User talk:Dbachmann/Archive 38

Caste issues
I've recently come under some fire on topics related to Saini people for attempting to clean up caste issues (transferring BLP's from Category:Saini people to List of Saini people). I've delved and found this discussion which seems to indicate a general distaste for caste based categories (and for lists too, but we can't always edit our values). I was wondering what your view was on the matter, seeing as how a number of caste battles seem to have drawn you in their fire.Pectoretalk 05:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Just saw the issues on Category:Kambojas and that mess. I'll try and patrol those pages and create some sort of encyclopaedicity in the area (Deletion of caste categories, listification, slash and burn unsourced hagiographies). Its going to require a tad bit of admin support however, because a lot of these roving casteists roll around Wikipedia with some sort of spiritual mission to prove their caste as superior, or even godly.Pectoretalk 07:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is a gloomy corner of Wikipedia. I have no problem with caste articles as such, but the quality of editors attracted to them is just abominable. Basically this is just a matter of enforcing encyclopedicity, WP:V and WP:SYNTH. The problem is, as you say, that most people writing these articles do not even have an inkling of an understanding of these policies, or of what an encyclopedia is (there are exceptions of course). Mostly they are "family historians" trying to document their own genealogy. We get that problem at many family-name articles too, but nowhere as bad as with Indian castes and clans.

The only way forward is to just keep patrolling these categories and cut out the crap mercilessly. Any indulgence motivated by "ah well, why not tag it and leave it standing, perhaps somebody will still clean it up" is entirely misguided here. Unless you clean it out, it will only ever get worse :) So thank you for your contribution. --dab (𒁳) 08:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The editor on the Saini topics (User:History Sleuth) understands where we are coming from, so that's progress. I'm in the process of cleansing and of all biographies. Tell me what you think about Rajput, because that (and Jat) are gray areas in terms of the caste/ethnicity/royal intersectionPectoretalk 04:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have never been an expert in Indian sociology. In fact I only ever looked at the topic because Wikipedia needed help in these areas. So I do not have a clear picture what the articles "should" look like when they're finished, I can only look at and appreciate the sources I am shown. It seems, as you say, that Rajputs and Jats are somewhere halfway between "caste", "ethnicity" and "super-clan". But this isn't the problem, we can just cover these groups for whatever they are, based on ethnographic sources. The problem are the enthusiastic family historians who come to Wikipedia to glorify their own groups. This is very easy to recognize, and very easy to fix, the problem is just that there are too many of them, with too much motivation, so any progress we make is buried under new additions in a matter of weeks. --dab (𒁳) 08:22, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of VISIS Software
PRODWarning Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 11:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

doesn't concern me, I just created the VISIS disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 11:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, my bad. I didn't realise it had notified you. --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 11:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * no problem! --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Gaul
What was misplaces about the "History of France" navbox? Gaul seems like the perfect place for it (especially considering that it has an entry for Gaul). Do you object to my putting it back?  Glenfarclas  ( talk ) 14:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I do. It isn't sufficient that an article is relevant to the template, the template needs to be relevant to the article. There will about a dozen other templates with at least as much relevance to the Gaul article, from History of Switzerland to Iron Age. Navigation templates that take up significant space at the top of the article need to be fully, centrally relevant. Perhaps in the format of a collapsed footer (like Celts, Classical antiquity), more tangential templates may be added, although I have never seen the point in a topic of six collapsed footers piled at the bottom of an article. --dab (𒁳) 14:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Gaelic Ireland
Please desist from adding tags to Gaelic Ireland without prior discussion, as you did last March; or without even an edit summary, as you did yesterday; or against consensus, which you are well aware of since you took part in this discussion (after somebody else initiated it). Such behaviour is disruptive. Scolaire (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * please desist from removing them without addressing the concerns raised. Also read WP:CFORK.
 * Instead of trying to make this about me and my actions, how about you explain how you propose to fix the problem, or perhaps even sit down and do fix it? --dab (𒁳) 09:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please note I did not remove anything. That was somebody else. I don't propose to fix the problem, because there is no problem to fix. The discussion I linked to makes clear that that is the consensus. Now that you have finally spelled out what the "problem" is (actually, now I read it again, you didn't - you're still talking about duplication of "scope" when the problem is duplication of text), I have made certain proposals on the talk page. If you intend to respond, I suggest you try to take a less aggressive and more constructive tone; problems tend to get fixed much more quickly that way. Scolaire (talk) 12:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

well, apparently you do not agree that there is a problem, and you claim you do not understand what I am pointing to. Have you, or have you not, read the page at WP:CFORK as I have asked you to? The aggressive tone is all yours. I have pointed out a problem with the article, and tagged it appropriately. I have tagged hundreds if not thousands of articles for cleanup, and I have in fact fixed such problems in hundreds of articles. This one isn't in any way a special case for me at all, and my approach has never been anything but solution-oriented. It is you who came to my talkpage and attempted to make this personal, or an issue of user conduct rather than content cleanup. This isn't and has never been a problem of user conduct in my book. It is a broken article, and the solution to that is tagging it and then fixing it.

If you want to fix help fix the problem, your first step will be away from the standpoint that you do not understand what I am saying. Once you appreciate the concern raised, you will be in a position to explain why, if so, you think there isn't a problem after all. --dab (𒁳) 13:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that there is a problem, but the problem is text, not scope, duplication. I understand what you are saying but I disagree. Your tone is aggressive, especially on Talk:Gaelic Ireland; it's also condescending, which is never a good idea. There is a problem of user conduct: I've just discovered you are an admin; an admin should know that edits without edit summaries, edits against consensus and incivility are all problems. Scolaire (talk) 14:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Muhammad's image
I don't have time to install content filter, because I spend too much time on Wikipedia talk pages since some users make mistakes. Regarding Muhammad's images, your post is in logical error since you are against disabling some pictures in the page, but not against disabling all of them. I think disabling all images on a specific page is a more terrible idea. You don't object to creating a section for "How can I hide the images using my personal Wikipedia settings?" on Talk page and publishing a procedure to disable all images in the page as follows "If you do not wish to view the images (and you have an account), you can change your personal settings so that you don't have to see them, without affecting other users. This is done by modifying your CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) page, which is individual to each user.

To do this:

* Sign in or create an account * Click on this link to modify your personal stylesheet o If no page is there already, just go ahead and create a page

* Add the following line to your css page:

body.page-Muhammad img {display: none;} This will permanently hide the images on the article for you as long as you are logged in.". You write "This would be a private project and does not concern Wikipedia", then why don't you delete this section for "How can I hide the images using my personal Wikipedia settings?" on Talk page. By the way, do you think Muslims object to these images because they see it as a sin? No, Muslims enjoy fighting with webservers pushing these images. Reha Muhtar achieved good television ratings while fighting with Der Spiegel in 2001. Kavas (talk) 12:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Very simple. There is a difference between Wikipedia namespaces. We can keep interest-group specific how-tos in Wikipedia: and User: space. If you want to publish a "how to hide Muhammad images" page in your User space, I don't think anyone would object. This is project internal. The proposal to introduce "objectionable" content categories in our article namespace is something entirely different, and also completely unacceptable.

Do you understand the difference between client-side filtering and server-side censorship? Do you understand anything about how your browser works?? I am certainly against "disabling" any images server-side. Whatever you do client-side is your business and you don't need to tell us about it.

Also regarding "I don't have time to install content filter", give me a break. If you cannot control your own web browser, don't complain to random people on the internet about it. This is your responsibility, as everything else that concerns the computer you are using. If you have an IT department looking after your computer, contact them, otherwise you're on your own. You also don't expect people to come and cook your food for you because you "spend too much time on Wikipedia talk pages". Ask your mother, or else get a butler.

I understand that this Muhammad issue has nothing to do with religious piety, and everything with attention-whoring. Which is also why I think the people whining about this do not deserve respect or political correctness. They should be told to take it or leave it, nobody forces them to sit in front of their computer and get worked up over images they think are objectionable, and Muslims are hardly the only people who have seen content on the internet they consider "objectionable". --dab (𒁳) 12:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem is when you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Muhammad FAQ part, Q4 A4 you see a guide that disables seeing all images in the page and you don't see it as a server-side censorship. "Ask your mother" is unrelated with the topic.Kavas (talk) 13:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

um, no, I don't see it as "server-side censorship" because you disable all images in YOUR browser, not on Wikipedia. It's about you, your browser, and your configuring your browser. Seriously, ask somebody who can help you, if you are under twelve, ask your mother or your father. If you are over 70 ask your son or your daughter. If you are aged between 12 and 70, just ask any of your mates. But stop pretending this is Wikipedia's problem, or that you have any right to complain to people because your browser isn't configured to your liking. --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion is to change the guide in Talk:Muhammad FAQ part, Q4 A4 so that a user who is disturbed with the images can disable only those objectionable images in HIS/HER browser. Thanks to the guide, if someone is aged between 12 and 70, she/he does not have to ask any of his/her mates to disable all images in HIS/HER browser now, why don't you object to the existence of this guide? If it is not Wikipedia's problem, why Talk:Muhammad FAQ part, Q4 A4 has this guide? Kavas (talk) 13:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * wow. I am glad I am not your tech support. As in, I am not paid to fix your browser for you.
 * The problem is that in order to do that, you need to install a content filter first. This takes about 30 seconds of your time, but if you are too unfamiliar with the internet to follow simple written instructions, there is nothing we can write in the FAQ that is going to help you. Why should I object to the guide? It's at Help:Options to not see an image, and I wrote most of it. Especially this section, which tells you to install a content filter and just "disable only those objectionable images", i.e. exactly what you are asking for.
 * but then instead of following these instructions, you came to my talkpage and spent 20 minutes talking about how "I don't have time to install content filter, because I spend too much time on Wikipedia talk pages since some users make mistakes." What is wrong with you man? Either install this content filter or don't install it, but don't waste people's time over how you don't have time to install it. --dab (𒁳) 13:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to install it, but I have time to spend in talk pages. I am free to come to your talk page and you had the right to give no reply. It is not me that made you waste 20 minutes, but your replies. Have a fine day. Kavas (talk) 14:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I hoped I could help you find Help:Options to not see an image. Perhaps when your important talkpage duties give you a few minutes' pause, you can look at it. --dab (𒁳) 14:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Wikipedias
Just in case you didn't put this onto your watchlist. See there. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Can't edit E1b1b1a
Strange. I can not edit E1b1b1a. I wanted to undo some edits made by 90.194.181.6 which inserted new numbers that are not in the source. (I did re-check them.) This editor's series of edits all show a clear agenda as far as I can see. Am contacting an admin mainly only because of the technical issue that I can not do the undo.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

why can you not undo the edit? The article isn't protected. --dab (𒁳) 09:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not know. I made the edit and saved it three times, but I do not see it in the article history. That's what is weird. I have never seen that before.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I notice that although I still see no sign of the history page being updated, the current article seems to be as I intended it. Still strange.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:01, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#IP_socks
You are invited to join the discussion at. Tadijaspeaks 13:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC) (Using )

Did I understand your ?
Hi Dbachmann, I have been doing some editing after a long time away, and I slightly reworded a paragraph at Witchcraft, removing your clarification needed tag in the process. I just want to check that I actually have provided the clarification you were looking for, because I can't find any explanation from you around the time you placed the tag. Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 21:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

looks ok, thanks. --dab (𒁳) 07:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Marduk, Tiamat, Python, Apollo, etc
Am I wasting my time reverting this IP? . I'm not in only one but he/she just doesn't get it and is pushing virtually identical text into several articles, eg Python into Marduk and vice versa. I've commented on some talk pages, got a response here. But it's summer, and a lot of the serious editors who care about these subjects are away. Dougweller (talk) 15:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

this seems to be matriarchy-cruft. It led me to look at matriarchy, which was in a deplorable state. --dab (𒁳) 13:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

We're looking at pov-pushing. The angle is feminist pseudohistory / Goddess movement. It's nice to get a break from the same old four or five nationalisms for a change. --dab (𒁳) 14:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * IP blocked now for 48 hours. This pushed me into buying Cynthia Eller's book, I hope it isn't a waste of money! Dougweller (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * "it's summer, and a lot of the serious editors who care about these subjects are away." I regret that I am neither serious nor away. PiCo (talk) 10:11, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * he said "a lot", not "all". Also, I am "away" myself, but the internet is everywhere :) --dab (𒁳) 10:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Opinion request
Would you please weigh in at the Examples discussion at Talk:Fringe theory? Thank you. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * sorry, but I am extremely bored with the "SAQ". --dab (𒁳) 10:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Transl
Hi, as the creator of Template:transl, could you take a look at Template talk:Transl and/or MediaWiki talk:Common.css? Wondering whether it's ok to remove the "span lang=" attribute from the template. Shreevatsa (talk) 22:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Rigveda
FYI. --Ragib (talk) 02:40, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Sarazm
This proto-urban site was inscribed on the World Heritage List yesterday. It's not clear from the page what is so unique about it. You are best qualified to expand the coverage. There's some info on Google Books. --Ghirla-трёп- 11:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

IP on matriarchy
She was here in April. But I'm annoyed with myself because a day or two ago I meant to look this up: Sockpuppet investigations/Jackiestud/Archive - geolocate the IP addresses she used before to sockpuppet, this one is the same, as are her edits and style. Clearly our blocked editor evading her block. Dougweller (talk) 13:11, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

QVC Vandalism
Hi,

Sorry to bother but I've been reverting the edits of several anonymous IP adresses on the QVC page for awhile now. The article is clearly biased, and going back in the article's history you can see these anonymous users omitted details about lawsuits against QVC, false claims about weight loss products etc. without giving a reason. I've tidied up the page and got rid of some of the more blatant advertising but they keep reverting those edits, as well as the advert tag I placed on. According to Wikiscanner QVC have made about three dozen edits to their own page (as well as mentioning QVC in a few other pages), however I'm fairly new to Wikipedia and am unsure of what to do apart from keep reverting their edits. There is also a user called Murphy86 who does the same thing and his only edits have been to the QVC article. Thanks. Deftera (talk) 11:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * NVM, it's sorted now. You weren't responding so I pm'ed another admin. Deftera (talk) 16:03, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Akins
Hi Bachmann, I recall a little discussion we had about "a certain very ancient book" and it wasn't Geoffrey's. Does this here ring a bell? The discussion may not require an extra pair of eyes, but I thought you'd be interested to know. Cavila (talk) 12:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Marco Polo
Hi. I wonder if you could have a look at the Marco Polo article. Some time ago, a separate article on the birthplace controversy was deleted and now it is in process to be recreated. As I was the one nominating the original article for deletion, I don't feel too neutral in this case so I'd like to have a second opinion. Thanks. --Tone 11:15, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Forum shopping or not
Hi. I have a question to you. User:Teeninvestor who is currently in what may be called a dispute with me has accused me of User talk:Gun Powder Ma. However, I am not aware that I acted against this guideline in these cases (actually I hate online shopping). Could you give some clarification on this? Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

sorry, I have been away. It's probably stale now. --dab (𒁳) 11:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Gothic alphabet
The recent changes made to Gothic alphabet could use a brief review when you have two minutes - I'm loath to enter silly a pissing contest as a lowly IP. This discussion is a good example of "I don't need to check sources; my logic is flawless", and apparently someone is planning to make pâté out of the Examples section (the secret ingredient is "some fennic", it seems). Cheers, --84.75.167.144 (talk) 07:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Nezami Ganjavi and Secondary opinion
Hi That article has sometimes been a source of argument between Iranian and Azeri-Turkish users. Other than that, in general there is no conflict between these users (specially for a long time now). I would like to ask you to formerly get involved if there is any problems, since the users of both sides will probably not compromise on such an issue. Can you look at here:

I stated these: C. A. (Charles Ambrose) Storey and François de Blois (2004), "Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period.", RoutledgeCurzon; 2nd revised edition (June 21, 2004). Pg 363: "Nizami Ganja'i, whose personal name was Ilyas, is the most celebrated native poet of the Persians after Firdausi. His nisbah designates him as a native of Ganja (Elizavetpol, Kirovabad) in Azerbaijan, then still a country with an Iranian population, and he spent the whole of his life in Transcaucasia; the verse in some of his poetic works which makes him a native of the hinterland of Qom is a spurious interpolation." and Nozhat al-Majales. Note Francois de Blois has written several of the Nezami articles in Iranica and the book: "Persian Literature - A Biobibliographical Survey: Volume V Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period" (2004) is very well received in google scholar (comments by C.E. Bosworth, Yarshater and etc.).

The Nozhat al-Majales is a recently founded gem that was published in 1987. However there are two sources by Diakonov which seems to give two different intrepretations. So I am not sure what to do with this case.

Some facts about Nezami: 1) Lived in Ganja 850 years ago 2) All of his works are in Persian 3) Mother was Kurdish 4) Father's background is argued with different intrepretations. 5) It is a USSR nation building issue according to some sources (I quoted in the talkpage).

The article is generally good though but it needs some involvement from uninvolved/non-regional users.

Thank you.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi. I don't think there's any serious dispute there. The article was stable for years, and no one tried to make undiscussed changes. Maybe, there's just a debate as to whether we should refer to academic work of Diakonov or his memoir, which contain contradictory statements. But the article can do without Diakonov, imho, there are many other sources. But in any case, your opinion is always appreciated. Regards, Grand  master  15:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Never mind for now, since we only have one dab in wikipedia,..wikipedia is not going to be perfect. I believe we worked it out. I wish every user was dab (then wikipedia will be closer to perfect). --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. Grand  master  20:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

thank you guys :) Glad you could work it out. --dab (𒁳) 11:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Abuse On My Talk Page

 * Hi Fellow editor, is there anything you can do to prevent abuse like this of my talk page? Thanks--Sikh- History 13:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't really think this qualifies as "abuse". --dab (𒁳) 11:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Bali Sacrifice
Appears to be a very obscure concept, but its been given its own section on the Hinduism page by User:Sikh-history, and linkspammed on a number of other pages. I started a discussion on Talk:Hinduism that I hope you can weigh in on.Pectoretalk 17:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Abusive comment like this are not on Pectoretalk. DAB, knows me a a fair editor, and never resort to such abuse. You have been warned. --Sikh- History 10:34, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Merge with Jhatka

 * Bali Sacrifice cannot me merged with Jhatka, because Bali entails, strangulation, piercing of heart with a spike and also Jhatka. In other words strangulation, heart piercing, and Jhatka are the method, and Bali is the sacrifice.Thanks --Sikh- History 09:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note also "Khatka" means one blow, and is a practice used by Sikhs as an antithesis of Ritual slaughter i.e. Bali, Kosher, Halal. So the concepts of Jhatka and Bali are not the same. Thanks --Sikh- History 09:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

yes, it needs a better solution. Above all, better references. "Bali" as a term just means "offering". Our main article on Hindu sacrifice is Yajna, perhaps it can be merged there. --dab (𒁳) 11:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have used research from Princeton University. I would say that was pretty good, wouldn't you?--Sikh- History 18:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Except that this sort of sacrifice is not really Yajna. :-) Even if some Yajnas do include an animal sacrifice, this sort of offering to the local god/goddess is not usually considered a Yajna (probably won't have a Brahman priest officiating with Vedic rituals, for instance). I'm not even sure this deserves an article, tbh. There are various forms of Yajna and Puja and sacrifices and offerings. On some occasions in some regions they may include an actual animal sacrifice, among other offerings. Shreevatsa (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Shreevatsa from a Vaishnav point of view Sakta's are not even Hindu's. :) Thanks --Sikh- History 18:51, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Can we make it a standalone article? It seems to be a very obscure topic and almost no good references seem to be available. The Sanskrit dictionary says it's just a generic term for "oblation", not a specific class of sacrifice. We should perhaps pool the "Hindu sacrifice" articles in a central article such as Hindu sacrifice or Sacrifice in Hinduism or similar. --dab (𒁳) 18:52, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * dab (𒁳) your input maybe valuable here. I am open to suggestions. Thanks--Sikh- History 16:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your edits to Sacrifice in Hinduism, would you also have a word with this editor, who seems to be changing your edits. There is an element of WP:Weasel Thanks --Sikh- History 17:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You're being quoted
at Talk:Mitanni. Could you also please take a look at WP:RSN. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 20:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * While we're at it, you're being invoked here, by an IP address that I have a sinking feeling might be Ararat Arev sockpuppeting again. Thanatosimii (talk) 05:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Dbachmann, this was accepted by you and the image handler User:Jkelly had approved this 4 years ago! Thanatsimii is wanting to remove this because of the Eupolemus quote "issue" we had earlier, and were figuring out where to use the Petrie source, which Dougweller suggested to use in "historical context". The Eupolemus quote has nothing to do with the Mitanni seal to be removed. Forsts23 (talk) 05:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is User:Jkelly 's <-- correct copyright template edit from Dec. 4, 2006. Forsts23 (talk) 06:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What bit of " you are now topic-banned from all edits relating to the topics of Urartu, Mitanni and related aspects of early Armenian history, for a period of four months," did you not understand? Dougweller (talk) 06:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Ararat arev
You might want to see the comments here Sockpuppet investigations/Forsts23 - I don't know enough to do this myself or know who else might be able to do this, if it's worth while that is. Dougweller (talk) 12:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Pictish Language
Hi, you reverted my edit on AS Settlement page about the Pictish language. The original editor had said Ogham and an unknown language, I think that the unknown language should actually have been undecipherable language and would have been Pictish hence my edit. There has been some progress on this, you were too quick for me as I put the press release up by mistake, the paper is here:, however I leave it up to you whether to put it up or not. I think that references to Pictish and Ogham are marginal on a page about AS anyway. Regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 10:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC) BTW- Ogham probably originated from Ireland and was also found in the northern parts of (now Scotland) then Pictland so is not really a language of the Britons. Wilfridselsey (talk) 11:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

well, we would need a reference that says Ogham inscriptions or "Pictish hieroglyphs" are relevant to the reconstruction of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, otherwise it doesn't make sense to mention them in the first place.

The paper is quotable, but it would make more sense to treat it at Pictish stones than at Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. Personally, I don't care much for it. These people are trying to tout their zero result. They have successfully shown that the arrangement of the symbols is "not random" but has semantic content. They have not show that it is a writing system proper. Compare the 2009 "computational study" here for a similar case. The study is interesting, but the presentation is disingenious because the authors are trying to be sexy.

This is my personal assessment, and I am not going to keep you from discussing the study in a pertinent article.

Ogham isn't a language at all, it is a script. It was used by the Gaels and apparently also to some extent by the Picts, and even by the Welsh. --dab (𒁳) 12:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Oops yes, thanks for correcting me on the script/ language definition.


 * Ogham is an interesting subject that is worthy of debate, but I agree not in the AS settlement article.


 * I felt that the unknown language of the original editor was somewhat too simplistic and out of date. I think that it is now regarded as Pictish ogham not an unknown script although some historians have suggested it could be Norse in origin. The Irish were raiding and settling the west coast of Britain post Roman occupation, so where they settled is where Irish ogham appears. I think to infer that it was used by the Britons is stretching it a bit, as the Picts and Scots (and Irish) were not regarded as Britons, whereas the Cornish, Welsh and Cumbrians were. I prefer your "Epigraphic evidence (in Anglo-Saxon runes and in Ogham).."etc. to how it was but maybe "Epigraphic evidence, such as  Anglo-Saxon runes, provide another source of information on the settlements of Saxons and others in this period." would work better? I have commented on ogham in the AS settlement discussion page. I have also included the Rob Lee paper on the ogham page as I think that is where it belongs, hadn't thought of Pictish Stones, will give it a look.


 * As far as the quality of the Rob Lee paper, I notice that they are part of the mathematics department, I would rather they do this than tie up all their supercomputers to try and resolve pi to get their PhD!!!Regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

They have already quoted Rob Lee on the Pictish Stone page, without comment. regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 15:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This is why I have removed the "unknown language" bit from the "AS settlement" page. Very often, improving an article means removing bad or off topic content. All this "Pictish hieroglyphs" stuff should be discussed, within WP:DUE, at Pictish stones, where it is on topic.

When I say that ogham was used by the Welsh, I am obviously referring to the ogham inscriptions found in Wales, not those found in Scotland. Ogham is essentially an Irish script, and all use by neighboring peoples is very marginal indeed anyway.

Since this is a discussion entirely about article content, can we please continue this on the pertinent article talkpages? --dab (𒁳) 16:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Thanks. Wilfridselsey (talk) 17:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Speak of the devil
Look who posted to my talk page (Ararat arev). Dougweller (talk) 05:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Your incivility
Some of your comments on the fringe theory noticeboard are rude. Example: and elsewhere. Please be polite. Noloop (talk) 01:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Adding this section to this talk page is quite rude. -- 98.108.211.71 (talk) 19:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, do you have anything to say that addresses the point? Why do you feel it is necessary that you should flog the dead and decayed horse of "define myth" at WP:FTN? Did you expect people to find this interesting? Are you surprised you provoke annoyed reactions? Then perhaps you should think more before posting. I cannot believe this is still an issue. Have you presented any new evidence? Any new angles? No. You are just churning out repetitions of a matter long discussed to death. I am not sure ignorance is an excuse for this, sorry. --dab (𒁳) 09:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The content is not the issue. You need to disagree while being polite. As for the content dispute, you misunderstood my point. My point concerned systemic bias, not the definition of ""myth." Noloop (talk) 00:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, and there I was thinking we were discussing an article. You misunderstood my point: If you have no interest in addressing the content issue, please do not waste my time. If you do not care about what the term "myth" means, I fail to see why you think you should make a drama over how it is or is not applied. If you have nothing constructive to say, I must ask you to keep off my talkpage. If you want to wikilawyer about my behaviour, take it to ANI. --dab (𒁳) 08:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It's interesting to meet an admin who doesn't realize that civility matters. Noloop (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * it is less than interesting to have one's talkpage frequented by somebody who just will not listen. I have been perfectly civil with you, even though you have insisted of ignoring the issue all along. Being civil is not the same as pretending that you have a point, or pretending that I enjoy our interaction. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 16:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to rename the page Flattering user talk:Dbachmann Noloop (talk) 18:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

sir you slay me with your brilliance.

Check out my talk page, this user's opening comments to me are instantly abusive as well. Qwasty (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

energy, energia, energeia
dab, I note you've worked on some of the relevant articles before. Did you know there was a dab page for energia (disambiguation), separate to energy (disambiguation), and energeia? BTW, I see you've worked on actus et potentia. This article turned out to be made independently long after potentiality and actuality, which it has now been merged into. actus et potentia, is now a redirect. In turn, before that page existed there were also energeia and dunamis (both started by me, but I would not have done so if the others existed first) and I have been trying to get through more merges, to get these into potentiality and actuality along with entelechy. Comments welcome. My draft merged article is here: I believe that maintaining the separate pages knowingly would be WP:CFORK, or at least know one has shown how that is not the case with the current materials in Wikipedia. Anyway, as energeia might soon turn into a redirect or dab this is why I was looking at energy-related dab pages. I was thinking of making energeia redirect simply, but to have a dab line at the top going to an energy dab page, preferably just the one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I am definitely a mergist myself and I think I share your general outlook. I think this is a case where I got frustrated over the disambiguation bureaucrats ("why would I need a clue when I can obsess over MOSDAB?") but maybe I should take another look at the current situation. Anyway thanks for your note. --dab (𒁳) 17:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * An extra perspective might be helpful, especially someone with no connection to the "threatened" articles, and an understanding of the normal procedures. I think I am right in saying that merge discussions were positive and friendly for years (tagging started in 2008) until I recently started actually trying to progress. There is something of a consensus at least for making one main article, and logically, if we must avoid cforks that should be enough to say that one that basis we should merge to that main article at least while the amount of material in all the articles is still pretty basic and not very long.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

dab, see what you think of change in dab:. I guess I've done a minor merge here, from Energia (dab) to Energia (dab).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:54, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, Andrew Lancaster is cross posting trash talk about me everywhere he can: Talk:Potentiality and actuality and Talk:Potentiality and actuality, ( and ); ; and ; also the talk page of the he's referring people to; as well as directing users attention to those sections via their talk page: ! You didn't take the bait?
 * I need to figure out exactly what kind of administrative case I can open to put a stop to these prolific references to me and the 3RR/Edit waring case he blindsided me with. (And hopefully get those edits deleted). I'm not even sure the "voluntary 7 day vacation from the article" thing was part of the "protection" result... a block would have been shorter. At any rate, I want to appeal that too if it was, because there is no way I'm an edit warrior and that guy ain't!—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 03:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Machine Elf (I post here because you've asked me not to post on your talk page, sorry dab!) my understanding is that you have agreed not to edit on this anymore and that agreement was your response to a suggestion that you make such an offer in order to avoid other sanctions. Here is where you deleted the discussion. So if you are retracting the offer then you should discuss it with User:EdJohnston? Your tone above however certainly makes it seem like you have not been able to de-personalize things and take the necessary step back in order to be able to edit constructively on this again. For my part please understand that my "cross posting trash" is just getting on with life, improving an article which can be improved. What am I supposed to do? You really did edit war of your own free will and that is a matter of record which has affected the articles in question. It is not something I made up to talk about, and it is not some kind of trick which you fell for.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * No, Mr. Lancaster, I did not agree to let you talk smack about me to anyone who will listen but sure, I'll consult the parole officer. Love it. I'm not able to let go. You're one in a million.
 * My asking you not to post on my talk page hasn't stopped you yet, why don't you give dab a break and fight that urge to have the last word?—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 14:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions to so many articles.
Hi, Dbachmann,

I see that as I put up templates on articles related to the recent Arbitration Committee case on Race and intelligence that you have visited the talk pages of some of those articles. One thing that I find interesting is that many partisans in hotly disputed articles assume that you are on "their side" in the article disputes, I think because you are dispassionate and stick to issues rather than to personalities (thus appearing friendly to everyone). What you really seem to be about, I've figured out at length, is not pushing a point of view but rather editing an encyclopedia in a source-based, scholarly way for an international readership. That is admirable and a good example to a new editor like me. I'm glad to see that you are still active in editing and I hope your thoughtful insight will guide further editing of the pages where I'm putting up the template. Keep up the good work. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate this, thank you.


 * I saw your reply on my talk page, and here I'll say I'm LOL at the image of the arms race among monkeys to build better content for Wikipedia to gain alpha monkey status. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In principle, telling someone they are "editing an encyclopedia in a source-based, scholarly way for an international readership" should not be a compliment but simply a statement of the obvious (as this is the only reason anybody should edit here), but of course I know enough about the de facto average editor to realize that those editors who actually do this are far between and a valuable asset in a sea of pov-pushers, pseudo-intellectual narcissists, politicians and apparatchiks.

Wikipedia has taught me a lot about humanity. Not just the depressing truth about the pettiness and stupidity of the individual, but also the magical effect that things do work out in spite of it all, nearly every time. "Wikipedia cannot work in theory, only in practice" is a deep observation more generally on human community behaviour and the synergies emerging therefrom. It also tells us how you get the million monkeys to keep plodding away at their typewriters (you make it a primate power game, telling each monkey that the others are trying to get the better of them). --dab (𒁳) 07:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Sæbø sword
The DYK project (nominate) 06:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Genetic history of the British Isles
I know you've made comments about this article before also. I've done some work on it today. I hope it is an improvement, but I thought it a good idea to ask your opinion. I have deleted large slabs of material, but also tried to insert quite a lot of more up to date material. The net effect is a big reduction in size but this is probably mostly because the old version was very repetitive and not really structured.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

per your rant at FTN
I know you're not a userbox guy, but you might enjoy this --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

it's funny ... because it's true :) --dab (𒁳) 09:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Shape of the Earth Merger Discussion
Your comments are welcome at the discussion of the merger proposals involving Flat Earth, Spherical Earth, and Shape of the Earth. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

R1a stuff
Dab, can you take a look at this? It's been pushed off from the India page as it's undue there, but I think it has found its way across a few other articles. We are all too familiar with where the story comes from, but might you be able to comment on the refs? cheers &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  18:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I have very little patience with this. new-indology.blogspot.com isn't a "source" for anything, and genetics research papers may well be cited at the R1a article, but only as primary raw material, we need secondary summaries of research for the broader view. --dab (𒁳) 18:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I come across this quite often on the caste article cleanups as each one wants to prove some link to the Aryans or Scythians and stuff like that, but we've generally not seen it on the main articles like India or Demographics of India where it has started creeping in now. I'm not all too familiar with these genetics research papers, so figured I'd ask you. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff 

Disruptive Nationalist user
Hi Can you ban this fellow []. I really think there needs to be power to ban such a user on first sight. There are patriotic users than there are simply illogical nationalist users like this one. Thank you--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps drop him a few friendly warnings first? It's quite a while since I have blocked anyone other than blatant socks or the like: these days my "admin" status mostly serves me as a "kick me" sign (i.e. the "you as an admin should know better" avenue, very popular with edit-warriors of the, ahem, more predictable sort), I'm not doing much else with it. So I'm not really the best place to call with "can you ban this fellow". --dab (𒁳) 18:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Mass renaming of articles without discussion
Hi Dbachmann, now that R&I articles have discretionary sanctions, I had asked Georgewilliamherbert what I should do when I think someone's being disruptive on the articles, and he said to leave a message on an uninvolved admin's talk. You seem to be more active and responsive than him, so I figured I'd ask you.

The user WeijiBaikeBianji has recently renamed at least four different articles just this morning without discussing them with anyone, and now is trying to change the name of R&I too. He did bring that one up on the talk page, and several people are opposing it. He’s suggested renaming this article before, and one of the previous reasons people opposed him about it was because the title "race and intelligence" was consistent with these other articles. By renaming the other articles without discussion, he’s essentially short-circuiting that aspect of the renaming discussion.

Is it a problem to suddenly rename a bunch of different articles like this without discussing them? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 16:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Apparently it is. Personally, I am interested in sticking to the issue, not procedure. And I must say I find it an improvement to move from "intelligence" to "IQ", because that's what is under discussion. That said, I would like to stay away from such disputes, so if you raise the issue on article talk, I suppose the article will be moved back as "undiscussed move". Unless it turns out most involved editors are happy with the move, of course. --dab (𒁳) 18:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for quick reply. WeijiBaikeBianji is continuing to make article name changes faster than they can be discussed, so if you don't mind I'd like to go to another admin about this. Is that alright with you? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you about this again, but I'm more and more concerned about how discretionary sanctions are being handled on these articles. On most articles with discretionary sanctions, there are a few uninvolved admins who regularly watch for whether anyone is engaging in incivility or pushing a POV. But there don't seem to be any on these articles, and there've been a few recent examples of POV-pushing and incivility on them that uninvolved admins seem to be ignoring. I asked Georgewilliamherbert here what I should do to make sure these things have the attention of an administrator, but after more than a week he still hasn’t responded.

You're the only admin I know of other than GHW who often watches these articles without being directly involved. So if GHW can't answer my question, you're the only one I know of to ask. Is watching these articles for POV-pushing and incivility something you'd be willing to do? If not, do you have any other suggestions about how to make the discretionary sanctions have their intended effect? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:26, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Ask for help
Hi, Dbachmann. I have just created German version de:Slawische Vornamen of the article Slavic names. Unfortunately my language skills are insufficient and the article de:Slawische Vornamen needs some orthographic and grammatic improvements. Could you please have a look? I will be grateful. Regards! Wojgniew (talk) 11:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not too active at de-wiki. I think the residents have already tagged your contribution as valuable but in need of grammatical cleanup. So I hope this will sort itself out. --dab (𒁳) 08:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

ARYA
I don't understand your position. I have posted my comments so as to modify this article and you are removing it ? Why ?? I have given proper refs.Rajkris (talk) 14:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Eventhough it is long, i'm trying to dicuss. There are some mistakes which must be corrected. Rajkris (talk) 14:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This is not a Huge Essay but a discussion. I want to change some sentences of this article. I have provided the refs for.Rajkris (talk) 14:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

In what I have written, I underlined everything which is not correct in the Arya wiki article. I have given propers refs... You have removed what i have done by telling it is a counter article... I really don't understand. I am very busy in my professionnal life. I took me time to write and find all these refs.Rajkris (talk) 14:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

King
Hi, I was surprised (and a little disappointed, given your track record) to see you turned King into a disambig without discussion and without fixing any of the 1000+ newly misdirected links per WP:FIXDABLINKS. I've thought it over, and believe the Monarch sense of King is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and have created a move request accordingly. -- Ja Ga  talk 09:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, very good, I agree. I don't see why you are "disappointed" by any of this, it needed fixing and between us we fixed it. Am I to understand you expected me to fix 1000+ links manually? This is the sort of thing we have bots for. --dab (𒁳) 09:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a common misconception. A bot might be able to fix some of the links, but most of them would have fallen on the WP:DPL project to be done manually. -- Ja Ga  talk 13:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

How is it a "common misconception" that we can tell a bot to "turn all links to X into links to Y"?

King was a disambiguation page until 2007. There was nothing wrong with that. Then somebody made it into a redirect. Not a problem for me either. Then, in 2008, somebody (a then-novice user) turned it into a cfork for no apparent reason. Somehow it was neglected to fix this for two years. I have now turned it back into a disambiguation page. You submitted that you preferred the "primary topic" redirect and I was happy to oblige. Case closed, I hope. --dab (𒁳) 13:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Swastika (Germanic Iron Age)
Materialscientist (talk) 18:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

J. R. R. Tolkien's influences
Hello. I've shortened the Wagner section in the article per your concern. If you still think that it's too prominent, please let me know and I'll have another look at it. De728631 (talk) 14:10, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I was going to work on it myself, but I was distracted. --dab (𒁳) 14:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Boycott
File:Alert.gif It seems a user has been so frustrated with how certain admins are carrying out their duties that he has boycotted English Wikipedia. I don't know all the details to the case, but I suggest that whoever is involved investigate what is causing this problem and how the conflict could be resolved. I won't say anymore (I think you can fill in the details), but if something drastic is actually brought to my attention I will bring it before a mediation commitee as I already have done on another conflict.-- Gniniv (talk) 04:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Til. I didn't know he was YEC (if he is). Dougweller (talk) 07:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Til is a hard-boiled YECist. He is not afraid to go to ridiculous lengths to cloud the issue just so he can slip some agnostic relativism into an article. This tactic has served him for years, as most casual observers (admins, well-meaning "mediators" etc.) can't see through the smoke-screen easily, and of course, on Wikipedia, experts are scum, so nobody listens to them saying that an user is deliberately obfuscating a point. --dab (𒁳) 15:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Am I the only one who can't read Gniniv's sig? Mind you, I have a hard time with the alert gif he's posted, but I can read it. It's pretty dire though. Dougweller (talk) 07:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you even understand the term "boycott"? You can't boycott something that is free. We are all volunteers here, and we all have the "right to disappear". --dab (𒁳) 09:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe Til is under the impression that Wikipedia will fall apart without him? Cavila (talk) 09:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:ANI regarding User:Gniniv
User:Gniniv has filed another mediation request (this time through MedCab) nearly identical to the last one in which you took part. The Medcab report has resulted in an ANI report being filed. If you wish to take part in the ANI thread, please feel free to do so. All the best, <b style="border:1px solid #000;padding:4px">Jess</b> talk&#124;edits 03:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

thanks. I do not remember taking part in any mediation thing other than saying I consider it a waste of effort. --dab (𒁳) 07:21, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Bronze Age horns with bird-head terminals
Hi, dab. It's entirely tangential to your recent work on Wōdanaz, but I thought you might find interest in this pair of horns, each of which originally terminated in a bird's head. It's pure conjecture, of course, but it's very easy to imagine the Torrs horns as prime examples of the kind of horns we see in Öland foil. By the way, the linked text refers to "Continental" parallels. Are you aware of any? Or do you think this is just referring to images depicting similar horns? Cheers, --80.218.71.231 (talk) 16:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes the continuity is astounding. But since the "ritual dancers" seem to be "pan-Germanic", I must really wonder why no helmets of the kind depicted seem to have been found from the period. All actual horned helmets seem to be at least 500 years older, and all depictions seem to date to within 550-650. Very strange. --dab (𒁳) 16:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Kurgan hypothesis is not contradicting with out of Anatolia hypothesis!
Hello and thank you for your works

Kurgan hypothesis is not contradicting with out of Anatolia hypothesis!

Kurgan hordes of pontic steppes that are assumed to have speak indo-european tongue did not came from the moon to pontic steppes but from Anatolia (which is a folk pumping region both in paleolithic and neolthic due to being refugium and land were agriculture was first discovered and animal first domesticated) and before being in Anatolia those proto indo-europeans were present in Arabia in cultures such as Kebaran, Hassuna, Halaf, Natuf and before that in Africa.

Indeed The pontic steppes hordes ultimately came from Anatolia (and before Anatolia perhaps Iran or Levant etc...) [see Gimbutas, Bernal, Renfrew] and urheimat of Indo-Hittite is generally accepted as being in Anatolia due to words in proto indo-european that are loans from khatti, sumerian, semitic and egyptian as well as for proto indo-european having words for agriculture and the milieu described by proto indo-european words fits with Anatolia but not with Central Asian&Pontic steppes besides some common mythology and pantheon proto indo-europeans share with Semitic, Egyptian, Khatti and Kartvelian.

References: see Anthony, Gimbutas, Renfrew, Gamkrelidze&Ivanonv, Dolgopolsky and Bernal

[snip]

Humanbyrace (talk) 18:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Please do not dump giant amounts of text on my talkpage. Thank you. I also do not see why you come here to volunteer your personal opinions on linguistic prehistory. --dab (𒁳) 19:43, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Mainstream scholars of world first 2 universities such as Cambridge and Harvard (Colin Renfrew, Witzel...) and also Gimbutas state that Indo-Hittite urheimat is in Anatolia and as you know Europe was populated by middle easterners (Caucasoid phenotype appeared in middle east after discovery of agriculture)

It's well known that alphabet, culture, religions and language of Europe were born in Arabia and that modern human appaeared in Africa and only racists like some wikiusers and moderators dont want to write that!? why we have short lifes and did not choose our race, language or religion so why are you playin racism and fascism!?

Please be human, &objective

Humanbyrace (talk) 12:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

It is hardly the fault of mainstream scholars that Wikipedia user "Humanbyrace" does not have the first clue about their respective fields. Sorry, but if you have no background knowledge whatsoever, why do you insist on commenting? Please try to educate yourself. Even if this means you have to go to a library and do it on your own. Once you have a basic grasp of the topics you seem to be interested in, we can have a discussion. I also resent your constant references to racism and fascism which are completely beside the point and have nothing to do with scholarship. --dab (𒁳) 12:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I want to add that what I quotated is not of Bernal but of other archeologists, historians and linguists and he does only quoting please read the text again and reintegrate it to the article you should be neutral even if you are yourself an aryanist racist you did not choose your race language or religion so be objective and dont play racism this IS AN ECYCLOPAEDOA AND WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED SO DONT DIRT IT WITH FASLSIFICATION AND OTHER ABSURD BIAS DUE TO ABSURD INHERITED YOUR RACE LANGUAGE ETC...

Humanbyrace (talk) 12:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I read many books on archeology, history, linguistic and mythology (something around 2000 books) and I have ottoman history degree and now studiying medecine.

INDO-EUROPEANS DID DONT CAME FROM THE MOON TO PONTIC STEPPES BUT FROM ANATOLIA AND ANATOLIAN LANGUAGES ARE THE MOST ARCHAIC AND DIVERISIFIED ONES BESIDES HITTITES OVERTLY WROTE IN THEIR BOOKS THAT THEY CAME TO ANATOLIA FROM THE SOUTH EAST!!!.

Humanbyrace (talk) 12:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I am very sorry to say, it doesn't show.

Please stop saying "INDO-EUROPEANS DID DONT CAME FROM THE MOON". I understand you want to say that even the Proto-Indo-Europeans had ancestors. However, these were not Proto-Indo-Europeans, they were pre-Proto-Indo-Europeans. I also understand that you are an adherent of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis. Good for you. It's a respectable view, even if it isn't the mainstream view. So, please also stop informing me of the fact. In fact, please stop shouting and pasting content on my talkpage altogether, it is not helpful to either of us. --dab (𒁳) 12:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry for my bad comments

Humanbyrace (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Germanic Europe
To my surprise, everybody seems to agree with my proposal on the talk page (which was inspired by your comments), so I guess I am going to implement it soon. You haven't commented yet: Do you agree? Any ideas what could be done better? Hans Adler 08:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Please
Hello, Dub. Can you please rv this action, or strike it, or something. I dont have will anymore to enter this nationalistic battles full of hatred. User:Happy Democrat is sock of wikipedia Sockmaster User:Sinbad Barron. I supose that even strike will be enough? Thanks. -- WhiteWriter speaks 08:51, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you at least respond me, on your page? I hope that it wont be to much for you? -- WhiteWriter speaks 12:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Til's back
See his edits at Epic of Gilgamesh. Arguing over 'mythological'. TE? Dougweller (talk) 14:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

So what do you say -- did Wikipedia manage to survive his prolongued "boycott" without any lasting damage? --dab (𒁳) 16:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope, it's completely collapsed. I didn't think he'd stay away. Dougweller (talk) 16:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Since we are discussing Til's tactics, there is a parallel case:
 * does valid work on articles on biblical topics, but it is apparent that he has a systematic pov driven by a religionist or ideological agenda, biblical literalism. To push this, he is trying to game the system, selectively putting up a flurry of objections on points that go against his agenda, all in the service of "encyclopedicity" of course. He then makes life so difficult for the bona fide editors that they will simply leave it alone sooner or later. This has worked very well for him so far in general, but he feels "bullied" by me because I am calling the bluff.
 * does valid work on articles on Germanic antiquity, but it is apparent that he has a systematic pov driven by a religionist or ideological agenda, some brand of Germanic Neopaganism. To push this, he is trying to game the system, selectively putting up a flurry of objections on points that go against his agenda, all in the service of "encyclopedicity" of course. He then makes life so difficult for the bona fide editors that they will simply leave it alone sooner or later. This has worked very well for him so far in general, but he feels I am "guilty" of sabotaging Wikipedia  because I am calling the bluff.

I have worked with hundreds of good editors on Wikipedia, and I have protected articles against hundreds of bad editors, but this sort is very rare, so it is interesting to see two in action at once. I do hope this doesn't indicate a trend or the project is in deep trouble. --dab (𒁳) 13:56, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

ARYA/ARYAN pages
Hello. User Khodabendeh is telling that the refs I have provided do not meet wiki standards and therefore cannot be used as wiki refs. He has done the same thing in the Aryan page. He's 'threatening' us with wiki rules. Can you please tell me whether he's right or not. Thank you.Rajkris (talk) 20:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Well lets be bold and fix it? Should I fix it? I think it would be good to address the three issuess above in different articles, since many people wrongly attribute 20th century political concepts. We can make "Aryan" as a disambigious page. Then discuss:


 * Aryan (Iranian Context)
 * Aryan (Indian Conext)
 * Aryan (Political Context)

Although I would have to think of a better tem for the third one. In reality the three concepts are not related from the viewpoint of historical development. The article "Arya" can be also a disambigious page (simple saying name of Indo-Iranians), then see Aryan (Iranian Context), Aryan (Indian Context)...I could do all of this in 5 minutes really but would need a good name for the third article. Thank you.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 09:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It needs to be fixed, but it needs to be fixed by merging, not splitting. The Arya split was a mistake. We assumed that there could be a discussion of the "meaning in Hinduism" detached from the racial stuff. It turns out that this is impossible, and that it is the Hindus in particular who fall all over themselves for these racial meanings.

We need one single article, at Aryan, that discusses all meanings, and their overlaps and mutual influence. This is mostly already done. We now just need to merge Arya into Aryan, and all will be fine. It is impossible to discuss any of this in a satisfactory way other than completely in context. --dab (𒁳) 13:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I took the inititative to merge the article. As you said one problem is better than two problems.   If you have time, please check for any sectioning issues and possible missing information from the merge--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 03:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

aorist
Hi, dab. Your opinion would be appreciated at Talk:Aorist, if you're interested. The main dispute centers around calling the aorist a "tense", but there are other issues as well. — kwami (talk) 01:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Aorist
Hi, Dbachmann. Your name came up as someone who might be able to help with difficulties that have arisen in developing the article Aorist. If you can spare a little of your time, some fresh perspectives are very much needed and appreciated. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Hatchet burial
Dab, this is time consuming, and I think we ought to consider coming to some kind of agreement. Although this has been going on at varying levels for years now, I'm sure that we can both say that a lot of our dicourses have often come to nothing, ending up as little more than wasted time and long strings on talk pages that nobody wants to read. Of course, it's easy to end up butting heads on a wiki, but I think we've done enough of it. I propose that we:


 * 1) Both agree to avoid anything that could be considered a personal attack, jab, insinuation, or snide remark regarding one another, avoiding any personal references altogether, if need be
 * 2) Both agree not to revert one another, and discuss tag additions if a disagreement occurs over them
 * 3) Drop all previous issues and history, and no longer persistently view one another as "bad faith" editors

What do you say? I'm not asking for any apologies, and I certainly have no intention of making any, but I'd much rather be working on article bodies than exchanging anonymous barbs on any of a number of talk pages. bloodofox: (talk) 05:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I am most happy to accept this proposal. This is the only way forward, and as a matter of principle, I am always prepared to draw a line and judge editors on their current behaviour, ignoring their past behaviour. This is a simple corollary of the fact that I am here to build an encyclopedia, not for social networking or making friends. So it is no problem to make a fresh start at any point as far as I am concerned.

It will be helpful to drop any personal angle, since this is entirely unproductive, if not counterproductive.

On your second point, I do invite you to even revert edits of mine just as long as they are not blanket reverts but reverts addressing a single point, a single paragraph or a single reference. Reverts can be constructive, and if reverted on a single point I will always be willing to present an alternative phrasing. I am just not willing to put up with blanket reverts. I will also agree not to revert any of your edits, reserving edits of yours that are themselves reverts, and edits that constitute major blanking of content. Any content warning tags, and any edits on individual points you make I will agree not to revert but simply to mark with a tag if I find issue with them.

I will also be interested in collaborating with you in compiling a balanced account of the Frijjo question. I recognize that you have presented a valid reference that challenges what I consider the mainstream view. If you agree to portray this just as such, a recent challange to an established view, it will be perfectly unproblematic to incorporate it. If, on the other hand, you insist that I am mistaken about the relative notability of viewpoints, and that the mainstream view is different from what I think it is, this will need to be discussed in greater detail, and based on more references.

I also recognize that you are doing valuable work on Wikipedia, and that you have done a lot to improve our coverage on Germanic topics. Respect where respect is due. --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I am glad that we can come to an agreement, and I thank you for your insight and the compliment. I appreciate your invitation regarding the reverts, but I think a more friendly atmosphere would result from my avoiding reverting altogether with you, and instead commenting on exactly why I feel a revert may be needed. On a related note, if you want to delete any ongoing argument threads between you and I in favor of a fresh start, that is fine by me, as I don't think they're doing us any favors, and I will be happy to restate any concerns I may have without the baggage.


 * As for the Frijjo article, I have some other sources I would like to throw some light on (Britt-Mari Näsström's works on the subject, for example), but right now I cannot invest the time in it that it would require. I think we would be best served to continue digging for what is out there, to establish exactly who has said what, where, and when, and then just map it all out. I think that Grundy's article—which is the most thorough recent work on the subject that I've found—does a nice job of examining the issues and his bibliography could be very handy for us. I should also note that I've frequently found it difficult to ascertain what is the mainstream view on many of these subjects, if such a thing can even be said to exist in these circles; many of these subjects are so obscure that one can generally only hope to plot out the currency of different interpretations, count heads, and then note what has ended up in the three major English dictionaries on the subject.


 * Actually, now that I think of it, I think it would be better for me to prepare a rewrite of our Frigg article before trudging further into this, hum. Again, I'm glad that we can put away our guns. bloodofox: (talk) 18:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

good. I will try to expand on the Frijjo article over the next few days, incorporating the Grundy angle. I will not have time to work on the Nidh topic in the near future, so I'll just leave that with the dictdef for the time being. --dab (𒁳) 15:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The Witch Hunt for Chuck Norris
I don't know if you discovered this but the original addition of Chuck Norris to the witch-hunt article came on September 14, by this edit.--Ishtar456 (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Chudasama
dab, Do you know anything about User:Chudasama? I don't see any admin action by you with respect to this user but long ago you were involved in reverting/warning this user and he seemed to be editing in an area in which you have expertise. The user got indef blocked four years ago by User:Dominic and there was an allegation of sockpuppetry that I can't see the basis for. It doesn't appear to have ever been discussed but simply a cat added to the userpage by User:ImpuMozhi suggesting the user was a puppet of User:DPSingh; to me the brief edit activity doesn't seem to support this; but my only involvement with the user until recently was that I made a technical adjustment to the block as part of a mass unprotection. The user thought I had blocked him and contacted me recently when he wanted back in. The recent discussions of sockpuppetry are unrelated and are really just block evasion in an attempt to communicate. I've discussed this with the user and he understands the issue, but I'm checking with everyone who had interactions with the user before I spend too much time on him. If you want to comment, it would be particularly helpful if you did so here. Thanks. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don’t know weather by putting this message will be again block evasion but could not stop my self after looking various talk page messages for the subject matter of the fact for wiki team Administration. I am now fully satisfied with the progress and specifically for the matter that a senior level team member of wiki admins(Doug &) are sparing their time and efforts so sincerely by collecting and compiling relevant information so precisely for decision making process. My assumption of wiki team of neglecting user of less importance like me has turned wrong here and has touched me to salute wiki team deep from heart. -- posted by User:chudasama --195.229.237.37 (talk) 07:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a bit of an overkill of administrative effort over an account that has added linkspam to some articles at some point back in 2006, isn't it? If the user wants to edit, let them just create a new account and start over. As the Chudasama account has contributed nothing of any value, it will not be possible to connect any valid edits to it. From the above comment it does not seem extremely likely that anything useful will come of this, but if the user wants to edit, let them edit. If they start wrecking articles and posting spam again, we can always block them again, no problem. --dab (𒁳) 08:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree, I just wanted to make sure you didn't have any particular knowledge of this that would suggest the user is in fact a sock. I haven't reviewed other comments yet but heard from User:Dominic offline and will proceed.  Thanks for confirming that you don't see any real issues.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Witch-hunt vandalism
uw-delete4im —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwasty (talk • contribs)

boy, you are going to have a difficult life as a Wikipedian. --dab (𒁳) 08:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The editor has been around since 2006, making edifying contributions like . Yuk. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * yeah. A pillar of Wikipedia. We must make all efforts not to alienate this editor under WP:Expert retention.
 * not. --dab (𒁳) 08:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Ahem
"...With the result that our articles would be of no more value than a random excerpt of a random usenet thread." Are you sure that isn't the case currently? :)

BTW, the caste wars are quite heavy now, do you think it might be a good idea to create a task force or something like that as a subset of WP:RSN or WP:FTN to clean up these repositories of bovine excrement? Any clean up that's done by individuals is automatically undone by SPAs in a few hours, and the standard flags of "content dispute" or "edit warring" raised. I'm really not sure how to go about these articles, I've been accused of being every caste and against every caste, that it's moving on from being funny to irritating now. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  10:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I know the sentiment :) of being accused of being of every caste and ethnicity and race just because you try to be neutral, I mean. You also never get called a racist more than when you try to impress on racialist editors that their favourite race does enjoy any privileges on Wikipedia.

The IAM article isn't great, but it isn't all bad. Thanks to a few stout reverters, I see that its edit history is mostly vandalism. Definitely a candidate for semiprotection. Also when dealing with the gotra-cruft, your only option is to semiprotect the bits you have cleaned up somewhat, as otherwise they immediately plunge back into chaos as soon as you turn your back.

We get bad editors from all possible backgrounds, but I would really be interested whether some of our good Indian editors have a theory as to why it is such gigantic amounts of bizarrely abysmal editing seems to be pouring out of India. It does't seem like these caste-warriors were satisfied with merely bad editing, they insist on pushing mere lack of quality to such extremes that it is again a weird sort of achievement to even manage to produce content that is quite as bad as this.

Your only hope is semiprotection. When you semiprotect, the bad editors will explode into a flurry of socks, which can then be pinned down and blocked for abusive editing. As long as you don't semiprotect, you'll always be dealing with a diffuse cloud of redlink accounts and IPs, making any coherent conversation impossible. Once you semiprotect, the cloud separates into abusive editors, which can be dealt with administratively, and a handful of bona fide editors, who can be addressed and pointed to the relevant policies and guidelines as necessary. --dab (𒁳) 10:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think, a lot of our articles attract off-wiki campaigns, Abecedare and I have been mentioned on off-wiki caste discussion forums as "people of the other castes who are jealous" and all that. However, a lot of these caste warriors from these off-wiki forums come in and make enough talk page edits and get autoconfirmed status and then edit after that. All these caste articles are ridiculously POV, even to the extent of removing POV tags, take just two examples -- Nadar (caste), all sociologist sourcing has effectively been wiped out in favor of "Nadars claim this" kind of sourcing; and Nair where it's turned out that only one side sourcing is used. Abecedare said that he's fed up of this nonsense and stopped working in this space, I still go by once in a while, but then Wikipedia is really being used as a publisher of "their" version of history. Any non-Indian admin who has even touched these articles once will never visit them again, and among the India project admins only Utcursch and I even touch this space now, and being involved in editing, we can't really take actions in many articles. I hope some of those involved at WP:RSN or WP:FTN take a more active role in this space. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  15:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * yes, the only possible approach is using the two-hander, and that doesn't make you very popular. I still visit these places sometimes, but in small doses so the imbecility of it all doesn't get to me. --dab (𒁳) 19:02, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of The Hobbitons


The article The Hobbitons has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Non-notable band, fails WP:MUSIC

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles 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 article to address the issues raised. Removing  will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. De728631 (talk) 14:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

request
Hi dab,

I asked a question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ancient_Near_East, and thought you might have an opinion. I'm trying to clean up the IPA, and a huge amount of out-of-context IPA is transcriptions of Semitic & Egyptian pharyngeals and glottal stop. I wonder what the guidelines are for this: s.t. visually distinct and copy & paste-friendly would be nice. — kwami (talk) 00:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Genetic origins of the Kurds
Hello. You recently changed the article Genetic origins of the Kurds into a redirect to History of the Kurdish people. The redirect was recently nominated at WP:RfD; rather than allow a potential "backdoor" deletion to occur, the article has been restored and nominated at AfD here. You may wish to comment there. –Grondemar 05:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Bardyllis
Just like I thought, the disruption on that article has started. Any attempt to edit these articles is met by a tag-team of the same 2-3 users. What course of action do you recommend? Athenean (talk) 15:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * reverting to the last good version? --dab (𒁳) 19:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Which would be yours. However, I am trying to voluntarily abide by 1R, even in the face of such brazen POV-pushing. Athenean (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Adding something and citing three sources about isn't pov-pushing, but trying to add that it is an Albanian folk etymology although none of the sources is Albanian and none of them even implies that it is folk etymology can be considered as pov-pushing.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 19:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * @dab: You see what I mean? Even though modern linguists do not make the connection, we have this  "precise".  Athenean (talk) 19:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)So you're saying that when Alain Ducellier wrote (en albanais Bardh Ylli, l'étoile blanche) he wasn't connecting it with the Albanian words?-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 20:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * He's not "connecting" it, he's merely mentioning it as an interesting tidbit. No scholar worth his salt would make that the etymology.  That it's folk etymology is plainly obvious, as 3 different users are telling you.  Asking for sources for stuff that's WP:OBVIOUS is WP:LAWYER and WP:TE. Athenean (talk) 20:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Zjarri: I suggest you hear at least Fut's arguments in the article's talkpage instead of adopting this 'Albanian ever existed' scenario (linguistics unfortunately can't give such an explanation).Alexikoua (talk) 20:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I have been prancing around with patriotic nonsense like ZjarriRrethues's for five years. Really, I've seen it all, and I'm not even interested in going through the motions. As far as I am concerned, ZjarriRrethues can either reform or get lost, we are trying to build an encyclopedia and they are clearly not here to help. Perhaps this user seriously considers the possibility that Albanian was spoken in the 4th century BC, but that would only go to illustrate their complete lack of competence in the topic (Hanlon's razor). Either way, this is a non-issue. --dab (𒁳) 20:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll start an RfC then, and on the RfC please add those sources that say that it is a folk etymology. Btw I never said that Albanian was spoken in the 4th century BCE. When trying to build an encyclopedia we do so based on sources. If I'm wrong then please show me the sources that prove me wrong and since it's so obvious that it is a folk etymology then you should be able to find those sources very easily. None of the sources says that the etymology is yll and bardhe, because that would be impossible but that they are somehow related. Until other sources get published then.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 22:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Zjarri, let it rest. You are rapidly becoming disruptive. Athenean (talk) 23:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I merely asked for a source, which you didn't bring and that's not disruptive but there's no reason to continue this debate so I'll just wait for other sources to get published.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 23:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What is really beyond me is the eagerness of two admins and a good watchdog like Athenean to insist on the term folk etymology, when that term is not supported by any source. What happened to you guys? Albanians made your life impossible in these years? I really do not understand why is it such a problem that Albanian words may have an Illyrian root. Besides that the Albanian language descends from Illyrian is a very plausible theory, probably not the only one, but a very widespread one. Wording can be worked upon, but the sources are clear. What is not clear is your assertion of "folk etymology". --  S ulmues (talk) 23:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)FutureP made a quite reasonable proposal and it was being discussed until some other users decided not to continue the discussion. Btw we're all involved so the best way to deal with this is a RfC-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 00:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * @Sulmues: It's beyond you because you still do not understand what etymology is  (and you can't spell it either ).  The rest of you posting can be considered trolling. Asking for sources for stuff that's WP:OBVIOUS (to anyone who knows what etymology is, that is) is very WP:TE.  Athenean (talk) 00:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I'll just read the above as a small personal attack, by now I'm used to them and I am also used to seeing you not being sanctioned for that, so I'll pass on any further postings here. Dab thanks for letting me edit in your talk page. Cheers. --  S ulmues (talk) 01:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Sulmues, Athenean did not attack you, he explained that you made a mistake. Nobody claims that the name has an Albanian etymology. People just noted that there is a modern Albanian folk etymology. You will also note that this is never noted in the context of a discussion of Bardyllis, but rather in the context of the Albanian language. The reason is that it has nothing to do with the historical king. The proper context for a discussion of this thing is here. --dab (𒁳) 07:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * None of the sources say that Dab, so why do you make that deduction? The sources don't even say that it's an etymology and btw please don't remove pov tags from articles that have been deleted on other wikipedias because of their pov(the same exact article was written by the same user on the Greek wikipedia and they deleted it because they considered that it was full of povs). -- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 08:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * look, "Zjarri", it is impossible to argue with somebody who does not have the first clue of what this is even about. If you have no education on these matters, looking at snippet views in google books is not going to help you. I am sure there is some area of Wikipedia where you are qualified to contribute. --dab (𒁳) 09:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Ryke Geerd Hamer
hey! why did u delete the link to sc.y? hamer even refers to them... bye. --Homer Landskirty (talk) 06:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:SA. If Hamer refers to Scientology, discuss this in the article, don't just place a generic definition of what Scientology is under See also. --dab (𒁳) 07:16, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

hm - the other "see also"s didnt do more, 2... now all "see also"s r gone, so that that ur edit feels alright to me... :-) bye... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Sumer
Thanks. I was planning to come back to it as the writing section needs some work. At the moment it says (with no source) "Sumerian writing is the oldest example of writing on earth". Dougweller (talk) 07:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

yes, people get this wrong quite often. For this topic, look at Kish tablet where I have collected information of the development of cuneiform writing. It was proto-writing during the 36th to 32nd centuries, and can be argued to have evolved into writing proper by the 31st century. Egyptian writing follows a very similar timeline, but as far as I am aware the earliest evidence of writing proper in Egypt dates to the 29th century, so it is arguable that Sumer was "first" by a margin of a century or two. --dab (𒁳) 07:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that a century or two is not just a tiny margin when you consider the uncertainties of any dates during this period. I don't think anyone can say with certainty who was first. Dougweller (talk) 09:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I know. As I say, people get it wrong all the time. It is important that this is being looked after by editors who know what they are doing. Since these are gradual processes, it wouldn't even be possible to pinpoint the exact date of the "invention of writing" even if all information was available. All we can say is that the development of writing in both Egypt and Sumer was part of the cultural changes that were part of the transition to the Bronze Age. --dab (𒁳) 09:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

IP vandal
Hello Dab. I know you are involved in some of the Kosovo-based activity but I believe that it would not harm your admin status if you were to intervene on this issue that I present. Once again we have a user who is IP-hopping and constantly returning for no other reason than to amend the birth details of Xherdan Shaqiri so as to wipe the details pertaining to his links to Serbia and Yugoslavia. This means taking out the Serbo-Croat spelling, replacing Yugoslavia with the controversial Kosovo as country of birth (less the standard Kosovo note); and altering the spelling of Gnjilane by presenting the Albanian variation that is not used in any English source. Any chance you can protect the page for registered users to edit it only for some time? Here is the recent activity list. It goes back atleast nine days. Thanks. Evlekis (Евлекис) 16:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Long time, no see
Hi, how are you doing? I'm having a spot of bother with a POV-warrior (yes, there's a helpful clue there), who has been making some inept edits to Nader Shah articles. The usual tactics (selective alexia, fishing trips to Google Books for some musty 19th-century sources which are obviously just as good as expert opinion from 2006, projection etc. etc.). I've now been accused of being a sock puppet of another editor who just happened to disagree with this guy too. It's obviously all a conspiracy. Anyhow, if you could keep half an eye on this malarkey I'd appreciate it. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 18:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Varuna
Hi, I wanted to bring to your attention that there was a reference (which was hidden in comments) lost in one of your edits to the article on Varuna, just in case you had not noticed. Happy editing! --Joshua Issac (talk) 20:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I did this on purpose. The reference was a review of Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism (1975) It's valid, but we don't need it, and it certainly has nothing to do with the nonsensical paragraph it was attached to. --dab (𒁳) 14:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Please see my comments on the talk page for Ahura Mazda. I have found references in the Rig Veda and Zend Avesta that seem to link Varuna with Ahura Mazda.
 * Hokie Tech (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Samarra Swastika pots (there are actually more than 5 pots with Swastika motifs) are dated to 6300 bc and they are the first decorative pottery of world history

The Swastikas motifs represent our old shamanistic, proto indo-europeanist, polytheist western Asian religions.

The Indo-Europeans are west Asia origined please see the graophe as well as the explication below (read what "ashraf" said, this Ashraf seems to be a conoisseur anthropologue, also you can read the persian historian kaveh Farrokh):

Graphe

http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/image.php?u=781&type=sigpic&dateline=1284827047

Explanation

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/09/bronze-age-mediterraneans-may-have.html

Indo-European input amongst French is about 10-15% and the figures of the Britain should be lower. Please see below:

http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/image.php?u=781&type=sigpic&dateline=1284827047

Note that "the light green indo-european component" is present amongst south Indians and that's in line with indo-european incursions to southern India.

Light blue component is too old and not so widespread to be bronze age indo-european.

Also light blue as well as pink and purple is not so widespread to be indo-european.

We can not equate hg's with languages and folks because those hg's are very old (paleolithic) but we have to think of old (pal-meso-neo-chalcoltihic) biocultures that formed after local genesis wich grouped many different hg's and that's why R1b is afro-asiatic in Tchad and Nigeria, vasconic in Europe, Caucasian speaking in caucasus etc...

The complex internal synthethic structure of the proto indo-european language as well as proto indo-european words for metals, complex mythology, agriculture, animal husbandry, horse mastering and chariot&war abilities suggest that the biocultural genesis of proto indo-europeans took place in one of the complex chalcolithic cultures of the ancient near east (hassuna-halaf cultures) this is also sustained by phenotypical proofs of excavation of kurgans as well as ancient depictions and current racial inventory in such indo-european strongholds as Anatolia, Iran, India, Greece (please read "indo-europeans and indo-european languages" of gamkrelidze&ivanonv ) and could not be the product of paleolithic or early neolithic cultures of-out of ice age-Europe.

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * is there any reason you sign four times in a row, or is this as random and pointless as the rest of your edits? --dab (𒁳) 14:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Cheers
Real life means I don't have the time to devote to this kind of thing any more. In any case, I think Wiki-crankery jumped the shark with Doctor Boubouleix and his "Shambhala army recruiting officer friend" Mr G. Smith. This latest problem editor is just another minor league POV-warrior (no doubt a reincarnation of some banned user) plugging away at his 1066 and All That version of his nation's history. He's a mere pissant compared with the learned Docteur Faustroll. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 19:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I must admit that the wikitrolls have been a bit of a letdown in the past year or so, quite an anticlimax compared to the doctor mirabilis. --dab (𒁳) 19:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Q without U
Noticed your comment on the List of English words containing a Q not followed by U. You might want to weigh in at Featured list removal candidates/List of English words containing Q not followed by U/archive1. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 22:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Old Norse orthography - Addition of alphabet table
The alphabet that was included in Old Norse alphabet is the standard normalization, which is already covered in the table that already exists within the article. I see that "Old Norse alphabet" has been redirected to "Old Norse orthography#Latin alphabet orthography," which explains the inclusion. However, as one can see from reading the article, Old Norse was anything but uniform in orthography, which was the problem with the now-redirected article to begin with. In addition, the reason for that subsection is that Old Norse doesn't necessarily use Latin script. See that Ethiopian alphabet does not assume Latin, either. So I will undo the inclusion and change Old Norse alphabet to a non-sectional redirect. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 11:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

then remove it again. I did not create it, I just merged Old Norse alphabet as redundant. --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have, but I didn't want to leave you without an explanation. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 11:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * ok, thanks. --dab (𒁳) 12:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Graeco-Armenian
Hi, I have translated the article into Russian. Will you help me to explain other Russian speaking users that the name of the hyposesis shall be translated to Russian as "the Graeco-Armenian Language", because it is suggested that such a language had existed, and not "Graeco-Armenian Hypothesis, that I guess makes the title strange at least. Thanks in advance for your assistance, --<span style="font-weight:bold; color:blue; text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.5em; letter-spacing: 2px; padding: 1px 3px;"> Zara-arush (talk) 19:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand the problem. The hypothesis is, of course, that a Graeco-Armenian linguistic unity existed at some point in prehistory (say, around 2500 BC). What you are going to call it in Russian will depend on what this has been called in Russian literature. --dab (𒁳) 21:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess the hypoyjesis is not mentioned in Russian literature on linguistics. I asked the debator to submit the source that in Russian it is named not the way I translated. But he told me about Baltic-Slavic group of languages, and that there could not be the Graeco-Armenian group of languages, and that the Greeks and Armenians do not understand each other, etc. I will be very thankful, if you just write, if my interpretation is correct (I understand how crazy it may sound) - Graeco-Armenian means "the Graeco-Armenian language" (not the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis). Sorry, for disturbing you with my silly question, and thank you again in advance, --<span style="font-weight:bold; color:blue; text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.5em; letter-spacing: 2px; padding: 1px 3px;"> Zara-arush (talk) 00:45, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * well, your "debator" seems to be the kind that does not have much of a clue. You should tell them to a library and read a few books. Nevertheless, "Greco-Armenian", like "Greco-Aryan" and "Italo-Celtic" are in fact hypotheses without mainstream support. --dab (𒁳) 11:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your explanations. I am just a translator. Luck and new good articles, --<span style="font-weight:bold; color:blue; text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.5em; letter-spacing: 2px; padding: 1px 3px;"> Zara-arush  (talk) 17:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, again, this master's degree holder interpretes the name of the article in English like: Greco-Armenianism, and the same with Italo-Celticism (a trait characterisitcal for these prehistoric tribes or he might have wanted to insult me, because I am Armenian), because without the definite article and attribute these adjectives become substantivized, i.e. for this reason they may not be the names of languages. I did not notice these "pearls of wisdom""pearls of wisdom", and offered them to translate the passages from the last articles of Cavalli Sforza and Piazzo and Russell D. Gray & Quentin D. Atkinson! Sorry again, best wishes, --Zara-arush (talk) 23:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, for disturbing you again. May it be more correct, if in the right-hand table, where the languages are listed (I do not know how it is named in English), it would be more correct, if Proto-Armenian were listed after Graeco-Armenian? And is it possible to add the hypothetic time periods for them both, based on the articles of Cavalli-Sforza and Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin, Nature 426 ? Thanks in advance agai"This model also assumes close contact among the linguistic ancestors of Germanic, Italic and Celtic."n, --Zara-arush (talk) 15:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * in my opinion, "Greco-Armenian" has nothing to do with the "history of Armenian" and should not figure in that template. It is not a theory about Armenian, it is a theory about the deep prehistory of Armenian, Greek, Phrygian and other languages. Proto-Armenian is perhaps half as old as the propose Greco-Phrygo-Armenian unity. --dab (𒁳) 15:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks again, in case it is one and the same hypothesis, please add the material, relating to Phrygian part, for I may add it in my Russian translation. Anyhow, of what I have read in the last days, I may guess that they did not study Phrygian relations together with Graeco-Armenian "branching", because it was too little for analysis and too little survived of Phrygian. And I did not find much about it in the same articles that mention Greco-Armenian split. The Graeco-Armenian language or lingustic unity may be referred to in this tamplate as an ancestor of Proto-Armenian, and intermediary stage between it and PIE. Thank you very much for your replies. I am too tired of explaining the things that are obvious and within the course of Ebglish for primary school. I learnt much owing to your explanations, thanks again, best wishes, --Zara-arush (talk) 17:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Sri Lankan pre history ethnic groups
You've completly removed the articles on the Naga, Yakkha and Raksha people of Sri Laka. They contained a lot of verifed information from sources specifically talking about these Sri Lankan ethnic groups. They are not the same as the Naga, Yakkha and Raksha in Hindu mythology. I can't believe you have removed all that information. Those articles were specifically talking about groups of people that are thought to have lived in Sri Lanka, not the demons in hindu mythology who share these names. Please can you undo the moved pages. Wikinpg (talk) 23:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Please. These aren't "ethnic groups", they are mythical kingdoms from the Ramayana. You should avoid writing articles "in-universe". --dab (𒁳) 07:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand merging the Deva and Raksha page as they are mythical. But the naga and yakkha are legendary. See:
 * South Asia Media. (2009). Ethnic Groups in Sri Lanka and Their Origins. Available: http://www.southasianmedia.net/profile/srilanka/srilanka_ethnology.cfm. Last accessed 07 March 2010.
 * Srilankanreference. (2009). Sri Lanka - Yakksha and Naga Times. Available: http://www.info.lk/srilanka/srilankahistory/yaksa_naga.htm. Last accessed 07 March 2010.
 * WWW Virtual Library Sri Lanka. (2009). The original inhabitants of Lanka: Yakkas & Nagas. Available: http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul/yakkas.htm. Last accessed 07 March 2010.
 * John M. Senaveratna (1997). The Story of the Sinhalese. Colombo: Asian Educational Services.

Please revert the yakkha page back and remove the request for the merging on the naga page. I don't think anyone wants the Naga page to be removed. There are books about the Naga in Sri Lanka Wikinpg (talk) 14:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not doubt they are "legendary". This is why you can't do "ethnic group" articles about them. Perhaps you could create a "legendary peoples" section in the Mahavamsa article and see how it goes. --dab (𒁳) 18:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit War Jat People
I fear another edit war may be brewing at Jat_people. Just thought I'd give you the heads up. Cheers --<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue;font-size:16px">Sikh- <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:goldenrod;font-size:16px">History 10:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * thanks, but I am really tired of the Hindu caste-cruft. In my opinion, if these people really want sad and crappy articles about their own group, let them. --dab (𒁳) 10:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Origin of the Albanians, for the n+1th time
Pretty self-explanatory disruption, really. Any help in dealing with this would be greatly appreciated, as usual. Athenean (talk) 16:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Dab, FPS took care of it and I agree with his edit. --  S ulmues (talk) 17:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Kushtrim's edit seems ok to me. --  S ulmues (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Kushtrim's edit is definitely not ok. @dab: I have opened a discussion thread here, however I expect my arguments to be interpreted as enemy intellectual action and to fall on deaf ears.  If you could chip in, it would greatly help. Athenean (talk) 17:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

you would think Albania was part of India (see section above) judging from the kind of perpetual ethnic nonsense. --dab (𒁳) 07:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yaksha
Hello. This message is to inform you that I removed your reference addition(s) to Yaksha. No text was provided for the reference, and it was causing a cite error. When you have the time, please re-add the reference with more details. Thanks. Akerans (talk) 02:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

yes my mistake, sorry. --dab (𒁳) 07:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Someone's talking about you
See User talk:Meeso - I've no idea what this is about, but I'm probably going to WQA about the editor, which is how I saw this. Dougweller (talk) 12:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

German IPs who "reveal my identity" are mostly Albanian nationalists (from the comfort of an EU residence), whose agenda was thwarted by me at Kosovo. There are a number of these lurking about. If I remember correctly, in particular was trying to make this personal. Perhaps a usercheck will reveal all the IPs used disruptively by this user and lead to a general ban.
 * This statement above implies racism toward Albanians. I am an Albanian and I take offense. Fellowscientist (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See this diff, it appears wants to "put me down forever". I won't hire a bodyguard, but I think it's good enough for a permaban. --dab (𒁳) 12:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Dbachmann! :) "Won't hire a body guard", LOL! I think what he meant was simply that he will "put you down forever" emotionally (which he managed, I mus say!), not physically. (Don't get all Angry now.) &#39;&#39;FellowScientist&#39;&#39; (talk) 18:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, so not WQA then but ANI. I'm off to walk the dogs, if you want to take it there while I'm doing that, fine, or else I will when I get back. Dougweller (talk) 12:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'ver raised it there now. Dougweller (talk) 15:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Re:Was image
I noticed that you removed the image of a was scepter from the Was article, calling it "unencyclopedic". Obviously if it were a real Egyptian was staff, that would be encyclopedic; do you believe it's some amateur reconstruction? I had wondered about that myself, but the image description didn't provide any information, so I let the image sit. A. Parrot (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is just somebody's self-made staff. Even if it were an ancient artefact, the image would still be unencyclopedic unless the artefact was identified either based on quotable literature, or citing the museum where the picture was taken. Images are content too, and the same content rules apply to them. --dab (𒁳) 06:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Irkutsk Oblast
Well, in response I could write an equally emotionally charged diatribe about how some people (with best intentions, of course) assume something and try to pass that something as true and encyclopedic information ("flag of Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug", copied word-for-word from "flag of Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug", really?), but since your hair don't stand on end when people do that, let's instead focus solely on the administrative divisions of Irkutsk Oblast.

First off, since when is a short referenced stub considered to be "less helpful" than a redirect to an article which does nothing but repeat the title of the redirect and create an illusion that we already have an article? I also find it incredibly ironic that you would advise a person who routinely helps out with systematic creation of the articles on the Russian districts to "include more fine-grained information" about two random districts he didn't get to just yet. Tell me, is this "fine-grained" enough for you? How about this? I suppose this would be better off if we replaced it with one of your famous redirects as well?

All in all, borrowing from your vocabulary, how the hell is upgrading a redirect to a stub not qualify as a "gradual improvement"? And what made you think I was even done with those two stubs?

Now let's review my "removal of the list of rural administrations", which is "apparently just based on the idea that either all the villages in the oblast should be listed, or else none at all". My response to that is "ahhhhhhhh!!!!". Here's why. Let's forget for a moment that the "list" was all in Russian, without as much as transliteration accompanying it, thus making it completely useless in this English Wikipedia. Let's also not mention the spelling errors in that list ("Больше" is not a word). But the "list" is neither that of the villages, nor of the "rural administrations" (and oh yes, let's also gloss over the fact that the villages are not the same as the rural administrations, as your question seems to imply)! The list you copied without thinking is that of the rural settlements, which are not administrative divisions. They are municipal divisions. Ugh!

I can understand the frustration of an editor who sees his work reverted wholesale, but I assure you in this case it was the best I could do. I honestly thought about incorporating your changes into the list, only to find out after weeding out things which make no sense that I am left with nothing to incorporate. Why would you choose to work on a highly technical subject you know next to nothing about? You've been a Wikipedian for just as long as me; surely you know by now that's never a good idea? Assigning a historical flag to a modern administrative division, breaking the structure of the list of the administrative divisions (an okrug of Irkutsk Oblast is a division hierarchically above both the cities and the districts, not between the cities and the districts), removing red links without giving a reason (did you know that the backlinks those red links produce are invaluable for a multitude of other tasks?), introducing concepts unrelated to the list's scope, arbitrarily changing the spelling of a link instead of taking care of the problem properly&mdash;all that is nothing to write home about. And after introducing all that mess you accuse me of the audacity to turn a redirect into (oh horrors) a stub? Pah! Yes, I was having a bad day, after having to waste time on sorting out your "improvements" to find out there's nothing to sort. Shouldn't come as much surprise that I overlooked one interwiki link in all that mess. My bad, sorry about that, is fixed now.

Snarkiness aside, if you really wish to improve the list, why not start with updating it with the 2010 information? Did you know that the list is presently based on OKATO, which is reliable but lagging? Did you know that a new law on the administrative-territorial division of Irkutsk Oblast was adopted this June? Did you know that the new law no longer recognizes rural administrations as an administrative unit? Now that I pointed out the difference between the administrative and municipal divisions, would you be willing to convert this list to cover both concepts (so it could resemble this list)? If there ever was a logical point to start with "gradual improvements", the new law would be it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 19, 2010; 13:55 (UTC)

whatever, it's your corner of Wikipedia, I'm not going to convince you about anything here. --dab (𒁳) 14:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's not my corner, it's just the subject I happen to know a bit about. Everyone is welcome to contribute productively.  My point is that your contribution in this particular case was well-intentioned but hardly productive.  The least you could do is to acknowledge it; dismissive "whatever" remarks only work among adolescents.  Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 19, 2010; 15:14 (UTC)

Zoroastrians in Mohenjo-Daro
In June 2008, Science Magazine published a series of articles titled Unmasking the Indus about the Indus Valley Civilization. The following quote comes from page 1282 of the article "Indus Collapse: The Beginning or the End of an Asian Culture?": "Although Wright and others argue that climate and society are deeply intertwined, Possehl scoffs at the idea that drought explains the collapse. “We should stop thinking about the physical world and start looking at the fabric of society,” he suggests. He believes that the end of the Indus was primarily a matter of ideology, like the collapse of the Soviet Union. Possehl and Michael Jansen of RWTH Aachen University in Germany note that the Great Bath at the center of Mohenjo Daro was abandoned a century or two before the city, suggesting change in a society that they say emphasized water-related rituals." In other words, the collapse of Mohenjo-Daro may have been preceded by a decline in water-related rituals. In Zoroastrianism, there is a ritual called the yasna, which is similar to the Vedic yajna, except it uses water instead of fire. Also, the chief Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda is the Iranian version of Varuna, the Vedic god of water. Maybe the decline of Mohenjo-Daro is related to the Hindu-Zoroastrian split... Hokie Tech (talk) 01:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Scythian languages
How are you Bachmann? I notice you reverted a section in this article. I think I know why you may have done it but I would like to hear it from you. I did not finish it. If that is your main reason I can finish it in my user pages and put the finished version back. I need an answer from you as to your reasons; otherwise, you seems to be ignoring the policies of discussion, references, and the fact that I am actually a reviewer. There is the question of totally arbitrary actions on the part of administrators. I did put such a request in the article's discussion. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.Dave (talk) 02:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Your deletion of referenced content for no assigned reason on article Malik
Hi Dbachmann I am intrigued that why you ,an administrator, would delete referenced content from an article , as you have done in article Malik , even while leaving related but unreferenced content. Please see my note for you on the Talk:Malik page Intothefire (talk) 12:09, 17 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Please see my response to your comment on the Talk:Malik page . Intothefire (talk) 17:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I see ,that instead of responding to my query, you posted me a cryptic question instead , when I replied explicitly , you have chosen to not reply.
 * As an admin you may operate with privileges, but take care to act with depth , lest your unilateral actions are indefensible , in which case your edit/deletions cease to be judicious .Intothefire (talk) 06:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

please go away. --dab (𒁳) 09:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * What kind of whimsical and arbitrary discussion are you conducting .??


 * Here you post please go away to me instead of cogently responding to my queries" and specific responses
 * and on the same day you simultaenously make make another 7 edits, and contrary to your own contentions , Illogically leave   this unreferenced  section on South Asia intact while you paradoxically deleted these pointedly relevant references I had provided related to exactly this unreferenced  content in this section ??


 * This article has been needlessly, fractionated,
 * and your random actions are really counter productive.
 * I hope you are not countering me instead of the article content ??
 * Intothefire (talk) 16:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Brigandage
G'Day. Your edits to Brigandage were excellent. What would think of a "rename" to simply Brigand? (removing the redirect which currently goes to the disambig and then to Outlaw). This would put it into line with other similar articles like Mercenary and Buccaneer. Happy to make the transfer; just wanted to get your opinion. Stalwart 111  (talk) 10:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if and how we are going to distinguish the Brigand and Outlaw articles. One possibility would be to restrict "Outlaw" to the actual historical practice of removing legal protection from people. This would mean that the new "Brigand" article would combine "Brigand", "Bandit" and "Outlaw (modern sense)".

What I am sure of is that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and we don't need a full article at every term for "armed robbers living in the hills". --dab (𒁳) 10:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Very true. I suppose brigand has traditionally had quasi-military connotations; soldiers who went bad, but not necessarily always so. Outlaw, on the other hand is basically anyone who works or worked outside the law. The term outlaw is still used today (see: Outlaw motorcycle club), whereas brigand is really more a historical term. Outlaw is obviously more generally and the intro to Brigand, if we move it, should reflect that. I suppose Bandit should just continue to redirect to Outlaw.


 * Maybe the problem could be solved with a template at the bottom of each page. I note Outlaw has 21 see also articles. Stalwart 111  (talk) 13:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * yes, but are you aware that outlaw historically was not somebody who "works outside the law" but somebody who had been officially excluded from the law, as in Imperial ban? (the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them) In this sense, outlawry was abolished in the UK in 1879. Since then, "outlaw" is just used loosely or figuratively.


 * My suggestion is that outlaw should be about this historical legal status, not about "outlaws" in the Wild West sense. --dab (𒁳) 14:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was aware but that's about as succinct an explanation as I've read. I suppose the difference is that the word outlaw is still used today whereas the term brigand is not so there has to be some accounting for that. I suppose Brigand and Outlaw should be considered in the same historical context. I might have a crack at an infobox template and show you what I had in mind. Stalwart 111  (talk) 00:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is what I had in mind; just threw it together. Stalwart 111  (talk) 01:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I do not think this is going to work. Again, under WP:NOTDICT it is completely irrelevant if the word outlaw is still in use in a different sense for the purposes of an article on the original, historical sense of the term. The place to discuss all possible meanings of the word outlaw is at wikt:outlaw, not outlaw. --dab (𒁳) 11:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay. Just to be clear; there is no attempt to define or redefine the word, nor is the proposed navbox aimed at listing "possible meanings" - just at listing all actual uses for the word which happens to be wider than it's historical use. By way of example, Pirate redirects to Piracy which deals only with the historical use of the term; historical sea-faring pirates. The Template:Pirate (at the bottom of that page) is similar to what I have tried to do with Template:Outlaw. It, too, lists modern variants. I really don't mind either way; just trying to make things easier, not harder. Stalwart 111  (talk) 11:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

sure, your thoughts on the matter are appreciated. There area also several possible schools of thought on the role and ideal form of a navbox. I do not wish to discuss the best form of a navbox for this at this point, just the distribution of articles. The navbox, if any, would be a corollary of that. --dab (𒁳) 12:00, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough; understand entirely. My original questions actually came about because of a text I cited which referred to the hiring of brigands and outlaws as two distinct groups of people for hire (factually closer to a mercenary anyway) in the original historical context. When I went to link them I realised the links were cyclical; they both ended up at the same place eventually with nothing to distinguish the two. This was just one I followed through. Appreciate you putting the time into a back-and-forth on the matter. Cheers, Stalwart 111  (talk) 12:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC).

Upanishads
Zuggernaut (talk) 22:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Request for arbitration enforcement
Ferahgo the Assassin has opened a thread about my involvement in the race and intelligence articles here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#WeijiBaikeBianji You are mentioned (by user name) as an editor who has observed my editing behavior and who has an opinion about it, but I don't so far see notification on your user talk page about this, so I thought it would be a courtesy to you to let you know that Ferahgo the Assassin's request for enforcement is currently under discussion. On my part, I would consider your courtesy if you found time in your busy schedule to comment there, and I will read anything you write with great interest. Best wishes for much recognition of your contributions and much personal satisfaction from your volunteer participation in building Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:55, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Nationalization of history (content fork?)
I'd appreciate your comments about this new article, which seems to be a content fork and is discussed here and here. Thanks, --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed the same editor has created another article to form a matched set: Denationalization of history; he may have a valid approach, but as of yet, his articles are solo operations. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, these are valid articles, they just need to be integrated with existing content. --dab (𒁳) 09:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Cernunnos
You are way out of line at Cernunnos. That article is both incomplete and full of uncited generalized statements that collectively are misleading (the lede particularly). These you leave in, but you deleted impeccably sourced material that comes from entries on Cernunnos in high-quality reference works on Celtic culture. I seriously doubt that you know better than John Koch and P.B. Ellis what's relevant to the understanding of the Cernunnos divine type. Worse, you've actually made a source say what he did not: Maier did not mention Carnonos. This is not the kind of bad editing I expected from you: an editor I highly respect once pointed to you as someone whose opinion might be worthwhile. Since I had bibliography for the topic on hand, I thought it would be a fairly simple matter to add cited material. Now I see there's a deliberate effort to exclude pertinent scholarship and maintain ownership. Won't waste my time in an edit war, so have at it. Really disappointing, though. (For instance, the website used for the first ref is hardly a reliable scholarly source; this is Whatmough's reading of the Parisian pillar, and needs a ref that says so.) Cynwolfe (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

wait, wait, have you considered the possibility that I may have made a mistake? I am not aware of having done any of these things. --dab (𒁳) 19:17, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems the mistake is yours, you appear to be complaining about something I did not do. --dab (𒁳) 09:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Maier was made to say what he did not. I apologize for going bonkers, which I tend to do when a source is rewritten without consulting what the source actually said. Before you lecture me on how an article is written, you might want to determine whether I actually write articles in the manner you describe. Again, sorry for the overreaction, but it isn't uncommon in such articles to be caught between Neopagans who have personal views and linguists who want to exclude all scholarly discussion other than vowel gradations. The lede is misleading; the name "Cernunnos" only occurs once, and it's a more accurate reflection of the scholarship to think of this figure in terms of typology, without asserting that every antlered figure is "Cernunnos". Miranda Green does her thing, which is to construct an elaborate hypothetical mythology, but she isn't the only game in town. There's a major article from the 1950s by Bober (as cited in Koch's Celtic Culture), and evidently Proinsias Mac Cana has a go at it (I haven't seen that one). My goal was to bring the presentation of the article more in line with the entries in Koch and Maier, to balance the predominance of Green's approach, with more developed explication from Bober et al. that would answer some of the questions that readers bring to this figure. Sorry for going ballistic, but Maier didn't discuss the Carnonos inscription in the particular source cited, and that revision really set me off. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

X Nationalism again
You might be interested since we have a recent wp:idontlike it activity by playing with the pov tag [].Alexikoua (talk) 20:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Anna's tag was very reasonable and I started a RfC, so if Alexikoua wants to remove it he should take part in the discussion instead of trying to remove by wp:idontlikeit revert-warring, because the same article written by the same user that was deleted on its home wikipedia is definitely not fine as Alexikoua labeled it. In fact I think that someone should inform the admins, the users of el.wikipedia who voted for its deletion since their insight would be useful(the only one who voted against its deletion was Alexikoua). Btw there are less x organization is a terrorist one labels on Al Qaeda than on Albanian nationalism, which says a lot about the quality of the article. -- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 21:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Then I don't see the reason you are obsessed on reverting Db's version and restoring the pov tags.... Seems quite unexplainable since you filled an rfc too.Alexikoua (talk) 22:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:NPA Alexikoua, because I didn't really revert Dab but you who were revert warring and updated the tags. Btw restoring pov tags makes absolute sense when many editors provide reasons about the pov of the article and there's an ongoing RfC.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 23:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. It is irrelevant how "many editors" are trying to have an argument on talk if they just do not have a case. ZjarriRrethues, you want to stop editing articles related to Albanian patriotism since you clearly have a WP:COI. I am sure you can find another area of interest where you can contribute meaningfully. --dab (𒁳) 10:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, and Alexikoua is not showing "patriotism". Look at his edits. He is trying to make everything Greek. I mean, he also argued that Scanderbeg was Greek. There are no sources that would show anything similar to that, except in forums where people not qualified give their opinions. So, please Dab, try and be less biased. Alexikoua is the next Megistias!—Anna Comnena (talk) 12:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * did Alexikoua try and push a Greek etymology of Bardyllis? I thought not. Look, there is apparently quotable evidence for the opinion that Albanian bardhe has an Illyrian etymology, so why don't you just let the linguistically savvy editors document this and leave it alone. As for Alexikoua "arguing that Scanderbeg was Greek", let's see the diff. Here I definitely don't see him pushing a "Georgios Castriotis", do I? If your excuse for nationalist trolling is that other people also indulge in nationalist trolling, let me tell you straight away that this isn't going to fly. It is your job to behave yourself, and if you fail to do that it is you who is going to face the consequences. --dab (𒁳) 13:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Anna I was never saying that Skanderbeg was Greek. Please avoid this extreme battleground mentality. Actually I've upgraded the quality of lots of Albania related articles, something that was never appriciated by ultranationalistic cycles (suppose they hate quality).Alexikoua (talk) 13:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Great, if you would try and assume good faith with me, you will see that there will be less "flooding" and "trolling". As for Bardyllis, I am not involved in that. However, I am involved in Albanian Nationalism and I believe that time has come for this page to settle. As in it's current form, it is badly written, it does not comply with WP standards and was created by Megistias who was banned from editing because of his POV pushing. I really believe that there is useful information in this page, but the naming is not correct and the style is awful. Albanian Nationalism is a broader concept than just irredentism and megalomania. It is like writing in Albania article only about Albanian mafia. —Anna Comnena (talk) 13:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * As for you Alex. I remember that we did a number of edits together, and I could see that we did find ways to work together. But yesterday I started to doubt on your "professionalism" because of some edits. I do not want to argue with you about that, however I just want to let you know that I really do not have nationalistic tendencies, I just do not like skewed perspectives. Like (for example) arguments that Albanian Nationalism is a myth, and other Nationalism are not. Wickers does say that Albanian Nationalism is a myth, but she also says that all Nationalism are based on myths. So this, is only an interpretation. (This was only an example of what I am going against). Thanks. —Anna Comnena (talk) 13:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I apologize, I took Anna's comment for a retort by ZjarriRrethues. If you glance at my contribution history, you will realize that I am busy writing encyclopedia articles. I have very little interest in this. Rollback and block the nationalist patriots, and include a decent discussion of the bardhe thing, please. Wikipedia is orders of magnitude to lenient with people who are clearly not here to write an encyclopedia.

Anna, of course Greece has its own crackpot nationalists. But it seems they are busy making television or something, as they are rarely seen on Wikipedia. Countries like Iran, Armenia and Albania, on the other hand, seem to be so chock-full of crackpot nationalists that literally the majority of Wikipedia editors of such provenience can be counted among their number. --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Bardyllis, again
The nonsense is starting again. The Empathictrust fellow is most likely a sock of a banned user, I will deal him. But please keep an eye on it, the disruption is incessant. Athenean (talk) 23:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Der Berggeist.jpg
Di-no fair use rationale-notice Sfan00 IMG (talk) 10:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

PARAVAR
User Dharani Marani is continuously removing the Original Reseach tag put by Admin SpacemanSpiff who is absent. The refs provided for claims such as Aristocratic/Kshatriya/Pandya royal lineage are fake, not reliable. In the talk page, there are several refs on the origin of this caste (fishermen) but he refused to consider them. He even threatened the user who had put these refs. Please have a look.83.202.205.250 (talk) 20:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel that has actually made some useful edits to Paravar. Of course, the article needs much cleanup still -- but then you should see our other caste-cruft. --dab (𒁳) 09:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry but when you assert, claim serious things such as Kshatriya/Noble/Royal lineage, you must be able to provide multiple valid refs written by proper, serious scholars which clearly support these claims... This is not at all the case here!... The sources provided tell nothing like this... This is clearly source manipulation, cheating... Some people are using Wikipedia caste based articles for their propaganda; Why wikipedia is so soft with these people ???.83.202.221.234 (talk) 23:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Identifying lexicographical WP:RS
John Carter recommended I seek your comment on lexicographical WP:RS. Is it preferable to use standard modern lexicons to provide definitions of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words, or can we just use whatever we want? If a 100 year old source is contradicted by a professional modern lexicon, which source should I use; the 100 year old one, or the modern standard lexicon?--Taiwan boi (talk) 16:10, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * For classical languages like Hebrew, Greek, and Latin it is like this: the 19th century produced towering feats of philological scholarship. The major dictionaries of this time remain standard works. You shouldn't just cite any old 19th century source, but you should cite the standard reference, which is most often a 19th century work. E.g. for Hebrew cite Gesenius. For Arabic, cite Lane. For Sanskrit, cite Monier-Williams. If there is a serious more recent source which contradicts these standard works, they will explain why they do so, and this explanation should be included in the discussion. --dab (𒁳) 16:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Authochthony and Illyrians
Since you have dealed with the topic seems that a variety of articles are hit for the same reasons. A recent example is here in Albanian dialects (claiming autohthony using weird wp:synth&or).Alexikoua (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Dab, I hate to bother you about this stuff, but this Alex guy is impossible. What is this?: How can someone delete something in such an arbitrary way. —Anna Comnena (talk) 17:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Anna hope this 'Alex' isn't me, since I'm uninvlolved in the dif. you gave above.Alexikoua (talk) 21:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes! Sorry! —Anna Comnena (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Where can I report this case! WhiteWriter is another name of Tadija, a user many times blocked for edit warring and whatnot! This page was created by Mladifilozof. —Anna Comnena (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * you are supposed to explain what you thought was the problem with the redirect. As far as I can see, the target article addresses the same topic. --dab (𒁳) 19:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Sumerian language
Thank you. I want to show this: "During 1855, he published Écriture Anarienne, advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian (related to Turkish and Mongolian), rather than Aryan or Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system." (from Julius Oppert article.) Böri (talk) 13:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but you need to realize that these theories have been completely discredited. It was possible to suggest them in best faith in the 1850s, because almost nothing was known about the cuneiform texts at the time. You need to realize that the decipherment of the cuneiform script dates to 1857. It was possible to read some of it during the 1830s and 1840s, but before the 1850s reading cuneiform was highly speculative. The theory you quote dates to two years before the complete decipherment of cuneiform. The actual edition of the content of the cuneiform texts took many decades, not to mention their linguistic analysis. 160 years later we have are in an infinitely better position to judge the linguistics of the Ancient Near East, and it has long been well known that this "Turanian" theory was mistaken. --dab (𒁳) 13:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Sumerian-Ural Altaic Affinities (by A.Zakar): http://www.jstor.org/pss/2740574 / Agglutinative language (both Turkish & Sumerian) / Subject Object Verb (both Turkish & Sumerian) Maybe this don't show much... Regards Böri (talk) 08:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It shows that you are getting better at locating good references. This one, you need to cite as
 * Andras Zakar, 'Sumerian-Ural-Altaic Affinities', Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1971), pp. 215-225.

What is going on here is that a Hungarian patriot made a submission, "hey, scholars, there are affinities of Sumerian with Hungarian, how about that", and twelve scholars replied, on eleven pages. You need to read all of it. Or if you don't have access to the full article, you can at least read the beginning of the comment by Miguel Civil on the first page, which has the gist "yeah, we know. And Bantu. And Basque. And Polynesian". In fact, your reference is perfectly valid, as long as it is used to point out "An Ural-Altaic relation with Sumerian has been suggested, but is considered as without merit in scholarship." --dab (𒁳) 08:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Title of Pāṇini article
Your move from a few years ago is being discussed here: someone wants to move "Pāṇini" to "Panini (grammarian)". Just in case you're interested, Shreevatsa (talk) 10:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello. That someone is me. Thanks for your comment! ^^, Yours faithfully, kotak  kasut. 18:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I have made a report!
Hi Dab. I made this report of you and your edits on Albanian nationalism page. —Anna Comnena (talk) 18:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I am glad to hear it. Please only return to Talk: space once you are done wikilawyering on Wikipedia: space and ready to help writing an encyclopedic article. --dab (𒁳) 09:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Religion of Moses and Israel
Several wikipedians, inluding you have changed and finally deleted the term "Religion of Moses and Israel". You must note that even though religion of Moses (or Moseic religion) is largely interchangeable with Judaism, it is not always this way. Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism - a branch of Moseic religion, which is not Judaism. So were several arab tribes in the Middle Ages, including Himyarite kingdom. There are several more examples. Moseic Religion is a religious term said by Jews and Samaritans in prayers, when relating to the religion, thus changing it to Religion of Ancient Israel was a huge mistake - completely out of context. Later, your forwarding to Judaism has been more accurate, but it has completely messed up my original meaning. Please do something to bring back the original meaning.Greyshark09 (talk) 05:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It's "Mosaic", not "Moseic". "Mosaic religion" is not a historical religion, it is, as you say, a concept within Judaism and Samaritanism. I understand your concern about the original rename and will try to address it. --dab (𒁳) 05:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * First of all, thank you for understanding. I think it is a good idea to forward it to Mosaic Law - it fits the description well. I will add information within the page of Mosaic Law on relevant religions and ethnic groups which practice the Religion of Moses and Israel i.e. Mosaic Law, and link to Judaism and Samaritanism, as well as relevant religeous groups which practice it.Greyshark09 (talk) 06:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that Mosaic law is at present a disambiguation page. Perhaps Halakha would be a suitable article? Or else I could envisage the addition of a "Mosaic law" section to the Moses article. --dab (𒁳) 08:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, i do understand it is a disambugation page. Thus, my edit was minor - just general mention what communities and ethnic groups practice the Mosaic Law. Halakha is not suitable for expansion on this topic, as it is a differential part of the Mosaic Law, linked to Judaism alone, and completely irrelevant to other practices of the Religion of Moses and Israel. I do not think Moses is a suitable page too, since Moses is a mythical or historical figure, while here we are speaking about religion basics and religeous definitions. Again - Mosaic Law (or more accurately Religion of Moses and Israel) is an umbrella for the major religeous practice of Judaism, but also minor practices of Samaritanism, Subbotniks religeous movement in Russia and Hebrew Israelites movement in USA. There are also other historical and modern examples to Mosaic Law practices (different of Judaism). In a similar way Christianity is an umbrella for Catolicism, Orthodixism, Armenian Church, Maronite Church, Assyrian Church, Anglican Church, Lutheran Church and other Chritian movements. Apparently, there is a page on Christianity. Why no full page to be dedicated for the Religion of Moses (Mosaic Law)? Maybe we could change the status of disambugation for Mosaic Law to a standard page status?Greyshark09 (talk) 13:42, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Would you mind taking a look at the Judaism article? Greyshark09 has been trying to shoehorn his "Mosaic Law" shtick into that article.  Thanks.  - Lisa (talk - contribs) 20:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Alexandros = a Greek name?
They" say: Alexander: Latinized form of the Greek name Αλεξανδρος (Alexandros), which meant "defending men" from Greek αλεξω (alexo) "to defend, help" and ανηρ (aner) "man" (genitive ανδρος). from:http://www.behindthename.com/name/alexander /but is it true? Maybe, it was a Luwian name... and the Greeks took this name from the Luwians! Paris = Alexandros (other name of the Trojan Prince Paris)with Greek "-os" suffix. Alaksandu > Alexandros(the same name?) My opinion: Yes! but earliest form of this name was Alaksandu! So maybe this was a Luwian name and the Greeks changed it as "Alexandros"... How do you know that it was a real Greek name? Böri (talk) 14:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Because I read books discussing it. You really need to begin to understand that Wikipedia isn't a place where people meet for the friendly exchange of random speculation. --dab (𒁳) 14:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It was not a Greek name! & What about Cassandra ? / Saying "I read books" is childish! Böri (talk) 14:26, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say "books", I said "books". Perhaps you can reflect on the maturity of pestering complete strangers with etymological questions that you could research either online or by visiting a library. I have no idea about the etymology of Cassandra. I would need to research it, as clearly just assuming it is Luwian because everybody likes Luwians isn't good enough. But perhaps you could be bothered to do some research for a change and cite some decent literature on the name? --dab (𒁳) 14:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Hurrian language
Is this on your watch list? I removed some odd stuff about the Armenian language which was misplaced, and it's been reinserted once. I assume this is some sort of Armenian nationalist thing. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:31, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The Nine Unknown
Cld you take a look at this? (came up on fringe noticeboard) I've reverted to an old version which clearly states it's just a novel, but then I noticed you'd edited the "in-universe" versions also. Am I missing something? Thanx--Misarxist 09:47, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a novel which spawned some cranky conspiracy theories. The question is, are these notable in any way. Independent third party sources would be needed to establish such notability. --dab (𒁳) 10:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Sweden
Greetings. Since the topic interests you []. Iraqi (talk) 09:59, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't so much interest me as annoy me. If they could just live out their identity crisis without disrupting Wikipedia articles about the Bronze Age, I probably wouldn't care. --dab (𒁳) 10:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Samhain & Halloween edits
Clicked on Halloween discussion, one German editor Bakulan is trying to rewrite the article how he sees it (apparently German view of having absolutely no pagan celtic origin whatsoever) and has done so to Samhain article, and with no consensus. Noticed you are Swiss so you would be aware of the apparent German view on this which Bakulan is enforcing. My personal knowledge on historical origin is very limited so my input would not be worth much. Having looked at edit history, you have contributed to Samhain page probably more than most, so i thought i'd notify you of this (if you haven't already got it on watchlist of course). --Xavier 21 (talk) 07:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how there can be a "German view on Samhain". Either there is decent evidence for a given view on Samhain, or there isn't. --dab (𒁳) 10:41, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It turns out Ronald Hutton has done our work for us in sorting this out, all we really need to do is cite him. --dab (𒁳) 18:20, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Noticed that, also there are a great deal of sources that state similar. Having read the Halloween discussion page, among many things the user Bakulan is being accused of cherry picking sources to push his personal point of view. He is also using some questionable sources that non German readers can verify, one such source was dismissed after investigation. He has criticised peer reviewed scholars such as Hutton, and then used weak sources such as "business of goosebumps". Furthermore, another user Eastcoat translated one source that Bakulan claimed discounted Celtic origin, and Eastcoat found it said; "The origins of Halloween go back to the pagan Celtic festival Samhain which was celebrated on 1 November". On another occasion Bakulan advocated a BBC source, then dismissed it when another user responded with the same BBC source stating Samhain's connection to Halloween. The discussion page is full of this, now over 180,000 bytes. Is all of this apparent cherry picking to suit an editors agenda allowed on Wikipedia?, and especially on what is a pretty significant event in Halloween? Xavier 21 (talk) 14:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Once again please
Can you head over to Ramayana and Mahabharata please? I've been off wiki for a while and I was obviously not around to revert much and the two have come to include a lot of, let's just say, innovative content. Also, you might be interested in WT:INB as it follows a question you've been asking for a while. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  15:47, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems like Doug has got our back :)
 * Yes, we need to face the realtity that there is literally an inexhaustible number of people willing to add crap to our India articles, and that we need to address the problem by other means than dealing with each one as a separate case to be considered on its own merit. --dab (𒁳) 18:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there was some older stuff too that needs some looking into on the Mbh/Rmyn series. As for the India articles take a look at Sivakasi riots of 1899. This was the sourced version I left the article at, and the same sources have been manipulated to say the opposite while a lot of other "he said she said" stuff has come in. I don't even feel like going back to that article, the last time was trouble enough with posts on their Orkut and other forums asking for volunteers to attack me and it's just a bleeding waste of time. I really can't think of what we can do about this kind of crap. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  18:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * yeah, this needs to be done more efficiently. I am more than willing to revert to the last good version and semiprotect. In such cases, I do believe any admin, 'involved' or not, should be expected to help protecting respected editors from from trolling campaigns orchestrated in internet fora.
 * As I have learned from the "Indigenous Aryan" trollfest of 2005-2006, it's an uphill battle, but in the end even Indian internet trolls will get frustrated if they bang their heads against the wall often enough. After that, they will go and look for fun somewhere else, hopefully off-wiki. --dab (𒁳) 19:14, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Semi protection doesn't help these anymore, I think our orkut and other groups educate them, so you'll see these warriors make 10 edits on the talk pages and then start off. See Talk:Nair for example and how a WP:RSN discussion was manipulated to include the caste website as a reliable source! BTW, the Jat articles will be coming up for copyright review soon, some copyvios have been discovered so there may be a massive exercise to clean up copyvios, although you know what I'd suggest instead of clean up... &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  17:39, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Germanic Halloween?
I noticed this subject because User:Slatersteven called for help on WP:RSN, and thought you might be able to comment: .--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I've been reading some of the Halloween discussion and its clear it needs assistance, certainly from editors who have some understanding of the subject. The editors are having a struggle in working out the veracity and reliability of the German language sources for example. There also seems to be an issue of undue weight.Xavier 21 (talk) 19:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I find this a little boring. If people want to improve the article by adding secondary sources that are actually superior to the ones we had, why just they don't do that. What is all this "German" discussion? This smacks of ideological motivation, apparently somebody is out to "debunk Samhain" no matter what. --dab (𒁳) 07:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

BTW
This isn't anything to do with Barbadian history, but you probably remember the hoaxing over the Illyrian section of Paleo-Balkan mythology. I just noticed that this festival of fun had developed in parallel to the plain vanilla version - boringly cited to an expert source (Wilkes) - we came up with at PBM. I've changed it into a redirect but maybe we need to keep an eye on anyone who tries to resurrect it without providing solid evidence these elusive deities exist. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 15:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice. I also note we have been blessed with a Thracian horseman article last Saturday. --dab (𒁳) 16:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The original version of Illyrian Mythology was courtesy of the short-lived  and looks pretty much like a reinstatement of the hoax material I deleted. I wonder where they're getting this stuff from? Maybe some Wikipedia mirror site. No prizes for guessing our friend's nationality. Check out this edit where he claims an Albanian origin for Argentina . Excellent! --Folantin (talk) 16:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW I think I've traced the origins of the "extra info" to the work of one J.W. Pandeli, Oh Albania, My Poor Albania: The History of "Mother Albania" from the Beginning of Time, the Beginning of the World (published by a certain J.W.Pandeli in 1980). Check out the only Amazon.com review (five stars from one J.W. Pandeli) : "This book represents a new idea. Albanian-American presents a unique history book about the Albanian people from 'the beginning of time', 'the beginning of the world'. This book projects the idea that the ancient Albanian history has been preserved in Greek literature. This idea is based on a combination of Greek literature, the Albanian language, and the possible etymology of ancient names." The book is out of print but this guy and/or his admirers have been fairly active on the net. Apparently "Illyr-Albania" is the source of all Western civilisation and religion. For instance, I think he derives the Greek word "genesis" from "Genusus", a river in Illyria mentioned in Classical sources. "Aphrodite" is either Albanian "Aferdite" or related to the River Shkumbe, which apparently means "foam" in Albanian. You get the idea. --Folantin (talk) 20:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Priceless. Written by J.W. Pandeli, published by J.W. Pandeli, reviewed by J.W. Pandeli. ''Without the ideas presented, neither the evolution of early man nor the Greek Civilization can be accurately understood or fully appreciated. Try telling this to the academians - but it is true.''

I share the sentiment expressed in the title. With such patriots, a country needs no enemies. --dab (𒁳) 20:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Celtic Nations
A problem with the flags on Celtic Nations, they will not allow me to put in the Tricolour, even though its not representing the whole island, and its always the same two or three people led by "BritishWatcher". I think an admin is required to intervene because its such a joke, that they have a problem seeing the Tricolour as a problem and no other flag even though I clearly explained, that it does not represent the whole island.Sheodred (talk) 14:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

What the Tricolour represents is probably a matter of perspective. You should ask the Irish Republican Army what they think. I don't want to open that can of worms. Of course the notion of "Celtic nation" is intrinsically nationalist, and nationalism more often than not implies irredentism. The Irish nation seceded from the United Kingdom precisely because of such sentiments. The question of territory is secondary to the question at hand, since regardless of how exactly you are going to delineate the territory of the Irish nation, the Celtic nations article is referring to the simple existence of the idea of a Celtic nation of Ireland. --dab (𒁳) 14:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Folk etymology: Your input requested
I am looking for people with interests in folklore (editors I’ve encountered on folklore/mythology articles as well as elsewhere) to visit talk:Folk etymology, where there is an ongoing edit dispute. One view (three people) holds that the term is exclusive to linguistics, and another (just me) finds that the term has been formally defined within folklore, and used in academic journals in that sense for more than a century. The page is currently locked. I ask your input not in support of either view, but because discussion seems to have come to a standstill, it seems to be a page few stumble across, and needs fresh viewpoints to get unstuck. Thanks! DavidOaks (talk) 18:06, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea whether "folk etymology" has a history of being used in folklore journals, but if you present the relevant references, I will believe you immediately, I really don't see where a "dispute" can come into this, it's just a question of pointing to the evidence. --dab (𒁳) 18:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I would tend to support this. "Folk etymology" is not a formation parallel to folk science, folklore or folk religion, etc. It is for better or worse a (somewhat unhappy) loan translation of German Volksetymologie. --dab (𒁳) 18:20, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi dab. I supplied some sources on Talk:Folk etymology that, I think, may change the dynamics of the debate. I remember you as being a particularly level-headed editor (when working on some mythology articles, my only real area of interest around here), so I thought I'd let you know. I don't really have a strong position in this dispute, so I'd rather just supply information and have others squabble over its use in the article. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:47, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, here's the section: Talk:Folk_etymology --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:48, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Afshin(Caliphate General)
Hi Can you comment on the article here or its talkpage. There is a difference of POV and would like some neutral users to comment. I believe source from 1848 or 1910 Britannica is not a valid source, nor are sources which are not written by academic authors. Any feedback is appreciated. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Dab, Any comments? Please read the last section of the talkpage. For example is 1910 Britannica or a source from 1848 valid for modern topics, when top modern scholars state another point of view contrary to these? --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

here is what I think of the perpetual ethnic bickering between Iranian and Turkish editors about the "ethnicity" of assorted medieval figures:
 * Joseph Ducreux (French - Self-Portrait, Yawning - Google Art Project.jpg

thank you. --dab (𒁳) 18:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, as I could care less what Afshin was. However, an Encyclopaedia must present accurate information. We need neutral editors to fix the topic, not delete sources such as Peter Benjamin Golden or Bernard Lewis. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Note these five sources: Lewis,Bernard. "The Political Language of Islam", Published by University of Chicago Press, 1991. excerpt from pg 482: "Babak's Iranianizing Rebellion in Azerbaijan gave occasion for sentiments at the capital to harden against men who were sympathetic to the more explicitly Iranian tradition. Victor (837) over Babak was al-Afshin, who was the hereditary Persian ruler of a district beyond the Oxus, but also a masterful general for the caliph."
 * Bernard Lewis  (Princeton Full Professor))

[ Clifford Edmund Bosworth (Translator with Commentary), The History of al-Tabari Vol. 33 "Storm and Stress along the Northern Frontiers of the 'Abbasid Caliphate: The Caliphate of al-Mu'tasim A.D. 833-842/A.H. 218-227", SUNY Press, 1991. Footenote 176 on pg 59: "Abu Dulaf's contigent of volunteers from lower Iraq would be mainly Arabs, and there seems in fact to have been hostility between him, as a representative of Arab influence at the caliphate court, and the Iranian Al-Afshin"[
 * Clifford Edmond Bosworth, Oxford Full Professor. His Resume

P.B. Golden, "Khazar Turkic Ghulams in Caliphal Service", Journial Asiatique, 2004, vol. 292. pg 292:Some of the soldiers were slaves, others, such as al-Afshin, the scion of a ruling Central Asian (Ustrushana/Ushrusana) Iranian family, clearly were not".
 * Peter Benjamin Golden (Resume: ) (Rutgers Full Professor)

Mottahedeh, Roy, "The Abbassid Caliphate in Iran", Cambridge History of Iran, IV, ed. R.N. Frye, 57-89. pg 75:" Al Mu'atism chose for this task the Afshin, the Iranian king of Ushrusuna".
 * Roy Mottahedeh, Full Professor at Harvard University


 * D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978. I am not particually fond of this author, but his work is published in JTS which is a prestigious journal.  I have this particular article and it is in general, well researched.  EIther way JTS is a WP:RS journal.

I agree that these disputes are stupid. However, it does not mean that neutrality is brought by deleting these sources. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

How many references do we need to establish that medieval tradition is unclear, and that either possibility has been suggested?

Even if you cite 200 references stating the same thing, it doesn't change the essence of the situation. You should cite the three or four best references establishing the status of a conteroversy, not absolutely everything that has ever been said. --dab (𒁳) 18:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Thanks, I urge you to look at the sources. I have to stay I could care less than a grain of sand here on the background of Afshin, but I am trying to make sure the Encyclopaedia has the highest quality sources. Medieval tradition is something but it is up to scholars to intrepret those traditions. I only see one academic reference mentioning Turkish (from 1970), but 5 academic reference mentioning Persian (the ones I brought). The other user(who is a good user but we have a differing point of view on some topics) had 1910 Britannica/ and an 1848 sources, and some non-academic authors which I deleted. So if you can patiently comb through the talkpage, it is better than deleting sources. I know it requires some patience, but it will give a more permanent solution. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH. The source saying "the Iranian king" is just a soundbite. You want references pointing out the ambiguity of tradition, and stating that one or the other is more likely explicitly. Claiming on Wikipedia that there is an "Iranian theory" vs. a "Turkish theory" presupposes that this has been stated in scholarship. You need to establish that this is a question that has been of interest in scholarship to begin with. The point is that the question of Iranian vs. Turkish ethnicity may be meaningful today, but was not in the medieval period. I resent the attempts to make modern ethnic identities creep into articles on medieval topics. See also ethnic essentialism. Do you think Richard the Lionheart was "ethnically English"? He must have been, as there is a gazillion references saying he was an English king. But then he didn't even speak English. That is because the question did not arise at the time, medieval society cared whether somebody was or was not of noble birth, but certainly not about their "ethnicity", which is an entirely modern concept. -dab (𒁳) 18:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC) :Because he was always off to the Holy Land again, he was known as Richard Gare de Lyon. 20:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Is there any Wiki rule according to which references to Britannica or other authoritative sources are deemed 'invalid' due their publishing date? For example, if someone in 100 years from now calls Afshin a Turk, would that yield C.E.Bosworth source invalid?
 * Anyways, I don't think it is relevant whether Afshin was Iranian, Turkic (or Uzbek for that matter, since he hailed from what is now Uzbekistan). What is relevant is to provide broadest possible picture establishing solid references to either claimed background, which I did on that page in regards to both Turkic and Iranian backgrounds. I am not sure why my neutral edit caused such a negative reaction from User:Khodabandeh14 who started disputing origins, removing them from introduction (along with dispute tags that I placed later), finally, replaced 5 references to Turkic with 1, instead adding 5 references to Iranian. It is definitely focus in a wrong direction of encyclopedia editing.
 * For prior history of such edit conflicts, you can also look at Atabegs of Azerbaijan, where the contributor was trying to diminish the standalone title involving "Azerbaijan" or any connection to a present-day state of Azerbaijan, and using selective references to assign historical Arran or Azerbaijan as a part of Persia, which did not even exist as a state in 12-13th centuries. I am glad that he corrected himself later re-adding present-day geographic connection, yet again clearly pulling Iran connection to the front.
 * Frankly speaking all these attempts to replace out Turkic or Azerbaijani with Iranian or Persian are tiring and counter productive. And I agree with you that none of these ethnic terms had any essence at the time described, it is the problem of primarily 20th century. Atabəy (talk) 17:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry dab, but I have to write here venting some of frustations with Wikipedia and also your lack of involement (in a manner that you can). This is becoming a pointless talk as we need some admins with considerable knowledge of the history of the area to get involved when these historical dicussions rise. Dab is such an admin, but I think he needs to show more patience and read all the sources provided in the talkpage and (the ones I'll provide here, which I will answer some of his qestions)

And I have no idea what Atabek is talking about me "correcting" myself. I also answer dab's question: " You want references pointing out the ambiguity of tradition, and stating that one or the other is more likely explicitly." below.

But let me just point to some other issues here. I disagree with: "The point is that the question of Iranian vs. Turkish ethnicity may be meaningful today, but was not in the medieval period.". Please see my reason below (alittle further down where I bring primary sources showing that such cocepts existed). I firmly believe that in Wikipedia, if everyone followed the rules, there would be no problem. I also believe that it is unfortunate that only people from the countries of the regions edit the articles for that region, where-as it is much more preferable for someone like dab (after he does the proper research) to edit those articles. Too bad there is only one dab in Wikipedia. By default, dab now thinks every debate were there is some disagreement is because two users are pushing a different nationalist POV. This is not the case with regards to my edit, but dab mght have been condition here due to 90% of such conflicts.

Atabek, to point to my contributions (all backed up with WP:RS and primary sources, as dab can see in the talkpages of those articles from top experts in the field), however, I can point to Atabek not following WP:RS to push nationalist points of view.. Here are two that I recall(of course ignoring previous arbomms). One using a source from 120 years in trying to connect the Iranian speaking Medes to Turks: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Median_language&action=historysubmit&diff=109410314&oldid=109409796] Even though again I could care less what the Medes were, but I do care for accuracy in Wikipedia in an area I have some knowledge of. This was the source Atabek added: The Turanian language of Media, known through the trilingual inscriptions of Darius at Behistun, first read by Norris, and deeply studied by Dr. Oppert, is stated by the latter great authority to approach most closely to the Turkic group"(C.R.Conder, "The Early Races of Western Asia", The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'', Vol. 19. (1890), pp. 29-51)

Here Atabek in the talkpage justifying the source to me: "Dear Ali, Ehsan Yarshater is Iranian scholar, not acceptable from POV perspective. Again, instead of removing the references, please provide third-party references in support of your position. Also Turanian language group is the same as Ural-Altaic language group which formally used by linguistists"

Of course Ehsan Yarshater is acceptable because he is well known academic from Columbia University.

And then this: "Attempts to purge out Turanian language reference from Wikipedia are not acceptable, as it's already an established group (Uralo-Altaic) by practically all linguists. It's unfair to purge one theory and present only Iranian theory"

And then this: "I would like to attract your attention to the work of the inventor of the term Turanian, Friedrich Max Muller, Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford in his lecture "Natural religion", vol. 2, 1888-1892: "

So when dab gets involved thinking both sides are biased, he is actually not aware of users contributions. I'll let dab to draw his own conclusion by the above example.

And the article in [] as well here: is another example of out-dated, non-existent concepts being created for nationalistic reasons.

Yes all these nationalistic nonsense is tiring because users simply fail to follow [[WP:RS] and try to push a POV, in some cases using sources from 100 years, 150 years ago or sources whose authors are unknown and not experts in the area and to go against modern western academic scholarship. However, the problem is that there is not enough Wikipedia users who are verses in these topics.  So imagine if I was not there to correct the Median language article.

So if Dab wants to be invoved, he needs to read the talkpage first and sources from both sides. Look at the first edit of Atabek in Afshin which has 5 non-expert souces (two from 100+ years ago), plus a source from Iranica which has no mention of ethnicity, but Atabek used it as a source to mention Afshin as Turkic.

But it is easier for dab to simply say: "Oh another Iranian-Turk dispute"..which is actually kind of a generalization. Why not look at it as two users who happen to dispute a topic and just ask both users to follow WP:RS?

On the other hand, I stated that there is no need to mention ethniciy in the introdution despite having the much stronger sources. Note I am disagreeing with the edits and ideas of Atabek, not his character, but I have the responsibility to point out what I see as POV edits.

I simply asked Atabek to bring WP:RS sources not sources from 100 years ago, 150 years ago or authors who have no position in academia/scholarship.

Yes a source from 100 years ago or 150 years go has no weight compared to modern University Professors from Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Rutgers who specialize in a specific topic. WP:RS states that specialized sources by scholars specializing in the area have the most weight. Right now, the article has 5 sources for Iranian and one for Turk (from 1970). Even 1970 is 40 years ago, and all the sources I have presented are after 1970. The best example of sourcs from 100+ years is that Turanian concept which is now a dead theory. So when possible (which in this case it is), it is best to source the article with modern sourcs.

Now as to why I disagree with dab on some point with regards to ethnic identity.

Here is a primary source from the book History of Tabaristan by Ibn Esfandyar (1215-1217).  Original Persian: " من (مازیار) و افشين خيدر بن کاوس و بابک هر سه از دير باز عهد و بيعت کرده ايم و قرار داده بر آن که دولت از عرب بازستانيم و ملک و جهانداري با خاندان کسرويان نقل کنيم" "I (Maziyar), Afshin Kheydar son of Kavus, and Babak had made an oath and allegiance that we re-take the government back from the Arabs and transfer the government and the country back to the family of Kasraviyan (Sassanids)"

So dab's claim that national ethnic concept is new, is unfortunately incorrect. I say unfortunately, because I also wish we all thought of ourselves as a single human race.

But the fact is dab (and I admire all your work in Wikieda), that humans need to actively exert an effort to rise above the animal within (tribalism is one of the many animal instincts) or else they just another animal (with more brains but still the same instincts). Animals are also tribal wether it is monkeys/apes (who are genetically closest to humans and who are known to attack and massacare other tribes of monkeys/apes) or different ant colonies. Humans (which I usually am not proud to be one) are no different. As long as there were humans, tribialism, and ethnic bickering nonsense has existed. Warfare is also indesirable but it has been a fact of human (animal) life. Yes I also wish there was one country, one government and all humans lived in harmony, there was no wars and etc. But the natural physical/spiritual eco-system has always had both good and evil.

So going back to the real world, or even Wikipedia, one must act to WP:RS and follow rules. As an example dab can research the Shu'ubiyya movement of 1000 years ago. "The Shu'ubiyya were non-Arabs who objected to the pride shown by the Arabs towards them, exalted the non-Arabs over the Arabs or in general, despised and depereciated the Arabs". So there was a sense of difference at that tie.

I urge dab to for example just study the shu'ubiyya movement. Also the Islamic world was very different from the isolated island of England. Dab may want to look at there:

Here is another primary source with this regard. One of them is a letter from Kuhyar (the brother of Maziyar) from Afshin: "We have only three enemies, the Arabs, the Turks and the Berbers...".

To claim that ethnicities were not aware in the 9th or 8th century of what they were, it is unfortunately an incorrect claim. BTW the Persian language today is new Persian (8th century till now), and it has not changed much (its oldest 8th/9th remnants are readable to anyone) unlike the Middle or Old English of Richard the Lion heart. The same with the Arabic language whose modern standard form is very much the same as it was 1400 years ago. Modern Turkish though is a break from the Ottoman language due to the extensive language reform initiated by Ataturk. So New Persian(after 200 years of Islam) and Arabic(at least from the beginning of Islam) were basically present from the beggining of Islam till now. Anyhow, as much as I hate ethnic bickering, the fact of life is that it did exist 1000 years ago. To say it did not exist (maybe not in ENgland whose history I do not know much), is just covering the problem.

Another example. The Arab historian ʻAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥazm (994-1064) mentions the different Iranian revolts against the Caliphate in Al-Faṣl fi l-Milal & l-Ahwāʾ & n-Niḥal. The Persians had the great land expanse and were greater than all other people and thought of themselves as better... after their defeated by Arabs, they rose up to fight against Islam but God did not give them victory. Among their leaders were Sunbādh, Muqanna‘, Ustasīs, Bābak and others. «أن الفرس كانوا من سعة الملك وعلو اليد على جميع الأمم وجلالة الخطير في أنفسهم حتى أنهم كانوا يسمون أنفسهم الأحرار والأبناء وكانوا يعدون سائر الناس عبيداً لهم فلما امتحنوا بزوال الدولة عنهم على أيدي العرب وكانت العرب أقل الأمم عند الفرس خطراً تعاظمهم الأمر وتضاعفت لديهم المصيبة وراموا كيد الإسلام بالمحاربة في أوقات شتى ففي كل ذلك يظهر الله سبحانه وتعالى الحق وكان من قائمتهم سنبادة واستاسيس والمقنع وبابك وغيرهم »Ibn Ḥazm, ʻAlī ibn Aḥmad (1995), Al-Faṣl Fī Al-Milal Wa-Al-Ahwāʾ Wa-Al-Niḥal (1st ed.), Bayrūt, Lubnān: Dār al-Jīl

So anyhow, thats just a fact of history. However, I could care less for the background of Afshin, except when I saw sources from 100+ years ago and non-scholarly sources, I became suspicious.

Now here are three sources I offer for dab to look at and settle this dispute (following WP:RS and WP:UNDO). I wish he is involved more in such articles.

Here is what dab asked for:

D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2, 85—96. excerpt:"Although two classical sources claim him a Turk, he came from Farghana, an Iranian cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish"

A) “The name Turk was given to all these troops, despite the inclusion amongst them of some elements of Iranian origin, Ferghana, Ushrusana, and Shash – places were in fact the centers were the slave material was collected together....Judging from the specific names of their origin, Soghd, Farghana, Urshusuna, Shahs, the majority of them might have been of Iranian origin"”(ʻUthmān Sayyid Aḥmad Ismāʻīl Bīlī, "Prelude to the Generals", Published by Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2001.)

B) "These new troops were the so-called “Turks”. It must be said without hesitation that this is the most misleading misnomer which has led some scholars to harp ad nauseam on utterly unfounded interpretation of the following era, during which they unreasonably ascribe all events to Turkish domination. In fact the great majority of these troops were not Turks. It has been frequently pointed out that Arabic sources use the term Turk in a very loose manner. The Hephthalites are referred to as Turks, so are the peoples of Gurgan, Khwarizm and Sistan. Indeed, with the exception of the Soghdians, Arabic sources refer to all peoples not subjects of the Sassanian empire as Turks. In Samarra separate quarters were provided for new recruits from every locality. The group from Farghana were called after their district, and the name continued in usage because it was easy to pronounce. But such groups as the Ishtakhanjiyya, the Isbijabbiya and groups from similar localities who were in small numbers at first, were lumped together under the general term Turks, because of the obvious difficulties the Arabs had in pronouncing such foreign names. The Khazars who also came from small localities which could not even be identified, as they were mostly nomads, were perhaps the only group that deserved to be called Turks on the ground of racial affinity. However, other groups from Transcaucasia were classed together with the Khazars under the general description." (M.A. Shaban, “Islamic History”, Cambridge University Press, v.2 1978. Page 63)

C) Now as per Afshin, D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2, 85—96. excerpt:"Although two classical sources claim him a Turk, he came from Farghana, an Iranian cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish"

I have a copy of this article incase anyone wants it, I'l be happy to email them. Note it is an article devoted to these troops and "Turks in early Muslim service", which means it has examined "Turks in early Muslim service". So here is why exactly one cannot intrepret classical sources withouth using modern scholars.

So what do we have? For viewpoint of Afshin as an Iranian:
 * Lewis,Bernard. "The Political Language of Islam", Published by University of Chicago Press, 1991. excerpt from pg 482: "Babak's Iranianizing Rebellion in Azerbaijan gave occasion for sentiments at the capital to harden against men who were sympathetic to the more explicitly Iranian tradition. Victor (837) over Babak was al-Afshin, who was the hereditary Persian ruler of a district beyond the Oxus, but also a masterful general for the caliph."
 * Clifford Edmund Bosworth (Translator with Commentary), The History of al-Tabari Vol. 33 "Storm and Stress along the Northern Frontiers of the 'Abbasid Caliphate: The Caliphate of al-Mu'tasim A.D. 833-842/A.H. 218-227", SUNY Press, 1991. Footenote 176 on pg 59: "Abu Dulaf's contigent of volunteers from lower Iraq would be mainly Arabs, and there seems in fact to have been hostility between him, as a representative of Arab influence at the caliphate court, and the Iranian Al-Afshin"
 * P.B. Golden, "Khazar Turkic Ghulams in Caliphal Service", Journial Asiatique, 2004, vol. 292. pg 292:Some of the soldiers were slaves, others, such as al-Afshin, the scion of a ruling Central Asian (Ustrushana/Ushrusana) Iranian family, clearly were not".
 * Mottahedeh, Roy, "The Abbassid Caliphate in Iran", Cambridge History of Iran, IV, ed. R.N. Frye, 57-89. 1975, pg 75:" Al Mu'atism chose for this task the Afshin, the Iranian king of Ushrusuna".

Four Full professors from Harvard University, Oxford University, Rutgers University and Princeton University.

The other side brought one WP:RS source (written by university professor and not from 100+ years ago) and that is: Sourdel, D. "The Abbasid Caliphate." Pages 104-39 in P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis (eds.), The Cambridge History of Islam, I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Quote from Pg 125: "and finally of Mazyar, a local chieftain of Tabaristan, against whom the caliph sent the Turkish general Afshin, the conqueror of Babak"

I have examined all the other sources bought by Atabek: 2 of them from 100+ years ago, three of them from non-scholars and non-professors, I also have found 6+ such sources for an Iranian point of view, but I have not inserted them as they were from non-scholars. Because I am not here to have a contest on what kind of viewpoint has the most number of sources, but rather I try to quote modern distinguished professors from Princeton, Oxford, Rutgers, Harvard. D) I ask for full application of WP:RS, WP:WEIGHT here, not because I care what Afshin was, but for quality of Wikipedia. There are 5 modern sources(one from 2004 written by an expert on Turkology Peter Benjamin Golden relative to one from 1970(40 years ago). Now that dab is involved, he needs to look at these sources and formulate a good solution for the article's accuracy. I don't mind the current solution, except that I provided the sources that dab asked for (shows controversy but states Afshin is usually considered Iranian). A good admin and mediator would actually email these professors and get feedback. He would also read the discussions. Wikipedia should be accurate in my opinion as much as possible, even if it is a stupid topic. Too bad dab might not have enough time and there is not that many admins like dab who would know something about the history of the region. I really hope oneday all these stupid tribal/nationalism (not cultural sentimns/values which are gifts) die out and 100 years from now, Wikipedia does not have such debates. Maybe 300 years from now.. who knows.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 23:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Just another source to the above(and note for dab, this is a source specialized for the region of Osrushana): C. Edmund Bosworth(2005), "OSRUŠANA" in Encyclopaedia Iranica. Accessed November 2010 "At the time of the Arab incursions into Transoxania, Osrušana had its own line of Iranian princes, the Afšins (Ebn Ḵordāḏbeh, p. 40), of whom the most famous was the general of the caliph Moʿtaṣem (q.v. 833-42), the Afšin Ḵayḏar or Ḥaydar b. Kāvus (d. 841; see AFŠIN)"

My challenge to dab: I ask dab to get involved here and stay involved.

My request from Atabek: I ask Atabek to provide scholars as the same weight as distinguished Oxford Medieval historian Bosworth, Peter Benjamin Golden, Roy Mottahedeh (of Harvard) and Bernard Lewis from the last 15-20 years who have claimed another viewpoint in specialized articles regarding the Afshin lines of Kings).  And note, for the sake of principle, Wikipedia must reflect accurate information even on the most stupid/trivial matters.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Your sources are good, but your topic is very far past anything WP:DUE the Afshin article.
 * "These new troops were the so-called “Turks”. It must be said without hesitation that this is the most misleading misnomer which has led some scholars to harp ad nauseam on utterly unfounded interpretation of the following era, during which they unreasonably ascribe all events to Turkish domination. In fact the great majority of these troops were not Turks. It has been frequently pointed out that Arabic sources use the term Turk in a very loose manner. 

doh. Is it really a "misnomer"? It depends on what you mean by "Turk". This is actually saying that the historical Arabs should not have used the term the way they did use it. Wth? It's their language, and philologist would do well to examine what they did mean by using it, not making claims about the way they think they should have used it. The entire point is that "Turk" vs. "Iranian" terminology wasn't an ethnic thing, because the modern notion of ethnicity did not exist. This is why this "Turk" vs. "Iranian" dichotomy is false, and a problem of modern-day nationalists, not of our articles about the Middle Ages.

You want to discuss this under Turkic peoples, Turkic migration and Turco-Mongol, not under some random article about a medieval general. You need to focus on what the terms meant in the middle ages, not what they mean today to the testosterone-clouded minds of teenage internet nationalists. --dab (𒁳) 11:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks dab for the response. Just couple of points which I will make it quick and looking forward for your comment/guidance? “The name Turk was given to all these troops, despite the inclusion amongst them of some elements of Iranian origin, Ferghana, Ushrusana, and Shash – places were in fact the centers were the slave material was collected together....".
 * Today Turk as used in modern scholarly writing is defined as Altaic speaking people just like Iranic is defined as Iranian(language) speaking people. So in terms of Wikipedia article, if an article is about 1000 years ago, do we use the term as defined then or defined now?  I think modern scholarly books use it as defined now, and so do modern Encyclopaedias.  I know it is sort of an anachronism but that is just following conventions.
 * Although Arab sources are ambigious, there is sources like Chinese (who are neighbors and closer to the region) which are less ambigious between differentiation. For example, an ancient sources:"As a Sugi general complained: "The Turks themselves are simple-minded and short-sighted and dissension can easily be roused among them.  Unfortunately, many Sogdians live among them who are cunning and insidious; they teach and instruct the Turks".  Now do we use the Chinese definition or Arab definition(for example Ibn Khaldun includes Iranian speaking Sogdians as Turks because of geography)?  Do I go with the Chinese definition or Ibn Khaldun?  Of course that is where some sort of secondary scholarly sources are requird and we know today Sogdians were not Turks(Altaic speakers) but an old Iranian people whose language barely survives today Yaghnobi language?
 * In Iranian sources(like Qabusnama), Chinese, Tibetians, Mongols, and any mongloid(in appearance) group in classical Persian literature were grouped as Turks. Now if there is an article about a Tibetian from 1000 years ago but he is mentioned as a "Turk". Indeed the whole classical Persian literature has always had ambiguity  between Mongols, Chinese, Tibetians and Turks (Altaic speakers), and has used "Turk" in this fashion.
 * In say Armenian souurces, some Turkmen tribes of 600 years ago are identified as "Scythians".
 * In Europe, all Muslims were defined as "Turks" or all steppes people as Scythians...
 * The term "Frank"(Farangi) (which is a tribe of Germans) is used for almost every Western European nation in classical and still modern Arabic/Persian literature. For example, we know the British, Spanish, Italians and etc. are not "Franks" but that is how it is used.  So Germans, Italians, French, Spanish and etc. were all generalized as Franks(Farangi).  Now imagine if I call the French writer Pascal as a Frank based on some Persian source.  That is exactly what is happening in the Afshin article in some sense.  Note I could care less wether Pascal was French/German or Afshin was a Turk/Iranian, but I do care about accuracy of Wikipedia.
 * Perhaps, The oldest usage of the term Turk might have been of Iranian usage (not Altaic being the ruling clans of a joint Irano-Altaic confederation):  (this might be a good start for an article on how the term was used throughout history and how it was not even an Altaic term to begin with.  Its modern definition of Altaic speakers might have come later even in the 19th century as groups such as Kazakhs or Kyrghiz or Yakuts never called themseves "Turks").
 * So I agree, we need a separate article on how such terms as "Turk", "Iranian", "Scythians"(Medieval Europe), "German", "Franks" and etc. were used, but when it comes to other Wikipedia articles, it seems the primary definition of Turkic or Iranic or Germanic is a linguistic term today. So when it is inserted in an article about 1000 years, extreme care must be taken.
 * Now a question on the Afshin article. The issue is not ambigious in terms of the definition scholars use today (linguistic).
 * Afshins were a title of ruling family of Ushrusuna which was an Iranian region. But in some Arabic historians of the time, any group around and beyond the Oxus was called "Turk".
 * I brought specialized articles (some after 2000+) that is unambigious about the Afshin line of Kings: A) P.B. Golden, "Khazar Turkic Ghulams in Caliphal Service", Journial Asiatique, 2004, vol. 292. pg 292:Some of the soldiers were slaves, others, such as al-Afshin, the scion of a ruling Central Asian (Ustrushana/Ushrusana) Iranian family, clearly were not". B)C. Edmund Bosworth(2005), "OSRUŠANA" in Encyclopaedia Iranica. Accessed November 2010  "At the time of the Arab incursions into Transoxania, Osrušana had its own line of Iranian princes, the Afšins (Ebn Ḵordāḏbeh, p. 40), of whom the most famous was the general of the caliph Moʿtaṣem(q.v. 833-42), the Afšin Ḵayḏar or Ḥaydar b. Kāvus (d. 841; see AFŠIN)"  C) and also a source that has studied these Troops at the service of the Abbasid caliphs: D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2, 85—96. excerpt:"Although two classical sources claim him a Turk, he came from Farghana, an Iranian cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish".
 * My question is, if one side has 5+ sources (some as recent as 2005 and 2004) specializing on the topic from full professors of Oxford and etc., and the other side has just one RS source (not some random book in google books, but from a full university Professor in a general article about Abbasid caliphate from 1970 and not a specialized article on Ushrusuna/Afshin), can I remove the other source as WP:UNDO or should be given the same weight as such specialized articles as these? *Specially in the light of this source such as: “The name Turk was given to all these troops, despite the inclusion amongst them of some elements of Iranian origin, Ferghana, Ushrusana, and Shash – places were in fact the centers were the slave material was collected together...." or ?  Or this about Afshin (D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2, 85—96. excerpt:"Although two classical sources claim him a Turk, he came from Farghana, an Iranian cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish" ). D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2, 85—96. excerpt:In reference to the first two centuries of Islam, the term “Turk” as used by Arabic and Persian sources presents difficulties. The Muslim authors mean different things by the term, depending on their era, proximity to Inner Asia and knowledge of the region. It can overlap with other ethnic names (e.g. “Soghdian, Khazar, Farghanian”). "
 * I don't care about this nationalistic goofism.. But Afshin was not a Turk (in the sense of Altaic speaker which is in most Wikipedia articles and used by scholars), even though I do not care if he was, but I do care about the accuracy of Wikipedia. Not everyone can read Persian and Arabic, and decipher how terms were used and etc.  Anyone familiar with the Arabic/Persian sources of the time, can study him (like Golden, Bosworth, Lewis) and it is very apparent just from the role and function of Afshin, he was not really a Turk (Altaic speaker in the modern sense).  I can expand on this if necessary (as I know this topic to a good extent).
 * My solution(since another RS sources from the last 10-15 years showing the other viewpoint from major full professors in specialized articles on Afshin, Ushrusuna..etc and not some random non-Ph.D. non-Academic position google books has not been brought) is: "Afshin is generally considered an Iranian(with the sources that mention this sentence explicitly) and although two classical sources mention him as a Turk(same source), he cames from an Iranian region (sources), and the term Turk was used by Arab historians for inhabitants of Iranian regions (including Ushrusuna) outside of the Sassanid domains(with sources)". If there is no objection from you, then I would include this (I have listed sources with this regard also), because one theory has 5-6+(from Oxford, Harvard, Princeton and after the year 2000+) sources and specialized sources from the year 2005/2004(specialized on Ushrusuna).  The other theory has just one source from 1970 (which is from 40 years ago on a general article on Abbasids not Ushrusuna).  I think in terms of Wikipedia policy, specialized sources on the topic take precedence and an article on Ushrusuna from 2005 is the most specialized one can get..  The number of sources on Ushrusuna/Afshin writing specialized articles is probably no more than 5 (Encyclopaedia of Islam, Iranica and specialized articles on the troops of the Abbasid Caliphs).
 * Also please note this is not some sort of "Iranian vs Turk" debate, it is simply trying to follow Wikipedia guidelines and it is not good to generalize in anycase. Recall yours and my involvement in this article  (where you yourself banned the other user barefact for 4 months for putting nationalistic nonsense in Wikipedia where-as I brought the Harmatta source and you had to lock the article because of constant vandalism. (your comments: "irrelavent" than "I see").  .  Thanks for your help.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)