolous is a PHD thesis and Wikipedia states the following on use of those sources (WP:SCHOLARSHIP): "Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by third parties. Dissertations in progress have not been vetted and are not regarded as published and are thus not reliable sources as a rule. Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources. Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." @Calthinus, with this source you need to vet Dimitropolous thoroughly due to issues and also with even Alexikoua in the past being unsure about claims it makes on the Chams. Also Kokolakkis who did a study of the area on the late Ottoman linguistic and religious situation of the area, is in line with Kallivretakis and not Dimitropolous on language of some of those Orthodox villages of the area which Dimitropolous refers to. If we cherry pick part of that (as Alexikoua is calling for to colour this, that or the other) then its also POV and we end up with a result like Aleixkoua's map where he used for example the Vlach distribution from Winnifirth but ignored the Greek one which in that work aligns with you map and not the result that is Alexikoua's map. Just sayin'. Best.Resnjari (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Lets count them: Dimitropoulos (but not Kallivretakis who works for Dimitropoulos' research team), Fiedler, Hammond have "issues" according to the POV presented by Resnjari. It's also interesting by claiming that Aravantinos corrects Kallivretakis about Pogon, nevertheless Aravantinos is dismissed in another case when he claims that Moscopole has Greeks. So many wp:ACADEMIC&SECONDARY need serious arguments to have them dismissed in RSN.Alexikoua (talk) 22:30, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * were is the page number about Dimitropoulos and Kallivretakis. Want to double check before i comment.
 * User Resnjari is dangerously close to violating Wikipedia's rules regarding WP:RS. I highly recommend that any RS whom their reliability is questioned or disputed by them, is taken to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Sorry but the RS can not be left to the personal judgements of a certain editor, especially on such sensitive issues of the Greco-Albanian topic areas. -- ❤ S ILENT R ESIDENT  ❤ 22:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Silent, your claim about "dangerously close to violating Wikipedia's rules regarding WP:RS. Nope only according to you. An RS on a source can happen anytime by which ever editor on any source. At the last RSN the proposal by non-involved editors was that Calthinus can be added to articles. There was nothing about this, that or the other for changes to be made, as all of you are going on here. Question is why are you all here on Calthinus' talkpage requesting things when non-involved editors made no such resolution?Resnjari (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Part 2
Lukova commune dispute, organized

the contentious page 13 statement by Dimitroupolis: "ρσξηά δίγισζζα ή ρσξηά πνπ γηα δηάθνξνπο ιφγνπο (εγθαηάζηαζε επνίθσλ, πηέζεηο θ.ά.) επέιεμαλ ηελ επίζεκε θξαηηθή γιψζζα αιιά παξακέλεη ηζρπξή ζηνπο θαηνίθνπο ηνπο ε ειιεληθή εζληθή ζπλείδεζε (π.ρ. ΐνχλν, Πχιηνπξη, Κεπαξφ, Κνχδεζη, Πηθέξλη, Λνχθνπβν, Άγηνο ΐαζίιεηνο, Νίβηηζα, Σδάξα, Μνπξζί θ.ά.), " (for some reason the characters are corrupted but you get the idea ...)

(some towns I can't find using hte searcher, but I've noticed Dimitropoulos spells some wrong in Latin -- ex "Sarante")

(renamed because I already have a section titled "map")

where is Bamatat, you sure its in Lukove? Kallivretakis doesn't have it, in Wikipedia it's in Delvine munic. Also, what is the deal with Perparim?

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SamHolt6 (talk) 14:31, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing it...
Regarding Talk:2017–18 Iranian protests. I'm not ruling out the possibility that I'm just not getting it, but source 2 and 3 do not seem to make the strongly implied connection in the proposed text. Also, source 2 predates the protest by four years, so it has questionable relevance, unless another source (that we are citing) has cited it.- MrX 🖋 14:39, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I'm looking for it right now. Slow internet connection. Sorry. I've self-reverted until I can find it because accountability is important. []--Calthinus (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * and please see read all of this. This was the statement the page had before Expectant of Light deleted it (when it was restored it seems some things may have changed). Whole version: []. Relevant sentence: Instead, the benefit from sanctions relief mostly went to state firms and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's own "private financial empire",[42][43], estimated at $95 billion in 2013[44][45], while in late 2017 an estimated 33% of Iranians lived in poverty and the gap between the rich and poor had increased greatly.[43][46] CNN's Hamid Panah argued that these distributional developments in the economy helped stoke the protests.[43]


 * Please note that I was not hte one who added the "vast majority" statement" as you can see above. I had said 33%-- it was Expectant of Light who changed my cited text to say that, which the sources didn't support, as you can see here : [].


 * Here is where the connection is made by Hamid Panah : All of this is not to say that the dire economic conditions in Iran are not a factor in these protests. An estimated 33% of the population lives in poverty. And the nuclear deal has done little to improve the economic realities that ordinary Iranians face, with sanctions relief mostly benefiting state firms and the Supreme Leader Khamenei's own private financial empire.


 * Regarding the $95 billion it is true that it comes from a Reuters source in 2013 (although we could actually fix this as 2017 and 2018 sources are now mentioning the same number -- i.e. Bret Stephens). Pincrete and I reached an agreement to include this in a short three-word reference yesterday.


 * Regarding the gap, upon inspection it appears Panah did not say this. Instead, it came from IHRM apparently:

An official housing expert said more than 33% of Iran’s population are not able to provide the minimum, housing for their families. A member of the parliamentary Social Committee believes that 70 to 80 percent of the people in Tehran live under the poverty line. Rampant poverty and the unfair distribution of wealth which has increased the gap between the rich and the poor has nearly destroyed the middle class, pushing low-income segments of the population who do not afford city life, to take up refuge in the outskirts of cities.


 * It does appear I was clumsy in adding the statement about hte gap. I had thought it came from Panah but hte real source was IHRM. It was added as part of the an agreement with Pincrete. [].


 * Where to go from here? Obviously I don't support hte "vast majority" statement as I didn't add it and it's nto supported by my sources. As for the gap, I believe we can find a separate source that connects these to the protests. For now, I support zzz's initiative to delete it. --Calthinus (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the proposal should be abandoned and re-proposed in a form that uses third-party sources, preferably news sources, and strictly adheres to WP:OR. That may be as simple as breaking the material up into discrete sentences, with attribution where necessary. I can't take a deep dive into this right now because I'm (supposed to be) working.- MrX 🖋 15:06, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah we're all busy. Please read it when you get a chance. --Calthinus (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you realize where some of the issues are. You can't connect all these things together in a cause-effect chain based on different sources. Panah is not clearly saying that the protests are (in part) due to Khamenei funneling sanction relief money to his financial empire. We certainly could not say that in Wikipedia's voice. As I said, I think a revised proposal is warranted.- MrX 🖋 15:19, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Neither the source nor I say the protests are due to "Khamenei funneling sanction relief money" like he grabbed it directly or something. Everyone agrees it's more complicated than that and has to do with how the Iranian economy works, and it is a firm Khamenei controls, Setad that is benefitting, not him directly. I could give you tons of sources demonstrating this (Reuters has a 2017 source on this too) but it seems you don't have time. But look at the Panah quote: "... not to say that the dire economic conditions in Iran are not a factor in these protests... with sanctions relief mostly benefiting state firms and the Supreme Leader Khamenei's own private financial empire." I could be wrong, but I do believe this is indeed Panah saying that the fact that sanctions relief benefited state firms and Khamenei's financial empire was in part a reason for the protests. I could be wrong, but that was the result of a hard-won consensus between myself and Pincrete.--Calthinus (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That is a reasonable interpretation of what Panah wrote, although I'm not sure why he uses such circumspect wording.- MrX 🖋 19:54, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

You deserve this!
Note: "The Half Barnstar is awarded for excellence in cooperation, especially for productive editing together with someone who holds diametrically opposed viewpoints." -- M h hossein   talk 20:12, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Turanian etc.
Thanks for the notice. It's important that we cover historically important theories, even those that have been refuted or superceded (Lamarckism, Phlogiston theory, etc.). At the same time, we need to be completely clear to readers about the current status of these theories.

I'm not quite sure what I can contribute to the Turanian case... do you have suggestions? --Macrakis (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually I wasn't contacting you to suggest the two of us do something about Turanism -- the entire topic is a mess but I don't have time and I suppose its better unreadable than misleading and promotional (Lamarckism seems a workable solution).
 * Instead, I contacted you because if it were me I would have liked to know if there was a relevant discussion going on (sometimes I wonder what is the best way ethically to go about it). The topic was relevant to our old convo, and also the fact the recent trend of unqualified citations of Richard Lynn (the guy who claims there are racial intelligence differences but has heaps of criticism trailing his works)-- but in hindsight it was a dumb idea. Because the thread is, well, disappointing... and I've probably wasted your time. Sorry for that, --Calthinus (talk) 03:20, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Foreign volunteers in Afrin
Calthinus, they are in the "Order of battle" article. If you check once again you will see the "International Freedom Battalion" listed there. All of the foreign YPG volunteers are part of that unit. We also mentioned "international volunteers" at the top of the article. If it will make you more comfortable we can add under the "International Freedom Battalion" that they include "American, British, and German volunteers", just like it already lists the MLKP and TKP/ML TİKKO. Yes volunteers are also listed in other infoboxes, but its a matter of unit compositions, and these are part of a specific unit. We have also listed the pro-Turkish volunteers in the "Order of battle" as part of their own unit, the Grey Wolves. Hope this clears it up now. EkoGraf (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * PS I have no objection to your addition, here, of the mention of the volunteers to the main body of the article. I agree they deserve a mention and its a more appropriate place to mention them since this specific infobox has been constructed in such a way that unit compositions are listed in the spin-off article "Order of battle". Now, after I have made my expansion in the "Order of battle" of battle article, they are mentioned in two places: the main body of the article where you put them and more clearly in the "Order of battle".EkoGraf (talk) 20:50, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * -- you're right, I missed that, thanks for explaining. You're reasoning seems fairly sound then, I agree the current version is best. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Glad you think so! :) EkoGraf (talk) 21:28, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Changing comments on talk pages
Hi, about your changes at the Afd: see WP:REDACT for why it can be problematic to change even your own comments on a talk page, especially if someone has already responded to you. There is a way to do it: use strikeout type so people can see what was there before, and also see what you changed your mind about. If you don't want it to still say, 'Delete or rename' because that's not what you believe anymore, then just say, "Delete or rename My new opinion here." and add a sig with the new date to show when you revised it. I usually do that in small type to make it easy for people to figure out what's been changed when, but you don't have to. You could even just do a superscript note with FIVE tildes to get just the date, by typing, [modified at ], which would give you something like this:    Delete or rename My new opinion here.[modified at 09:08, 16 February 2018 (UTC)] Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 09:08, 16 February 2018 (UTC)


 * it was really my bad, my apologies. I have been warned about it before, but I was careless this time and making an edit fast (had to run) in response to Khirurg's criticism of it. In the future I will try my best to keep this all in mind and avoid confusion in the future by using the strikeout as specified. Let me know, is the current version of the page with regard to my comment acceptable? --Calthinus (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Franks
I can read Dutch, but I think some of the editors of this article also can. Better to also post there. I will try to find time to look.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I asked you because I lnow you're versed in genetics literature too. I'll post it there right now.--Calthinus (talk) 21:18, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

First Northern war Israel's and Syrian
Hi Calthinus my name AdmiralNelson analyst on war Middle East, I would like you add new article sources a new war called first northern war, it's about Israel war against Syria, Iran after drone knock down in last February. Here article http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/with-iran-operating-in-syria-israel-girds-itself-for-first-northern-war-1.4553594 AdmiralNelson (talk) 21:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, I really shouldn't be on Wikipedia right now (super busy for next few weeks), I'm much less an expert than some other users about the Iran-Israel proxy conflict, and I'm not sure what specifically you want me to add. Perhaps or  have a free moment some time this week and are nice enough to see what should be done, if anything, with this one? I think they're both more expert on this issue than myself anyways. --Calthinus (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I want you add on articles about Israel against Syria and Iran I already link article you want read and add articles or you can tell them to do it. AdmiralNelson (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
 * See February 2018 Israel–Syria incident. First northern war is CRYSTALBAL at the moment - though it might come to pass. Thenincident itself is covered.Icewhiz (talk) 02:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree with Icewhiz. At the moment, no reliable sources state there is actually a war between Israel and Syria/Iran. The source you provided talks about preparations for a war, but not that there really is one. And as Icewhiz pointed out, Wikipedia's policy forbids creating articles for events that may or may not take place in the future. As for the February incident, we already have an article. EkoGraf (talk) 03:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

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Comment
Your recent reverts hardly help. Continue the discussion. If by some strange reason there would be a concensus to remove persecution of Serbs and campaigns of desecration then go ahead. If you insist, we could start a community opinion on the matter of inclusion.--Z oupan 09:15, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have nothing against including a passage on WWII persecution of Orthodox who happened to be Serbs-- but what we have is a passage on persecution of Serbs who happened to be Orthodox, the sources are simply repeatedly failing to verify any animus against specifically the Orthodox, with the exception of the Uniatization stuff that I didn't touch. I have even given ideas of where to find such info that can be included, and offered compromises. But you have not been engaging my offers. When I first saw that readded stuff I was hopeful that perhaps you had actually found something that attributed actual anti-faith (not anti-national) motives. I looked in the sources used (yes I can use Google Translate, thank you), and found that my hopes crumbled. Do not do this again.--Calthinus (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

FYI - my revert on Talk:Anti-Russian sentiment
Since you thanked me for my revert, I just wanted to give you a status. I reported the user via Responding to threats of harm. Staff said they're looking at it, but I don't expect a status either way as it's probably confidential. I'm watching the IP but if you see the editor return, I'd really appreciate it if you let me know so I can watch out too. The rant was disturbing and I want to be cautious about this.

Thanks! -- KNHaw  (talk)  21:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Absolutely I will let you know -- that crap was vile, thank you for promptly removing it. If it occurs, I may also contact an admin and request a range block on the IP. We can't have any tolerance for this stuff.--Calthinus (talk) 19:41, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

There are still many things to learn
There are still many things you should learn; One of them is that when something is covered by a reliable source, we can use it. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF THEM, if they are covered by those sources. We only should be careful to avoid denying or verifying them. We just write them. Said, that your edit warring summary note, i.e. "This should not be here until we can resolve these basic facts about the reporting ethics in this case" is supported by none of the guidelines of Wiki. -- M h hossein   talk 18:08, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * you're correct, we aren't. However, when we are presented with RS challenging sources for which are already often considered not RS by Wikipedia (i.e. RT), in this case the report by the Intercept found by, things change. That is what happened. Can we please keep this discussion on the relevant talk page? --Calthinus (talk) 18:11, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey, It's not that hard. The Guardian talked about an interview, so can we. We did not say it saw real or otherwise. We could the Intercept material to it. -- M h hossein   talk 18:16, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes that was my point of view before the Intercept article came out. But other editors such as MrX (who you may remember) have also raised the issue that if hte page is filled with all the various stories reported primarily by Russian/Syrian outlets trying to poke holes in the main narrative, it just gets bewildering and if there is a possibility the dubiously relevant report about a single boy is at least fabricated, then the balance starts moving toward the direction of "is this cluttering the page". But I'm not a deity. how about we open an RfC about it?--Calthinus (talk) 18:20, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

My previous post
May have been a little harsh. Things can easily get heated in this environment. Apologies and no hard feelings. Khirurg (talk) 00:01, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * thoughts appreciated. Despite being rather pissed off today I do respect you as an editor and you've cleaned up many a mess that I might've had to otherwise. To be fair it is legitimate and appreciated to double-check sources-- I like others am hasty and I can miss things as wiki has to compete with real life. --Calthinus (talk) 00:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the note at Ahed Tamimi
What you see on the page is not my edit, but my edit snipped of its introductory remarks ('Shrike strikes again with a blind revert without examining the evidence' onwards), and weirdly meshed with text addressing the Graceful Snick and several sources. You can see my edit on my own page. If I post it as a section there, it comes up: if I post under new section the same stuff on the Ahed Tamimi page, it is dismembered and reassembled with text higher up. I can't figure out the glitch, but that's nothing new, since I don't have a clue about the technical formalities. Thanks anyway.Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey -- apologies. I wasn't really sure what you meant but I figured it was referring to the huge reflist that was falling right in the middle of your post. Thought I could help, but perhaps it turned out that was just as confused as you were though. --Calthinus (talk) 21:33, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

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Gjon Kastrioti move request
You previously participated in discussions of the title of the Gjon Kastrioti article. The issue is again under discussion here if you care to participate. —  AjaxSmack 17:25, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

1R
2018 Gaza border protests falls under the ARBPIA WP:1RR rule, which you just broke


 * 20:28, 5 July 2018‎ Ist revert
 * 20:51, 5 July 2018‎ 2nd revert

I don't fuss and jump to report these things, but the proper procedure is to self-revert. Regards.Nishidani (talk) 07:42, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I shouldn't edit after a late lunch, sleepily. Regards Nishidani (talk) 13:54, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Threaded discussion section.

 * Thanks for your valuable comments on the RFC. would you mind if you move our (both of us') threaded discussion out of !Vote section to the section titled Talk:Khalistan_movement, If so you have my agreement to also include my comments and move to the appropriate section below. -- D Big X ray  21:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, that's fine by me. Also I might add -- if this debate were solely about the alleged "resurgence" of the movement my vote would probably be different. However you made it about whether it is active -- i.e. it exists -- at all by involving the List of active separatist movements in Asia. That drastically lowers the threshold for side "Support" and raises it for side "Oppose". You should either commit to that, or clarify that that was not your intention. --Calthinus (talk) 21:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. yes the whole dispute started on the word resurgence. midway the other party realized that there isnt really any solid source to claim resurgnce. So he simply changed the wordings to active. IMHO there is not much difference between the two. Yes there are fringe supporters, yes there are fringe terrorists being arrested. (if you read my proposed version, you will find that it is implied that they exist and I am not denying).  but they have been there since 1980s . And their existence that did not stop the academic sources and MSM to claim movement petered out in 1990s and never actually got back the Mainstream support it had to call it a resurgence or active movement. User Gazoth recently commented and I am in agreement with his rationale.  regarding the List of active separatist movements in Asia , now I believe it would need a second RFC on that page itself as per the reasons you gave. -- D Big X ray   21:32, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I have self reverted here with the intention of not making the RFC unnecessarily complex that what it already is. we here are discussing about the 2 versions and weather the KHALISTAN MOVEMENT article should claim resurgence/active/exist/support recently surfaced/etc/etc synonyms that were used by the other party at some point or the other.
 * Based on the clarification above, Can you remove this -- D Big X ray  21:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC).

Houthis
Hey Calthinus, can you have a look at this? The new editor has made a proposal on the talk page of Houthis. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks Ktrimi!!! --Calthinus (talk) 20:41, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

SPI craziness
Hi! I saw your edit on the SPI, thanks a lot! Until this seemingly endless investigation actually ends, could you re-instate this edit? It was added per my request by another expert user, and reverted (as usual) simply because of the SPI. Mithrandir the Grey (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I don't think reinstating Yaniv's edit is the best course of action for me at this time. I'm gonna see how this one plays out. Maybe Yaniv will add it again anyways.--Calthinus (talk) 22:34, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Alleged
FYI, regarding this edit, according to BLP rules (WP:PUBLICFIGURE), "allegation" is proper. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:40, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * ...and other forms of that word. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:41, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * There were entire clauses that existed solely to drop the word-- yes, charged and remember that this is BLP for Ford too -- in, like "Responding to the Ford allegations, Trump" -- of course he's responding to it, it's the topic. It's better to just say "Trump said X" rather than "responding to the Ford allegations/claims/accusations/etc, Trump said X " because in the very charged topic of sexual assault these words happen to be toxic -- for both sides, in fact. I mostly deleted this sort of unnecessary crap. The way it was being used compounded with the existing problems of WP:CLAIM -- not WP:ALLEGED --Calthinus (talk) 01:18, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I was looking at your edit on my phone and got the impression you were out to eliminate every instance of the word. I may well be wrong. I just wanted to let you know that the word "alleged" is okay. Otherwise, go ahead and improve the article. That was my only point. I wasn't attacking you. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:38, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay -- thanks. Wiki is like that, you know. --Calthinus (talk) 03:18, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Sardinians
Seeing what is happening elsewhere (other articles), I am inclined to agree that this removal really is the best course of action, and is probably the best solution across the site for all national groups. However, I probably wouldn't have removed it so boldly. Of course there is no way I am going to put it back, but if another editor chooses to then we're all going to have to use that talk page to decide on a) the section's future, and b) if it should remain, who is listed and why. But while you mention it, listing French and Italians et al as related people is only as "arbitrary" as the first sentence of the article which identifies with Sardinians as a "Romance people", something not extended to the Basques, and something neither given to imply that Sardinians represent a "Basque/Romance hybrid" either. For what it is worth, if there are sources on the two nations heavily mixing then by all means put these in the article and place them on any ethnogenesis heading. At least that way, people can make their own minds up because as you rightly assume, it seems we all have different ideas on relationship. --Coldtrack (talk) 18:58, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi . You misunderstand me, but there are some issues with "Romance peoples" where Sardinians are concerned. Thought it best to raise these here, sorry if it got a bit winded. The cite at the top of the article was Minahan -- who is not a geneticist or anthropologist. I've removed it. I'd be fine with reinstating it in the body of the article, not the lede. The long version of the issues are below, with some RS cites -- there are severe issues with the term "Romance peoples" (a category error as Romance is a language group not a population group, with little support in genetics or anthropology) and especially its application to Sardinians (who, genetically at least have been shown to be at least 78% native to the isle with respect to recorded history, and much of the influx is modern Italians and global immigrants not Romans). I'd be fine reinstating the Spanish-Basques-Italians-Corsicans formula, but we can't WP:CHERRYpick by including Spanish but not Basques when the source mentioned both [its title: HLA antigens in a sample of the Spanish population: common features among Spaniards, Basques, and Sardinians], and "French (Corsicans)" is problematic for reasons that modern French identity is a nationality, not a "tribe"/ethnie. --Calthinus (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Sardinians are well known to be a genetic isolate population within Europe -- indeed RS estimates from the genetics research holds that at least some 4/5ths (78.4% to be exact) of the island's genome arose in situ with regard to recorded history -- see here . This means that all the historical occupations of the isle had minimal effect; the ongoing Italian rule of the island which has also seen considerable in-migration from foreigners around the globe in the global age has obviously had the most noticeable effect. This includes the minimal effect of the Roman imperial occupation that caused a language replacement such that the Sardinians forgot their native language and adopted the prestige language of Latin, while maintaining notable effects from the native substratum. I don't think we can explain this sort of intricacy in the tiny "Related peoples" tab; at the same time it is a bit misleading to give off the impression that Sardinians might be descended from Roman settlers when, for 78.4% of their genome, that is held by professional research to be impossible.
 * 2) Beyond that, "Romance people" is a category error (no page exists for "Romance peoples" -- instead it redirects to Italic peoples, which describes people in pre-Roman Italy...) -- Romance is a language group not a population one, and it is not any sort of consensus in the literature that "Romance" exists as a valid grouping either genetically or culturally. Indeed most people do not need to be told that there are not strong resemblances either genetically or culturally between Haitians, Peruvians, Romanians and Salonican Sefardis. But this applies not only to the effects of modern and medieval imperialism, but also ancient Roman imperialism. Romanians are indisputably genetically much closer to Bulgarians and Albanians than Italians, and once you stop listening to Romanian nationalists it's pretty difficult to place what sort of cultural resemblance they still bear to Spaniards (though since 1830 or so there has been a trend of intentional aping of Italians and French by Romanians, thanks to nationalism). The current historical linguistics in the case of French holds that the native Gaulish language survived the Roman period, only succumbing in the early middle ages (see: Laurence Hélix (2011). Histoire de la langue française, page 7 : Pendant près de 500 ans, la fameuse période gallo-romaine, le gaulois et le latin parlé coexistèrent; au VIe siècle encore; le temoignage de Grégoire de Tours atteste la survivance de la langue gauloise). Aside from Napoleon's little "Latin" phase, the French also have historically resisted attempts to group them culturally with other Romance speaking peoples to their south whom they referred to with a number of slurs (which were also applied even to the Provencal population of Marseilles which is technically French) -- you can see this in classic French literature like that of Ernest Renan, but there is even is attestation of them using "celtique" in the Old French even to refer to themselves (nowadays this does not happen, since the word now means the Celts of the British Isles), and variously traced their origins to Gauls, Franks, Greeks or Goths -- not Romans. There are also considerable genetic distances between Italian, especially South Italian, populations and the Spanish, while the Aromanians don't even have an identifiable genetic profile at all per Bosch et al. Genetically the same can be said for "Turkic peoples" and to a lesser extent "Slavic peoples" (when you include South Slavs) and "Germanic peoples" -- but in those cases at least there is a clear cultural commonality that can be supported with topically reputable RS in anthropology, studies in perceptions of ethnic identity etc (i.e. at least people think they are related ... even when they aren't as much as they think).
 * Imo on the page before: (it had related peoples Italians, Basques, Spanish and Corsicans). French really shouldn't be there as the French don't consider their ethnicity nowadays to be some sort of "tribal" thing where you have "cousins" -- it is solely a contract between a state and its people whether they descend from Romans or Gauls or Neanderthals or Algerians or Vietnamese or whatever. The others were actually much more reasonable -- and to a degree sourced. Sardinians are part of Italy and thus have been profoundly influenced by (other) Italians culturally, with some in-migration and mixing. The Spanish I presume was due to hte genetic study that linked Sardinians to Iberians-- since both have more input from those pre-Indo-European populations-- Basques being (I presume) the Iberian population least Indo-Europeanised. Aside from this one could mention and cite traceable cultural influences from the time of Aragonese rule on the island, which did see the settlement of Catalan people in Alghero. Corsicans additionally have a relationship with Sardinia and the northern part of the isle actually speaks Corsican (see Gallurese language) -- not Sardinian. This was all reasonable and somewhat cited. I'd be fine with restoring it-- but we are not WP:CHERRYpicking which related peoples mentioned by the sources given in the section we are mentioning. However, on other pages, related peoples' sections have been extensively criticized for being arbitrary and I figured it was better to be consistent. --Calthinus (talk) 17:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply Calthinus, and yes I see all your points. In that case, yes, leave if off as you have done. In time they may all be removed if what I'm seeing elsewhere sets a precedent. The issue at hand is actually far simpler than shady blood tests and reports of mixing. I'm - sadly in this case - from the school that dispenses with ethnogenesis for a list of reasons as long as the Nile; not least because my own people wouldn't be related to each other between west and east let alone others. To use Ukrainian identity as an example, the definiton of Ukrainian is a person who declares his ethnicity to be Ukrainian, regardless whether his parents are non-Slavic Tatars. As a matter of fact, the only thing to make them Tatars in the first place is that this is how they as parents have identified :) . In history, nations have come and gone, and have been absorbed into neighbouring races, etc.! Now in the case of Corsica and Sardinia, there is something striking in what both populations represent which is that they are insular for one, and their reasons for being parts of a French and Italian state respectively rather concerns the more domineering aspirations of the "bigger nation" as is always the issue. That said, Sardinian individualism separate from Italy is not based on contact with Basques, just as Basque mixing need not have been stopped in Sardinia. For anybody to claim it does would also be implying Sardinians are a hybrid. I gather you know that there is no tribal element to Dutch and German ethnicity. It seems that the border does a good job of keeping you Dutch on one side and German on the other, while the two languages are subject to a dialect continuum. With the Turkey and Azerbaijan border region (i.e. Nahcivan region) it is fractionally more fluid with some calling themselves Azeri in Turkey, or Turkish in Azerbaijan. But in my native Ukraine, 8 million declare Russian and I tell you that these are not Moscovites who relocated, these are as local as my family. Along the ethnic fringes, there is even difference within families as one sibling declares Russian and the other Ukrainian, and at the next census they might both switch. So what makes a Sard is what declares itself as Sard, and if the Sards really and truly overnight embraced Italian identity, then this would no more make Italians more Basque, or less Romance. Geneticists today believe that Hungarians have barely a trace of their Uralic ancestry, and that their code makes them more Slavic, south Germanic and East Romance (i.e. their neighbours). But then if this is so, then it stands to reason that the Uralic Magyar must also have his seed in the surrounding non-Magyar people including possibly my very ancestors (I am from Lviv). Bottom line: modern-day people to declare Hungarian live in about eight states (as natives) and all embrace Árpád and the other historical figures that predate mixing with Slavs. As such, when those Romanians and Ukrainians/Russians married Hungarians, the children overwhelmingly chose Hungarian identity and carried this on despite the original ethnic gene getting more and more diluted with each generation. It is the embracing of a demonym and its properties that make one a native, not the past mixing of nations. In antiquity there were many more ethnicities in Europe such as Thracians and Curonians but the locals became absorbed into surrounding populations. So this brings us to Romance people, and yes I see your point. Very difficult to comment. In essence, the dialect continuum from Portugal to Belgium makes it impossible to mark boundaries and say "one side Spanish, other side Portuguese, but northern part Galicia". The individual national identities are in no way based on whom each group has mixed with, but for some bizarre reason the Germanic and Romance nations don't seem to have a conscience like the Slavic nations. Don't get me wrong, not all people from Poland, Croatia, Ukraine, etc. embrace a Slavic identity but there exists Pan-Slavic sentiment within a respectable part of the community in every Slavic nation. To this end, it is easier to call Czechs and Macedonians Slavic nations than it is to call anyone Romance or Germanic. So I suppose the community (Wikipedia that is) is going along with the linguistic aspects. So as you can see, there is much to take into consideration on all manner of things presented here. --Coldtrack (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I do intend to reply to this. I am just very busy... you know :). --Calthinus (talk) 06:18, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Any time. No rush as we are clearly not in conflict with one another on any article. I'll keep an eye out for this page. :) --Coldtrack (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * replying to what you said -- actually when it comes to Slavs I'm more in agreement-- in some cases there is real genetic relation, in others there isn't, but there is clearly a meaningful sense of "supertribal" relatedness that can be sourced to RS (albeit one that is historically politicized by cooptation by Russian state interest. But unlike Slavonic, speaking Latin or its descendants did not necessarily decide someone's identity-- it was often more like Aramaic, a lingua franca (indeed Assyrians and Jews both came to speak Aramaic yet maintained separate identities the whole time and then millenia later too). "Romance peoples" are not like Slavs because there has never been and probably never will be the same sort of supertribal identity among them (except for maybe Romanians), not least because it is well known that they are not all descended from Romans, but rather mostly accultured natives, the French identifying with the Gauls (or the Franks, or most commonly of all nowadays that "French is not an ethnic group but an idea"), the Portuguese the Lusitanians, etc. When the Romans conquered Gaul, even if they had moved half their citizens (i.e. mainly non-enslaved Central Italians) it still would have been majority native. Spain is harder to say and to be fair there is indeed a vague sense of a shared Roman heritage in Italy (I mean Mussolini talked about it...), while there is definitely a very strong "Latin" identity in Romania that arose in response to pressures from Slav and Hungarian nationalisms (by copying them, essentially). But overall this is different from Slavs, where some sense of Slavicness is pretty widespread even among people that happen to dislike Russian historical actions such as Poles or Croats -- though even this is not without being contested in some cases (Czechs and Bulgarians notably claiming descent from Celts/Germanic tribes or Thracians/Bulgars respectively -- and these are probably the two most marginal Slavic peoples anyways and indeed they likely have the most non-Slavic ancestry).--Calthinus (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry it has been so long. I elected not to edit while I spent the whole of 2019 in Ukraine and returned home in Britain just before this pandemic. I see what much of the above states about French and others. For the Czechs to have been a Celtic/Germanic mix, it is implausible that two non-Slavic nations could have mixed to later produce a homogenous race that speaks its own Slavic tongue so naturally along a continuum. If Slavs themselves had mixed with Germanic and Celtic tribes, that is another thing, but it would mean that those Celts/Germans ended up assimilating. Same with Bulgaria: only the name honours the one-time Bulgar nation. Those Bulgars however settled everywhere up the Dinaric Alps and into the Italian peninsula, so the Bulgar seed is everywhere. That said, history recorded Slavs settling in the modern-day Bulgarian lands and so there is no "Slavic denial" among wither of those groupings you mentioned. Anyhow, best regards. --Coldtrack (talk) 20:38, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Move review: Paradisus Judaeorum
(sent out exact copy to all AfD participants - apologize if you are aware) Articles for deletion/Heaven for the nobles, Purgatory for the townspeople, Hell for the peasants, and Paradise for the Jews which you were involved in is in discussion at Move review/Log/2018 December. Input there is welcome.Icewhiz (talk) 07:07, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Impersonator
It came to my attention that someone is impersonating you on other people's talk pages:  Just letting you know. The disruptive editor got blocked already. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 (talk ✉️ &#124; contribs 📝) 23:00, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks for the heads up, but I am aware. I didn't respond as I didn't think that sort of twisted clownery deserves a response. Of course this is only one part of a multiseries act. Likely the same person(s), (a) likely Serbian ultranationalist(s) using their IP, also sent a string of death threats, now redacted, but still with an open thread on ANI, to myself, and . There is a good chance the perpetrator is connected in some way to the Serbian banned sockpuppeteer AMES, given that this occurred concurrently with similar IP activity on Talk:Skanderbeg. Life is beautiful.--Calthinus (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Your edit
Just noticed he reverted your edit. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * interesting. Actually, this Leo Freeman is a different editor htan the original person who objected, that being CrzyCheetah. Rather odd, isn't it, that a sneaky revert was done by an editor with ostensibly no connection to a dispute that resolved at least a month ago? Let's keep an eye on this one, both of us here. --Calthinus (talk) 01:03, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I created an ANI section. This charade has gone on long enough. Feel free to leave a comment. - LouisAragon (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * What a pain these guys are...--Calthinus (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * 50 edits in 2,5 years time, and yet there he is, restoring the old version of the article! Just wow. I reverted him, but this appears to be a deep-rooted problem. Not sure; would you be willing to create a RfC? Or perhaps reopening the same talk page section? - LouisAragon (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, Calthinus is rather busy at the moment due to the festive season but will return soon. Meanwhile I am trying to keep an eye on this page although I am busy myself. I suggest opening a RfC, now or when Calthinus returns. The issue is indeed deep-rooted and a strong community consensus would be a barrier against further POV-pushing. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 15:10, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey, thank you for your comment. Yeah, you're right, a RfC is probably the best solution, but lets wait till Calthinus returns so we can hear his opinion as well (as he originally revised the infobox and created the talk page section, etc.). - LouisAragon (talk) 22:25, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Yo and, I don't want an RfC. This is not matter of interpreting wiki rules, it's dealing with a clear fringe theory. Literally no one serious thinks Armenians was founded around 2400 BCE - millennia before any attestation of any form of Armenian identity. A better move is an SPI possibly...--Calthinus (talk) 05:02, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't want an RfC either as this is (objectively speaking) nothing but WP:CIR. However, a RfC might just grant an additional layer of protection. Based on what I have seen, it seems that this "2400 BCE" fringe stuff is deep rooted online (ever checked YouTube comments? Lel). By the way, you and might be interested in this. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:16, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Did you see this btw? Same thing basically.---- - LouisAragon (talk) 03:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am actually familiar a bit with Artaxiad. Never interacted but know of him. You really think they are one in the same ?--Calthinus (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I think there's a decent chance, but the edits need to be examined individually. Btw, what do you think about those other diffs (^)? - LouisAragon (talk) 16:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

mail
Cinadon36 (talk) 06:43, 23 December 2018 (UTC) hey, I saw your email. I would reply but I have to run. There are many others who can answer this question. Please accept my deepest, deepest apologies.--Calthinus (talk) 14:46, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Wish
Hello. Help improve and copy edit for article Maureen Wroblewitz. Thanks you. Ngocxuanmai (talk) 01:09, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I would help, but I doubt I will be of much use as I don't know the topic. I'll fix any errors I see.--Calthinus (talk) 01:11, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Please read the history of nationalism
Hi Calthinus, I cringed as I read your well meaning post.

I don’t have time now to discuss in detail but I will make a few points. Your idea that some nationalisms are more real than others is incorrect at best and bigoted at worst.

First, I suggest you study Nationalist historiography, perhaps reading Imagined Communities.

The list of “bottom-up” examples you gave is just a list of well-defined linguistic groups. Your suggestion that they formed a social group into pre-modern history is not correct. Social groups require communication; most of these regions did not have mass printing or easy movement until the 19th century. Plus, the world was full of dialect continuums before the mass-standardization of national languages, again mostly in the 19th century. All these groups, either on the basis of language or geography, and usually both, went on to create national myths to create a politically-powerful sense of peoplehood as democracy began to become relevant. This happened mostly as a domino effect, and often had its flames fanned by outside political actors looking to undermine larger political units.

As to the Jewish identity, which you stated you consider is superior to the Palestinian identity. In the 19th century Haskalah, intellectual Ashkenazi Jews were split as to whether Judaism was just a religion, or might be considered an ethnic group - a concept which was as alien as it was irrelevant to most Jews at the time. You said the Jewish “existing social group... already existed”. That is nonsense. A Jewish religious community existed. But disparate and separate linguistic groups existed. And very different social and geographical groups existed. The idea that medieval Baghdadi Jews, medieval Rhineland Jews, medieval Yememi Jews and medieval Moroccan Jews were part of the same “social group” is absurd - but perhaps you consider medieval Christianity and Islam to have been social groups as well.

The more you look into any single nationality, the more you’ll see how manufactured they all are. Pick one at random, that you don’t have any connection to, and investigate it. It’ll open your eyes. Of course each modern national identity tries to convince its adherents of its primordialism, and its superiority. That gives nationalism the potency and danger we all know it has, as it creates disdain for opposing “lesser” nationalisms - a way of thinking that you appear to be familiar with.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Something I missed here. Aside from misunderstanding the Haskalah, you said -- this is rather curious. Perhaps you don't consider Palestinians in Chile, Palestinians in Yemen, Palestinians in Germany etc to be the same ethnic group? Indeed there has already been heavy intermarriage in many of these places -- already exceeding what Jewish genealogy and genetics studies said occurred for Jews over two millenia, not less than one century. Perhaps there is no such thing as a Palestinian diaspora for you? --Calthinus (talk) 14:23, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I did not state Jewish identity is nor do I believe such a thing to be true. Nor did I ever say any nationalism was . Well,, we can have a mutually interesting discussion if you (a) read my actual post and (b) acknowledge that is not in fact what I was saying at all. Being pretty awfully misquoted on such an issue as that -- I would never care to deny anyone else's identity and place judgment upon it, be it Jews or Palestinians or Italians or Tanzanians or whoever and I actually find the habit of people doing this on wiki quite annoying. It's a thing in the Balkans where all the nationalities try to deny each others' "legitimacy" in various ways, and yes I acknowledge that Israelis/Jews and Palestinians/Arabs can bilaterally engage in this behavior but personally I prefer to avoid it. To be entire clear, I do think that Palestinian identity emerged later -- with plenty of cites I can pull to back that up -- but that doesn't mean I view it as lesser or inferior. Indeed, Chinese identity is millenia upon millenia older than Australian identity, but that doesn't mean I view either as more or less valid. Thanks for taking the time to read this! --Calthinus (talk) 02:49, 11 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I acknowledge that you did not make such statements directly. You espoused a belief in Primordialism, for some nations, and I extrapolated the usual beliefs of primordialists on to you. You have since denied that you consider some nations superior to others, so I was wrong.
 * As to the rest of your post, you again mixed up modern identity with historical togetherness. You are also entirely wrong regarding Chinese identity - this was also a modern invention.
 * Your understanding of the ancientness of nations appears to be derived from reading of nationalistic tellings of history!
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 10:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow. Well that then that was a personal attack… or at least a pretty severe case of non-WP:AGF... anyhow, -- well that's one of the fringiest things I've ever heard, and the scholars of the Middle Kingdom would very likely be astounded. The Imagined Communities interpretation is only one of many interpretations, which is popular among some groups for certain reasons that need not be enumerated, but it is not some scholarly unanimous consensus. If you don't think someone can disagree with (your interpretation of) Imagined Communities that not only all "nations" but also the identities that correspond with them (i.e. Chinese ethnic identity, etc etc) are exclusively modern, it's hard to see how one can work as colleagues on abstract fields where disagreement is common... --Calthinus (talk) 13:41, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't you realize that Modern Hebrew is a Slavic language with ties to the Khazars. The very sounds vowel exist only in the minds of the Masoretes. The relexificationist are true masters of innovation :) Jonney2000 (talk) 16:09, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Calthinus, I don't agree with your first sentence. In my prior post I was being generous with the intent to close down the personal topic. But now you have lurched too far in the opposite direction, I feel compelled to tell it unvarnished: your repeated statements that you consider Jews a historical group vs Palestinians just an identity, implies very strongly that you (subconsciously?) consider one set of beliefs superior to the other.
 * As to your reaction to my Chinese statement, there must be something not clicking in our conversation – maybe I am not being precise enough. There is no scholarly debate on this question – modern Chinese identity was formed in the 19th century.
 * You are also being imprecise – your statement re “The Imagined Communities interpretation” is impossible to interpret. Most of what Anderson wrote is entirely undisputed (not least because he built upon the work of other scholars). I don’t know which particular parts of his thesis you are trying to refer to. It it’s the history of identity, most of it is entirely undisputed and indisputable. Just think for a minute about what collective identity really is, and then consider how irrelevant it would have been to most people before mass communication (printing), mass transport, the hardening of language borders / dialect continuums, and the existence of democracy. If you have a different understanding, perhaps you could point to a source supporting it.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course I can. You should read Anthony D. Smith. And even with Imagined Communities though, Anderson is primarily discussing nationalism -- not ethnic identity, ethnoreligious identity etc, religious identity etc. --Calthinus (talk) 14:26, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * In other news Ted Cruz has grown a Talmudic beard. Jonney2000 (talk) 17:30, 11 January 2019 (UTC)


 * such heart-warming news, such a mensch. Reminds me of when Trump's Pashtun birth was certified by Pakistani doctors before his adoption []. Oh such a beautiful baby boy, people are saying this was THE most BEAUTIFUL baby boy in the entire world. --Calthinus (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Rachel Riley revert
Hi,

I have opened a discussion on the Rachel Riley talk page about whether the background of commentators should be added to the page as such actions have been previously reverted. Jontel (talk) 11:25, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Pro-human
"I personally like to think most people are generally pro-human, they just have different viewpoints."

We all subscribe to that sentiment, but unfortunately we are dealing with a world where vituperative odium is normal, so that Palestinians can be called ‘lice’ (Rehavam Ze'evi); ‘ravening beasts’ (Benjamin Netanyahu); ‘grasshoppers’ to be crushed underfoot (Yitzhak Shamir; ‘two legged beasts’ (Menachem Begin);’they are not human beings, they are not people, they are Arabs’ ( Yehiel Hazan), 'cockroaches' (Raphael Eitan); ‘local bacteria’ high ranking IDF official during one of the wars on Gaza,ec. I could go on with another 50 odd high ranking Israeli caricatures, meticulously sourced,  of this problematical other, the Palestinian,  but would rather not go into the ugly details.  It was because he was intimately familiar with that kind of subhumanizing contempt that Jimmy Carter  went out on a limb in asserting “the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings,” a comment which led him to be smeared as an anti-Semite.Nishidani (talk) 14:19, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * while we're collecting unsavory comments, for every non-kosher Bibi or Jabotinsky comment we an pull Haniyeh and Husseini. And just so we're inclusive of Palestinian Christians, Habash. And then, sadly, Abbas too. What do you prefer, Nazis, cockroaches, termites or octopuses? Or is that octopodes? In any case octopuses is truly an interesting touch, I've gotta give it to the guy, that was creative, and it would be pretty dope to have 8 limbs with which to control world politics and simultaneously conquer the Arab and Aryan races :). Nowadays it is Jews mistreating Arabs, yes, we agree on that. It was not long ago that the Jewish women of Baghdad awoke to find their husbands and childrens' corpses hanging, still bleeding, from the clothes lines. Today it is some Palestinian kid shot for throwing stones. I'm not thrilled with the current direction of Israeli society. I had my BDS days, before I began to realize their one-state "solution" (the only possible result if the right of return AKA Zionism for Palestinians was ever realized) would look more like Rwanda than South Africa. Well we can go on about this, or we can rise above it. --Calthinus (talk) 16:19, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think one gets anywhere by flattening out the differences invariably, with the subtext: 'everybody in the game speaks like that, so what's new?', though I know that is not your intent. It is precisely because I grew up formatively reading numerous books about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and genocide that I find these metaphors not only unbearable but, if recycled against Palestinians by Jews, deeply repugnant.
 * I have a simple rule, which some others also use, for example Zero on the AE page. I replace the ethnonym in these cases with the ethnonym of the slurrer. So you obtain:
 * Jews are ‘lice’ (again the association reflects a widespread anti-Semitic trope)
 * Jews are ‘ravening beasts’;(See generally Jay Geller's recent Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews, Fordham University Press, 2018
 * Jew are ‘grasshoppers’ to be crushed underfoot;(Compare here)
 * Jews are 'two legged beasts’;("Perhaps some Jews will survive. But those who do will be two-legged beasts." Efroim Oshry,The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, Judaica Press, 1995 p.38)
 * Jews ’are not human beings, they are not people, they are Jews’; Compare (Nazis posters with the slogan Juden sind keine Menschen.)
 * Jews are 'cockroaches' (The point of Franz Kafka's parable about antisemitism in his The Metamorphosis)
 * Jews are ‘local bacteria’ (that was said by the anti-Semite Paul de Lagarde)
 * In short that language is excruciating anti-Semitic immediately the ethnonym is replaced, but you can use that kind of terminology, without being kicked out of the corridors of power, if the subject happens to be Palestinian.
 * I'm too realistic to think there is any solution, one-state/two state or whatever. All that interests me is getting the full record down, which will be, inevitably, deeply uncomfortable all round. Nishidani (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There is a solution. All it takes is both sides recognizing that peace and stability are worth more than "justice".--Calthinus (talk) 18:15, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, that was what Mussolini argued to justify his new order. Historical results are not dictated by justice - with two modern exceptions (the British abolishing slavery, was one). There can be no reciprocal recognition of 'peace and justice' since both sides, as opposed to both peoples, understand those terms differently. Thucydides in some versions, spoke of the decisiveness of the factor of 'preponderance of power' and, precisely for that fundamental technical disparity Nathan Thrall's analysis is the most probable. Peace there is only possible if it is imposed from outside, something that will not in all likelihood happen. Anyway, back to editing. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Nah Mussolini was all about "justice" i.e. getting Fiume, Malta, Corsica... Peace? Not so much. And thanks to his quest for "justice" what was left of the Italians in Slovenia and Croatia was decimated. --Calthinus (talk) 20:22, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Nope. That is to restrict 'justice' to territorial claims, ignoring both the deological centrality of social justice in the new order to attract an agrarian base, and the function of organizations like La Camera dei fasci with their programmatic call for giustizia sociale and that Zionism is intrinsically a cause based on an ideology of the justness of their land claims to a territory. 'Thanks to Zionism's redemption of a land 90% Christian-Muslim', Palestinians were left with 8& of their historic homeland. Silly.Nishidani (talk) 10:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually this is exactly what Im saying. The historical exclusion and expulsion finalized after WWII -- paired with not always voluntary assimilation, leading to the annihilation of the coastal Romance culture of Dalmatia, Rijeka etc was probably "unjust". As were Byzantine orders to wipe the Jews from "Palestine" (the names Syria Palestine and Aelia Capitolina having first been formalized by the Romans with the explicit purpose of severing Jews from their homeland) also unjust -- but it's reversal is now a fait accompli. A third example of sunk cost injustice would be the Nakba. Reversing any of these three is/was bound to lead to tragedy. The difference is that in the second case that already came to pass, not least due to several powerful push factors like life becoming unbearable and deadly in Germany with its ideology, Iraq with its clothes lines episodes, Russia with its pogroms et cetera. Do you really want a repeat of the cost of ameliorating that injustice again? BTW there are several Palestinians and Israeli Arabs / Israeli Palestinians who share a version of this viewpoint, Nas Daily being a pretty prominent case.--Calthinus (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Broad generalizations and allusions to the shorthand versions of myths and ideologies of ethnic groups as true, are pointless. One anecdote rebuts another, in a racconteurial tit-for-tat. You mention a Jewish corpse on a clothesline in Iraq, a Palestinian might mention Yohai Ben-Nun’s castration of Araf Shatawi, or that Palmach trained its officers in proper surgical techniques for such events, or that it was not rare for soldiers to rape women before executing them in the 24-65 massacres of Palestinians in 1948. Pointless, also because you still believe the myth that Hadrian severed Jews from their homeland, or that the drastic drop of 'Jewish' numbers in late Byzantine Palestine can be  confused with the huge massacres of Samaritans, the dominant population of what is now curiously claimed to be a Jewish historical landscape, Samaria. I don't 'want' anything from history, except perhaps that the victors who feed their self-assurance with fairy-tales be reminded of how complex, and often, dark, the events of the founding of their country were, as even Ari Shavit has begun to admit.  Nishidani (talk) 17:37, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * History is full of skeletons. Some trees may be more fascinating (morbidly) to look at but don't forget the forest. Everyone has fairy tales. Some of them certain editors seem to like (Ashkenazi Khazars related to Khazar Armenians??, Canaanite Palestinian time hop?) while others those people might find disgusting (bloodless Palmach). Whether Jews were specifically expelled by Hadrian or Heraclius or Billy Bob Joe it doesn't really matter, what matters is the historic systematic disenfranchisement (if we go by a different fairy tale of events, whereby the Jews all magically become Arab Muslims and the modern Jews are um... Khazarian "fakers" to use the Stormfront terminology... this is still a case of disenfranchisement not to mention what some people might call cultur[al geno]cide). Personally I tend to disregard and remove on sight all of these oversimplifications and outright fantasies. You may have noticed I have stayed out of attempts by some Israeli-focused editors to water down criticism of some past actions -- but it's not like I don't edit those pages. Humans suck all around. At least we try. Sometimes.--Calthinus (talk) 07:14, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 'Humans don't suck'. I know decent people who have toxic ideas, known fascists who gave sanctuary to Jews etc. Their thinking was repellent, but not their humanity. What's stormfront's garbage got to do with the price of cheese? I wrote the Khazar article because editors were toxically obsessed with the Jews/non Jews idea, each caught up in their own simpleton prejudices and disregarding their fascinating history. Give me a discursive field where taboos and fears, and anxieties driving ideological interpretations thrive, and I feel naturally attracted to it. All peoples were, and many still are, subject to 'systematic disenfranchisement' until the establishment of modern democracy. Loss of land is another matter, and no claim reported relatives by religion 2,000 years ago lost national title somewhere makes any sense in the hot-air rhetoric of a right (to redeem an historic injustice) to dispossess and disenfranchise another people on that same terrain. The state was established, fine, unquestionable, legitimate: that as lunatic fringe thinks it must persist in an ongoing project to keep pushing boundaries and utterly dispossess those 'others' who remain there has no warrant, other than of abetting anti-Semites in their prejudices and clouding the moral heritage of Judaism, as thousands of sensible Zionists have said, and restated for decades.Nishidani (talk) 09:28, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Stormfront loooooves the Khazar theory. I would give you links, but tehy're probably blacklisted, for good reason. Humans are complicated. You do have lots of fascists who saved Jews like Xhafer Deva, a research topic I've contributed to on here. Not everyone was systematically disenfranchised on the basis of who they are, often for the explicit purpose of extinguishing or marginalizing their culture; and those who were, to different degrees. English or French people, I'm sorry, have not experienced what Jews have. The Irish, closer, but no cigar. On the other hand Jews did not experience anything like hereditary chattel slavery en masse for a prolonged period, a trauma whose pseudoscientific racist hangover is still tormenting and perverting at least one major Western democracy. This is not the oppression Olympics it is just facts, and different experiences are not necessarily "worse" they are simply categorically different. Fleeing/expelled/etc Palestinians were also systematically disenfranchised, yes, both by the other side of the war, and by "brothers" who refused them the rights of citizenship. Most peoples who are not wealthy and secure tend to defend what they love most, their family, their village, and by extension their people, over the "others", not (only) because of hatred, but because "if it wasn't them, it would be us". If BDS ever gets its RoR and one-state, I hope all their Western backers will be able to forgive themselves for the most likely scenario 20 years later.--Calthinus (talk) 19:53, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * twenty years later, the scenario will be the same for everyone, save for myself. Fortunately I won't be around, and thank the (bull)dust that made me that I chose to forego the deepest and most beautiful form of altruistic egotism we have, the instinct to have children. We agree on much, really, but agreement is not what I seek for in a conversation. So thanks.Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Always a pleasure. Better to talk here than on public talkpages though imo. --Calthinus (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Linda Sarsour
Looks like we were both wrong—Linda Sarsour was granted GA status. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 08:41, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * holy flying fuck what did I miss. And furthermore, how transparent was this process...?--Calthinus (talk) 19:22, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It was discussed on the article talk page. I actually think this is a testament to all of our work—I was particularly pleased to read this comment from the review: There's so much vitriol about Sarsour from both far-left and (especially) far-right sources that I was worried that, somewhere along the way, the article would veer off too far into one of those directions and eventually end up including content which violated neutrality. But you did a damn fine job avoiding that. The article dryly incorporates all the aspects of Sarsour's public perception, without giving much providence to one particular viewpoint. Kudos on that. The main issue cited as causing some trepidation among reviewers was article stability, but fortunately there were no major disagreements ongoing during the review process. It seems pretty rare that a BLP on a highly controversial subject would be elevated to GA status, especially considering that article's contentious history in particular, so definitely something to celebrate! Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * hmm.. I think you're right actually :). Good work, team. --Calthinus (talk) 23:58, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

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mellontikosteleios epite8ike se allonenaellina
kai o tiasteriskosgiou tonypostirizei sto ανι. epeidiexeis empiriastisxesitwndyo pigainenavoi8iseis.

Christchurch mosque shootings
I ask you to not command me on what to add to any article. My comment to the removal of the piece of information was clear and correct and to the point, and the removal therefore reasonable, especially since (as I said) I don't see value in mentioning it. Don't break your nerves on me. Jürgen Eissink (talk) 01:24, 16 March 2019 (UTC).

Hi, please accept my humble apologies, I didnt mean for that edit summary to sound punchy or accusatory of anything at all. Cheers and happy editing! --Calthinus (talk) 06:30, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Chechen Kurds
Hello. I can see that you are active on Chechens and I wanted to know if you would cast an eye over Chechen Kurds, which I believe could use some reviewers/editors. Thank you. --Ahmedo Semsurî (talk) 16:18, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Ahmedo -- I'm on it. Great work on expanding Kurdish issues including this page :). --Calthinus (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I happened to come across one of your heavily edited pages Kurdish phonology as well. I think the last to examples, after the word for ogre, on the last table on the page appear to be errant, as they are presented as examples where the labialized palatal offglide occurs, but the cited phonetic forms lack it. Unless I missed something. Cheers! --Calthinus (talk)
 * Not sure if I understand you. The authors transcript 'küa' and 'tela' as 'kü[ɥ]a' and 'te[ɥ]la', which have been 'translated' to [ˈkʉːɥɑː] and [tɛɥˈlɑː] accordingly. --Ahmedo Semsurî (talk) 23:17, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I must be dyslexic. --Calthinus (talk) 04:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you !

 * Thanks a ton !--Calthinus (talk) 15:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

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 * added a link pointing to Rhotic

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Adalbert and ARBCOM
François Robere (talk) 13:16, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * this looks like an intentional provocation from Tatzref. He needs to explain himself or my testimony may become less rosy.--Calthinus (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Re
. I am not sure why they usually do not do it. Perhaps they want to stay focus on long-term contributors. But we will see. My very best wishes (talk) 03:06, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If both sides agree on something, the admins will not get in the way of a solution.--Calthinus (talk) 04:28, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Usually pejorative, but not always, e.g. "Если в кране нет воды - значит выпили жиды...", meaning making fun of anti-Jewish prejustices. My very best wishes (talk) 04:39, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I would translate it as "Heeb" or maybe Hebrew in English-- not quite like kike, imho.--Calthinus (talk) 13:09, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * See Zhyd and Person of Jewish ethnicity. My very best wishes (talk) 00:32, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Ja govorju porusskij. Jesli bytj tochnym... passivnoje ponimanije. Well no, not enough to fully comprehend your poetry though :(, or have reasonably efficient conversations. I probably have some obscure grammar error somewhere int his message but you get the point. But I think I have a good idea what.... interesting... words mean. You can't translate history of course. Now, as for bezrodnyj kosmopolit, I am guilty as charged, that describes me quite well if we're talking literally. Did you know the US right wing now uses the term? The parentheses too! I didnt know they the Polish/Ukrainian/etc words were (originally?) separate, I had kind of assumed that they all came from Russian or the (German originally?) "(y'/j)id". I figured as much as for Polish with Marek's comment (prior exposure -- only the word Zhydokomuna, forgive my plain keyboard's lack of accents -- quite pejorative, if only Joe the Steel gave this sort of credit, that'd've been nice :) :) :) ). I'm not in Icewhiz' head, I tend to AGF (he also has an interest in Ukraine/Russia topics -- possible Russian speaker), but I've had different experiences than you guys with him, clearly. Vsego nailushchego. --Calthinus (talk) 04:36, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, I got it. I am sure they originated from Yid. And of course we have Rootless cosmopolitan. I usually do not pay attention at all at the "ethnicity" of people and consider this mostly as a cultural heritage. My ancestors were Russian, Jewish, Armenian and apparently Georgian people. I consider multiculturalism as a very good thing. Speaking of which, the cultures and mentalities of people are indeed very different, for example in Russia, USA and Caucasus. For example, I think the "incivility" (offensive comments about another person) are pretty much tolerated in Russian and other Slavic cultures (where this is known as "khamstvo", not a good thing), but not in the English-speaking countries. Even more so in Caucasus, where someone can be killed on spot for saying something perceived by locals as really offensive. Fortunately, my culture is mostly Russian, so I do not care too much when someone openly expresses himself. But of course one must follow the rules of society where he lives. This is one of the reasons I do not live in Russia any longer. My very best wishes (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * pinging here so that this off-topic conversation does not continue in the section about Tatzref's views on Jews and slavery. --Calthinus (talk) 04:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I can't comment on Russian which I sadly don't speak; but IMHO in Polish the word Zyd is not pejorative - it's neutral. It can be used negatively, by antisemites, of course, for whom it is pejorative, but for most people it is neutral. Just like I think the word Jew in English is mostly used in a neutral fashion now, but of course it can be used with malicious intent by the antisemitic minority. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz
Icewhiz posts stuff like this and you still gonna defend him? Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In his capacity to also edit constructively that I have seen plenty of in the past -- yes. Both of you are fighting hard right now. Two way street.--Calthinus (talk) 13:11, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!
Thanks Ktrimi :) --Calthinus (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

An interesting read
Recently decided to reopen James R. Russell's Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Other than it being an excellent work, I stumbled across some newer works dealing with the same matter, which I thought were pretty interesting as well. Some excerpts:


 * "There are two very important exceptions to this general pattern of the spread of Zoroastrianism: It is certain that the Armenians and the Georgians (or Iberians) were Zoroastrians before they converted to Christianity. This is not an obvious fact to everyone; on the contrary, it has been (and continues to be) bitterly opposed, especially by Armenian and Georgian scholars, who prefer to think of the pre-Christian religions of the Armenians and Georgians as chiefly “local” or “indigenous” traditions, which accommodated some Iranian elements (Ananikian 1925). They are aided in this interpretation by the fact that the (Christian) Armenian and Georgian sources rarely, if at all, identify the religion of their ancestors before their conversion to Christianity as “Zoroastrianism.” These sources either prefer seemingly neutral terms (such as “the religion of our forefathers”) or polemical ones (“heathenism”), but do not label the reli-gion as “Iranian” or “Zoroastrian.” Where these terms occur, they refer to the religion of the Persians, chiefly of the Persians as enemies of the Christian Armenians. This fact in itself, while undeniable, is not compelling; on the contrary, it seems to be in harmony with the selfidentifications of most of the Iranians; the wide spread of the term “Zoroastrian” is of post-Sasanian date and even “Mazda-worshipping” is mainly used in limited (e.g., imperial and liturgical) contexts. Iranian Zoroastrians seem to have been identified after the Iranian land they came from (Persians, Parthians, Sogdians, etc.), with the Zoroastrian element of their identity selfunderstood."


 * "Historically, the first trace of an Armenian polity is the inclusion of the satrapy of Armina in the Achaemenid Empire."


 * "From the period of Alexander to the downfall and partition of the kingdom(s) of Armenia between Sasanian Persia and the Byzantine Empire, Armenia is usually presented as a battle-zone between the two superpowers of the ancient world (Iran in the East and Greeks and Romans in the West). While this is true politically, it is not a very promising perspective culturally, for Armenia and the Armenians clearly and unequivocally participated in Iranian culture."


 * "Recently, intensive archaeological study of various sites in the eastern half of Georgia has strengthened the case for a very early inclusion of Iberia in the Iranian political and cultural realm (Knauss 2006), and, like the Armenian sources, Georgian historical sources present a variety of evidence for a long period of intimate interaction between Georgian and Iranian culture. In both cases, this interaction continued after the (early) conversion of the kingdoms to Christianity. The conversion of the Iberian king Mirian III (with his realm) is traditionally dated to the year 337 CE. Georgia too was ruled by families with an Iranian ancestry (Persian and Parthian), who participated in the Iranian dynastic network that dominated the eastern half of the ancient world from Alexander to the end of antiquity."

-- Albert de Jong (2015) "Armenian and Georgian Zoroastrianism" in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism; Michael Stausberg, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina; Anna Tessmann (ed). John Wiley And Sons Ltd. pp. 119-128

- LouisAragon (talk) 16:13, 18 August 2019 (UTC)


 * indeed, very interesting. Speaking linguistically, the Armenian language is significantly Iranianized (via Parthian, Persian, perhaps also poorly understood Median) in a very deep, not superficial way -- so much so that in the early days of its study, it was widely mistaken as a proper Iranian language, before the Iranian aspects of its lexicon were identified as long time Iranic loans, not always an easy task. Analogous I guess would be English and French, or more properly the Latin nature of 60% of Albanian vocab dating back to 100 BC. Religiously, my understanding has been that in the Caucasus the rule was generally that rulers converted (or married) for alliances with powerful foreigners but for quite awhile the native polytheist religions remained -- at least in the High Caucasus, paganism might have still been dominant even a few centuries ago, and Chechens will still sometimes use "Deela" (Nakh Zeus or perhaps more like Odin) for Allah; I've heard some Georgians do the same with the name of one of their own indigenous deities for the Christian God, maybe in the highlands like Khevsureti or Svaneti only, I don't know, maybe could confirm. Certainly the early history of the Caucasus should be expanded on here by all means. --Calthinus (talk) 17:12, 18 August 2019 (UTC)


 * You are right. As for religion in the Caucasus, the South Caucasus is a completely different story than the North Caucasus. Even when dealing with the South Caucasus, the "Armenia/Rep. of Azerbaijan" cline has to be distinguished from the (Western) Georgian one in order to obtain a proper understanding. Its a complex story nevertheless. 20th/21st century ethno-nationalism and state buidling, once funded under Tsarist/Soviet hegemony, has been detrimental in the development of proper academic research free from pseudo-historic bogus. I mean, for instance, take a look at the "academic" history books produced in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It's a total joke. - LouisAragon (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2019 (UTC)


 * in general, it appears an effect of being on the receiving end of imperialism causes epidemics of bogus history to justify nationalist objectives, the effect being widespread throughout the Caucasus and also the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa, Asia... etc. Dagestani squabbling can be amusing, Azeris pretend Armenians never existed, Armenia's ancient history from day zero supposedly when Noah was on Ararat which is literally equated to Urartu (...) can be amusing, not to be outdone Chechen nationalists agree with Armenian nationalists about Ararat but also claim Noah was a Nakh, perhaps Georgians made Ancient Sumeria. Meanwhile, the descendants of people on the "giving" end who now find themselves occasionally on the receiving end of imperialism have the nationalists among them proud of being former imperialists... while denouncing the current ones.--Calthinus (talk)

Alarodian languages
Hi Calthinus, I saw your recent edits on Alarodian languages, thanks for bringing more material to that article. Just two related comments. First, I think your (re-)inserting of Fournet & Bomhard (2010) is actually not IAR, since both scholars have a good record of peer-reviewed publications. This is also why I had just brushed up the previous incomplete citation, but had no second thoughts about keeping the source. On the other hand, I am less sure about Ed Robertson's paper. (You got the citation from the article "Etruscan languages", right?) As far as I can judge, Robertson does not have a record comparable to that of Fournet and Bomhard, and further, the paper is only retrievable on the Wayback Machine, which gives me doubts about its notability. To put it bluntly, if the author himself deemed it worthy of further consideration, we should expect him to place it somewhere else on the web. Or would you still argue for keeping it? – Austronesier (talk) 20:18, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I actually have the pdf on my computer from awhile back. Robertson's analysis is well reasoned and cautious. Nothing is conclusive obviously. Searches for his name are complicated by a certain musician. Filter that out and you find his work on Esperanto. Its true that he does not have a background in Urartian or Hurrian. Yes he is less established than Fournet- however I dont think the authors are considered per the normal practice of guidelines unless theyre famous and then (Chomsky) there might be talk page fights. At least in my experience (one time a source I used was removed although the author was a leader on the topic, a university professor with awards, because it was published in a journal that had been the subjects of ethical complaints in a totally unrelated topic area.... for example). At the same time, Robertson's work is very useful as it has a pretty good summary of the existing literature. From a readers viewpoint at least, Id rather have both.--Calthinus (talk) 22:07, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your explainations. I agree that the paper looks methodologically sound, although I have no expertise whatsoever on these languages to make any judgment about its conclusions. And yes, you have a good point that it also serves as a good secondary source for previous studies. It really depends on the individual case, and you got me convinced. Probably I would still object if the paper presented an insular hypothesis, but then Robertson simply expands on an existing proposal.
 * Well, expertise (not notability) of authors does matter according to the policy for self-published sources, and in a way it makes sense. E.g. I consider Roger Blench's online papers as reliable sources when it comes to African languages, but definitely not when he dabbles in Southeast Asian languages. And to reject an expert source just because it appeared e.g. in JIES (that's a typical example in linguistics) is nonsense, so I can imagine your frustration about that experience.
 * Btw, do you have a reference for Hommel? It's one of the few citations still missing in the article, and I'm curious about what the orignal proposal looked like. – Austronesier (talk) 23:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if this was an isolated theory, like the one about Venetic being the closest branching relation to Estonian (a paper that does have citations but fyi no support), I'd shy away. For Alarodian a Google Scholar search revealed some stuf -- this source is accessible if you have JSTOR, it's Brinton discussing Hommel's theory. Brinton's writing is more than a bit cringe, his section on "the Aryan stock" may not be for those prone to involuntary facepalms [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/983161.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ab28f067bab5d4a03bfa00f1dba7b2a72

]]. --Calthinus (talk) 18:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Brinton is obvs not RS, here a 1947 work []. Here's one of Hommel's works that the search retruns but sadly it text retrieval doesn't work on it [] ... and that's all I can find that I think you may think useful. I hadn't heard of Hommel before -- I had always assumed the theory came from Sergei Starostin or Orel (who I have more respect for than the late 19th century orientalist sorts like Brinton, as you may have guessed...) --Calthinus (talk) 18:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Brinton's ideas on race and language are clearly from the pre-Boas era. Yet, thanks for the ref, because he has a citation of a three-part paper by Hommel that is available on the web. I'll read it later, because it is looks quite confusing, even for a L1-speaker like me. His musings on "Alarodian" start from p.330. –Austronesier (talk) 19:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

regarding the term Alarodian, it is used sometimes it seems. I.e. Polyakov in [|Frequency Based Relevant Grammar Features of the Caucasian Languages (2016)] --  -- unfortunately I can't access Diakonov-Starostin 1986 at the moment but that is where you want to look, imo. Imho, in the unverifiable truth of things it is difficult to tell apart language contact from a genetic relationship and both likely exist at some point in history (i.e. correspondences in vocab regarding geology and domiciles could just as easily be loans), the question is when it branched, 5000 years like IE or something more Starostin-esque than that. My totally OR unverifiable suspicion is that Pliev got it backwards -- NEC could have an HU superstratum.--Calthinus (talk) 16:10, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi again. I have done some reading about the historical Alarodian hypothesis (which had pretty weird proportions at one stage), and have separated the old hypothesis from the modern proposal in the article Alarodian languages. The latter part still needs some minor clean-up. I have a Russian translation of the introduction to Diakonov-Starostin 1986; in that publication, they simply refer to HU+NEC as East Caucasian. But I have found a publication where Diakonoff revives the old term Alarodian in the modern sense. –Austronesier (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * great work! The page had been in a sorry state for quite awhile.--Calthinus (talk) 01:42, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Fournet redux
re Proto-Berber -- not that I'm against that edit, it reflects my original approach.... but... if we view self-published work from Arnaud Fournet on Proto-Berber as not RS, surely we should not have a separate policy for another self-publication by the same Arnaud Fournet (LINGUIST List []). If anything, well, his main work was on Moksha it seems, though that too is in EUE which has [| this particular issue]. I'm not trying to bash the man, I do respect his work, and you already know my feelings about these pesky issues. I just want a consistent guideline to follow. -Calthinus (talk) 11:12, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Additionally -- if we view him as unqualified to speak on "Afrasian" -- he should be less qualified to speak on relations or non relations to Northeast Caucasian. He does have work in Afro-Asiatic (on Proto-Arabic) though I don't exactly recognize the journal "Zeitung für Arabische Linguistik" and the google search results for it are... underwhelming (actually his work is a quarter of the results). He does not have any work on any NEC language, peer-reviewed or not, whatsoever. --Calthinus (talk) 11:21, 16 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Quite a coincidence, I was looking for our previous talk, but so far only looked up at Hurro-Urartian languages and Alarodian languages. Good you guided me here. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. :)
 * I get your point about what looks like an inconsistency, but Fournet's inclusion in Alarodian languages is mainly supported based on the co-author Alan Bomhard, who has a long-standing record of peer-reviewed publications on long-range comparisons involving IE languages (whatever their factual merit, that's not ours to judge here). On the other hand, Fournet's publication trail is not really supportive for keeping him in Proto-Berber.
 * The policy WP:SELFPUB gives a good guideline: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Actually, this is the just the minimun threshold. In the case of Robertson, we were actually both too lenient, but it is somehow justifiable because there is not much literature about the linguistic affiliations of Hurro-Urartian anyway. In the case of Proto-Berber, however, there is no lack of reliable sources in the strict sense. Giving a whole para to Fournet would not just run against WP:SELFPUB, but would also create some undue weight.
 * As for "Afrasian", there is actually no need for a ref in lede (there is a ref citing the EB further below). But if we want to emphasize that it is an extant alternative name, we should use a less "vulnerable" citation. –Austronesier (talk) 12:22, 16 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Okay yeah that makes sense. Bomhard has a large trail as an Indo-Europeanist and a Nostraticist (within which he discusses Kartvelian etc etc). I was thinking, maybe we'd best keep him to arguing for IE/HU, and have the HU-NEC presented by Smeets, or Schulze, or Tuite (he cites them) []? [tried to find Nichols on this, couldn't]
 * And yeah, I didn't really think that hard when adding the cite to the lede. But as you may have guessed Afroasiatic is not really my personal domain.--Calthinus (talk) 12:56, 16 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Found Nichols, can you open the page? I will add the citation among the critics of Alarodian. Tuite only gives a neutral mention of the proposal and its critics. I have found an offprint with full page numbering . It's the perfect ref for the opening sentence "The modern Alarodian hypothesis is fairly controversial." –Austronesier (talk) 14:11, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah Tuite is neutral but useful in that he synths up for us the lack of enthusiasm among post Soviet Caucasologists for Alarodian. Side note I found his historiographical discussion very interesting, if damning (not sure how Gimbutas would feel about being compared to Zviad Gamsakhurdia). Thanks for Nichols. I'll do the edit later today. --Calthinus (talk) 15:17, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Btw, "Zeitung für Arabische Linguistik" (per Fournet on LINGUIST list, NARKIVE etc.) should read "Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik". LOL.
 * And yeah, Tuite (2008) is a great source. I'm thinking of expanding Ibero-Caucasian languages based on it, some time when I am in the mood again for paleo-linguistics. –Austronesier (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * On second inspection -- there is no 'Alarodian' or 'Hurrian' in this, but there is discussion of 'Urartian'; alas, I cannot access the page. I'm about to make the other fixes as stipulated but when you get a moment, I think readers would appreciate Nichols' specific reasoning, as she is hte leading expert on Nakh (which is the branch of NEC most frequently compared to HU). --Calthinus (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's the full quote from Nichols: Diakonoff and Starostin 1986 assume that Hurro-Urartean [sic] is related to Nakh-Dagestanian, and assemble putative cognate sets so as to maximize similarities between the two families.
 * She then goes on and describes Nikolayev and Starostin's (1994) proposal of uniting NEC and NWC into a North Caucasian family, and concludes: Neither Diakonoff and Starostin, nor Nikolayev and Starostin, take on the burden of proof and discuss whether the incidence of resemblances exeeds chance expectation, nor do they present examples of the kind of shared morphological paradigmaticity that would strongly support genetic relatedness. Accordingly, the possibility of external relations to NWC and/or Hurro-Urartean must be regarded as an opinion for which no support has been offered. I'm thinking of changing the cite format (sfn's and stuff), so we can include more quotes. –Austronesier (talk) 11:32, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * -- thanks! And if you haven't already changed the citations, go for it. --Calthinus (talk) 20:03, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

The source of 2 separatist movements.
Most of the sources may have originated from searching from Google, however it may be from this web page: https://books.google.com/books?id=pGClDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA534&lpg=PA534&dq=Kuk+bure&source=bl&ots=clCbWwM6CV&sig=ACfU3U0vTKuTbGlDOhh7bD65L-W9Ei3eAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjcu5OD9qPkAhUH01kKHaubByAQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false. Or for simplistic stances: from Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World. Around page 537 to page 540 says so, for more information, page 533 to 540.  Exploding  PoPUps  —Preceding undated comment added 01:25, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think Minahan is an ideal source here. He is asserting the existence of a bunch of totally unknown organizations advocating for a group that stopped existing due to assimilation in the Middle Ages, and while his book has good info in some places, it also has some interesting claims, like Californian English being distinctive because it uses words from Asian languages (he is totally unqualified to say this and gives zero sources or data; suffice to say it is rather bs). Maybe knows if such "Merya separatism" exists.--Calthinus (talk) 01:53, 1 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Does that mean that only Volga German separatism is able to stay up for now, or quite the opposite. If he is totally unqualified, either some of the info or advocacy group is a bit misplaced, otherwise a little off or it’s entirely wrong or uncertain. I would say that not all of them are correct. If you think 'Volga German separatism' shall not likely stay up, please reply me back. Perhaps he is trying to mention Merya Finns, otherwise known as Volga Fins.--  Exploding  PoPUps  02:53, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * One thing at a time. For now they are both out (frankly they both look ridiculous and embarassing for us to have, at least without a good citation) . Get a good source that shows an active separatist movement in either case and we can restore. --Calthinus (talk) 03:05, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Aromanian language
Hey Calthinus, I saw your edits there. Ethnologue might be of help. It says: "Total users in all countries: 181,120". Take a look at it. EU institutions might have published helpful info too; maybe the Council of Europe. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:07, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * They also have good maps. --Calthinus (talk) 00:11, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism in Shamil article
hello, Calthinus. in imam Shamil article Хаджимурад user removes information which is of consensus. He did this Special:Diff/914512519 and reverted reversion Special:Diff/915035575. As you see in my reversion which he reverted I called him to talk page Special:Diff/914805390. I called him to talk page in April also Special:Diff/890905135 when he did his vandal edit Special:Diff/888065632. No reaction. How to stop the vandal? Can you do smth?--Arsenekoumyk (talk) 05:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * called a user to talk page again Special:Diff/915096976 and reverted Special:Diff/915110988 vandal edit with another call. I think if he does it again it's clearly edit warring and destructive behavior.--Arsenekoumyk (talk) 09:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Arsen -- this dude is likely an Avar nationalist editor (user name references Hadzhi Murat) and is not being constructive from the start. A block is likely in order. You're already on 3rr and Im too busy to add my few cents there but feel free to copy paste.--Calthinus (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

About Avar separatism, etc.
The Heavenly Wolf is a political party indeed. And I could see that either all or some of Veps independence movement exists, If existed or not. There is no need for an entire removal of Veps, you could just remove the organizations which claim to advocate them. Speaking of the Heavenly Wolf it is likely heard here.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/03/russia-separatism-vladimir-putin-227498

Moving on to the Chuvash part:

Chuvash Youth Union is indeed banned in 2000 and I could clearly understand that there is no reason for them to be added there if is inactive.

The Avar group named 'High-landers (Maarulal) or simply known as 'Maarulal' that I could tell really exists.

Avar National Union-Iman Shamil indeed too exists which may or may not be mentioned on the web link below.

https://www.trtworld.com/perspectives/imam-shamil-a-contested-legacy-that-still-resonates-in-the-caucasus-29580

Definetly Agul Gelinbatan exists but I don’t know if it is a political movement or not but the more possible ones are Arhaval, Arhaval is indeed a movement.

Speaking of Nenets, many of them may or may not be mentioned in the web-page:

https://www.barentsinfo.org/Contents/Indigenous-people/Nenets

Association of the Indigenous People of the North’s existing name may be similar to an existing group named Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North. Either it is the same or not.

Now to the ural part:

Have you even read about the source about Ural regionalism, it clearly said '[50]'.

Pretty much Ural Democratic Foundation is mentioned on:

https://www.refworld.org/docid/57878d0f4.html

Abaza:

Abaza Adkilra is mentioned on VK, and what I can find about Abaza Yurdu is in Turkish.

Abazanhara is heard in http://www.abhazyam.com/haber/5164/nugzar-ashuba-stk-kurdu.html

I believe that Apsadghyl is defunct. So we should drop this out, same goes to Apsua since it exists as Abkhaz Television channel, perhaps we should add disambiguation page over Apsua. Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus was a defunct group so we should take this out.

Adgylara exists as a Abkhaz political party, likely heard on:

https://www.loc.gov/newspapers/?fa=subject%3Apolitics+and+government%7Clocation%3Ageorgia%7Csubject%3Anewspapers%7Csubject%3Aabkhazia%7Clanguage%3Arussian%7Csubject%3Aadgylara+(political+party+%3A+abkhazia%2C+georgia)&c=25&all=true

World Congress of Abkhaz-Abazin people absolutely exists, too heard on:

https://news.myseldon.com/en/news/index/172903043

The next part is the Komis:

Both Komi Voityr and Finno-Ugric Peoples Consultative Committee exists, and it is heard on:

https://thebarentsobserver.com/ru/node/3372

http://rkomi.ru/en/print/razdelpseudo/337/

The same goes to the Komi's Peoples Congress, heard on:

https://minorityrights.org/minorities/komi/

Komi National Movement:

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/07/komi-national-movement-following-in.html

And this is all I have to say about it.

If you like to respond over this section, please reply.

I only added them, some of them are reviews over your recent edits on List of active separatist movements in Europe, primarily the Russian section.

 Exploding  PoPUps  19:21, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * okay, sure -- but it is your WP:ONUS to cite these things yourself. Uncited, we cannot have all these red links. --Calthinus (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Alright, but of course, may I cite all of them entirely?  Exploding  PoPUps  19:42, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. You cite every possibly contentious statement, inline right after the statement is made.--Calthinus (talk) 20:07, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

List of active separatist movements in Europe
Hello Calthinus!

I have noticed that you are aswell fighting against trolls and "made-up internet movements" on the List of active separatist movements in Europe. You have noticed what is going on since the end of August. Especially the part about Russia became very, very, very problematic, while Italy and Spain have been before. We are clearly giving some trolls a voice over here. Take a look at the Revision history, we never had so many edits on this list

Do you think that we should ask administrators to intervene?

Best regards, Koreanovsky (talk) 08:51, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * we are not dealing with a troll here, but likely someone who wants to contribute but is still in the learning phase. Not a case of nationalist or POV editing, more a case of an overzealous newbie. A long time ago that was many other editors who have now moved on. Myself included. I agree a lot of the page is very, very, very problematic, and I have taken to removing many of these -- but these problems predated the guy's activity as well. The user is showing willingness to abide by rules and improve though, so I'm going with this for now. In the long run I see the page improving this way, as I have created a motivation for a highly active editor on the page to find citations for statements on a page that overall lacked them. Once that is done, WP:RS and WP:DUE will be brought into the picture and applied on a case by case basis as is appropriate. One step at a time my friend. It'll be win-win in the end for us all I believe. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 17:41, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * At the same time, I can foresee the possibility of ANI or DR being useful if improvement halts. --Calthinus (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * You are right, the only thing I hope is that everything will work out fine. The problem is, that many people still want to use this list, to promote irredentism - which leads to another problem: In some cases it will even be hard to split between actually autonomism/secessionism and irredentism, especially when the stuff is unsourced or was never a topic on the talk page.


 * North Kosovo: I know, when it comes to Serbs outside Serbia it might be hard to distinguish between pure irredentism and actual movements. Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember that there was once something on this page about "Montenegro demanding to be annexed by Serbia" - which was pure non-sense and irredentism. I saw that you removed the part about Kosovo (in good conscience, ofc), but in this case I had to revert your edit about North Kosovo. It is an actual movement between the northern four municipalities in Kosovo, with Serbian population. Both governments, of Kosovo and Serbia agreed upon creating the Community of Serb Municipalities. According to the agreement, its assembly will have no legislative authority and the judicial authorities will be integrated and operate within the Kosovo legal framework. But movements, of reintegrating those municipalities into Serbia or atleast having an Serb autonomous province in Kosovo, do exist among the Serbs living there. – Yes, I re-added it, but we will definitly have to talk about it, before we deside if it stays or not.


 * I was also questioning the part about Ukraine. If you ask me, we should leave it as it is currently, because those movements and de-facto-regimes do kinda exist, but since this pro-Russian separatism went out of control in 2014, we need to be careful that nobody starts adding the "Federal State of Novorossiya" or fictional internet proposals like the Kharkov and Odessa People's Republic, since this would already be promoting irredentism.


 * But one thing is definitly clear, we will have to delete a lot of inactive and historical movements from this list.


 * Thank you very much for contributing to Wikipedia, and trying to turn this free encyclopedia into something qualitative!


 * Keep rising to the top friend! Greetings, Koreanovsky (talk) 19:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Btw. if you want to see something better (sarcasm), look at the edit history of the List of active separatist movements in North America. I even started to work on it in March, but sadly nobody really looked up what the IPs were doing. A few edits ago you could have read stuff like "New England demanding to join Canada". --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh boy, I will not click that link for my sanity but I can only imagine it discusses something like fights between self-styled "ethnic Cascadians" and a sub-separatist group of Ciscascadians who believe they are different than Transcascadians :). Re Serbs in Kosovo, the de facto reality is administration by Serbia; the Community of Serb Municipalities pertains to a non-contiguous association of municipalities, in this capacity it can be called autonomist, though since almost all individuals involved have also at some other point advocated all of Kosovo belonging to Serbia...... some doubts exist (this is the factor that differentiates it from the corresponding Albanian movement in Macedonia, which has figures who have never supported irredentism of any sort). Within irredentism, there are more ridiculous things I've seen -- moreso even than Novorussiya, and more like the Limburg thing I also deleted. Irredentist movements have their own page. Such material belongs there. It was prior agreed on the talk page that irredentism should only be considered separatism when it involves the creation of a new state (i.e. Kurdistan -- yes; "Borchali", Javakhk -- no.). Alas, Wiki will be Wiki.--Calthinus (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * We already have a page with irredentist movements List of irredentist claims or disputes, thankfully. Irredentism can (only in a few cases) be connect with ethnic nationalism and separatism. You have already mentioned Kurdistan - homeland of the Kurds, a perfect example. While Kurds mostly live in Turkey, Iraq and Syria - they only have an autonomous province in Iraq: Kurdistan Region, and also land claims in Turkey and Syria. We will definitly have to look again at the North Kosovo question. A few minutes ago, I looked at the part of Germany and it was even worser than I thought. People once again confused regionalism with autonomism... But the part 'bout Limburg you removed was once again irredentism. Good job!


 * But never forget, the North America list includes stuff like "Republic of New Afrika" which is a nationalist proposal. The New England part is sources, but how serious can be an organisation that cannot afford an URL and uses weebly.com instead?


 * Also thank you for your WP:NPOV, especially when it comes to such sensibile topics. Cheers! --Koreanovsky (talk) 09:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Exersice
Calthinus, I'm not sure what you were going for here. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I was about to fix it but got edit conflicted. Embarrassing. Perhaps I mean embarassing[sic]. Expecting the fish.--Calthinus (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, not at all--I didn't look at the original tweet (was it a tweet? doesn't matter) so I don't know if you correctly removed a typo and equally correctly left another, or something like that. Thanks, and take care, Drmies (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I corrected it to correct English. Or that was my intention (also removed the sic in France's statement) but I was in a rush and editing fast since my real goal was to correct Israel's statement. Heh.--Calthinus (talk) 15:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Just checked, in fact it appears that China's original online statement did not have any typo -- "excer(s/c)i(s/c)e must have been introduced by one or more of our editors :). --Calthinus (talk) 15:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Ha, thanks for checking! BTW I was alerted by your edit summary, which I appreciated. Drmies (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * which edit summary?--Calthinus (talk) 15:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "patronizing emphasis on alleged spelling/grammar errors in the comments of non-Anglophone foreign officials are really not necessary to have and just distracting" Drmies (talk) 15:46, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Barnstar
Thank you very much for the barnstar! I appreciate it and all of your kind words! :)

Old topics, new users
Hi friend!

Who is this user "SezVicary"? Should we maybe inform the admins? Since he could be a sockpuppet + he is kinda adding some random (non-existing, "fandom") movements, and totally harming the already sensible article. Greetings, Koreanovsky (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey! Me again, wanna see something really, really and really bad?, and the highlight: "United Republics of Jamtland" – a  humorous culture and marketing project or micronation. I think after this you will probably agree that we need to ask the admins to lock the page for a bit, just to let the situation cool down a bit. --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I will bother you only this one time more for today, no worries, hahaha ;) But here something hilarious (in a painful way) aswell: . Someone created a very unprofessional Website for this, using a free webpage maker to promote own ideologies and ideas. - Someone literally used this as a "source" and called the title of the webpage a "political party". *Ouch* --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:48, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis of the edits but not the user. Agree however that admins might handle this best. I like his energy. I do not like how it is being used. We are more likely dealing with a younger user possibly on a spectrum if you know what I mean -- patience and understanding may be the way to go. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 04:35, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * And yes, I believe SezVicary and ExplodingPopUps are the same individual. I tried to explain to him that socking is maybe not great. To be fair, he hasn't yet used it to evade 3RR. Tagging -- perhaps he might know how best to handle this. --Calthinus (talk) 04:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Am I interrupting for whichever the reason is? About SezVicary, I deny that SeaVicary are the same individual as mine, I mean my existence is entirely unrelated to the mentioned user, so I has nothing to do with, again the mentioned user. In other words, there is no conclusive evidence of me and SezVicary are the same user. I’m not trying to assume bad faith or anything, but I suggest you to refrain accusing me of sockpuppetry.  Exploding  PoPUps  01:02, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Loanwords in Albanian
Hi Calthinus, I noticed you seemed to know your way around the literature concerning Albanian a bit based on the discussion over [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Albanian_language#90%_of_alb._vocabulary_=_loanwords? here]. I was wondering about the Gothic loans in Albanian mentioned here. I work on Gothic over at Wiktionary and have to say I never really encountered mentions of Gothic loanwords in Albanian before, so when I discovered that another user had populated the category for Albanian terms derived from Gothic over at Wiktionary and subsequently discovered the mention of Gothic loans in Albanian here on Wikipedia, I was puzzled (although there is something of a historical case to be made for contact between the two languages, I suppose). Do you know more about this, or could you point me to some reliable sources that discuss early Germanic-Albanian loanword contact, if it indeed existed? (Both the Wikipedia and Wiktionary entries relevant to this forget to mention anything in the way of scholarly sources for these Gothic-Albanian contact claims...) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 10:59, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * , godana dag. My understanding is that while there are words of plausible Gothic (or other East Germanic) provenance in Albanian, exactly how they got there is unclear. We do not have adequate sources -- archaeological, historiographical or linguistic -- to really reason about the nature of such a contact scenario. Some northern Albanian tribes up in the mountains with a noticeably higher-than-Balkan-average prevalence of tall blondes do flirt with Gothic origin claims but we really aren't sure (afaik) whether Goths ever settled permanently in the area, and our sourcing on the entire 6th-9th century in most of the Balkans is... a bit of a black out.


 * There are cases like zverk - this paper explicitly posits a Gothic source, seems fairly well reasoned as a possibility. Some of these Germanic-shaped words penetrate deep into the core vocabulary -- for example shkurtër (meaning short-- note English cognate), but we cannot say that all or even most of these are from Gothic rather than having a different Germanic source.


 * In earlier studies of Albanian, people were more eager to attribute Gothic sources to various things. Gustav Meyer thought even ju (you, pl.) was from Gothic jus -- it has a credible source in Proto-Albanian now. Because vowel-wise Proto-Albanian was closer to Proto-Germanic than most of their siblings, they are easy to confuse. Early Albanology was disproportionately done by speakers of German who would become interested upon finding words like gardh (Meyer posited Gothic gards, PIE gordos)... but most of these are now considered native Albanian words with continuous regular development from PIE to Proto-Albanian down to our times.


 * My understanding is that the same unclear situation exists with other languages in the Balkans, including Romanian. As a matter of fact some cognate words words in the -- Romanian gard cf Albanian gardh -- are still attributed to Gothic in  Romanian linguistics, which is more inclined to favor Gothic explanations for both Albanian and Romanian etymologies.--Calthinus (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the concise reply. I have observed the 'Gothic fever' you describe myself, and it definitely makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Still, I don't think the case for Gothic-Albanian contact is altogether unlikely; during the third and fourth centuries, an ancestor of Albanian could have been spoken not too far from the Roman frontier beyond which the Goths then resided (border contact with Goths in this period induced the borrowing into Greek of broutis meaning "bride", attested on tombstones in Aquileia, Noricum, Bulgaria and Serbia, cf. Dennis Green 1998 p.184) and where Goths also served as auxiliaries in the Roman army, and during the late fourth and fifth centuries various larger groups of Goths such as the Visigoths under Alaric and later the Ostrogoths under Theoderic would spend decades in the Balkan region as auxiliaries and occasionally as adversaries of the Romans. Furthermore, during the period of the Ostrogothic Kingdom Gothic influence may have reached Albanian-speaking regions, too. In short, from the fourth century until the sixth at least, East Germanic was represented by invaders, auxiliary soldiers and possibly settlers in the Balkan region who may have thus influenced Albanian. But to try to really prove any of this or at least make a clear case would require a more complete survey of the sources. For now, it seems difficult to even find a clear overview of possible Gothic loanwords, let alone a comprehensive treatment of Germanic-Albanian contact. (Something for Germanic-Albanian contact comparable to Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff's study on Germanic influence on early Slavic would be amazing, but it seems not to exist.) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 14:39, 24 October 2019 (UTC)


 * It's certainly possible. I've heard there's a bit of a dispute of how much of the common people in Gothic dominated areas spoke Gothic, when we are talking about their 4th century domicile in Dacia/Moesia/Ukraine/Crimea, I'm sure you know about this. The paucity of obvious Gothic material in Romanian as compared to Slavic or "Balkan" or even Hungarian, that somewhat puzzles me I have to admit. One explanation I've come across is that during the migration age the surviving native populations that did not accept the rule of invading forces were forced into the mountains and adopted a pastoral and seminomadic lifestyle as a result, and in this way had less contact with the political authorities in the lowlands than one might expect. That would be consistent with descriptions of both Albanians and Romanians at their reemergence in historical records around 1000-1100 CE. I personally believe there is a lot more work to be done and published in investigating this angle, as Albanian and Romanian are both somewhat understudied languages.
 * Could you send me Pronk-Tiekhoff's paper by the way? I'm genuinely interested in reading it.--Calthinus (talk) 15:21, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * More broadly (Romanian focused) -- there is this [] --Calthinus (talk) 15:30, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The Balkans do lend themselves well to linguistic isolation, and the distance between the languages of common folk and the language spoken by political elites is well attested in antiquity (such as in the case of Latin and local languages in the Roman Empire: even in Late Antiquity some people in Gaul still spoke Gaulish, for example), so that explanation isn't too far out. I'm not even sure you really need to posit an escape from authority so much as people staying in their remote villages and only sporadically dealing with outside authority (and not trading much - a lot of loanword traffic surrounding Gothic involves trade goods). The relatively large influence on Slavic might be explained by the fact that the (proto-)Slavs who were in contact with the Goths during the 3rd-5th centuries would've lived in relatively open areas, i.e. the western edge of the Eurasian Steppe at the northwestern shores of the Black Sea where the Goths were located at the time - an area in which it is more difficult to remain isolated than in the Carpathians, for example. (Beyond the 5th century, Gothic influence in (south)eastern Europe waned quickly due to the Huns and subsequent upheavals in which the Goths had little role.)
 * You can find Pronk-Tiethoff's dissertation here, it is open-access. It contains a lot of historical and linguistic background as well as a fairly complete overview of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic, with discussions of the context of borrowing and the most likely donor language (usually Gothic, OHG, or uncertain) which makes it very useful as a reference. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 15:55, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Very interesting. I have to admit I've always found the Goths in the Balkans pretty interesting and been disappointed that we don't know much, so it's good to see that at least with regard to Slavic there is actually work in the area.--Calthinus (talk) 02:17, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You may find Dennis Green's Language and History in the Early Germanic World interesting as well. His methods and conclusions seem somewhat circular and speculative at times (it doesn't always seem to hold up to scrutiny), but he presents a real wealth of linguistic evidence, especially in the field of loanword studies. It's been fairly influential, you'll notice Pronk-Tiethoff also cited it in her dissertation iirc. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

did manage to find a few Gothic loans in Albanian, actually. Of course the somewhat older works like Meyer, Jokl, Huld (especially) and Feist (even more especially, this is his 1939 Vergleichendes Worterbuch der gotischen Sprache), etc have tons but a lot of these are thrown out by Demiraj, Orel, etc. Here are some of the ones that "remain"... and the pattern I see here is quite interesting, as one group we have refers to specific cultural produce (punjashë, mazë, tirk) that could speak to those having been cultural imports as well, while the biggest portion of the rest are... um, related to either crime, sex, or both.


 * burg "prison" < Germanic *burg likely via Gothic baurgs. (rival etymology is Greek pyrgos, but phonologically this is very dubious).
 * cub /tsub/ "robber brigand" < Gothic thiubs "thief"
 * gardh /gaɾð/ "fence" < Goth gards "house". This one's also in Romanian I believe, we might have discussed it.
 * horr "promiscuous, adulterous/amoral male" ("f*ckboi" to be colloquial) < some Gothic equivalent of Germanic hors cf ON hora (cf English whore??). It has a rarer feminine derivative: horre.
 * tirk "white felt, felt gaiters" and also Romanian tureac < *θiubbrōks, the "East Germanic cognate to OHG theobrach"
 * akull "ice", Orel(1998:3) thinks it's "Balkan Gothic" from Gmc *jakulaz, cf ON jokull "icicle".
 * vallë /valˠə/ "maybe", used in questions < PAlb *walā < Goth waila. This one is with a question mark in Orel.
 * afër "near" -- the attribution to "afar" is kept as "possible" by Orel, though he prefers Proto-Albanian *apsera. Jokl held this view too.
 * an "uterus" < Goth auhns "oven". This one comes from Jokl, but Shaban Demiraj holds it up
 * mazë "cream, skin of the milk" -- this case is a case where there was likely a Slavic intermediary cf Bulgarian maz', Serbian maz etc << Gothic mats "meal".
 * punjashë "purse" < punjë < some unknown East Germanic variety, Orel cites Goth puggs.

Thought you might be interested. Cheers! --Calthinus (talk) 03:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that is absolutely of interest to me! Some of these seem a bit of a stretch (e.g. an) and don't seem consistent with each other, like e.g. the /θ/ in Got. thiufs is here said to yield /ts/  in the case of cub, but /t/  in the case of tirk (< Got. *thiuhbrōks), which seems impossible. But others are promising, e.g. horr and *punjë. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * yeah some of them seemed odd to me too. One thing that is particularly odd is that, actually, Proto-Albanian /t͡s/ becomes Old (and modern) Albanian th /θ/, but there are a number of words in Albanian that are doublets where one has th- and the other c-, perhaps due to some sort of dialect contact -- so one could imagine /θ/ going to /t͡s/ as a sort of hypercorrection, though that's very speculative. As for tirk, yeah, idk why that would happen, unless it came through a Romance intermediary. But the rest of the phonology of thiubbroks is not as surprising as it looks at first when you place it in the context of Albanian diachrony. Consider the following, which are from Latin so there is no etymological ambiguity: fabrica to fark, februarius to fruar, consobrīnus to kushëri, lābrusca to lërushkë -- as you can see /br/ regularly goes to /r/ in this internal position in Albanian, and the case of fabrica especially shows that if we can assume an initial stress in thiubbroks, us getting tirk from a putative East Romance mediated form tʉbroku- is plausible. The ones I personally would disregard are akull, afër and vallë (an also has issues because it should have been rhotacized). --Calthinus (talk) 17:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * thiubs > cub can actually also possibly be explained by Romanian as an intermediary -- In Romanian, there is no /θ/, so it's /tjub-/, and /tj-/ in Romanian because /t͡s/ regularly. --Calthinus (talk) 18:04, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

How to deal with this...
...when bad language is the only description ? Maybe now it is really time to contact the admins? Greetings, Koreanovsky (talk) 19:35, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Already warned him over his language, see  Exploding  PoPUps  22:22, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
You are welcome.

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC) 

New categories and setting the rules for it
I concur with you regarding the discussion and the unecessary debates it has created, however, I was wondering, where do you think it is better to initiate a formal discussion for the creation of a category "States in the Ancient Greek World"? Don't get me wrong, I would have went myself and create that category, but I feel this needs to be discussed thoroughly in an appropriate talk page first because there is so much to consider when talking about "Ancient Greek World" (of which the boundaries extend far beyond its classical definition, i.e. Greco-Bactrian Kingdom) and is a good idea to hear everyone's opinions on the matter before stepping in for its creation. Also sorry for misquoting the proposed name of yours for the new category, this has been fixed now. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 19:18, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * To be honest I agree with you in theory, and I'm also not really sure what the best way to proceed is at the moment, and I also don't want to spend my time in a "formal discussion" beyond what I've already said (which is extensive) on the matter. What's more likely is whatever the result is, I or perhaps someone else will go and fix whatever inclusions need to be fixed (Thrace -- "in Ancient Greek world" yes, "Greek" no; ditto Armenia, Judaea, Phrygia, Egypt etc). This conversation is not really worth it, we are not exactly improving the main space with it. Imo. We'll have to deal with stupid bots as Jingiby did, but we'll live. --Calthinus (talk) 02:33, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Neither I am sure anymore. Even if I knew what is the best approach, still there is one more problem: certain editors with unconstructive attitude and high political bias towards these matters may only attempt to disrupt or derail the discussion like how they are trying here . Editors offending other editors with such vitriolic comments of political nature instead of focusing on improving the content, is the last thing I could ever want to bother myself with. This is a waste of time and I got better things to do. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 12:35, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * You see, just as rain falls from the sky, people with strong opinions descend on Wikipedia. Best thing to do is let go of strong opinions about the matter. Imho. --Calthinus (talk) 06:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Late Greek ethnic religion
I think you mentioned you had some sources on this? I had sources on Tsakonians and Maniots being Christianized late, but I think there was something of the like also in the Aegean you or someone else mentioned? --Calthinus (talk) 18:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I am afraid I am of no much use to you. Everything I had on my digital library was gone along with my backup drive and the old PC itself. This is why I was inactive and absent from Wikipedia in the previous months. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ (talk &#9993; &#124; contribs &#9998;) 18:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair -- best of luck with that. I'm busy myself but I'll be back to work on the -- noncontroversial -- stuff I had promised in the winter. --Calthinus (talk) 18:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Global citizen and Talk:EOKA
Hi there! I have notice that you mentioned my name recently, introducing me as a greek citizen. I consider my self a global citizen. Not that I am not greek, but that is a secondary characteristic. Anyways, as for your argument, I totally agree with you. Here 's what else Khirurg wrote to me at EOKA Talk.  "'And fourth, your grammar and spelling are atrocious and unsuitable for an English-language encyclopedia. And no, it is not my job to fix your bad grammar and don't even think about making such demands. I do not work for you, I am not your copyeditor. The onus is on you to make edits suitable for an English-language encyclopedia. If this is too difficult, there is always the choice of returning to the Greek wikipedia (oh wait, you were blocked for three months on that platform. Why is that?). I am starting to get the impression that you have personal beef with EOKA. Do you? Because if so, you should recuse yourself from this article.'"

Well, I had to say it somewhere! Cinadon36 23:50, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I saw that, and at the time I didn't want to intervene, I probably did not have time, or maybe I was a coward and did not want his wrath directed at myself. When I saw his post on ANI, well, you know what my reaction to seeing that was, although by that point he was already mega pissed at me so I had less to lose. Anyways he actually is, erm, directing his wrath at me now (see [] [] -- but don't intervene there, because he would definitely report me to some drama board for canvassing you, it's predictable lol). Maybe I should have said something then. Probably I should have. This is how it keeps happening, because people like me see it, and do nothing. My apologies. Frankly it was a postercase example of harassment, and a disgusting attempt at gatekeeping, especially as discrimination against people for their perceived accents in English is an acute problem nowadays, and all the more so given what he said about FPAS. But hey next time he talks about beef, just grin and say well I'm a vegetarian and I ain't not f*king scared of him :) --Calthinus (talk) 01:57, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, in a perfect world everyone would be a global citizen, and such divisive concepts as "ethnicity" and "citizenship" would not exist. You are a good example for every editor who touches Balkan articles. Your neutrality and interesting content are welcome. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 22:11, 15 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your nice words. You and  have taught me a lot. Not by directly talking to me, but when you are explaining and elaborating your thoughts at Talk Pages, you help newcomers to familiarize themselves with WP policies. Cheers!  Cinadon36 22:19, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Jews in Serbia
I have worked hard to read the whole content, evaluate it per basic Wiki rules, check the sources and than copy it to bigger paragraph which kept all the key information. What is the idea with this undo followed with a somewhat unclear comment which is not proper for a diff to begin with? I removed the standalone paragraph because the content is better suited for other paragraphs which are covering various periods of the history of Jews in this country. Some of the content was already covering the persecution and all the problems of the community and there is/was no need for a new one which would cover only these events. A part of the content was not cover with proper RS and did not respect Identifying and using primary sources. I can already see the labels of Antisemitism because of that edit, but I do not care because my tweaks mostly upgraded the article, and people in general, including a number Wiki editors, enjoy labeling each other. You have also removed a number of fixed typos and other stuff. cheers  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  14:04, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * One more thing about a source removed, could you point out which one was it? I shall restore it.  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  15:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * in this edit [], although your edit summary says "no RS removed" you in fact, intentionally or not, removed the reference to Remembering Espana (work on Sefardi Jews) by Howard M Sachar.--Calthinus (talk) 15:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I shall restore it and I shall copy the text to bigger paragraphs, like we do on all articles. If you have any additional suggestion - please write to me.  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  19:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia and yeman
Southern MovementYobeemolt (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ....?--Calthinus (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Southern Movement

https://media.alalamtv.net/news/image/855x495//2017/05/24/alalam_636312226091315925_25f_4x3.jpg

Yobeemolt (talk) 20:21, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * This does not say anything about a separatist movement. All it talks about is tribal divisions and "possible" divisions -- but nothing about movements. Also, your edit on the Turkey section -- in case you're not aware, all the West Armenians are either dead or fled, from over a hundred years ago, so how can there be Armenians to be separatist there? Obviously there are not, and even if there were, it falls under irredentism since the goal is (or was) a single Armenian state. --Calthinus (talk) 20:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Cornell 2002, p. 107: "The Georgian government has been very careful not to provoke the Javakhetia Armenians; meanwhile, the Armenian government, mindful of the importance of its relations with Georgia, has been careful to defuse potential problems in the region, intervening once to talk Javakhk out of plans to hold a referendum on autonomy or secession."

Are Armenians in Georgia Different from Armenians in Turkey?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Armenians#Number

Some sources estimate their population as 5 million

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Armenia

see 146th in ReferencesYobeemolt (talk) 20:30, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * in Georgia it is different than Turkey, yes, because they still live there and have at times called for an autonomous region. If there is an RS saying Hidden Armenians are working for a separate West Armenia indepedent of both Turkey and "East Armenia" then go for it, I'd be surprised though. --Calthinus (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I've seen you finally returned. Without you, the entire Asia and Europe thing is a mess. Adding irredentism. Back around few or less days ago. I tried to notify that separatism isn't the same thing as irredentism. Speaking about many of the irredentist movements and other added movements. I never wanted them to be added, except for few parts like China, Russia, India and etc. It is indeed a while since you last edited. Before you return. All I done is simply fixing everything wrong with this article likewise, correcting links.  Exploding  PoPUps  21:50, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * you have my gratitude :).--Calthinus (talk) 00:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Images
What tools do you make with these maps? Can you tell me how. Thankful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Calthinus#Images Yobeemolt (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Microsoft paint, believe it or not. --Calthinus (talk) 20:39, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Our favorite list, again...
Hey Calthinus!

Have you seen what happened to the Russia section on the list of active separatist movements? It was totally without any patrol for a while and the irredentist movements such as the "Kaliningrad Oblast movement" but with flags of the Teutonic Order were re-added. According to this unsourced crap (excuse me), around 40,000,000 of Russia's population demands a secession. It is visible that someone was "allowed" to his or her own opinion/goals a bit too much... I have checked some sources, many of them are random websites, blogs or forums. We have reached the point where we need to talk with the admins.

You know how problematic the list is, and it finally needs to be blocked to cool down for a while. --Koreanovsky (talk) 14:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I’m unsure that if you already understood my statements were. Other than that. The mentioned articled, at least to me was way better back on 17:21, 18 November 2019‎. However. New users emerged like Tyronqe7,  Isambask now used as Yobeemolt added tons of unsourced movements. Sadly, the only separatist movements I recognize in Russia part, partially in Europe and Asia are the sourced ones. Other than that. It seems that you may wish for a person to check the added separatists movements made by me, before November 18th. There is a chance that I will recognize the sourced to those newly added, some are readded separatist movements by slowly emerging new users.  Exploding  PoPUps  00:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Update: So, you’d be partially right. Some of them are indeed blog posts and forums but not all of those sources are blog posts. The definition of a 'blog post' is "a piece of writing or other item of content posted on a blog." And the definition of news has two. "newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events", or "a broadcast or published report of news." Meaning according to the second definition. "a broadcast or published report of news" seems to be more synonymous with "a piece of writing or other item of content posted on a blog". Except that isn't broadcasting but blogging. So it must be likely a source. Here is the other issue, one autonomist movement like Komi-Permyak Okrug due to the recent edits by users. Apperently autonomists are apparently also separatists. About Kaliningrad. I couldn’t find any evidence relating to German nationalism. All of this is just images. I’ll focus on the Caucasus later since some added separatist movements added by the new users are sourced. Meaning that the investigation by me is temporary closed.  Exploding  PoPUps  00:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi guys. First Kaliningrad separatism is somewhat well known but obv not this Teutonic Knights thing. I have heard of the Kaliningrad thing independently of wiki, tho obviously WP:RS is important. And well Kavkaz is Kavkaz. I'm glad EPP is paying more attention to adequate sourcing. No idea where all these new users came from. But if anyone is worried there is always WP:SPI.--Calthinus (talk) 07:12, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Requests for Comment
There is an ongoing discussion here. I would like to hear your opinion.  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  21:56, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * sure -- gimme a day or two -- bit busy at the moment, but I'll get to it!--Calthinus (talk) 21:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

New articles
Hi Calthinus! Are you familar with these recently created pages: Eastern Hunter-Gatherer, Western Hunter-Gatherer, Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer, Early European Farmers, Western Steppe Herders? AGF granted, I nevertheless think they need some community vetting. –Austronesier (talk) 13:46, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * At the moment, I am familiar with the topics through... the articles on Wikipedia, and Dienekes' blog. Dienekes is pretty astute sometimes, but he's not RS. I'd love to help but I'm not sure I have the topical knowledge necessary yet. --Calthinus (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * But have you checked the hist of those? Maybe that's an incentive for us to do some reading. Just hope that the info is NPOV and better cited/sourced than Romance people... –Austronesier (talk) 16:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ohhh I think I see what you're getting at. By the way, some matters are better discussed by email (can talk a bit more frankly, you know). But yes I agree -- time allowing, I will do reading on the issue (it is in fact quite interesting to me) -- and we will see what conclusion this leads us toward regarding the pages...--Calthinus (talk) 16:30, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi there, just thought I would mention that I updated my view on the Romance Peoples AfD. I had not spotted the recent page creation by removing a redirect, which is clear evidence of a POVFORK. You might like to check what I said there, and as I am here, I just put a watch on those pages - they fall within one of my stated areas of interest. My first quick scan of this makes me think the writer is a fan of David Reich. And haplotypes... there should be a word for this. YAWAWAH or something (yet another Wikipedia article wittering about haplotypes). -- Sirfurboy (talk) 16:15, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your meticulous examination of the issue, really ... Interesting :). Somehow I can't say I am surprised. I am still fairly busy, but there will come a time when I have looked through the actual literature on these topics, and when I'm ready to talk about what can be done, I'll let both of you know. --Calthinus (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm... a fan of David Reich? I don't necessarily think so. I'd rather say a fan of simplistic models. What a real Reich fan looks like, I have experienced myself when dicussing with IPs and blokes that turn out to be Sprayitchyo-socks. –Austronesier (talk) 09:47, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * speaking of whom, looks like he is back. Scroll down until you see the alert. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 16:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe I was too quick with that judgement, but I was referring to David Reich's description of ghost populations, and how these are identified genetically, and then sometimes later conformed by archaeology. These articles seem to speak of ghost populations for which the only real evidence presented is genetic. I would still bet that the author has read Reich. As to the "true believer" Reich fan - yes - but I think that particular multiple-sock has misunderstood Reich. Then again, the writer of these articles appears to have misunderstood what they have read. An IP editor on the talk pages sums up the issues. One of the editors deleted one of the talk messages but I put it back - because despite the way it is phrased, they are quite right that the article writer here has gone far beyond any consensus. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 10:38, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * ETA: Just saw the IPs new WP:TEXTWALL and repent of that action! :) I still think his concerns are founded and need to be addressed. His original message was not well written but he raised valid points about notability and consensus on the topic. However his reply was not even worth reading and I have hidden it. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Not worth reading" is a gentle way to put it. Sometimes I feel like a colonogist, doing all this coproscopy. don't you too? :) –Austronesier (talk) 11:56, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * LOL :) -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:59, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh you dont know the half of it. I've had a dude think it was his "destiny" to reveal the "Biblical truth" about Y-haplogroup J2. --Calthinus (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * LOL, you owe us a link to that discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 16:08, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , and also for his entertainment ; the beautiful quote, in all its magnificent glory : --Calthinus (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * you are not the owner of this article, and im sorry you dont like this fact of the bible, i will change it every day of my life from now on, this is my mission now!
 * It was his mission and he did not even create a single sock account after getting blocked. How could salt lose its flavor so quickly :( –Austronesier (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Don't jinx it! --Calthinus (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Brilliant! :) —- Sirfurboy (talk) 21:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Here is a perfect overview article (which clearly shows that the IP primarily must have engaged as wheelbarrow-shover on excavation sites). Happy reading! –Austronesier (talk) 13:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I was unimpressed by grandiose claims, but I think he does have a point regarding naming. From this source:


 * "Accordingly, a genetic cluster first encountered by Jones et al.21 and named there CHG (short for Caucasian Hunter-gatherer)21, a designation later taken over by Lazaridis et al.22, was renamed in Fu et al.30 as the Satsurblia Cluster"


 * So we should at least be indicating that there are other names (if only to avoid someone creating a new fork page under the other name). But yes, I doubt anyone who writes as this person did can really be the academic authority they claim to be :) -- Sirfurboy (talk) 13:37, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Will read by end of weekend. --Calthinus (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at Germanic peoples
Good to have more people looking at that article. Please let me know what you think of how that lead and definition section might read for different types of people. I am seeing everything below those to sections as still relatively far from where it needs to be. Also note my drafting page where I have been started trying to build a structure for the chronological history section. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/Germanic_peoples_drafting


 * Concerning Gaul, that is an interesting theory. I am wondering if it has gained much acceptance yet though? Two things that come to my mind (just some OR for fun):
 * Northern French dialects were actually not consistent concerning Gamba -> Jambe (or Cat - Chat etc) even today, and for this reason the spelling was rarely constant. For most such words, in other words, my impression is that you see texts with BOTH spellings. For example Willielm, and Guilliem were spellings you find for the same person, e.g. the "bastard" of 1066, in the same period, and these doublets co-existed for a long time. I don't recall EVER seeing a W on Gaul type words?
 * I have seen words for Gaul in medieval texts (e.g. Alpertus of Metz), but always in erudite bits of works written in Latin. A bit like you also see Germania sometimes. (In Alpertus, he uses both, with the Rhine as boundary, even though he is writing about the Rhine delta, where this gets messy.) Both words were rare, and also both words were "scholarly" and intended to show off Latin knowledge. So these were probably not words which were subject to normal evolutions happening in Paris.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * (G)(w)a(u)l(l)(h)((i)a) is more my area of interest than "Germania"; afaik this is the only theory I've ever seen on Gaul. As noted, it can't be from Latin, though this is a widespread misconception. Re gambe/jambe, cat/chat, what you are talking about is the second Gallo-Romance palatalization. This was regular, and without inherited exception in Standard (i.e. Francien/Parisian) French. However, it did not occur in Picard and Norman and some other northern dialects, and furthermore as Mazzola/Arteaga notes, at the time when "ethnic Franks" had not yet melted into the Gallo-Roman populace, their accent when speaking French (which, as they were the ruling class, was prestigious), generally resembled Picard/Walloon/Norman. Normans were the ones who conquered England. so we have doublets like guarantee/warrantee, cavalry/chivalry, etc. English cat is not necessarily from French (it has a Proto-Germanic reconstruction... though that surely came from some North African language likely via Gaulish catto/u- or Low Latin cattus but see this hairball on Wiktionary [] where it is attributed to Uralic!!). I'm a bit less well read on the philology, but I would suspect variation or non-variation has more to do with the context of where/when the sources are coming from; alas, there is Walloon/Gaul, both referring to Gallo-Roman autochtones (also, Valais).--Calthinus (talk) 22:10, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Walloon, interestingly enough, is already attested in medieval texts also I think. I believe it is used in the Chronicle of the Abbey of St Truiden. There is a comment at the beginning about an 11th century brother whose language was a kind of "corrupt Roman" which is called in "Teutonic" (the local language, which he could not speak) Walloon, but was expected to teach Latin to young people, most of whom could not speak it yet, and did not know his language either. I am thinking a lot of scholarly words like Gallia and Germania, started to come out of Latin, to be used by normal people, only AFTER this period. One of the things I am realizing is that these geographical concepts were not self-evident and were not even popular during the empire, and probably had to be rediscovered in the middle ages. I have a feeling one reason to bring the words back were people trying to give names to the eastern and western Frankish kingdoms?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Most ordinary people remained unable to read until at least the 1500s :). And even in the 'literary boom' of the 1600s or so... it was just 30% of men or so. Nonetheless it's not outrageous I think to suggest that Gallo-Romans/French people who were connected enough to be aware of faraway lands and/or lived near them had a sense of "ethnic" (quotes because this "ethnicity" was fluid -- i.e. could change by marriage etc...) identity and differentness from their neighbors: the Germanic-speaking ancestors of the Dutch and Germans, the English, the Bretons, Basques, possibly also Occitan speakers, and more surely Italians. How they imagined their own identity was pretty erratic though, and I doubt that whatever common "ethnic" identity existed was strong enough to overrule political hostilities like France vs. Burgundy (though I guess one can argue these conflicts were only between nobles). French writers used "celtique" and (in Latin) "lingua gallica" and "lingua celtica" to refer not to any modern-speaking "Celtic" language, but to French. Were they aware that most French words came from Latin? Probably, since you can see this in hypercorrect attempts to "return" to Latin pronunciations. But as Blom (lingua gallica) notes that as late as the 18th century they also appeared to incorrectly believe their language somehow (also?) came from Gaulish; writers used the same words to refer to historical Gaulish and then-contemporary French. Aaaand as Posner notes some individuals also explicitly notes that some writers stated French "came from" Gaulish or Frankish or even Greek, either in combination with or at the expense of descent from Latin.
 * Whether "Gaul" as a geographic concept was self-evident, probably not but idk. If it ever existed in the minds of ordinary pre-modern people, its supposed "natural" boundaries were probably quite unstable. "Gallia"'s original NE boundary for Caesar was the Rhine, but after that was flooded with Germanic speakers, I suspect they didn't exactly call the southern Netherlands or Flanders "Gaul" and therefore did not associate it with Latin "Gallia" (regardless of etymologies), nor did Gallo-Romans. Was Aquitania part of Gallia? Was it part of Gaul? I know that I don't know. What even is Aquitania, is it the same as Novempopulania, or is it Aquitaine, or is it Guyenne (Guyenne < Aquitania, it is a descendant)? And I've read a few medieval excerpts which would seem to suggest a different identity existed on France's Mediterranean coast where Occitan speakers felt closer to Catalans (for Auvergne and Limousin... who knows.......). I really would love to go back and ask people (and then return to the present ASAP!). German identity pre-nationalism has also been a thing I've very poorly understood; at what point did we stop having Saxons and Franks and Swabians and Bavarians?--Calthinus (talk) 02:13, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * one thing I've also wondered for awhile -- perhaps you have an answer -- what exactly happened in Picardy, language wise? Setting aside the vexing dispute over what was spoken in antiquity there, I'm pretty unsure if it was "Germanic" or "Romance" territory in the early Middle Ages... Our page on Old Dutch seems to suggest the former, as do some sources I've read... but not others. --Calthinus (talk) 02:30, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have an exact answer properly ready in my memory though I have looked at this before. It depends a bit how you define Picardy though. I understand the coast facing England, including the Boulogne and Calais areas was Flemish speaking, but they are probably not normally considered Picardy? Further inland, I think I recall that the language frontier between Kortrijk and Lille is thought to be fairly stable. But again, Lille is probably not considered Picardy in most definitions. So if I had to answer quickly I'd say Picardy proper remained Romance, and that there was always a part of "Greater Flanders" which was romance speaking.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:31, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Picardy, Champagne, etc, may be as ambiguous as Gallia and Germania :). But I suppose I meant the area where Picard was spoken. Thanks though, this was interesting. --Calthinus (talk) 13:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the Barnstar!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Urartu
It was actually an interesting discussion, yes. Didn't mean to cut it short if others were enjoying it [] Had not heard Uelikuni > Gegharkunik before. re the last post, yeah tbh I have come to the conclusion that referencing WP:NATIONALIST is never a good idea, even if you ignore the problematic non-AGF nature of it -- it is better to say that a page should represent a "global" POV on the matter (i.e. a page Britons talking about English people more times than Britons would be bad), but yeah I do trust that Kentronhayastan's edits will fix the matter. If you do want to continue discussing it somewhere on wiki that is not governed by WP:FORUM feel free to do so here (I may take awhile to reply -- apologies). --Calthinus (talk) 04:51, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Gojko Mrnjavčević
Gojko Mrnjavčević didn't exist and yet there's a full biography of him on wikipedia. The biography itself is a gross violation of its own bibliography. The folklore collection Project Rastko says ''Gojko. A fictitious character, brother of Vukašin and Uglješa of the Mrnjavčević family. and in the article this is used as He is mentioned in Serb epic poetry as Vojvoda Gojko''. On Mrnjava: Bosković (2009} wrote Even though Pavel Jozef Safarik supported this assertion and the assumption that Mrnjava had a third son named Gojko, both Mrnjava and Gojko are unknown to the more reliable modern history and in the article this was used as Some historians do not acknowledge Gojko as being the third son, though Benedictine monk and historian Mavro Orbini registered Mrnjava as father of the three sons, supported by Pavel Jozef Šafárik.''. So, for ten years on wikipedia there's an article about a Serbian nobleman that never existed.--Maleschreiber (talk) 13:26, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Project Rastko: Moved their army three Mernyachevichi: Ban Uglyesha and Voyvoda Goïko, And the third, the mighty King Vukáshin; [..] Then there perish two Mernyachevichi, Ban Uglyesha and Voyvoda Goïko;  Wikipedia article: Gojko according to legend, escaped and started the Kuči clan in Montenegro.--Maleschreiber (talk) 13:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * So... wanna start a deletion discussion?--Calthinus (talk) 13:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I took me some time to get around it but I started it--Maleschreiber (talk) 14:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Ghegs
North Macedoniacon ? Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:23, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * My touch pad is oversensitive. Please fix. Thanks! --Calthinus (talk) 19:24, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What change do you want to make so I can make it for you? Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I made it already lol. --Calthinus (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hahaha As you said, the last thing that country needs is another name! You know, names are important for some people. Some could call "North Macedoniacon" an irredentist conspiracy. ;) Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:34, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That you even suggested that betrays yet again your POV agenda in your campaign against Greeks. How dare you make light of this tragic case of historical appropriation. It seems your sole purpose on Wikipedia is disruption. If I see this again I will report you. Be warned ... :) --Calthinus (talk) 19:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Look, what you did is a diff against you. If you repeat it I will report you to the admins. I am showing mercy this time. Never dispute the holy status of enlightened leaders Aleksandar Makedonski, Pirro iliri, Dusan the mighty, and of course Njegos the poet. Hey, they would make a great animated movie together with Peter Pan on his dream island. Balkan weirdos will never grow up. :) Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:59, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Re:edit conflict
Sorry about that. I must've edited an older version of the page. Thanks for pointing it out. ITSQUIETUPTOWN  talk • contribs 14:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * all good :) --Calthinus (talk) 14:42, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Macedonian language
You may not have noticed, but User:DD1997DD has moved the Sandbox text to the main article, so any edits need to be made there now. I'll make the change that you just made to the Sandbox. Cheers. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 14:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * you're right -- I missed it. So much going on. Thanks! --Calthinus (talk) 14:59, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Jacques
Hi, Calthinus. Regarding this edit, feel free to add a WP:RS that backs up the claims. Please don't just reinsert Jacques because the words "citation needed" aren't aesthetically pleasing. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * "better source needed" is no prettier.--Calthinus (talk) 17:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In time the passages will be checked with Jacques' work. If there is no other citation he points to, it will be deleted. Otherwise, that will be cited (if it is RS). As is generally done in such cases. --Calthinus (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Black Egyptian hypothesis
I think you didn't mean to remove Brian Kemp. Doug Weller talk 19:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)


 * you're correct. I didn't see him there. Good catch.--Calthinus (talk) 19:21, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi, about the same article, You're probably right about the Stephen Howe citation, but about the linguistics part, I believe it's not undue, because altough it's clearly fringe (like the subject of the article itself), it gained enough attention to be refuted by other scholars. Acoording to the source, "This theory has become very popular, especially among Black African scholars ... Cheikh Anta Diop and Théophile Obenga are major advocates of this school of thought." Also, it isn't different really than the previous paragraph in the article, both are about Cheikh Anta Diop and Théophile Obenga. your opinion may be helpful too. regards  Mohamed  Talk 11:18, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * About the Stephen Howe citation, apparently it's a quote from James L. Newman's 1995 The Peopling of Africa: a Geographical Interpretation (Yale University Press, 1995). so, I think it should be added with this clarification?  Mohamed  Talk 12:04, 8 May 2020 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memelord0 (talk • contribs)
 * the idea any linguist would ever use a name as cringey as "Negro-Egyptian" (language != race) should be an immediate red flag. But beyond that, you're incorrect. Diop's theories are not well-received by serious linguists. He claimed his own Wolof language was a close relative of Egyptian. Egyptian is among the Afroasiatic languages. Wolof is one of the Niger-Congo languages. Being woke about colonialism does not equal scientific validity. --Calthinus (talk) 19:49, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point my friend, I'm not arguing that it isn't cringe or absurd. As Kevin C. Macdonald puts it: "Whatever position one chooses to take on the question of a 'white', 'black' or 'multiracial' Egypt, one cannot deny the considerable impact of Diop in the literature of the African diaspora". So, although the article itself is on a fringe theory that is refused by mainstream scholars, it's very common in the writings of afrocentric writers and had much attention. And The language part is an important part of the hypothesis  Mohamed  Talk 20:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memelord0 (talk • contribs)
 * It is already adequately discussed, citing Diop directly. We do not need non-specialist sources who (still) support his theses to attempt to paint them as something less fringey than they are. Unless... those sources are themselves the topic of discussion. Which I do not think is the case. --Calthinus (talk) 21:09, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This, however, I don't have any issue with.--Calthinus (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Marco Polo
I started Rfc, so it would be nice to implement some fact equally in the wikipedia articles, as in the Ivan Gundulić article. Cheers. Mikola22 (talk) 04:07, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure, give me a ping if necessary.--Calthinus (talk) 18:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Re; G. Floyd
I removed your edit conflict tag and changed your vote to the usual format. Hope you don't mind. Thanks, AlessandroTiandelli333 (talk) 18:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. When did I vote, and what did I vote for?--Calthinus (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You say the thread should be merged, which I interpreted as a vote against the text. Apologies if this is not the case. Thanks, AlessandroTiandelli333 (talk) 18:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * all good. To be honest I'm not sure why we need to vote on merging a thread though. Kind of a waste of time. Just merge it. --Calthinus (talk) 18:13, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I tried to and a user reversed it. Without consensus it would just go back and forth and cause edit wars. AlessandroTiandelli333 (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * ah I see. Weird. Well I'll close the first then. --Calthinus (talk) 18:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

American politics discretionary sanctions notice
NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello!
I wanted to apologize for pinging you. I personally didn't care if I got wrongly blo ked since i dont edit too much. But i just wanted someone who could vouch for Male being legit. Maybe not the best way to do it, but still at least now its all cleared up fine and dandy.Thank you! Atlonche (talk) 20:57, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * all good. I was in a pissy mood when I wrote that :). So the fault is actually mine. --Calthinus (talk) 15:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Hahahahahah no worries mate, happens to all of us. Atleast now we can look back at it and lol (I know I will) best wishes Atlonche (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Marco Polo's nationality
Hi, there's a new discussion on the Marco Polo talk page about his nationality. BorisBradley (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Laramans
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Laramans you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ganesha811 -- Ganesha811 (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Laramans
The article Laramans you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Laramans for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ganesha811 -- Ganesha811 (talk) 16:02, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Zelimkhan


The article Zelimkhan has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Virtually uncited, there is a folk song, but the rest of the article has no references."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.  Onel 5969  TT me 01:53, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Join the Months of African Cinema Global Contest!
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The Holocaust in Albania
Hi, Amanuensis Balkanicus thought you might know what reference 1 is referring to in The Holocaust in Albania. At the moment there is no book in the biblio that corresponds to it and it's causing a harv ref error. Best - Aza24 (talk) 20:42, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Unsure. Maybe this []? --Calthinus (talk) 23:44, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Citation for Jews of Vlora can be replaced if necessary. This has the same info of them being 1/3 of the pop'l in the 16th century following expulsion from Spain . Jutte here has other info about the relevance of Jews for 16th century Vlora that can replace it if necessary . --Calthinus (talk) 23:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe the first ref you found was the correct one, so I've implemented it – cheers! Aza24 (talk) 01:17, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! --Calthinus (talk) 17:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Chechens
Hello. can you undo the changes to Goddard2000 and Akylas7 on the "Chechens" page and return to mine? they should be taken off the page for vandalism. Sorry for bad English Malik0099 (talk) 21:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, and welcome to my talk page. Unfortunately I'm a bit busy at the moment so I hope not to get too deeply involved here. I understand you three are arguing about the etymology of Chechen. I don't quite think was committing vandalism. He did however remove the source to T. M. Aytberov. The correct way forward for both of you is to compare different reliable sources on the talk page, and come to an understanding. There is much room for collaboration in topics regarding the North Caucasus, as they are vastly undercovered -- much more productive this way. Cheers. --Calthinus (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Malik0099,Which one do you mean? the minoan and etruscan one? cmon be sensible, there is no evidence of Nakh peoples being close to Minoans or Etruscans. The link you sent was literally a caucasus news website that didn't cite any historian or source. I also removed the Kist part since Kartlis Tskhoverba (Georgian Chronicles) didn't mention either Kist or Naxchamatyan (even though Amjad Jaimoukha says it did which he's wrong in). If you want i can send you the Kartlis Tskhoverba in English translation and you can check yourself. --Goddard2000 (talk) 23:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Jaimukha worked at Harvard University. his book was published in 2004. those who shout that the Nakhchamatyans are Chechens, they squeaked it back in the 70s of the 20th century. Right now, the writing was deciphered where the Nakhchamatyans were located - there were also found Chechen letters https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DjAJXeafOhU. He is russian not chechen Malik0099 (talk) 12:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

About etruscans and minoans. there is a lot of linguistic, historical, genetic evidence that the Minoans and Etruscans are Hurrians. If I am not mistaken, the Hurrians are associated more with the Chechens than with any other people. this is not a Caucasian site, it is owned by TASS - the Russian state news agency of the federal level since 1904 https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%90%D0%A1%D0%A1. this is a reliable source. and dzurdzuk are only Chechens, and Ingush gligv. in the Georgian sources everything is clearly written, which I noted as a source and specified the page Malik0099 (talk) 12:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC


 * I recommend discussing one thing at a time. The (speculative and distant) connection of the Nakh with Etruscan is a logically independent question from the origin of the term Chechen -- these two questions have zero implications for each other. Feel free to continue using my talk page. Cheers all. --Calthinus (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Pinging also who might have access to RS on the matter of the toponym's etymology. Cheers. --Calthinus (talk) 16:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@Malik0099, Regarding Gligvi-Ingush being Durzuk i already posted about that in the Chechen talk page with sources so lets skip that one. I am not saying Naxchamatyani aren't Chechen, im saying they weren't mentioned in the Georgian Chronicles(Kartlis Tskhoverba) i posted about that in the Chechen talk page too with sources. Minoans and Etruscans are MAYBE connected to Hurrians, its not known 100% and Hurrian-Urartu language is connected to Nakh-Dagestani according to Starostin and others. But even then making connections to Chechens and Minoans/Etruscans and writing it on the Chechen article is wrong, i only deleted that part because your source was ridiculous, if you choose a better one from a book then i have no problem with it being there. --Goddard2000 (talk) 19:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree that Etruscan and Minoan stuff does not belong on the page for Chechens. Those theories can be discussed somewhere, but the connections, if they exist at all, certainly predate the formation of the Chechen ethnos in its modern form. It's kind of like how we don't need to discuss the fact that Sanskrit is related to Kurdish on teh page for Kurds.--Calthinus (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Urartian cuneiform is translated based on the CHECHEN language. it was written by Marr. Most of all sources that Chechens are descendants of Hurrians and Urarts. these are not assumptions, there is quite a bit of evidence that the Minoans and Etruscans are Hurrians. it is just that propaganda is being made against the Chechens from the side of Russia that we are a wild people, without civilization, etc. therefore no one believes in it, although there are many sources ... Malik0099 (talk) 13:29, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Post a legitimate source on the Urartian cuneiform being translated based on the Chechen language and we can accept it in the article. --Goddard2000 (talk) 15:57, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

help
Hello to you. There was a problem with the map. I saw that you have experience in geographical maps. Please help me.

The map below shows areas called Greater Tibet. The quality of this map is low. This map also shows areas outside China's borders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tibet-claims.jpg

The latter map shows the areas: Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai , Sichuan. Which is equivalent to the historical sites of Tibet only within the borders of China. Due to Tibetan Plateau Tibet consist of :
 * 1) China (Tibet, Qinghai, Western Sichuan, Northern Yunnan, Southern Xinjiang, Western Gansu)
 * 2) India (Ladakh, Lahaul & Spiti), Pakistan (Gilgit Baltistan)
 * 3) Nepal (Northern Nepal)
 * 4) Bhutan
 * 5) Tajikistan (Eastern Tajikistan)
 * 6) Kyrgyzstan (Southern Kyrgyzstan)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historic_Tibet_in_China.svg

I ask you to please correct the second red map according to the low quality but more accurate map of the first one.

I think the result could be this:

1- Modification of the Tibetan red map, including only inside China

2- Create a new map by adding small parts of this modified map, including small areas of Tibet in India and Bhutan and several border areas around it.

At the moment, my priority is not the second case. I just want you to please correct this Tibetan red map that only includes areas inside China.

The most important part that needs to be corrected is the removal of red from East Sichuan and add Northern Yunnan.

Thank you very much for your help. Tibet with this great background does not even have a proper and quality map.Se301e (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm flattered you reached out to me. However, I lack the proper software on this device so it could be awhile. Cheers. --Calthinus (talk) 23:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

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Suspicion of abnormal behaviour
Hi, Calthinus. I saw you were interested in topics about Caucasus. It seems these articles are being used for promoting some marginal ideas - Uchar-hadji, Aukh. User Goddard2000 here - Talk:Uchar-hadji - flooded the talk page when asked what appears to be legitimate questions on his view on the sources and WP:OR, he also seems to incite WP:WAR for that original research in both article - [history Uchar-hadji], [history Aukh]. If you can make any sense out of it your input would surely be much required there.--IrelandCork (talk) 06:34, 16 March 2021 (UTC) Examples:
 * [Here] he gives source saying "Kumyk Sala-Uzdens"". And [then] he gives his opinion why they are basically Chechen.
 * I see that one or two users were blocked for the same reason, which appears to be marginalizing this article - Lamberd, Zandxo. Zandxo used the same arguments as Goddard2000.

Something sick is happening out there.--IrelandCork (talk) 06:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Calthinus i am willing to present my sources to someone that is unbiased, i gave Irelandcork many sources in the talk page but he refuses to even look at them and blatantly accuses me of "Original research" for no reason.

--Goddard2000 (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Aiyaiyai guys, I'll give it a look, but let me just say that the Caucasus topic area needs expansion, and we should all be working together for that... not this.--Calthinus (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

User, Calthinus by God you can go to the talk page and see how i was trying to be unbiased and neutral. He refuses to admit that Sala-Uzden were part of the Chechen nation as well and refuses to admit that Uchar-Hajji was Chechen. I never deleted 1 mention that Uchar hajji was Kumyk, not 1. I wanted to keep it neutral but this guy does sneaky edits such as "some MODERN scholarship says he is Chechen" i countered this with sources from the 1800s the time when Uchar-Hajji lived, they mention him as Chechen so there is nothing "Modern" about these sources. Another sneaky edit by his is the claim that Sala-Uzden are Kumyk alone, i countered this by posting sources 1 from a Kumyk that says they have their origin from the Vashindaroy clan (which is a famous clan in Chechnya) and 2 sources which tells the origins of these Sala-Uzden and how they are mention in Chechen epics as Chechen. Dont you think it would be fair to present an unbiased article?

As for the Aukh article there is no original research there either, Chechens have lived there historically, i removed the "always lived" due to there is debate about that and no proper sources its original inhabitants but there is more than enough evidence of Chechens living there in the 16th century. I also edited some history of the tribes living there. And what does this krakduck aka irelandcork do? he deletes every single edit i made (that has been there for months) and edits in some despicable anti-Chechen source that says we paid tribute to Kumyks, i can post 100 sources where its the opposite but i dont want to engage in a smear campaign against a nation. I dont want to do an edit war but anyone that is unbiased can see how fair my edits are and how Kumyk-biased and anti-Chechen his edits are.

--Goddard2000 (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not about Chechen-Kumyk. Both versions are fully represented. What you have to understand is what WP:OR is. I referred you on talk page with quotes.--IrelandCork (talk) 19:10, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

HAH "both versions are fully represented", Sala-Uzden's which are historically known in Chechnya and who many still consider themselves Chechen are suddenly 100% kumyk and not Chechen in the article and old sources from 1800's that mentioned Uchar hajji apparently didn't exist either according to the article.

--Goddard2000 (talk) 20:47, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @Calthinus: Yo, these page histories of Uchar-hadji and Aukh smell like sock spirit :) –Austronesier (talk) 07:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Expansion of Lavrentiy Beria's article
Hi there long time no see:) I am writing this message to inquire about your interest in expanding Lavrentiy Beria's article, particularly his policies on ethnic minorities and their deportation. I am messaging you in particular since I saw you were an early and very significant contributor to the Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush article. Ping me here or on my talk page if you're interested.

best regards, --Sextus Caedicius (talk) 23:16, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely take a look when time allows. Happy editing! --Calthinus (talk) 19:33, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

The Holocaust in Greece
I noticed that you have a draft on this subject in your userspace, which has not been edited for a while. I just wanted to let you know that I decided to start over at Draft:The Holocaust in Greece. (t · c)  buidhe  08:12, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * okay, thanks for letting me know, sorry I didn't find time, and feel free to borrow from it! I'll help if I get a moment maybe. Cheers. --Calthinus (talk) 19:41, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Found it!
Hi! FYI, I have finally found the manifesto of the "Foo peoples"-page creators: Nilotic_peoples :) –Austronesier (talk) 20:11, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hmm I think I have missed something... what am I supposed to see here ? Aside from a bit of pseudoscience in Wikivoice which I just cleaned up a bit.--Calthinus (talk) 05:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Twentieth-century social scientists have largely discarded such efforts to classify peoples according to physical characteristics, in favor of using linguistic studies to distinguish among peoples. They formed ethnicities and cultures based on a shared language. That's BS. Social scientists don't taxonomize ethnicities. Ideologists do. The last sentence "They formed ethnicities and cultures based on a shared language"—which has a citation—is misleading and off-topic, as it only applies to the language but not the familiy level. It's misused here to support the amateurish endeavor to use linguistic affiliation as a surrogate for race-based taxonomy (replacing one BS with another). –Austronesier (talk) 09:38, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ...indeed, you are right. --Calthinus (talk) 17:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

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A barnstar for your efforts

 * Thanks!!--Calthinus (talk) 15:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

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Proto-Albanian
Hello, I have read a lot of your work and I have to say it is very interesting and vey appreciated. I also had some questions like will you add more to Proto-Albanian or are you done with the page? I also wanted to ask if you knew anything about Proto-Albanian’s case system like how many of them were or even their endings, if you have a link to a page for information it would be much appreciated. Thanks! Rigers15 (talk) 20:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Sorry for taking nearly three months to get back to you. Thanks, I love appreciation :). I wouldn't say I'm "done", but nowadays I am a busier man, so I spend less time on here. I will probably improve things here and there. The case system, I know less of. There is likely some discussion of it in Orel 2000's book on Proto-Albanian; there is a limited discussion on Albanian inherited inflection De Vaan's 2018 chapter (page 1738) in Klein, Joseph and Fritz'  Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics  . I'm sure there is more, but this is what comes to my mind. Calthinus (talk) 13:37, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

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Markos Botsaris has an RfC
Markos Botsaris has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Jtrrs0 (talk) 12:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)