User talk:Dbachmann/Archive 41

Mass edit change
Is there a correct way to respond to these sorts of mass edits? I reverted on a couple of pages I watched and when I took a look at the contribution history I thought asking someone more experienced would be useful. Cheers, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Maintenance tag
Hello Dbachmann,

the maintenance tag on the top of the article Swiss federal election, 2011 does not mean that the article is bad or the information in it was not true. It just invites all users to look out for sources and to add references and in-line-citations. What is bad about it? It is just standard to have these labels where there are justified. They are useful to improve articles. And this article obviously still needs references. I guess you know the principles of Verifiability and Reliable sources.

Kind regards --RJFF (talk) 20:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are talking about. Did I remove a maintenance tag? --dab (𒁳) 06:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Category: Pseudohistorians
Hey dab, I've had some dealings with you in the past, so I thought I'd ask your advice on how to proceed on this. I noticed on a page I follow, David Rohl, that a user, User:Lung salad, tagged it with the category "pseudohistorians." I see on the category's talk page (Category talk:Pseudohistorians) that there was a rather under-discussed, in my opinion, decision to keep the category. I have severe problems with labeling people "pseudohistorians," especially in the biographies of living persons. Also, while I'll agree (as an actual historian myself) that people like Velikovsky and Hancock and Baigent peddle psuedohistory, I have never heard the term "pseudohistorian" and a quick Google Book Search shows it is virtually nonexistent term. I think tagging someone's page with a category like "psuedohistory" is acceptable, if there is a verifiable secondary source calling it such, but, without such a source calling someone a pseudohistorian, Wikipedia is creating a category of people and a thing that does not exist. Take David Rohl, for instance, sure his theories are not accepted, but they are presented as a historian would present history. Even someone like Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh, they are just wrong, what they peddle is pseudohistory, but are they pseudohistorians? I don't know, since there is no such term. Should we call Isaac Newton a pseudoscientist because he dabbled in alchemy and his physics were replaced by Einstein's? I don't know. In fact, there is a pseudoscientist category, but Newton isn't in it, because I doubt there is a source calling him one. I just find the imposition of "pseudohistorian" on pages rather arbitrary, especially without secondary sources labeling someone a "pseudohistorian." I guess what I'm saying, is pseudohistory yes, pseudohistorian no. TuckerResearch (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Et cetera: Talk:David_Rohl TuckerResearch (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * No one has tagged David Rohl as a pseudohistorian because he is simply being ignored. Mainstream Egyptologists are ignoring Rohl. Work it out. If you are interested in mainstream Egyptology, ignore Rohl.  Lung salad (talk) 19:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Tag it pseudohistory, if you have a source, but pseudohistorian is a made up term. I don't understand what you mean by "work it out," although it sounds rather snotty. TuckerResearch (talk) 07:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Bold proposal to reorganize Template:Ancient Mesopotamia
I have made a proposal to reorganize Template:Ancient Mesopotamia. See here for the discussion; see here for the actual new draft. Your input is appreciated!--Zoeperkoe (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Help Needed on Germanic Neopaganism
Sir, as an administrator, may we have your assistance on the Germanic Neopaganism page? Someone has hijacked it in an attempt to foster a small group.

Please read debate here

Thank you.

--ThorLives (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I apologise with Dbachmann for answering to another user on this talk page but I can't tolerate the lies of user ThorLives. I am not American, I'm not a member of the group he refers to, and it is not the only group which uses the umbrella term "Heathenism". --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Problem Solved on Germanic Neopaganism
DBachmann, the problem that I mentioned with the Germanic Neopaganism page has been solved. I see you are busy here so I wanted to mention the fact.

Sorry that I posted incorrectly on your talk page. I did not hit the "new section tab" last time.

When you have a chance, please visit the Germanic Neopaganism page. We need someone to clean up errors, including some that I might have unintentionally made!

--ThorLives (talk) 23:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * thanks -- I am still interested in the topic, so I appreciate the notification. --dab (𒁳) 06:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Muslim scholar
Hello, Dbachmann. Since you recently converted Muslim scholar from a redirect into a disambiguation page, I hope you will quickly help WP:FIXDABLINKS by correcting the many other existing Wikipedia articles that contain links to "Muslim scholar" and fix them to link to the correct article. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

yeah, the redirect was broken before I fixed it. The problem is  list of modern-day Muslim scholars, the former redirect target, as the link Muslim scholars is mostly found in the context of medieval Muslim scholars (for good reason, too). What I have done is, I have drawn attention to the fact that there are many, many broken redirects. I have not created the broken redirects. --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

More Tartessian-as-Celtic promotion
This is getting incredibly annoying. Jembana and his ilk have copypasta'd (with appropriate slight adaptations, just to make it seem more relevant) their sermon all over the related Wikipedia articles to promote the Tartessian-as-Celtic hypothesis. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree this is annoying. Revert on sight of course. This is hardly even notable on the artice about Tartessian, let alone to topics like "History of Portugal". --dab (𒁳) 08:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * More overcited (at best) marginally relevant Celtic-from-the-West fluff crammed down the throat of people who just want to read an article about Great Britain. (Also in Prehistoric Britain and Bronze Age Britain, although it is possibly relevant there, even if barely, and needs at least that little rejoinder added, cautioning it's not mainstream thought.) This is getting ridiculous. Koch's encyclopedia of Celtic culture is awesome, but thanks to Jembana's antics, I'm close to starting to hate the man.
 * Are you saying that I can simply delete the paragraphs in question? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:51, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I know that less obscure subjects are much more time-consuming, but its obscurity – and spread throughout the project – protects the anti-Hallstatt spam from detection by competent editors, and hampers its eradication. The way it is strategically (as well as subtly and sneakily: prominently, but not too obviously or easy to find) placed in articles much less obscure than Tartessian language – witness Great Britain – and still far enough from the real topic to evade detection and rebuttals is obviously designed to promote the Celtic-from-the-West idea among laypeople, who cannot judge its foundation in the facts, nor its acceptance within academia. This is the classic way of fringe academics (not just blatant pseudoscientists such as Däniken) to push their ideas, by circumventing academic discussion and directly addressing a hopelessly incompetent and therefore credulous popular audience – who will regularly embrace "revolutionary new ideas", especially those pandering to certain extra-academic currents and interests –, which entrenches those notions in the lay public in a way that becomes almost impossible to reverse or merely uproot, and Wikipedia is such an obvious new venue to promote one's fringe-y ideas without needing to write a popular science best-seller that I almost wonder if Jembana might not be one of those academics who have invested their energy in the Celtic-from-the-West notion.
 * Something I find (apart, of course, from the general problem) aggravating (but also telling) is the double standard involved: Celtomania and Fennomania as well as similar tendencies which project "indigenous" languages and ethnic groups (and also Indo-European as such, or Indo-Aryan, or other subbranches) within their current territories into the distant past are considered "politically correct", popular in archaeological circles as well and even sometimes accepted among linguists, but the insinuation that Germanic has been spoken anywhere in Scandinavia, let alone east of the Baltic, for a long time (longer than about 2000, or 800 years respectively), is alone deemed "racist" (literally! I'm not making this up!) just because of its political implications and associations. In no case, actual merit, such as linguistic arguments, seems to matter – let alone inherent plausibility (not to mention obvious conflicts between competing expansion/continuity scenarios), which makes "deep continuity" scenarios generally problematic. Questions of continuity and migration are hopelessly politicised, and the issue of Germanic continuity in Northern Europe (as opposed to Britain, curiously – witness Oppenheimer – or even the Netherlands or the Alps) sticks out like a sore thumb because this is the only case where the assumption of millennia-long continuity is radically anti-PC and being opposed. As if we-have-always-been-here Scandomania were the only "evil" flavour of nationalism (thanks to its historical associations) and others "good".
 * No wonder that "Paleolithic Continuity" is warmly embraced among nationalists everywhere, but the way that academia avoids explicitly discrediting the notion, with some academics even actively supporting it and promoting it even within serious publications, is a disgrace and just fuels nationalist sentiments everywhere.
 * Also, the way some paranoid anti-fascists desperately try to paint Gimbutas as secretly right-wing instead of left-wing, not to mention attack the Kurgan hypothesis, or the mere term indogermanisch. Aargh.
 * The default assumption to reflect on Wikipedia, in the absence of solid academic consensus (as established or reflected by current handbooks), should always be that 1) languages are unrelated; 2) if they have been solidly demonstrated to be related, they do not form a subgroup; 3) languages have not been spoken on their current territory for several millennia, but are intrusive. If there is a proposal that genetic units X and Y are related (or form a subgroup), which is not consensus, it is just a proposal and the X–Y proposal should not be mentioned in every infobox for individual language or low-level group.
 * The problem with your advice "revert to the last sane version" is that this quick solution also gets rid of (not infrequently numerous) useful edits and additions in many cases, and simply hitting undo doesn't often work either: any non-obvious vandalism (including section deletions and the like) or questionable additions tend to be really time-consuming to revert if they are not very recent. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I just thought of another exception: Celtic continuity (of population and to some extent culture, that is; nobody posits that Upper German is really descended from Continental Celtic, although I have seen so many strange ideas advocated in the past – and even taken seriously in academia – that this would be hardly surprising anymore) in southern Germany is also not en vogue anymore, even though there is evidence (much of it toponymic) for Celtic/Gallo-Romance continuity in several places in the area, even in the Agri decumates (Schwarzwälder Romania!), but this idea has been popular in a certain period so it Must Be Wrong. This seems to be the reason for the weird inconsistence when it comes to the issues of Germani and Celts. Of course the Hallstatt culture is in southern Germany, so Celts cannot be indigenous to the area – since Hallstatt cannot be the locus of Celtic origins as per the new thinking. I suppose that means that the "Celts" of southern Germany were never really Celts, according to whatever twisted definition currently popular. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Egil or Agilaz?
Hi! I wonder why you preferred "Agilaz" than "Egil" as article name for Agilaz. Is there a naming rule? Egil seems more common. -- Basilicofresco  (msg) 19:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Egil is the Old Norse name. Aigil the Old High German one. Agilaz the reconstructed Common Germanic one. You may have noted that the article is not just dedicated to the Old Norse tradition, but to the comparison of the related character in distinct traditions. --dab (𒁳) 19:11, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I see, thanks. -- Basilicofresco  (msg) 08:21, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

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Removing eponymous categories
Please stop removing Category:Categories named after former countries, Category:Categories named after wars, Category:Categories named after literary texts from various categories. As eponymously named categories, they are not "redundant" to any other categories. Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

As has been explained to you very patiently by many people, they are. You have a long history of refusing to Get It, and I do not feel obliged to spend any time with futile arguing in such a case. Sheesh, you do not even understand the meaning of the word "eponymous". Do yourself a favour and get a dictionary, and then spend some time reading instead of editing. --dab (𒁳) 08:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * ? Um, OK. ... (But gosh, how do you manage to feed me so many great lines for my museum of insults? Golden! As in "pissed"!) But actually, you are the first and still only to ever suggest to me that these types of categories are redundant to something. I suggest if you think your opinion has wide support, we could nominate them for discussion on the issue and we'll see. Thanks for stopping your removal of them, though. (The only reason I called them "eponymous" categories is because they contain only subcategories that are eponymous (and they are subcategories of Category:Eponymous_categories). They themselves are not. Sorry for speaking in WP-cat shorthand that must have confused or troubled you.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Speaking of fun, I did like the edit summary here; perhaps this was what you had in mind in your comment above? I'm guessing probably not ... Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not think you understood what was going on there at all. I won't try to explain. Yes, the humble task of categorization sometimes requires some intelligence too. I see you still haven't looked up the meaning of "eponymous". I won't trying to convince you that you are not helping the project by your efforts, as you are clearly unable to follow such explanations. I also won't waste my time campaigning about this. It is enough to try and contain the worst damage done by you and your peers. --dab (𒁳) 08:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea ... :) Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:56, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * yeah, you think I added a pointless mass of categories to the J.R.R. Tolkien category, when in fact the point of my edit was removing this clutter from the JRRT article. I am perfectly happy with the edit reducing the number of categories. I am also glad I didn't have to do it myself, because I don't like wasting time arguing with people who think more categories is always a good thing.
 * you were showing a diff which has nothing to do with the matter at hand just because you thought it would be embarassing for me. This doesn't surprise me in the least, and it is part of the reason why I think time spent "discussing" with you is simply wasted. You do not want to listen, you do not want to rethink your approach even if it is painfully stupid. It is not my mission to sound the full depth of such psychological or personality issues. I am not on Wikipedia for socializing, or for case studies on human behaviour, I am here for the content. I like to meet intelligent people, and I do my best to try and route around the non-intelligent ones.
 * if you want to take anything from this exchange, why don't you finally condescend to read wikt:eponymous. I will consider it a huge success if you at least walk away from this having learned the meaning of this English word. I am not "confused or troubled" by "WP-cat shorthand". I am trying to impress on you that there are no "eponymous categories" on Wikipedia, unless you have named your baby daughter Wikipedia Categoria after one. But you are incapable of admitting to an error on your own part, aren't you, you will jump to another topic again just before you would be forced to. Have you met User:Ottava Rima? You would get along very well. --dab (𒁳) 09:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow. Must be a Bachmann thing. ... The only thing I think I need to note specifically here is that there seems to be a bit of confusion or misunderstanding about the difference between "my approach" and "my understandings" and an approach or understanding that is adopted by consensus and happens to be implemented by Good Olfactory. They are not necessarily the same, but I can understand how you could mistakenly believe that they are always the same. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

It's (still) alive! Flee for your lives!!
Check this out. A non-stop chuckle-fest. rudra (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Human stupidity is bottomless. The internet just gave a platform to the stupidity that was already there. Wikipedia was intended as an island of reason in the sea of intellectual entropy that is the internet. This island obviously needs dikes. --dab (𒁳) 08:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Kaiserchronik
Hi, I've done a complete rewrite of the article Kaiserchronik. Since you started it, maybe you would like to do a crit of this? --Doric Loon (talk) 09:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * well done, thank you! Lol, editionsphilologischer Amoklauf :o)
 * --dab (𒁳) 09:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

CE vs AD at Pictish language
Hi, you might be interested in the discussion on this page: Talk:Pictish language.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  10:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Datei:Gothic_alphabet
Hallo Dbachmann,

Bei dem Image ist folgendes inhaltliches Problem entstanden got. "X" entspricht dem gr. "Chi" in der Lautung "ch". In der de. Artikeldiskussion Gotisches Alphabet wurde das bemerkt. Vieleicht lässt sich das reparieren?

Beste Grüße --Alexander Leischner (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Gothic_alphabet.png&filetimestamp=20070512135942

hm, eines meiner "Frühwerke", aus dem Jahr 2004. Inzwischen gibt es ja Unicode für Gotisch, und es wäre wohl am besten, diese Datei gar nicht mehr zu verwenden. Aber "falsch" ist es in dem Sinne nicht, es mag schon sein, dass die "Lautung" (in deutscher Orthographie) "ch" entspricht, aber das ist eben gleichbedeutend mit IPA /x/, und die Umschrift von gotischem Text verwedet hier auch x, einfach weil keine Verwechslungsgefahr besteht. --dab (𒁳) 07:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Ich hatte das auch nicht anders aufgefasst, zumal der LAut im Gotischen nur in Verbindung mit Fremdwörtern wie "Xristus" und wesentlich bei diesem verwendet wird. Danke für Deine Antwort in der Artikeldisk. Grüße --Alexander Leischner (talk) 10:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Problems Continue At Germanic Neopaganism
Just an alert that discord continues at Germanic Neopaganism.

--ThorLives (talk) 05:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The proof! Hindutva nutcases rejoice!
Not sure if you've already seen this one, but I thought it was funny: Homelands of the world's language families: a quantitative approach. Check page 17! That's the Punjab! To be fair, most of their results are good, and fit the usual proposals; but perhaps because they are so obvious anyway. (In North America, the Algonquian result is excusable – should be in the Prairies, Alberta/Montana, according to recent thinking –, the Na-Dené result, too – South Central Alaska is usually given –, the Uto-Aztecan result may be due to overcounting of Nahuatl dialects – should rather be in SoCal/Arizona/NW Mexico, presumably the Sonoran Desert –, and the Siouan result is interesting, as it is surprisingly plausible and close to the consensus, and avoids the overcounting fallacy. The results for Eskimo-Aleut and Japanese are also unexpected.) But their urheimat results for Indo-European and Uralic are seriously off. I'm not even sure why. Did they overcount (or overrate/"over-weight") the Indo-Iranian (especially Indo-Aryan) and the Saami languages (and to an extent, the Finnic languages, although the circle is really in central-eastern Lapland, which is seriously weird) like that? It should be obvious that you can't treat a dialect continuum like the Hindi belt as a dozen languages and the German-Dutch continuum, which is of similar time depth, as only two, if you aim for a meaningful result. It is clear that most living Indo-European lineages are spoken in Europe! That result is just as weird as the Uralic one, even keeping in mind the bias in language counting. I suspect they were also misled by lexical replacement – apparently, they used a lexical distance criterion, too, not just a plain count of varieties. That said, they do admit that they found two lesser, secondary apparent centres of expansion, namely the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia. Inexplicably (not really inexplicably, of course), however, they decide in favour of Anatolia, while handwaving the Balkans away. You could just as well decide in favour of the Balkans, and given the historically attested Indo-European lineages, they are the most obvious centre of gravity of Indo-European. On that basis, the urheimat should clearly be sought in Eastern, especially Southeastern Europe, say, in the Danube valley. Anyway, I think that a nested centre-of-gravity method would overcome the weaknesses of the method, and give much more accurate results, as long as you use a consensus tree (which omits uncertain nodes and is based on the common-innovations method of subgrouping, instead of lexicostatistics, of course). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course, deciding (without justification internal to the method) that a result is wrong and a secondary, less preferred, result must be right, instead of acknowledging the weaknesses of the method, is arbitrary in the first place, but it is obvious that they didn't like the idea of having revived Out-of-India. I suspect that the reason for the result is that Indo-Iranian is really the only clearly primary Indo-European branch with a great time-depth in the first place. Also, I think that the Saami languages have strong lexical differences, which is why the method weighted them so much more strongly than would be appropriate given that they only form a single branch of Uralic, and one that does not seem to have a greater time-depth than Finnic or Samoyedic. Anyway, new proof that quantitative approaches aren't worth much if the method, data, or interpretation is dubious, and should never be run in "dumb" mode, i. e., without close human expert supervision and guidance. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I studied with Wichmann as an undergrad, but I am becoming increasingly underwhelmed by the way he now seems to favor of quantitative/statistical methods rather than classically sound reasoning.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Thiruvithamcode Arappally
Hi. Could you check this page about "one of the oldest churches in the world"? --Ghirla-трёп- 22:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Edits to the Dagger Article
Please stop removing valid referenced material, as you did with your recent edits of 14-16 November 2011‎ to the Dagger article. Such edits constitute vandalism and are reverted. Please use the discussion page to raise any complaints you have about images in the article and/or suggestions for improvement, and obtain a consensus prior to removing images.Dellant (talk) 14:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:DTTR. If you have a problem with an edit of mine, take the trouble to explain what it is. --dab (𒁳) 18:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Gallowglass
Here, what's your prob with the "Gallowglass"? These were fighting men from the Isles, Argyll, Galloway and Mann that fought as mercenaries or via kinship in the internecine conflicts in Ireland 'beyond the pale' who settled, or maybe did not, in Gaelic Ireland in the high Medieval and early Modern. What's the beef? Will be reverting your controversial edits, until you come up with an explanation better than 'Warrior clip-art', whatever that means....:Col Ciotach, the Arch Gallowglass would maybe confirm that if you were kicking about before 1647 and playing around with the Ulster chieftains. The North Channel is an easier passage than the English Channel. The Kingdom of Dal Riata, Lord of the Isles, King of Mann, Clan Suibhne and Clan Donald would all attest to that. That pic shows a west Highland warrior in full fig on a tombstone, in the manner that he would like to be remembered, and it is attested that that is that of MacGillespie of Finlaggan. As soon as a GallGaidheal crossed the Northern Channel for hire he was a Gallowglass, no more no less. Brendandh (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

My problem is not with the fighting men, my problem is with the Wikipedia article, and with editors like you who seem to make it their task to invert the burden of WP:V. You still seem to think that it is ok for you to post any old unreferenced rambling to Wikipedia, and anyone taking issue with that is supposed to prove to you that your material is flawed. It doesn't work like that. Either write proper, referenced encyclopedic content, or else sit back and let people who do work on the pedia on peace. Seriously, how old are you? You have been "contributing" to Wikipedia since 2007 and you still haven't got the point of WP:ENC, how is this even possible? --dab (𒁳) 10:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that you would curtail a certain amount of childishness yourself ("How old are you", Eh?). Without breaking anything in WP whatever that I'm aware of, GTF! Now, being incredibly old and mature as I'm sure you are, will you tell me what is wrong with that picture of MacGillespie, as opposed to Durer's drawing, in relation to articles on the Medieval Western Isles and Ulster? For your information, that picture of Durer's is a representation of Gaelic mercenaries working in continental Europe. As Durer never came to the British Isles it would be hard for him to have witnessed any Gallowglasses, who although probably similarly attired as the Mercenaries that his drawing suggests had a completely different social position in the Gaelic polity than they did on the European stage. "Gallowglass" by direct translation is "Foreign Gael", ie. one from over the water or 'GallGaidheal', landholders or warriors, crown tenants even!. Let's ramble on shall we.......Brendandh (talk) 22:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * neither the MacGillespie nor the Durer image was properly referenced. It was, once again, left to me to do the research. I found out that the MacGillespie effigy dates to the 1560s, and that the Dürer image was made in Antwerp. I am sure it is your brand of irony to provide me "for my information" with what I was forced to figure out for myself first because people upload images with names like "Norse-Gael Warrior". The connection between the Dürer image and the Gallowglasses is Heath (1993), who said "Clearly the front two figures represent galloglasses while the others are their servants or kern". This is what we Wikpipedians call a "reference". Of course, it was again left to me to provide this direct reference connecting the Dürer image with the gallowglasses. Because the article as it stood was completely unreferenced. Now, you would do very well to either contribute referenced content and then argue with people. As long as there is no referenced content, there is nothing to argue about. To leave the work to others, and then jump on them and "for their information" provide them with the very references they have just come up with is rather poor style to say the least. I look forward to discussing your referenced contribution. I do not feel compelled to continue this discussion in any form as long as you cannot base whatever it is you want to do on decent sources. There is an 16th-century grave slab and for some reason you feel it should illustrate "Gallowglass". This is certainly arguable, but if challenged, you should be able to cite a published source which has made the connection. If nobody has made the connection before you, it is very likely that the connection does not need to be made for the purposes of Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 14:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Poor you! A bit of research work. Oh well, I find that kind of fun. I really don't think you understand the idea of irregular mercenary companies in Ulster and the west of Scotland in the 14th to 17th c. There was no record in general of all but the major combatants. That free-use image of Gillespie's tombstone is a prime example of a contemporary view of the fighting man in the Gaelic theatre of operations at that time, and entirely suitable to be used as a descriptive image. Would you suggest a knight of France in the 14thc. looked dissimilar to another one of lowland Scotland, England, Spain etc.? Much the same in the Norse Gael lands. Furthermore in Durer's picture, yep the boys at the back with Lochaber Axes do look like their heidsmen's hindmen, but you wouldn't expect a Highland gentleman to go out without his retinue would you? FYI again, a Gallowglass was a hired or otherwise indentured Scots Highland Daoine Uaisle, with or without his 'tail' of men, in the service of some chieftain in Ireland. When they were off in Europe they were described as other. While one may have had pretendy Zouaves in the US civil war etc. in a place far removed from the origin of the species of that type of soldier, Gallowglass is a name purely based on the language of the land in which they lived and fought. Brendandh (talk) 02:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

FAR Sargon of Akkad
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 * added a link to Lawgiver

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Deletion from Nakshatra article
I have bee following this article for quite some time now. These are not trivial respellings in indic scripts. but different names for nakshatras. I am adept in 3 indian languages and know the difference between their calendars, months and nakshatras. Please see Malayalam Calendar, Tamil Calendar etc for your reference. Also I would reuqest you to use the discussion page before deletion of any content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBigA (talk • contribs) 12:19, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

you are referring to this. It would be nice of you to give the diff, especially in the case of edits of months ago.

I grant you that the names were trivial respellings only in some cases. They were non-trivial but completely unreferenced in the others. If you want to, say, state that Ardra is known as Thiruvathirai in Tamil and as Хэрцгий охин in Mongolian, you are kindly invited to provide a reference to the effect. --dab (𒁳) 10:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

de: Bahn 2000
This article is swiss-oriented therefore ss is used instead of ß. --SonniWP (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice to know, I guess. I have never even looked at that article? So why come here and tell me? --dab (𒁳) 11:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Armenian dynasty in Constantinople
What do you think? --Ghirla-трёп- 06:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * (Butting in) "Though of Armenian stock, Basil was called the Macedonian because he had been born in the Theme of Macedonia, in late 811." (Warren Treadgold A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997, page 455). Treadgold is one of the most respected contemporary Byzantinists. --Folantin (talk) 11:08, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You could also try The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, but there's no online access to the relevanr page AFAIK. --Folantin (talk) 11:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Adyghe
Hi, Dieter. Some very odd edits in broken English. Please check when/if you have time. --Ghirla-трёп- 11:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Germanic name
Great job, but could you take a look at the links to disambiguation pages? According to the Articles With Multiple Dablinks] you have 28 links in the article. Could you let them point to the right place? Thanks in advance! Night of the Big Wind talk  00:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I know. The problem is with the kind of hybrid pages that are half disambiguation page, and half "given names" pages. The solution may not be to remove these links, but to convert the pages in question into explicit "given name" articles. --dab (𒁳) 12:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * for the time being, the links to disambiguation pages could be replaced to links to wiktionary. --dab (𒁳) 13:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The links to "name (disambiguation)" are correct. The problem is more in links as Ekkehart and Hermann. But there is no rush. Night of the Big Wind  talk  13:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * in my opinion, the links to "name (disambiguation)" need to go. Articles should never link to disambiguation pages. Otoh, links like Ekkehart are alright, but the Ekkehart page will need to be turned into a Category:Given names article, so. --dab (𒁳) 14:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Croats
Zoupan reverted the redirect of Theories on the origin of Croats and added back some fringe views about the Croats being of Iranian origin.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 16:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Ghost
I responded, very late, to your comment on the tentative Ghosts in English-speaking cultures article that I started a while ago but have hesitated to expand. Maybe you could reply at Talk:Ghost. I am genuinely undecided. On the one hand, giving the English-speakers their own article would be unbiased and symmetrical, and there are plenty of sources ... on the other hand, it could be impossible to prevent forking... Aymatth2 (talk) 01:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree this is difficult no matter how you look at it. But I do feel strongly that treating "English speakers" as a group is about as spectacularly misguided as you can go. Of course, in a first approximation, "English speakers" are the British and their immediate cousins overseas, say, North Americans and Australians. That may still make a certain amount of sense up to 1930 or so. From that time, US pop culture completely upsets this division. For any topic that has a scope extending on either side of the 1930s, you should not assume that "English speakers" even in this limited sense is in any way a meaningful division.

As soon as you include in "English speakers" those parts of the Anglosphere which are not dominated by British-derived culture, viz. South Asian, Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African cultures, any vestigial cultural unity of the term breaks down completely. --dab (𒁳) 10:16, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The section on "terminology" is both language-specific and culture-specific since it only mentions English-language terms for Northern European concepts. Other cultures have different concepts, which may have no English-language word. This section does not belong in the general article in its present very biased state. But if expanded to remove cultural bias it would become huge. Don't what the best treatment is. "English language ghost terminology" does not work at all.


 * For most of the rest, maybe "Ghosts in British culture" would work as a title. I would imagine that the old Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions have blended enough by now to be seen as a whole, and that Americans, Australians etc. would not have a problem with the narrow term, describing one part of their cultural tradition. That would leave topics like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow without an obvious home. Possibly there should also be a "Ghosts in American culture"...


 * But I still see this huge risk of forking... Aymatth2 (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not agree entirely. After all, this is English language Wikipedia. All our articles have some inherent "Anglo" bias, because all are written in the English language. This is so by design, it is not something that needs to be fixed. Discussing the etymology of the word "ghost" will necessarily involve English-specific history. This is not a problem. "Ghost" as a word in current use still has a generic sense, never mind its specific origin. Therefore I do not agree that the "terminology" section is in a "biased state". For a terminology section in an English language article, it is exactly as it should be. --dab (𒁳) 08:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The terminology section is out of balance with the section on "By culture", which introduces fragments of various other terminologies. Looking again at the article, I see that history begins in Egypt and the Near East, then moves via Greece and Rome to Europe, culminating in Britain and the United States - a very conventional Anglo view of history. Religion is mostly Judeo-Christian, with a short paragraph on Islam, ditto. In the Arts is almost entirely the English-language arts. The spread of Aryan culture east, evolving into Hindu and Buddhist ideas, and the huge complexity of Asian concepts is not mentioned. Africa does not exist.


 * You must have seen one of those maps where they make the size of each country proportional to the population. China gets a lot bigger and Australia shrinks right down. I shudder at the thought of visualizing en.WP bias in this and other articles that discuss a global concept. One way to address the lack of balance would be to introduce more content, expanding the article. The other would be to move out some of the content to culture-specific sub-articles, leaving summaries behind. Maybe the first is more practical? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate that your mileage may vary, these are matters of opinion. As long as our bias reflect the bias in English-language scholarly literature, this is just as it should be. Wikipedia doesn't fix biases, it reflects biases. We are happy just as long as we don't introduce any new biases. If a bias is already out there, we just duplicate it. You are basically saying you want more material on obscure cultures. To this, I shrug and say, well, write it. As long as it isn't written, there is no reason for any splits. Once you have written it, we can reassess the situation. --dab (𒁳) 18:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures are not really obscure. An encyclopedia entry that gives an overview of a global topic such as music, poetry, history, religion or even ghost beliefs should discuss these and other cultures. An English-language encyclopedia may be weighted towards the English-speaking countries, but should not simply ignore the rest of the world. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Broken links to Encyclopædia Iranica Online
I've noticed several broken links because the online version of Encyclopædia Iranica has moved from iranica.com (which flatly states "this domain has expired") to iranicaonline.org some time ago. I fixed some of those I noticed, but there have to be hundreds of links to iranica.com on Wikipedia still. Is there a way to find and update them (semi-)automatically? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * sigh, there also seems to be increasing "cross-pollination" with Wikipedia. I find it difficult to respect iranicaonline.org as independent reliable source when I am greeted with a map I have drawn myself for Wikipedia on the site's front page &mdash; without any attribution, I might add, not to Wikipedia, let alone to me, the official copyright owner. Not cool, Iranica.
 * Anyway, I am sure you can automate this, just ask one of the bot owners. --dab (𒁳) 09:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That sucks, is it really necessary to watermark everything now? Thanks for the tip, I had no idea about that possibility. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:12, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Scythian languages
Your input is needed regarding a user who insists on inserting a table which includes many very dubious etymologies, ringing all Turkish nationalism bells. Problem: The entries are cited, and I can't prove that his sources are BS. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * However, some authors affirm that the explanation of the Scythian words by the Iranian would be often full of contradictions and would be greatly exaggerated.
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Word ! Scythian Word ! Source ! Interpretation ! Derived from ! Source/Comment
 * - class="hintergrundfarbe5"


 * anira || anira || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to repair || Turkish tamir, to repair || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || earth godess || Iranian ab, water || Hermann Parzinger 2004, 78
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || earth godess || Turkish Yer-Sub, earth godess (Yer–>earth; Sub–>water) || Ocak 2002 ; Haussig 1999, 213
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || Pra-Mother || Turkish Api/Apai, mother || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || earth godess || Turkish Ebi, livebearing mother/ancestor (fertility) || Zakiev, 1986, 27
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || earth godess || Turkish Abiasch, rain spirit (spiritual character) || Ármin Vámbéry 1885, 119
 * Api || Api || Herodot, Hist. 4.59 || earth godess || Turkish Abis, rain evocator/to summon rain (shaman) || Ármin Vámbéry 1885, 119
 * Arar || Arar || Herodot, Hist. 4.48 || river || Turkish aryk, flowing waters (stream) || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Arimaspoi || arima || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || one || -
 * Arimaspoi || arima || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || – || Turkish yarım, half || Latyshev 1947, 307
 * Arimaspoi || aspoi? || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || – || Turkish sepi, eye || Latyshev 1947, 307
 * Arimaspoi || spu || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || – || Turkish spu, eye || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Arimaspoi || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || one-eyed || Mongolian äräm däk, one-eyed || Laufer 1908, 452; Vermeer 1996, 114
 * Arimaspoi || Arimaspoi || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || mountaineer || Mongolian mountaineer || Neumann 1856, 177 ; New Year booking for Philology and Pedagogy 1858, 336
 * Arimaspoi || Arimaspoi || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || – || Iranian aspa, horse || Tomaschek 1888, 761
 * Arimaspoi || Arimaspoi || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || one-eyed horseman || Turkish spu/sepi „eye“ und iranian aspa „horse“ || Phillips 1955, 173-174.
 * Arimaspoi || spu || Herodot, Hist. 4.27 || eye || – ||
 * Arpoxai, Kolaxai, Lipoxai || – || – || – || Iranian xšāy, to reign || ?
 * Arpoksai, Kolaksai, Lipoksai || – || – || – || Turkish soy, clan/ancestry || Gasanov 2002, 210
 * Arpoksai || Arpok || – || – || Turkish Arpağ, priest; or Arpalyk, landowner || Gasanov 2002, 210
 * arta || arta || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to sit || Turkish otur, to sit || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * Aschy || Aschy || Herodot, Hist. 4.23 || juice of a tree fruit || Bashkir akhsha/aschi, juice of a tree fruit || Karl Friedrich Merleker 1841, 14 (-> the way of handling the fruit is identical)
 * daldu || daldu || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to fill || Turkish doldur, to fill || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || womanlike man || Iranian a, without || Abaev 1949
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || womanlike man || Iranian nar, man || Abaev 1949
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || womanlike man || Turkish anair, virago || Latyshev 1893, 63
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || castrated || Turkish enar, to castrate/to lose his manhood || G.Dremin, 2006
 * gik || gik || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || sky || Turkish gök, sky || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * irchigi || irchigi || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to increase || Turkish choğal, to increase || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * Kolaksai || Kolak || – || – || Turkish Kola, Bronze; or kylych, sword || Gasanov 2002, 216
 * kutta || kutta || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to add || Turkish kat, to add || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * kyrbasia || kyrbasia || Herodot, Hist. 7.64 || acuate headdress || Turkish kur/koy, to straighten up/to put; and baş/başa, head/to the head || Mlasowsky 2006, 33
 * Lipoksai || Lipok || – || – || Turkish Alp, miraculous patron || Gasanov 2002, 204 (Lipoksai is also known as Afrasiab and as the son of Tur in the iranian mythology)
 * Oiorpata || Oiorpata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man killer ||
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man || Turkish er, man || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || pata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to kill/beat || Turkish patak, to kill/beat || Karl Steuerwald 1974, 268
 * Oiorpata || pata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to kill/beat || Turkish bat, to kill/beat || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to beat || general Romance battre, to beat || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man || Iranian vira, man || ?
 * sagaris || sagar || Herodot, Hist. 7.64 || battle axe || Mordwinian sügä, axe || Albrecht Wirth 1905, 184
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Targit, Turkish-Mongolian name || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Tarkutay, Mongolian chieftain || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  darga , long || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  tava , strength || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Traspier || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.6 || – || Iranian  aspa , horse || Hermann Parzinger 2004, 78
 * val || val || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || way || Turkish yol, way || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vita || vita || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || opposite || English opposite , opposite || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || womanlike man || Iranian nar, man || Abaev 1949
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || womanlike man || Turkish anair, virago || Latyshev 1893, 63
 * enarei || enarei || Ibis, 4, 67 || castrated || Turkish enar, to castrate/to lose his manhood || G.Dremin, 2006
 * gik || gik || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || sky || Turkish gök, sky || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * irchigi || irchigi || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to increase || Turkish choğal, to increase || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * Kolaksai || Kolak || – || – || Turkish Kola, Bronze; or kylych, sword || Gasanov 2002, 216
 * kutta || kutta || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to add || Turkish kat, to add || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * kyrbasia || kyrbasia || Herodot, Hist. 7.64 || acuate headdress || Turkish kur/koy, to straighten up/to put; and baş/başa, head/to the head || Mlasowsky 2006, 33
 * Lipoksai || Lipok || – || – || Turkish Alp, miraculous patron || Gasanov 2002, 204 (Lipoksai is also known as Afrasiab and as the son of Tur in the iranian mythology)
 * Oiorpata || Oiorpata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man killer ||
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man || Turkish er, man || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || pata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to kill/beat || Turkish patak, to kill/beat || Karl Steuerwald 1974, 268
 * Oiorpata || pata || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to kill/beat || Turkish bat, to kill/beat || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to beat || general Romance battre, to beat || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man || Iranian vira, man || ?
 * sagaris || sagar || Herodot, Hist. 7.64 || battle axe || Mordwinian sügä, axe || Albrecht Wirth 1905, 184
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Targit, Turkish-Mongolian name || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Tarkutay, Mongolian chieftain || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  darga , long || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  tava , strength || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Traspier || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.6 || – || Iranian  aspa , horse || Hermann Parzinger 2004, 78
 * val || val || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || way || Turkish yol, way || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vita || vita || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || opposite || English opposite , opposite || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || to beat || general Romance battre, to beat || G.Dremin, 2006
 * Oiorpata || oior || Herodot, Hist. 4.110 || man || Iranian vira, man || ?
 * sagaris || sagar || Herodot, Hist. 7.64 || battle axe || Mordwinian sügä, axe || Albrecht Wirth 1905, 184
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Targit, Turkish-Mongolian name || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Tarkutay, Mongolian chieftain || Karatay 2003, 161
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  darga , long || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  tava , strength || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Traspier || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.6 || – || Iranian  aspa , horse || Hermann Parzinger 2004, 78
 * val || val || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || way || Turkish yol, way || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vita || vita || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || opposite || English opposite , opposite || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * Targitai || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.5 || – || Iranian  tava , strength || Abaev 1949, 163
 * Traspier || – || Herodot, Hist. 4.6 || – || Iranian  aspa , horse || Hermann Parzinger 2004, 78
 * val || val || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || way || Turkish yol, way || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vita || vita || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || opposite || English opposite , opposite || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * vita || vita || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || opposite || English opposite , opposite || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * vurun || vurun || Cuneiform Inscriptions from Susa, Iran (A.D. Mordtmann, 1870, 50) || to chop || Turkish vuruş, to chop || A. Chay 2002, 155
 * }
 * }

why was the above posted to my talkpage? If you keep the decent references and get rid of the "Assyrian Cuneiform Documents: Scythians/The Turks" garbage, we can talk about it, but don't post this stuff to talkpages, just give me the diff if you want to point to deleted material. --dab (𒁳) 07:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Ancient Dravidian Culture
The article Ancient Dravidian culture article looks like a piece of garbage written by some tamil nationalist.there is nothing ancient about it everything is contemporary.there also lot of peacock terms and pov.the first line of article itself is un wikipedia like.i saw your comments on the article talk page.what can be done about the article.Pernoctator (talk) 06:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Tell me about it. What can be done? The thing should be merged, e.g. into Sangam period. --dab (𒁳) 07:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

agree.merge.and how do we do that?.considering the article is mostly garbage.i am cleaning a lot of indian ethnic group articles at the moment. Pernoctator (talk) 09:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I have commented on this at great length on the artilce talkpage. The article is trash, and it is trash with an agenda, basically the worst kind of content that can be submitted to Wikipedia. People refuse to fix it. The burden is on them to fix it. As long as they refuse, the page can just be redirected.

Also, the redirect "Ancient Dravidian culture" should be put up for discussion, as is is unclear whether the term has any kind of generally agreed-upon, idetifiable meaning or definition. The burden of proving that this term exists and has an identifiable meaning lies entirely with those who wish to keep such a page. Nobody disputes that an ancient Dravidian culture exists. The words "ancient" and "Dravidian" are here used compositionally as adjectives modifiying "culture". We do not create pages on random combinations of adjectives and nouns. The article on this culture also exists, it is found at Sangam period. --dab (𒁳) 10:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

ok redirecting the page right now to Sangam period.i am also going through some of the other trash oops articles these people have created.thanks for you thoughts.Pernoctator (talk) 11:52, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

just saw you have already redirected.great.cheers.Pernoctator (talk) 11:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I expect the pov pushers will come back and prefer a page full of garbage and content warning tags over a redirect. But if you want to help, you can spend some time on the chore of letting them know in no uncertain terms that the burden lies on them to produce decent material. Nobody has any business to restore content that is garbage, or indeed even brillant content that is unreferenced. You restore it, you take the responsibility to fix it. --dab (𒁳) 12:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

yes sir on guard gainst pov pushers.Pernoctator (talk) 12:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Aram (biblical region)‎
Have you seen the recent comments at Talk:Aram (biblical region)? Dougweller (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview
Dear Dbachmann,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:
 * Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
 * Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
 * All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
 * All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
 * The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 02:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Category:Eponymous categories"
Had I thought of it before, I would have given you a notification of this discussion while it was still open, since it's an area you've expressed concern about. But I didn't—but thought you still might want to read the discussion. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your edit summary here gives me too much credit/blame. I know I'm "powerful" and all, but ... Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There's been a re-opening of the issue, though limited in initial scope to the nomination of just one of the categories. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

look, I've given up on telling you why I think some of your actions are misguided. You collect "insults" on your user page as if it was somehow to your credit that you exasperate people. I do not go around randomly insulting people, but I believe in WP:SPADE. I have no exaggerated dread of your power or the damage you can do. But I can see you do damage in a small but consistent way. I have told you as much. You listed it in your gallery of insults, so you are clearly proud of the attention you get for doing damage. In such situations, I tend to drop the topic and focus on other corners of Wikipedia. Yeah, I have a lot of time I choose to invest here, but it is not unlimited, and when I begin to feel my time is spent on petty online disputes I tend to decide it is worth more than that. --dab (𒁳) 08:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I just thought you might have wanted to comment in an ongoing discussion about these categories, since I've seen that you feel so strongly about them. I think you have a valuable perspective to contribute, minus the personal-attacky stuff of course. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Irrevelant tag
Hi On 18 Nov., you have tagged Ancient settlements in Turkey for Synthesis. Frankly I haven't seen your point. This is a list and not a text. No opinion is stated and the list solely depends on sourced Wikipedia articles. I think the tag is irrevelant. Cheers. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:ANI
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. The relevant section can be found here Cheers, LindsayHello 17:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Jyotish page
I confirmed the material originally written on the Jyotish page in the History section. It is correct. Please don't remove the material, or add uncited/unreliable content.AssociateLong (talk) 00:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

um what, you "confirmed the material"? And this somehow excuses you from WP:CITE? --dab (𒁳) 16:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * These are not my edits. This is sourced material you are removing. It has references. And then on top of that you add unsourced garbage?  AssociateLong (talk) 20:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

ANI
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.AssociateLong (talk) 20:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Warning: horrible pun to follow.
Since you did such a great job turning the de-disambiguated Broadsword into a fine article at Basket-hilted sword, how would you like to - wait for it - take a stab at doing the same for Great sword? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BD2412 (talk • contribs)

I am not sure I am too happy with this approach... I believe it turns out the case is not really parallel to "broadsword", but I may be wrong.

It turns out that the spelling as a single word, greatsword arises in the 1930s. Before that, of course you find lots of instances of "a great sword", back to Revelations 6:4 (gladius magnus). The term broadsword is easily a century older, the hyphenated broad-sword even earlier.

My point is that "broad-sword" was a real term back in a time where swords were still in use (if only for gentlemen's duels), but "greatsword" dates to the era of Errol Flynn. The terms "broadsword" and "basket-hilted sword" coincide almost perfectly, with only the very earliest examples (16th century) having no basket-hilt, so that they can easily be treated as a stage in the development of the type. A "great sword" can basically be any sword which is "great". --dab (𒁳) 17:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with that approach. I just don't think it is a truly ambiguous term. bd2412  T 22:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I added a few words to the effect that this is a modern coinage. Perhaps this should be covered in the main sword article, and the term redirected to a section there? bd2412  T 22:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Now I am wondering about Two-handed sword also. Perhaps the best solution would be to create an article about terminology used to identify or classify swords, and merge and redirect all of these collections of terms (Great sword, Two-handed sword, Longsword (disambiguation) into that. What do you think? bd2412  T 23:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * yes, an article about "sword terminology" might be the best solution. The more I know about this topic, the more difficult it becomes. At the center of this problem seems to be the longsword terminological conundrum, or in other words, the breakdown of medieval sword morphology after the 15th century. But it doesn't begin there. It is almost incredibly difficultto figure out what terms were used for which weapons in the 13th century (the baselard group of terms), and things went downhill from there. Normally, you'd think that this is the problem of a beginner, and reading the literature would clear things up, but not here. We may just have to live with the fact that nobody seems to know for sure just what a "longsword", a "bastard sword" or a "great sword" is. --dab (𒁳) 10:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that seems like an ideal reason to have an article explaining why these terms have such indefinite meanings. I have put together Terminology used in the classification of swords from these disambig pages, to start with. bd2412  T 20:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts -- imho this could be merged with the Types of swords article, which is little more than a naked list of articles. --dab (𒁳) 08:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Germanic-speaking Europe
FYI, your redirect was reverted by an IP editor. Frietjes (talk) 17:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hoax
Answered on my talk page. --Ecelan (talk) 19:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Answered again on my talk page. --Ecelan (talk) 20:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have taken this to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. --Ecelan (talk) 15:53, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I am sure you have. --dab (𒁳) 17:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Article Tengrism
I've inserted your changes in the right section.--Tirgil34 (talk) 21:06, 13. March 2012 (CET) —Preceding undated comment added 20:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC).

Polytonic
Hi Dbachmann, I noticed that quite a while ago you changed from invoking a specific style declaration regarding font-families to simply transcluding the regular lang template with grc defined. Does this mean that word is now identical to the polytonic template? And does this also mean that word is now technically identical to the polytonic template, save for the fact it would also give "Ancient Greek:"? We have a guideline that still recommends, though confusingly alongside a recommendation for using word. I assume that this dual recommendation stems from the days when polytonic forced fonts that were know to be capable of displaying complex diacritics. Thank you, — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 22:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is my understaniding that polytonic dates from a time when Unicode was new and problematic. No recent system should have any problem displaying polytonic Greek, and it is enough to just use lang to mark the language as 'grc'. The recommendation for using polytonic in my view is obsolete, but as long as it is just an alias of  , no harm is done. --dab (𒁳) 16:50, 17 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks a bunch for the info. — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 18:27, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Manipulation, pseudohistory, sockpuppetry & persistent vandalism
Please check [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tocharian_languages#Euphemisms_do_not_belong_to_science.2C_they_are_a_tool_of_politicians. this link] because we have one serious issue. User Tirgil34 (known for pseudohistoric claims at Scythian languages) along with Maikolaser (most likely his sockpuppet) have started aggressive Turanist agenda not just on English Wikipedia but also all others, even Commons. There are two issues: I've contacted Dougweller regarding to this issue also. Cheers, mr. O. --217.24.133.219 (talk) 02:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * File:SogdiansNorthernQiStellae550CE.jpg - He/They've started to change date at commons from 550 to 700CE just to prove Heptalitian Sogdian dress is actually "Turkic". Then, he/they added false descriptions to English articles containing that picture. Photo is named after "550CE" by photographer, Northern Qi dynasty clearly ruled in second half of 6th century, and I even put reliable sources which date that stele to 560's. However, he/they are persistent to change all descriptions, despite source which he/they've used as "proof" clearly states dresses from 5th and 6th century are Heptalitian Sogdian, not Turkic.
 * File:QizilDonors.jpg - He/They've tried to remove this photo in all Tocharian-related articles claiming that it's "false" and Tocharians are actually "Turks from beginning". You can check it in most upper link I've gave you, but I hope that my comment still stands there because he/they've already tried to remove it.
 * Beside the fact that we are Germans: Again, calm down, nobody claimed that what you have mentioned. And nobody is a Turanist here.


 * File:SogdiansNorthernQiStellae550CE.jpg - It's not Heptalitian, it's Sogdian. Please don't manipulate again with a wrong source, which does not exist.


 * File:QizilDonors.jpg - The point is that the picture has nothing to do with Tocharians, nothing more.


 * This is consensus in every case. Please stop vandalism, persian nationalism and using 2 IP's for it 217.24.133.219///109.165.161.93.
 * Tirgil34 is right. You were warned many times on the talk pages. With the next revert we will report you. Making false suspicion on Dbachmann's talk page does not help you anyway. We have warned you on the talk pages: 1, 2, 3.


 * Regarding the removal of a part of your comment, my answer was: "This is Talk:Tocharian languages not Talk:Sogdiana". Maikolaser (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2012 (CET)

Yeah, Tirgil34 has a long history of pushing Turanist nonsense. So please ban them already, they have had their fair chance to edit responsibly. If Tigril34 is a German, I must assume he (hardly "she") is not just a German so much as a "German", or else I would be at a loss to explain the obsession with Pan-Turkism. A German would hardly declare he is a Defender of the good old German Neutrality. Tigril34 is just adding insult to injury by taking the piss out of his host nation.

This doesn't go to say that matters stand better in the Persian nationalist camp, these guys form a regular wikimafia and their own nationalist nonsense for some reason cannot be touched or they make mincemeat of you. So far we have been able to deal with the Turanist trolls more or less efficiently. One kind of misbehaviour does not excuse another, but if you look at the Cyrus cylinder fuckfest, you will agree that Wikipedia has more pressing problems with the Persian cranks than with the Turkish ones. --dab (𒁳) 11:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This is to notify you of Sockpuppet_investigations/Tirgil34 of that user. --Cold Season (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Nice to see I was proved right again. :) Since I'm well informed about pseudo-history from SW Asian area I'll continue to inform you or Doug if I see something suspicious (last time it was this ) as I promised 3 years ago. Cheers, mr. banned O. --109.165.253.255 (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, another IP AGAIN? man man man, du kannst es einfach nicht lassen. --Tirgil34 (talk) 23:30, 2. April 2012 (CET) —Preceding undated comment added 21:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC).

We are still too lenient with this type of editor. It has always been crystal clear that Tirgil34 is not editing constructively, or in the interest of the project. Hence he should have been warned in no uncertain terms, and then banned. But we are getting there. By comparison to the drawn-out dramas of the past over such editors, this has been comparatively painless. --dab (𒁳) 09:48, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Homer infobox
Template:Homer infobox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:46, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Kurdish anachronisms
Could you please assure the fine people at Talk:Subartu that, despite what some supposedly reliable sources (it's sad that this kind of crackpot idea can be published and given the appearance of a respected academic position) might say, there are no modern Kurdish tribes with an identifiable history precisely in their current location going back to the days of Sargon of Akkad? Quick, before Izady's claim is discovered by more Kurds and spreads further through Wikipedia. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:43, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * got to love how the "Sumerian/Akkadian sources" are supposed to mention the modern tribe. Not some ancient predecessor of the modern tribe, but actually the modern tribe itself. I do not think much debate on the credibility of such claims is necessary.
 * of course, the proper way of presenting this would be "Izady (1992) presents the opinion that the name of the modern Zibari tribe is in some way derived from the toponym Subartu." This is an etymological hypothesis, to be more than a random kling-klang postulate would need some sort of substantiation by a professional Iranist. --dab (𒁳) 13:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Except that, to emphasise this point once again, Izady does not even mention "Subartu" – the connection of "Saubaru"/"Sibaru" with "'Subartu" was made by some editor, hence, we have a chain of two kling-klang etymologies (one by Izady, one OR) connecting the modern tribe and the ancient toponym. Lovely! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I missed that. I have never even heard of the toponym "Saubaru"/"Sibaru". If it exists, I am sure people have compared it to "Subartu" in literature. But of course the burden of finding and presenting such literature is on the trolls, not on us. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again; another Kurdish lad with Izady as "holy encyclopaedia" - named Gomada (contributions). He's forcing Gutian language‎ among "Kurdish history" category, Buyids, Ziyarids, Sallarids as Dailamites are "Kurdish", and Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadani (labeled Arabic even by Iranica) is "Kurd", etc. Greetings, Mr. O. --46.239.25.119 (talk) 11:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Before lie to people, look at references for Buyids. a book written by Lokman I. Meho and Kelly L. Maglaughlin, its written in 1968. Why do you think that, you know more than those people? How can you delete references as you want? And about IZADY, he is a scholar, you cant judge him because of his nationality!--Gomada (talk) 12:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Gomada is using among other sources this which says the Median Empire was Kurdish (and is used as a source in other articles). Per the publisher, it's an RS, but the editors are:
 * LOKMAN I. MEHO is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Kurds and Kurdistan: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood, 1997) and Libraries and Information in the Arab World: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood, 1999), and is working on a documentary history of the Kurdish question in U.S. government publications.


 * KELLY L. MAGLAUGHLIN is a Ph.D. student at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.


 * Meho, who wrote the bit about the Median empire being Kurdish, is Kurdish himself. That doesn't exactly disqualify himn of course, but at the time he wrote this he was only a PhD candidate and is contradicting a number of other reliable sources. I ran into this editor at Adiabene‎ which now says in the lead that it is Kurdish but doesn't mention this in the body of the article. Dougweller (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I have noticed that most refs cited by Gomada such as Izadi and Meho only offers a list of people and kingdom that were supposedly Kurdish. However, more specialised sources never make such claims. (see for example Iranica's entries ).--  R a f y  talk 12:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Dear RAFY, you and others mostly forget that, There is a Kurdish culture which is trying to steal by Turks, Arabs and Persians. Its hundereds of years, Kurds cant tell their history to world. Because, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq tried to obstruct that. They know that, if World knows reality about kurds and kurdish culture, many things will change aganist those states. Therefore those states tried to hide realities from World. One simple example: Its sixty years Turkish gorverment uses burocracy to change name of a library in EGYPT. Because, Its name is SALADIN AL KURDI's libraray. In all encyclopedis which prepared by turks, persians and arabs, Kurdish identity was forgotten or they try to hide it as musc as possible. There is a claim which says, IZADY is a kurdish natiaonalist. Ok lets think, he is nationalist. But what about the other side? The main editor of Encyclopedia of Iranica, a persian "Ehsan Yarshater". Can you say that, he wasnt nationalist? and how do you know the fact? It doesnt make him the best, if he has written something before the others. If you think like that, Sharaf Khan Badlisi wrote a book 500 years ago and said, Lurs are Kurds. Then why they have seperated from Kurds in Wikipedia? One more thing, the articles you showed in Iranica dont claim, Buyid is persian and Adiabene is assyrian.--Gomada (talk) 12:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * When a Kurd tries to protect his culture (We should respect to all cultures), he becomes nationalist. But, when somebody of other nationality does that for their nation, nobody even discuss that. If you think. this is fair, there is no need to waste our time. --Gomada (talk) 12:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Gomada, what the hell does any of this have to do with Subartu? How is the plight of the Kurdish people related to some Sumerian toponym? You are welcome to campaign for whatever political views you may have, just don't do it on Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 17:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Dont you see, i gave answer to RAFY? i think, you should try to be kind. Im not trying to discuss Sumerians. I talked about Buyids and it's changed as i said. Because, Even if it was late, all understood the reality.--Gomada (talk) 12:55, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

3RR violation by Gomada
Take a look at. Alefbe (talk) 21:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

well, some kind admin should save us the bother and block this one, as he is clearly not even remotely interested in working on the pedia. I really have no wish to waste breath pretending to "AGF" on cases as obvious as this one. --dab (𒁳) 22:56, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Why should some admin block me? I changed Alefbe's mistakes. I should report you (Alefbe). Look at Buyids and see how it is now. Thats funny, Because Alefbe doesnt respect to sources but i become guilty.--Gomada (talk) 13:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * son, you are guilty of not even realizing what this website is trying to do. Please pull your own weight if you want to edit here. If you just want to enjoy some ethnic bickering, please take your pent-up anger to some discussion forum where you can tell the word about your feelings and all. Wikipedia is not interested in that. You came to my talkpage and ranted about how [t]here is a Kurdish culture which is trying to steal by Turks, Arabs and Persians in a Middle of a discussion about a Sumerian toponym. This is childish, and it was a mistake on your part, because I am now not even remotely prepared to take you seriously as an editor. You made two mistakes:
 * WP:TRUTH: there are ethnic conflicts, but there is never a single "truth" about ethnic conflicts. If you want anyone to listen to who stole whose culture, you need to base your claims on quotable references, complete with a neutral phrasing of who said what
 * WP:SCOPE: If you must discuss an ethnic conflict to which you are a party, kindly do it in articles reserved for this topic, and don't post uninvited rants in places where grown-ups are discussing completely unrelated areas of knowledge.
 * if you are unable to do this, nobody is going to dream of taking you seriously here. If you check my recent edits, you will find that I am busy writing encyclopedic content, because (gasp) WP:ENC, and I do not have time or inclination to babysit the flamewars taken here by ethnically alienated angry young men.  --dab (𒁳) 14:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirect from Pope John Paul III
Changing a redirect into a non-redirect so that you can prod it is not appropriate. Please do not do that again. I personally think the redirect probably should be deleted, but since I don't know any of the details about the subject, I don't want to nominate it at RFD myself. It really wouldn't take much longer to start a discussion at WP:RFD than it would to add the prod tag back, and it certainly would have a better chance of actually getting it deleted than what you have been doing. Calathan (talk) 20:00, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I found a mistake. I fixed it. Then you jump out of the woodwork and waste my time over nothing. No sir, what you are doing is "inappropriate". If you do not know anything about the subject, why do you take it upon yourself to redirect Pope John Paul III to Antipope? Present a reference on an antipope of that name. You don't have one? Then please stop vandalizing Wikipedia. It is vandalism to create nonsensical redirects. Yes, it is even vandalism when you are restoring vandalism after other people who actually know what they are doing have fixed it. --dab (𒁳) 21:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Your edits are becoming disruptive. Please stop adding the prod tag back to that page.  Not only can prods not be used on redirects, prods also can't be restored once contested.  I don't understand why you seem to think that deletion policy doesn't apply to you.  If you think that the redirect is vandalism, feel free to nominate it for speedy deletion (if it is blatantly false, speedy deletion criterion G3 would apply).  However, do not restore the prod again. Calathan (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * you are not only being disruptive, your behaviour is positively moronic. It's good to see that the old wiki traditions are being upheld in the project's bureaucratic underbelly. --dab (𒁳) 10:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to understand that adding a prod tag to a redirect or an article that has previously had a prod tag removed will not result in the page being deleted. Admin's generally check to make sure a prod is applicable before deleting the page, so if I didn't remove the prod tag now it would just be removed in seven days when an admin notices the expired prod.  Putting a prod on such a page is useless.  What you are doing isn't removing vandalism from the encyclopedia, but leaving it there with a useless tag in place.  It seems that this specific redirect has been taken to RFD by another user, but if I see you place a prod tag on another redirect I will report you for being disruptive. Calathan (talk) 15:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

no, you do not understand that actively restoring vandalism counts as vandalism. Fine, remove the prod tag if you must, but do not restore the vandalised revision of the page. I am taking the painful approach here in order to impress on you that what you are doing is stupid. Therefore, I suppose, I should not be surprised to find that you fail to understand why it is stupid. I do have a delete button, and I could just have deleted this pointless redirect as a completely uncontroversial act of cleanup. What I am trying to do here is to get you to understand that the rules are here to serve the pedia, and not the other way round. I suppose this goes far above your head, so yeah, do "report" me for violating templat syntax and red tape and what have you, anything to keep you from touching article namespace where the grown-ups are trying to build an encyclopedia. --dab (𒁳) 08:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The first time I reverted you, I changed the soft redirect back to a hard redirect. How in the world is that restoring vandalism?  The redirect is there either way.  I guess the second time I reverted you I could have done something else with the article (like take it to RFD myself), but still, your response of vandalizing the article yourself to insert a false claim about me was clearly inappropriate.  I don't see how you can talk about trying to build the encyclopedia when you do things like that.  Anyway, policies are not just "red tape", but are in place because this is a collaborative encyclopedia and rules are necessary for everyone to get along.  If you don't want to keep having conversations like this in the future, then please follow policy.  Also, if you thought the page was blatant vandalism and you could have deleted it yourself, you should have done so.  The next time you see vandalism, please do just delete it. Calathan (talk) 16:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the first thing you need to do is to learn distinguish non-negotiable policy (such as WP:CITE, WP:NPOV), from guidelines of project-internal good practice (such as "the prod template should not be used on pages that are at that moment redirects"). There is a fundamental difference. The point of this exercise was to impress this difference on you. But I think we can drop this now, as anything that hasn't been learned from it so far isn't going to happen now as we devolve into acrimony. I think we have got as much WP:LAME out of this as has been in it, so peace. --dab (𒁳) 05:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

NK
Hi. Since you have a deep knowledge and interest in ancient history, would you please have a look at discussions we have at Nagorno-Karabakh? We need a third opinion from uninvolved editors, so your input would be appreciated. Thanks. Grand master  20:25, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Since Grandmaster decided to ask your opinion, I would like to do the same and ask you to take a look at Guba mass grave, where User:Grandmaster has been active supporting Azerbaijani editors. Guba mass grave is one of those articles on bogus topics where information comes entirely from hate sites and state-sponsored propaganda sources spewing hostile nonsense. Guba mass grave is an abuse of WP:NPOV of monstrous proportions, and yet someone like User:Grandmaster bends over backwards protecting this article while at the same time launching pseudo-intellectual talks on validity of ancient sources in Nagorno-Karabakh - a nauseating display of double standards. Please also note that the Guba mass grave article was started by User:Interfase, who in ruwiki came under sanctions for being Grandmaster's proven meatpuppet (information on meta-wiki and here ) and member of Grandmaster's 26 Baku Commissars distribution list. Winterbliss (talk) 02:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * See - that's what happens when you prance around in the middle of a minefield. Kaboom - banned for life!

I do have an interest in ancient history, but I have been dealing with puerile nationalists abusing ancient history to make themselves feel better about their ingroup since 2004, so I am just a little tired of the exercise. --dab (𒁳) 08:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand. Thanks for commenting. It is very helpful. Grand  master  10:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That going to be your new motto: "Dealing with puerile nationalists since 2004"? I won't be asking your opinion because I know that your always smug and snide comments are not helpful, regardless of how much knowledge you can bring to a subject and regardless of how much some new pairs of informed eyes are needed. Meowy  14:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * They are helpful, if you read past the smugness. They are only unhelpful if your ego prevents you from that. Of course the smugness is also born from ego ultimately, I am not a saint. But I do believe that only people who behave like adults deserve to be treated like adults, so I do not have a problem with my dealing out "snide" comments to people who are wasting the time of complete strangers with their immaturity. If you don't like it, well, nobody asked you to review my work here either. But if you stay around long enough to watch me deal with people who can pull their own weight and stick to the topic, you will be forced to admit that I am always gracious to those regardless of their tone, and not above apologizing for my own mistakes.
 * I am in no way an expert on Armenia or NK. But I am by now an expert at spotting ethnic bullshit on the wiki. All I ask of people is to put aside their ethnic grievances whenever they click the edit button. If they cannot do that, they are immature brats in my book, and I will deliberately treat them as such under WP:SPADE. If you want to enjoy being an Armenian with a grudge, just go to some forum where this will be appreciated. If you must discuss the history of Armenia here, just try to grow up and treat your references for what they are and don't pull editorializing stunts about how "some scholars" say this or that based on cherry-picking acrobatics, it's lame. --dab (𒁳) 05:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * And I'm an expert in detecting administrator bullshit. In your case a little tantrum-filled kid of an administrator who has no idea of what the word "gracious" means. Maybe one day I'll have a go at creating that "Dbachmannisms" list - one thing is certain, I'll never lack material to add to it. And, sorry to disapoint your racist arrogance, but I am not Armenian. Meowy 02:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Would you be interested in commenting on the use of Johann Schiltberger as a source here: ? My foremost concern with this article is that primary sources are used very selectively, as is the case with this particular one. Grand  master  08:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Dbachmann, thanks for considering the NK matter, however briefly. An RfC has been opened though its mandate is still vague. I am hoping that more editors who have a lot of content-creation experience and a critical attitude to sources will be willing to add their views on what sources should be used there. It appears that the article is unlikely to make progress without some amount of admin oversight and encouragement. The main Nagorno-Karabakh article benefitted from a discussion at WP:AE ending on April 7 which has caused a number of admins to start paying attention to it. EdJohnston (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Personal Information
"Which I hoped you were going to acquire over time, as you said you started to take university courses, but so far I cannot see it has done much with your misplaced hyperbole". Excuse me? I suggest you start explaining on what grounds you've produced this fantasy personal information about me before I take the next step with this. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

swedish people
hello, after researching your edits you seem to have very good understanding of the subject as there is an ongoing dispute whenever to describe the swedes as germanic just as the germans article so i therefore invite you to join the discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Swedesdiscussion and possibly settle this once for all, thanks 220.136.0.45 (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Germanic peoples
Hey Dab, what say you about the infobox that has apparently established itself in that article? Best, Trigaranus (talk) 13:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * (Butting in) Good God, that's the reductio ad absurdum of those ridiculous ethnic infoboxes. The 42 most exemplary "Germanic" figures include Hitler and...Jörg Haider (!!!!!). And only two women: Claudia Schiffer and Margaret Thatcher (!!!!!!!!). The choice of musicians is Mozart and...Eivind Groven (I'd never heard of him and I know quite a bit about classical music; if you're really desperate for a Norwegian, what's wrong with Grieg?). Plus, whoever came up with the list doesn't know how to deal with Icelandic names. I could go on, but I note the box has now been consigned to the depths of oblivion - where it should remain. --Folantin (talk) 15:00, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I went back and looked at an old version. The box was good for about 5 minutes of laughter, at least. Check out some fella's comments at the bottom of the talkpage in favour of the box - he's easily winning Objectivity Award of the month.


 * It's good to see you people again. I'll be back properly in about 1 month, I reckon. Anything fun happen recently? Moreschi (talk) 19:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Will continue conversation on your talk page to avoid hassling Dab. --Folantin (talk) 20:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Need help on page Saint Thomas Christians
Dear Dbachmann, this is me robin klein, The former page Syrian Malabar Nasrani has now been remaned as Saint Thomas Christians. There is a contention now at the page. The contention is about a single line which states about the probable Jewish origin of the Syrian Malabar Nasranis or Saint Thomas Christians. There has been a long discussion and a lot of quote from lots of reliable sources have been provided at the talk page []. A solution is not impossible but certain administrators are adament and refuse to include the mention of probable Jewish descent of the Nasranis or Saint Thomas Christians. Please help with this situation. It seems unfair when administrators come together to prevent anybody else from adding new information. And whatever the conflict, a fair solution is always possible. But here the editors with admin status are not willing to listen to anyone and state that without their consensus no changes could be made. Please help. thanks Robin klein (talk) 05:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

List of Charleses
Hi. I happened across the article on Charles today and noted your comment on the List of Notable Charleses on the talk page. I agree with your sentiment that this is a nonsense, and was tempted to delete the section in its entirety. But then I noticed that you had appeared to try to tidy it up (or rationalise it) and I didn't want to be too hasty. So I thought I'd come here first. I can't see what purpose it serves and how it can ever be encyclopedic (and hence I'd still be inclined to jettison it): but maybe you have different views. Kind regards. Johnlp (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Bhāratas


The article Bhāratas has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

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. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Sandeep (talk) 09:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal.
Tinynanorobots has proposed merging Types of swords into classification of swords. This being your area, I'd appreciate your view on this proposal. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Ragnarok (Norwegian band) for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ragnarok (Norwegian band) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Ragnarok (Norwegian band) (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. __meco (talk) 12:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Category:Swords by era
Category:Swords by era, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mike Selinker (talk) 19:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Question
At Reference desk/Humanities an editor has a question about one of your images. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:29, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Split proposal at Knight
Your split proposal at Knight has gained some comment. Would you like to say what you had in mind?--Monstrelet (talk) 08:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yamassee native americans
In view of your contributions at Nuwaubian Nation, and that Yamassee native americans redirects there, please consider commenting at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Yamassee/Yamassee native americans. Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 04:49, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Polytonic
Template:Polytonic has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.
 * Though, as you said, no bid deal that this template was still floating around, I've nominated for deletion. Later — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut — 01:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Shii (tock) 04:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Vymanika Shastra
I saw that you were still active on that page, so I think I can ask you:

I'm trying to verify the spelling, in Sanskrit of the term "Rowdree Darpana" that appears on p23 of the Shastra (in the Josyer translation). It is claimed as meaning "Terrifying Mirror".

The scans of the Sanskrit portions on the Sacred Text Archive only go up to p 10, so I can't verify it using that. However, based on the claimed meaning and the pronunciation, I believe that the Sanskrit should be रुद्रियदर्पण (rudriya darpaNa, terrifying mirror). I have absolutely no experience with Sanskrit, so I can't be sure if the conjugation is correct.

Would you happen to have a copy of the book to check for me, or failing that, experience in Sanskrit to determine the proper conjugation of the word? If you can help me with this, please leave a message at this page. I've also left a copy of this request on the Vymanika talk page. Thanks!70.34.147.3 (talk) 04:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Azerbaijan
Hi Dbachmann. Since you dealt with the quotefarm at Name of Azerbaijan, could you please have a look at recent edits to the article Azerbaijan? I think someone is overstating his point by using too many quotes and giving inappropriate weight to the whole name issue. Thanks. Regards, Grand  master  20:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed religion Manual of style
There is now a proposed Manual of style for religion articles at WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. I have some reason to believe that your own expertise in dealing with matters of nationalism might well be of use here, given the large number of groups out there which deal substantially with what might be called ethnoreligions. Any input you might have would be more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 14:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * unfortunately I have mostly run out of interest in trying to save Wikipedia from these people. It used to be misguided second-generation emigrants (Armenians, Indians, Assyrians/Syrians in the US) defacing coverage of their groups, but now we also get neopagans wreaking havoc on the Neopagan topics. The level of bigotry expressed there by what are supposed to be at least moderately educated people is simply depressing. Any policy even remotely capable of keeping this in check would be one asking for full disclosure of personal adherence or loyalties (WP:COI) and requiring such people to stand down and defer to uninvolved editors (where "uninvolved" of course excludes the militant atheists out to ridicule any religion, that's just as much a WP:COI and just as much bigotry). --dab (𒁳) 08:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Quote on Tradition, Ashes and Fire
Dear DBachmann,

just thanks - vielen Dank für die Analyse des Zitats "Tradition, Asche und Feuer": Es ist so ärgerlich, die Naivität der Leute zu sehen, übrigens schon vor dem Internet, z.B. "der Apfel, der Newton auf den Kopf fiel".

Ich habe den Verdacht, ein ähnlicher Fall von Zitat nur im deutschen Sprachraum ist der Spruch mit dem Wind und den Leuten, die Mauern bauen oder Windmühlen. Oft als "chinesisches Sprichwort" bezeichnet. Gruss WalterH44 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WalterH44 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * kann mich dunkel erinnern, wo habe ich das gemacht? --dab (𒁳) 08:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Nation of Yahweh
I noticed that you proposed a merger from Yahweh ben Yahweh into Nation of Yahweh, back in Jan 2011. However, you only tagged the target page, not the source, and didn't start a discussion. It doesn't appear to me that merger would be desirable, so I'm removing the proposal. – Fayenatic  L ondon 11:30, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The Golden Bough's Popular Culture section
I'm letting you know that I have undone your edit to The Golden Bough, specifically the removal of the Popular Culture section. I believe that it's removal is premature and pruning would be preferable to complete removal, as many of the references in question are substantial in the works which reference it. I welcome your input. --Tarage (talk) 08:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hello, Dbachmann. I have undone Tarage's undoing of your edit. I think you were completely correct to remove the Popular Culture section. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Most of my edits are justified. I do make mistakes, but will as a rule fix them if they are only pointed out to me. But much of my efforts at building decent coverage in more difficult topics have been eroded either by people editing from a perspective of depressing stupidity, or more often from a clearly disingenious agenda, more often than not paired with stupidity of the kind assuming that describing, say, classical Tamil culture, as "CLASSICAL PROTO-WORLD 100'000'000 BCE NOBLE CIVILIZATION" somehow will give the topic more prestige than simply calling it "ancient". I.e. people opening to ridicule their in-group symbols by touting them naively. This has more or less convinced me, over the years, that much of my time here is wasted. I can still recover my own notes to myself from the edit histories, but it is futile to try and keep "the internet" (the depressingly stupid just literate enough to deface the topics they care about the most) from eroding the pedia.

The collaborative idea of investing research into a common pool instead of your own petty publication list has appealed to me very much, but I am now trying to move away from it again and rediscover that I am able to compose my own essays on my own computer, something which I have nearly done without in the years since 2004. --dab (𒁳) 08:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not quite sure what brought this on, but I meant no disrespect with undoing your edit. I simply wishes to take a second look at it, but it appears you have no interest in it. I'll take this up with PoC. --Tarage (talk) 13:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits
Hello dab, I'm making an assumption that you were the one making the last three edits here - presumably you'd forgotten to sign in. I have reverted them all as none were discussed at all on the relevant article talk pages, which feels to me to be the right way to proceed. I have however removed the cross-in-circle image from one of the templates, I agree it wasn't appropriate. If my assumption was unwarranted I apologise - however the edits were consistent with what I know your views to be so I hope you'll forgive me. Kim Dent-Brown  (Talk)  10:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

1001 Nights
This article looks as if it's going to be under attack by Persian editors again, who want to expunge all references to it being an Arabic work. Keep an eye on it, if you will, as I'm only allowed so many reverts. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Interessanter Fund im www.
http://www.literature.at/viewer.alo?objid=13200&viewmode=fullscreen&scale=3.33&rotate=&page=1

Grüße Alexander Leischner (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Battōjutsu/Iaido merger proposal
I noticed that you proposed a merger of Battōjutsu and Iaido back on Jan 14 2011, more than a year and a half ago. You only tagged the target page, not the source, and didn't start a discussion. I'm removing the proposal. Thanks, Prburley (talk) 17:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting: "Personal information"
Alright, I'll repeat it: "Which I hoped you were going to acquire over time, as you said you started to take university courses, but so far I cannot see it has done much with your misplaced hyperbole". Excuse me? I suggest you start explaining on what grounds you've produced this fantasy personal information about me and why you thought Wikipedia was the venue for it before I take the next step with this. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Problematic editor
Hi. Could you take a minute to study the edits of guy ? He is apparently the resurrection of a user you had some history with, named User:Tirgil34. He has been inserting some fringe nationalist nonsense into a dozen pages, misquoting/falsifying sources, and replacing WP:RS material with fringe Turkish nationalist sources. Kurdo777 (talk) 20:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Please don't make emotional harassment. If you go on with your unsubstantial harassment, your absurd accusations and edits, you will be taken to vandalist-list next time. --Greczia (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Will somebody ban you already! You are about as rude as they come on Wikipedia! The Scythian 20:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Citations needed
Please provide a citation for Template:Zodiac date IAU and Template:Zodiac date. Otherwise I intend to propose the templates for deletion. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)
Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page. In this issue: Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->
 * Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
 * Research: The most recent DR data
 * Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
 * Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
 * DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
 * Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
 * Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

--The Olive Branch 18:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Germanic neopganism
Thanks for the cleanup on The Odin Brotherhood page. Could you take a look at Germanic neopaganism? A recent editor is spinning the article with racialist slant. Thanks. --Heathenguy (talk) 19:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Urals blank map.png
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Urals blank map.png, has been listed at Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator (talk) 16:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Please Read Before You Reverse
When you reverse all of my edits, you keep restoring errors. Harvey is not the author, for example, It is Hardman and Harvey. You also keep restoring in incorrect name of the Odin Brotherhood book! There is no "Prophecy" in the title. Please make one change at a time.

Thanks.

--Heathenguy (talk) 01:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

And, oh, his name is Mirabello, not Miravello. --Heathenguy (talk) 07:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Still Still Waiting: "Personal Information"
Again, I'll repeat it: "Which I hoped you were going to acquire over time, as you said you started to take university courses, but so far I cannot see it has done much with your misplaced hyperbole". Excuse me? I suggest you start explaining on what grounds you've produced this fantasy personal information about me and why you thought Wikipedia was the venue for it before I take the next step with this. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Change my personal page
'''How about ==>>> this ? .......''' tell me please. פארוק (talk) 16:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

RfC on Caste
Would you like to weigh in (even if very briefly) in this RfC on Caste. Your experience on Wikipedia will be very helpful. The RfC link is: Talk:Caste

I have invited three other editors and announced my intention to do so here. Regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  22:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Dab, it is not about the India article; it is about this, the Caste, article in which a mere 478 words out of 9,443 are devoted to India. Even that content spends some of its time mentioning caste in non-South Asian cultures. This has been a POV pushed long on Wikipedia by nationalist editors from the days of Hkelkar, who attempt to universalize India's perceived social ills (and reel in Pakistan, Bangladesh, ..., Europe, Latin America, East Asia, ....   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard
Requesting your comments (conclusive, if possible) @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Tadeusz_Sulimirski_.26_Rahul_Sankrityayan — 117.207.62.240 (talk) 09:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Perlshaper script
Hi Dbachmann, I've just added 'PolyLine' support into my perlshaper mapping script. Feel free to give it a whirl and give me any suggestions you may have. It now assumes than any 'PolyLine' shape is a river, colouring it the same as the 'coastline' colour (I added a 'river' style). For NE data, it will consider the 'region name' to be the name of the river. This means that the river name will show up in the id tag of the surrounding group of the river(s). gringer (talk) 13:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Akan people
Hi Dbachmann, but I am creating a separate Akan people history article, upon the WikiProject Akan. The Akan also have nothing to do with the first Ivorian war, they are about 8 million in Ivory Coast and are farmers and peaceful there. In Ghana there are more Akans than in Ivory Coast. The Akans in Ivory Coast migrated there many centuries ago. MarkMysoe (talk) 15:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Your obvious editorialising makes me wonder whether you are the right person to write " a separate Akan people history article". Do you have any sort of personal stakes or bias in the topic? Or is your interest merely encyclopedic and academic? --dab (𒁳) 06:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I am expanding the coverage of Akan people on Wikipedia, as a Akan member and founder. I am not doing anything as if it is my personal blog. I have knowledge on the Akan people so I bring my knowledge to the topic, and correct wrong or inaccurate information. I have not been rude to you or done anything to you, so I do not know why you would behave like that to me. MarkMysoe (talk) 06:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I did not see the addition of the "ethnic identy" information that you contributed. It was not a intended removal of information. I have tried to improve the article, but it now looks depressed. That is all. Adding history links to British Togoland and French Togoland when Akan people do not have history or very little history on those two topics, and also adding history link to History of Ivory Coast when their are other ethnicities in Ivory Coast that founded different parts of Ivory Coast. Adding the link of the First Ivorian civil war to Akan history when the Akan in Ivory Coast number 8-9 million (under half of Ivory Coast's population) and live in the east of Ivory Coast, and were not perpetrators of the First Ivorian war (it was Kru people who live in western Ivory Coast and of which Laurent Gbagbo belongs to, and the Mandinka people who live in the north of Ivory Coast and of which Alassane Ouattara belongs to, and the Bété people who also happen to live in Western Ivory Coast), so the war and conflicts in Ivory Coast take place in the West or North Ivory Coast then eventually spreads to other parts of Ivory Coast, which are places that the Akans living in Ivory Coast inhabit as they are inhabitants of South Eastern Ivory Coast. A little research will inform you of this. Removing my contributions intended to improving the Akan people article, as the articles such as the Igbo article and Yoruba articles are, and then saying/threatening to block me, and saying that you are losing patience with me, when I have only come in contact with you three days ago or so, and I also did not once mention that I was Jimmy Wales. Continue with your contributions, and happy editing. MarkMysoe (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Please do not insult my intelligence. I can see what your trying to do. I added the commons:Category:Flags of Akan to the File:Gye nyame adinkra.png which you have just removed and also disrupted it's "Creative Commons licencing", probaly in a aim to get the "File:Gye nyame adinkra.png" Deleted from Wikipedia, because you have a unknowable issue with the image being available on Wikipedia. Once you had completed that procedure, you have then accused me of creating a empty commons:Category:Flags of Akan and commons:Category:Symbols of Akan. Well done for your extreme "Foul Play", and up right dishonesty. In all my time contributing to Wikipedia, I have never known any editor that could behave like the way you just have. I think just for what you have done, I'am totally thinking of leaving this project of Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales for the better of Humanity, but has recently especially since January 2012, become unreliable and "Corrupted" by "Special Agents editing information on Wikipedia. MarkMysoe (talk) 08:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Civil POV pushing? Pov pushing, original research and attempts to manipulate history (overemphasizing A = repressing B = POV = manipulative editing) are obvious. Civil POV pushing says it is difficult to deal with this, I will not deal with this, so no problem for me to say what I see. --Martin H. (talk) 22:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I "insulted the intelligence" of MarkMysoe by asking to follow the rules. That's what you get for "assuming good faith". I take this to mean that MarkMysoe says he knows perfectly well he is disregarding the rules, and it is "insulting" to pretend his behaviour is due to lack of intelligence rather than ill will. The only course here, of course, to take the conscious and "intelligent" attacks on project integrity on the part of MarkMysoe at face value from now on. --dab (𒁳) 10:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Dbachmann I'am sorry if I angered you in anyway Dbachmann, with regards to Wikipedia rulings. There is honestly nothing wrong this time, with uploading and adding a collage to a infobox, and adding two Akan historical and explanatory images to a history section that is without any images. It would have been correct to leave a message on the Talk:Akan people in-order to explain your undoing of an addition of three images intended on improving a article, and against the purpose of Wikipedia's goal of contribution, so that a edit war can be avoided. If you otherwise still have a personal problem with three images being included in a article intended to improve it, following this mature and responsible message from MarkMysoe to Dbachmann, when in fact it is not a problem in regards to the "Wikipedia rulings", then please leave a message stating your objection towards the intended goal and purpose of Wikipedia on the Talk:Akan people, and why a collage and two history related images cannot be included in a article, instead of undoing a "un-POV pushing" addition to a article, and summarizing the removal of a addition to a article as "POV pushing" when it is sincerely "un-POV pushing". I have left a note on the Talk:Akan people, in an attempt to not let this misunderstanding and to prevent a unwanted confrontation and edit warring between MarkMysoe and Dbachmann, like any composed action a Wikipedia editor would do, of contributing to a "un-POV pushing" addition of three images intended on improving a article. My sincere regards – MarkMysoe (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Kho-Bwa
Sulung is mentioned in Blench (2011) and in one of Matisoff's papers, so it's pretty certain that this is a language that deserves an article.

And you're right about Ethnologue not being gospel, and not to create too many stubs from it. Most of them were actually started up by User:kwamikagami. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Zalmoxis Aleksandrovo.jpg listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Zalmoxis Aleksandrovo.jpg, has been listed at Files for deletion. Please see the to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 18:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Tengrism
I'm glad you noticed. Drmies (talk) 14:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Protection of Mahabharata
Hi. This was semi'd some time ago and I we just received a note (OTRS/2012100410002289 from somebody trying to edit it. Could unprotection be considered? Rjd0060 (talk) 22:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why you would bother to honour the request of somebody who went to the trouble of submitting a "ticket" rather than simply creating an account and begin to edit and learn about the project just like everyone else. "I refuse to register an account, so I am going through the process of submitting a formal request to Wikimedia instead", yeah, this sounds like a promising contributor. Semiprotection is no obstacle at all to anyone who intends to invest any time at all in developing an article. The only bona-fide edits prevented by semiprotection are casual fixes on things like spelling and punctuation. In cases such as Mahabharata, the benefits of such casual fixes are vastly, by several orders of magnitude, outweighed by casual vandalism and ill-advised deterioration. --dab (𒁳) 10:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

About "three yogas"
Hi Dbachmann, last year you started a discussion in Talk:Three Yogas which had no following. I am taking this discussion one step ahead in the hope of a more encyclopedic article. I think this article should mention the issue you brought up. If you are still interested can you help me find a solution? Thank you. Hoverfish Talk 15:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I am also confused about the redirected title Four Yogas (Hinduism). I can't find its edit history. Did you create it as a redirect? Hoverfish Talk 16:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

German Identity
Hi Dbachmann, I just wanted to let you know I made an addition to a page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans#1990-present which you have semi-protected. I wanted to see if you deem my addition sufficient or if you think it belongs elsewhere. Cheers, (Timothysandole (talk) 14:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC))

it's alright, you don't have to notify me, you are perfectly within your rights to do with the page as you see fit, it is just semi-protected to keep out drive-by editing. This doesn't affect your ability or your rights to edit in the least. --dab (𒁳) 05:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Labarum
Me ineptum? I have re-worded the text to reflect that the translation is directly from the Greek text. I have tried, but was unable, to find the original Greek text of Eusebius to ascertain whether or not the word Τούτῳ alone is to be found, and therefore reference to "sign" constitutes a later accretion. The recent translation would suggest that the wording of the original 'celestial label', as it was directly attached to the sign itself, did not contain the word "sign" as such.

I am sure that you have noticed that I have in no instance removed or altered the 'traditional' wording of the Latin or its literal translation into English within the text. I am also sure that you recognise the appropriateness, in an encyclopedic context, of having an additional translation that is both from the original text and is framed in plain English. Always remember protege tuam pugam.Urselius (talk) 09:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Rossi
z. K.. Grüsse --KurtR (talk) 19:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Permanently block?
Some of Armenia-related articles continue to be vandalized by some anti-Armenia-style users. Check out edits history of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Maybe you should permanently semi-block this article similar to the History of Armenia template. ༆ (talk) 06:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

British Israelism
Hello Dbachmann.

I see that you have made some comments in relation to the above article, comments which I think are relevant to the situation at hand, so I am contacting you to request any input you may be able to contribute.

The situation at hand is that I made what I felt were some basic edits, and they were repeatedly deleted by a contributor, even after I made an adjustment.

I am basically new to this scenario, so I hadn't been aware of the Talk page, etc. At any rate, I have been reading the talk page, and the content of my edit had already been largely addressed by other contributors, including yourself.

So, since I am tackling the deplorable state of the article in question and intend to do a significant edit, I would like to try and build a little consensus, and the more the merrier in the that process!

I would appreciate it if you could take the time to read through the recent entries on the Talk page and participate in the course of events leading to as substantial an edit as possible.

Thanks. Ubikwit (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit

I assume you mean this edit? This seems to be mostly about phrasing, as in "belief" vs. "hypothesis" and so on, and thus it isn't so much a content dispute as a sort of trial-and-error process towards optimal presentation of content. I see that Itsmejudith has also contributed towards a compromise.

Also, regarding
 * Critics assert that the central tenets of British Israelism contradict modern genetic, linguistic, archaeological and philological evidence (see Research Findings below). 

I must say I agree with the deletion of this. Not because it isn't true but because it is ridiculous. It is possible to state facts in a way to make them ridiculous.

Come on, "critics" of British Israelism? That's a bit like talking of "critics" of Biblical literalism. This kind of eccentric fringe belief isn't really open to "criticism", at least not in any reasonable sense of the word. People who are into this stuff do not have any concept of "criticism" to begin with, so it is really pointless to pretend this is something that can or should be "critiziced". I mean, it would be also true to state that the existence of Santa Claus can be doubted on genetic, medical, linguistic and archaeological grounds, but it would still be silly to insert a paragraph into the Santa Claus article discussing how "critics" have applied these fields to make their case that the supposed forest-dwelling gift-bringer is not in fact the undead version of an ancient bishop of Asia Minor, even though it would be perfectly, ahem, justified to make such a case. --dab (𒁳) 08:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Do these interest you?
A new editor has created Gathering hypothesis and heavily edited Hunting hypothesis. They both need work. Dougweller (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

New world religions map
Dbachmann, if you have time, do you think you could create a new map for File:Religion distribution.png using the source you pointed out? The current/earliest ones are all very inaccurate. - M0rphzone (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That source got Bangladesh wrong, left out Christian regions in India near Bangladesh, left out Christian and Hindu regions in Indonesia, left out Buddhist regions in Kalmykia and Buryatia, and Christian regions in Ethiopia and Eritrea. And that's just what I notice off the top of the bat.  That map is terrible. 71.127.132.71 (talk) 19:04, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * uh yeah, it's the best we have so far. The alternative is just using a per-country scheme, which will be very objective but less informative. Or you could draw a better one, but you need a consistent granularity. If you represent the 180k Buddhist Kalmyks in your world map, you better make sure to make the same effort for all comparable religious minorities. --dab (𒁳) 15:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The comment by 71.127.132.71 also illustrates why I do not want to spend time drawing such a map. You can put in as much effort as you like, it will also be extremely easy for 71.127 and similar people to find fault with it. Perhaps best to use this scheme of indicating "locally important minority adherents", but of course somebody else needs to make the call what is "locally important", because no matter what you decide, 71.127 and his ilk are going to tell you that your choices were terrible.
 * Here is your input for the Middle East to get you started if you want to redraw the map with better resolution, have fun. --dab (𒁳) 15:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I later noticed that the source map I referred to earlier even confuses Nepal with Bhutan! Very sloppy, I'm sure someone can do better than that.  Kalmykia may have only 180,000 Buddhists, but per capita within a given region is the optimal standard for accurate maps, and Kalmykia is a rather large predominantly Buddhist state, that is also the officially Buddhist state in Europe. 71.246.147.212 (talk) 16:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * fine, how about you take the map, it is in the public domain after all, and fix it. Then come back and show me your handiwork and I will be happy to thank you for any improvement you have made, even if it is minute. If you do that I will make another improvement of your choice. --dab (𒁳) 13:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Ancient Thebes
Hi, we're currently discussing whether to merge the Ancient Thebes (Boeotia) article you created into the Thebes, Greece article. Markussep Talk 14:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Iclingas
Any comment on this? Note there is a current RfC/U on the editor who turned your redirect into an article. Dougweller (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * ah, the joys of the internet. Doug, y u no want to expand Wikipedia correctly? LOL. --dab (𒁳) 10:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)


 * ) Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Wuffa
Hi Dbachmann, I have left a message regarding Wuffa of East Anglia on its talk page. Hel-hama (talk) 20:37, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

KF
I know you're already bored by this subject but please check out this edits (removing Briant-Kuhrt as source). --109.165.241.212 (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've answered and I hope you didn't get me wrong. Cheers. --46.239.13.244 (talk) 16:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I hope the same, but as you rightly said, I am extremely bored with this. I happen to thing that the endless Azeri vs. Persian nationalists turf war on Wikipedia is disgraceful and an imposition of the patience and the resources of the community. I really wish these people would take their grievances elsewhere. I known this isn't going to happen any time soon, so when questioned I just tend to express my disgust with these editors and leave it at that. --dab (𒁳) 11:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Pau Bedson
Hi! At Requests_for_comment/Paul_Bedson you made a fairly lengthy comment in your endorsement to the view from Mangoe. It's usually best to keep an endorsement short -- many editors just list their name with no additional words -- and to place comments like this in a "view by" section. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You have my permission to move the comment if you like. In fact you also have my permission to collapse it into a diff link, or hide it in a collapsible box, whatever you feel makes the page more tidy. --dab (𒁳) 11:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. ''TheChampionMan1234 02:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Dubious tags in Rigveda
Great to see you active again. I'm confused by an old edit of yours. Can you explain what exactly is dubious ? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I reverted an edit which introduced blatant nonsense, and by reverting to the earlier revision, I noted that some claims which had been in there were themselves doubtful, or at least unreferenced. I think it is possible there is a 14th century RV manuscript, but I cannot vouch for it. Likewise, it is possible that the printing press was introduced to India in the 16th century, but I find the claim dubious. The burden of establishing such things as factual would lie with the people making them. Also, even if there was a printing press in 16th-century India, it would have been introduced by the Mughals, and it would certainly not have been used to print Vedic texts. I think the sentence is just a vandalized version of something I had written, that with the introduction of the printing press by the British in the 19th century, it also became possible to print the RV. It was printed, by Müller, in the 19th century. Whether there had been a printing press used by the Muslim rulers during earlier times is completely irrelevant to the topic of the article.

I have learned to be extremely skeptical of every minute change to this article. It seems that it is a favourite target of certain people, I must assume Indians, or at least Americans who identify as expatriate Indians, who do not have the first clue about the topic and simply fiddle with a few numbers as they see fit. The result is a misleading article, because the prose still radiates authority (because it was written by people who knew about the topic) but still wrong (because the figures have been messed with). --dab (𒁳) 20:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples.
Hi, can you please have your say in the split discussion about  Mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples  created by you ? In case of split can you start the issued article ? Happy new year. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 10:33, 1 January 2013 (UTC)


 * "In case of split can you start the issued article ?"
 * I am not sure I understand correctly. I am not usually writing by commission. You can split the articles if you have somebody ready to write the new articles. I you cannot if you do not. --dab (𒁳) 14:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * When an article is splitted, usually somebody creates a new artcle by copy and paste method. Thus one of the offsprings lacks the history page. That’s why I tried to reach you. Since my good intention annoys you, forget it. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * yes sorry, I appreciate your good intentions. I would just love to see your good intentions turned into two good articles. --dab (𒁳) 14:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Luo
I rv'd your changes to Luo languages. The Ethn. list is completely messed up: half of those aren't even Nilotic languages. — kwami (talk) 21:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

yeah ok, I admit that SIL was my only guide in this. You know what you are doing, I hope. --dab (𒁳) 14:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, SIL said they'd fix this for the 17th ed. It's typical of the problems they get from automating their trees. In this case, two clades w the same name were confused. (Generally the SIL trees should not be used as evidence for classification, only statements actually made in the articles for the individual languages.) — kwami (talk) 00:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Apris - is it true?
Hello Dbachmann,

Is there are verification/source as to what is said in Wikipedia artice "Apris" is true? I would like to use the name for something big...

Thanks, Tamir. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.179.213.214 (talk) 21:42, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It's basically what's in Monier-Williams. The source is Sayana. I didn't check the details. --dab (𒁳) 10:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I did some quick research. The existence of 12 Apris is mentioned by Sayana, in the late 14th century. The enumeration of 10 Aprisuktas is due to Gargya Narayana, with roughly the same date as Sayana. The existence of various Apris for various schools (but no fixed number) is mentioned earlier, already in shrauta-sutra literature. I assume that they aren't saying that there are exactly 12, or 10, Apris or Aprisuktas. They are saying that each gotra could basically pick their own. I assume this was like a bit like a "tartan", a clan symbol which developed in the final centuries BCE with the emergence of the early Hindu gotra system. If you had a gotra, you could go and pick a hymn to Agni as your own Aprisukta. --dab (𒁳) 11:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, Tamir, before you use the name "Apris" for "something big" (like a company name? or just a tattoo?) just try to talk somebody who knows about this. Be aware that "Apris" is just the anglicized plural. The Sanskrit plural is āpryas, from an older (Vedic) āpriyas. --dab (𒁳) 12:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Rigveda 10000 years old?
Your comments would be useful at WP:RSN. I also note that Ratha, an article you edited, now has some very pov language in it. And sources without page numbers - not sure if you have any of the sources. Dougweller (talk) 08:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Claims about an age of 10000 years of the Vedas do not need to be discussed because they are in no way serious. You can argue about Bronze Age dates, as the Vedas hark back to the Bronze age (although the bulk dates to hte Iron Age). Arguing a Neolithic date is out of the question. Arguing a Mesolithic or Paleolithic date is simply bizarre, you could as well argue it was two billion years old for all the difference it would make to the sanity of the claim. People come up with stupid shit all the time, and it cannot be our responsiblity to react it all. Randy in Boise. --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, but as it was at RSN it couldn't just be ignored. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You know I know you know :) --dab (𒁳) 09:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. InShaneee (talk) 03:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Your involved use of admin toolbox to lock Kouroukan Fouga to your pov version
It is clear from your recent involvement with Kouroukan Fouga that you have a strong personal opinion against the authenticty of the document, and that you express distaste that any Subsaharan ruler such as Sundiata Keita could establish a supreme law or constitution as long ago as 1236 and be preserved by griots. Not surprisingly, an anonymous IP soon reverted to the previous version (which is actually not at all a copyvio as you claim) before you had turned it upside-down, per BRD. I am very disappointed to see where you then responded by resorting to your admin toolbox, and locked the page on your POV version. I thought at least this should have been performed by an uninvolved admin. Other admins do not even do this, what gives you the right to? Let us all please improve the article with due process. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:44, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

so you admit you were the anonymous editor? Or how are you suggesting semiprotection "locked" the version? And what "pov"? The removal of blatant copyright violation? Or how is the verbatim reproduction of two pages of English text published in 2004 (or 1998) not a copyvio? Care to explain that? I know you tend to be working against the project goals, but this is going a little bit far in terms of admitting to your agenda, don't you think? --dab (𒁳) 06:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I was categorically NOT the anonymous editor, and have no idea who the anonymous editor was. Once again, you have misunderstood and are barking up the wrong tree.  Or perhaps just trying to distract attention from the fact that, regardless of any other irrelevant circumstances you could point at, the "page locking" still wasn't done by any UNINVOLVED admin. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * are you having reading comprehension problems? There was anonymous vandalism, so I semiprotected the page. I did not "lock" the page, and you are still able to edit. You are also welcome to edit as long as your edits are constructive. My actions did not impinge on your editing privileges in the least. You are the one who came to my talkpage to bark up some tree. You clearly have no reason to complain, so perhaps you could just go away and waste somebody else's time for a change. Thank you. --dab (𒁳) 14:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course I can still edit the semi-locked page. No matter how you try to color or spin it, the point you are missing is that you use your admin toolbox to settle a personal dispute. Since I have tried to raise this as a serious overall issue for wikipedia (irrespective of whether or not I can now edit that page), and you have responded with what can only be called "arrogance", this goes next to ANI. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:29, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

A personal dispute with an IP adress? Over what? Over whether it is ok to vandalise Wikipedia?

Ok, if you like, I used semiprotection to "resolve" a "personal dispute" with an IP adress over the question whether they should vandalize Wikipedia. This is exactly what the protection tool is for in the first place. Are you happy now? Then please leave me alone. Yes, complain to ANI over my reluctance to allow vandalism and copyright violation, I am sure this will be the next great wikiscandal. --dab (𒁳) 14:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Improvements to Law of One
Hi, I like the thrust of your The Law of One improvements and made a comment here Talk:The_Law_of_One. Your insults hurt my feelings but I recognize the merit of your edits that I never got to see because they were reverted.Bilbobagginsesprecious (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I did not mean to insult you. I seriously did not believe it possible that you were serious about suggesting your article for inclusion. For all in the world it looked like you were making fun of Wikipedia. If you are serious about editing, perhaps you should practice with uncontroversial articles, such as neglected articles on minor settlements. There is no way that "The Law of One" is going to be accepted and left alone in its current state. It will either be deleted or else radically cut down in content and scope. "The Law of One" is only of interest inasmuch it contributed to some notable effect such as the "2012 phenomenon" hysteria. As such, it can easily be treated briefly in a paragraph in another article. If you want to keep a standalone article on this thing, you'll need to tread more carefully. --dab (𒁳) 09:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't write the article, I only added the citations. I wrote on that article because it's something I know about. I also think it's extremely important to have neutral coverage of cranky topics, because the neutral coverage helps vulnerable people to confront the reality of their beliefs from an objective and mainstream perspective. For instance, if people are going to believe that someone talking in a trance is communication with aliens, it doesn't help to outlaw all discussion of this belief from rational discussion. By ostracizing certain topics, the mentally ill are just pushed into unhealthy ghettos and never get to talk to sane people. A rational and neutral discussion of insane topics like aliens is extremely socially beneficial and inline with the goals of wikipedia which I why I chose to improve that article. Bilbobagginsesprecious (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * well, then you should try to avoid in-universe writing, and also keep your referencing operation within reasonable bounds in order to avoid WP:BOMBARDMENT.
 * I do believe you misunderstand the point of Wikipedia. It is not to general "discussion of beliefs", there are plenty of online fora to talk about anything you like. Wikipedia is certainly not a place where the "mentally ill" are encouraged to "talk to sane people". Yes, Wikipedia is about rational and neutral discussion of notable topics, it doesn't matter if they are sane or insane, but the important point is that in cases of insane topics, the discussion is NOT with the insane, it is strictly about the insane. See also WP:TIGERS.
 * We have articles about war crime, about insanity, and about penguins. Our "insanity" topics are not written in collaboration with the insane any more than our articles on war crime are written in collaboration with war criminals, or than our articles about penguins are written in collaboration with penguins. --dab (𒁳) 11:28, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Who is collaborating? Unless you think I'm the insane one, I don't see myself as collaborating. The article is about the crazy beliefs of a modern religion. It is is about those books and the beliefs inside of them. An encyclopedia should cover crazy topics--explaining exactly how they are crazy without obfuscation or proselytizing. The biggest threat to Scientology, for instance, is a straightforward description of their actual beliefs. They don't want this; they would prefer to bring people in slowly through their indoctrination process. Wikipedia should puncture this process by clearly and explicitly laying down the core beliefs without all the bullshit. The Law of One source material is extremely dense--it draws people in through a convoluted drama. Ultimately, the ideas are simple and can be summed up by the Wikipedia article--the article exposes those ideas. When a new convert to the religion googles The Law of One, they can see the belief system laid out clearly. They won't be hoodwinked. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to get to the facts quickly, objectively, and in an informative way. This articles gets straight to the facts--a book that is claimed to be written by an alien. A failed claim that 2012 will bring apocalypse and ascension. An assortment of metaphysical beliefs that equate to a hodgepodge of old religious ideas.
 * I take your point about WP:BOMBARDMENT. The question is how to write a WP:NOR article without WP:BOMBARDMENT--this is literally impossible. The WP:NOR is a nonsense policy that, when faithfully applied, can only lead to WP:BOMBARDMENT.
 * At this point I'm hoping the article will be deleted just so I don't have to worry about it anymore. For every hour of actual work, wikipedians spend five hours defending their contributions against deletionist admins--who don't even follow their own rules. I could contribute to conventional "acceptable" articles that won't be attacked by incurious deletionists--but all the mainstream topics have already been substantially covered by others. I have little to add that wouldn't run into ownership issues or fall prey to WP:BOMBARDMENT. I could become a copy-editor--but my interest is with sources, scholarship, commentary, review, cataloging ideas, and of course original productive research. Has anyone pointed out that to ban original research means that, in theory, all wikipedia articles should be nothing but plagiarism? WP:NOR is philosophically nonsense. You can't conceptually have articles that are WP:NOR without those articles being 100% plagiarism. The emperor in charge of this behemoth has no clothes. Bilbobagginsesprecious (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * My sincerest apologies

It seems I misinterpreted your edits on The Law of One. My apologies. --Neoconfederate (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I am not sure what you mean, but in any case I am done with the topic, I decided it was not worth my time fighting over properly representing a cranky topic such as this. I need to learn to be more relaxed about Wikipedia containing crap in content areas that do not a lot of damage and focus on fixing the more urgent problems first. --dab (𒁳) 09:09, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Mystery solved?
Hi. I see you asked: "Why a secret society would need a promotional website is anyone's guess."

I think this man might have the answer:

"What's the point of being the world's top secret agent if you can't tell anyone?"

(I've not been paying much attention to Wikipedia recently, but I checked out your contributions yesterday and that comment of yours was the funniest thing I've read round here for quite some time).

Cheers,

--Folantin (talk) 11:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I am glad you liked it. It's not like the people I am addressing here are appreciating the esprit I try to put into these depressing cases, so it is comforting that the effort is not entirely wasted :) --dab (𒁳) 11:21, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Kokino
Hi, Dbachmann. Do you believe the site is a megalithic observatory? --Ghirla-трёп- 12:51, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea. Possibly? To be treated with reservation, as the Bosnian pyramids teach us, people in this region are very easily enthused about their prehistory? The UNESCO "World Heritage Site" may confer notability, but certainly not credibility. It is a disgrace how this organization lets itself be abused for nationalist political games. They will just put stuff on their lists if they realize people would really like to be on that list. --dab (𒁳) 12:56, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not a World Heritage site, just a proposal submitted by the government of Macedonia. --Ghirla-трёп- 06:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * good catch, Ghirla, it turns out this is very fishy. Apparently, it is a bona fide Bronze Age site, but the entire "observatory" thing is, as so often, spurious. The man campaigning about it is apparently not Stankovski (who may well be a bona fide archaeologist), but a chap called Gjore Cenev. --dab (𒁳) 08:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I figured out the original publications now. I am not saying they are wrong, or this isn't an observatory. I am just saying I have learned to be very suspicious when local patriots discover something like that, and after ten years, there are still exactly two men who are excited by it and keep publishing stuff about "Ancient Secrets". --dab (𒁳) 09:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The Rorschach test analogy is spot on. I'm duly impressed with your sleuthing competence. It takes quite some time to investigate such claims, doesn't it? --Ghirla-трёп- 10:22, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I had an extended wikibreak so I am once again able to do this kind of stuff. I do have a day job by the way :) but it's a laid-back kind of academic job so I can spend lots of time in between doing this sort of online research. --dab (𒁳) 11:40, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Gjore Cenev and axis tilt
More on Mr. Cenev, based on the photographs in this document I must say I am not sure if the entire thing isn't an elaborate Rorschach test. But what really makes me wonder about the qualifications of this Gorje Cenev is the description of the "coordinates of the markers" for summer solstice at Kokino and Stonehenge: What on earth does this even mean? What is the "coordinate" of solstice? Does he mean the compass direction of the sunrise? But why "2000 BC"? Does he think that the direction of sunrise depends on the astronomical epoch? It does not, it depends on your geographical latitude. On the polar circle, the direction of sunrise on summer solstice is 0°, true north, no matter if you live in 2000 BC or 2000 AD. So why should he point out that his angle is identical to the one at Stonehenge? Stonehenge is at 51N, and Kokino is at 42N. According to sollumis.com, on 21 June:
 * Kokino: Sunrise Azimuth	57°
 * Stonehenge: Sunrise Azimuth 	50°

"There is very good compliance of the results" indeed.

This looks for all in the world as if Mr. Cenev had read the 1963 report on Stonehenge he cites, learned that he must find an angle of 23,9° somewhere, and then went and did find this angle. Maybe I am misreading this, but then what in the world is this thing about "coordinates of solstice markers", and what is measured by "23,9°" in both Stonehenge and Kokino? The sad thing is that I don't put it past UNESCO to put the site on the list without even bothering to look for such glaring problems in the "evidence" presented. --dab (𒁳) 11:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Cenev:
 * Mathematical calculations show that in 1800 B.C. in the day of the summer solstice the Sun had the following coordinates: azimuth A = 67° 57’ 54” and height h = 11° 21’ 42” declination δ = 23° 54’ 05”. That means that in the day of the summer solstice in 1800 B.C. Sun was right above the rift of the marker. Today, 3800 years later due to so called precession, Sun declination changed and is δ  = 23° 26’ 20”. As a result of these reasons in the day of the summer solstice in 2004 the Sun had following horizon coordinates: azimuth A = 67° 54’ and height h = 10° 42’.

Would you believe this guy is head of a planetarium? The figures may be correct, but the difference in declination is hardly "due to so called precession". It is due, if correct, to a change in axis tilt, apparently by less than half a degree. Regarding azimuth and altitude ("height"), he doesn't express himself clearly, but I take it he is simply describing sunrise as seen from the "sky watcher central position" of his obervatorium. The h parameter is then just a function of what the horizon looks like from that spot, and the A parameter the associated azimuth. I still have no idea what the "23,9°" "coordinate" is supposed to be. My impression is that this guy does not really know what he is talking about. And he is the big astronomy expert trying to convince the UNESCO this is an observatory.

So, it isn't my job to review his stuff, and the site has notability in any case just as a Bronze Age settlement, but my impression is that the whole observatory thing is very, very dubious, and probably little more than the hobby-horse of Mr. Cenev. --dab (𒁳) 14:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I figured out what this is about. He is trying to date the site by determining axis tilt. "coordinate of solstice" is just an oblique way of saying "axis tilt". His 23,9° figure is the same as his 23° 54’ 05”. He is therefore claiming to be able to measure the alignment of his observatory to an accuracy of 6’ difference in axis tilt. This would require a precision of less about one or two arc minutes in the actual alignment. This is theoretically possible, but you would need an alignment of two notches, you cannot just observe one notch from a "central position".

According to out axis tilt article,
 * $&epsilon; = 23&deg; 26&prime; 21.448&Prime; &minus; 4680.93&Prime; T &minus; 1.55&Prime; T^{2} + 1999.25&Prime; T^{3} &minus; 51.38&Prime; T^{4} &minus; 249.67&Prime; T^{5} &minus; 39.05&Prime; T^{6} + 7.12&Prime; T^{7} + 27.87&Prime; T^{8} + 5.79&Prime; T^{9} + 2.45&Prime; T^{10}$, where here $T$ is multiples of 10,000 Julian years from J2000.0.

"According to mathematical calculations", I take this to yield 23.99 for 2000 BC, 23.84 for 1000 BC and 23.7 for 0AD/BC. Using this to date an alignment of some notches in a jagged landscape requires fantastic precision, and I would like to see some error bars on that. --dab (𒁳) 07:43, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

February 2013
Hello, I'm Sowlos. Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions, but we try hard to make sure articles have a neutral point of view. Your recent edit to Wheel of the Year seemed less than neutral to me, so I removed it for now. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. — Sowlos 18:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Template:Paganism (contemporary). Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. Thank you. ''Your edit appeared to be more of a 'hostile takeover' by WP:COI editor than the uncontroversial move you reverted. Please refrain from attacking other editors and please consider heading to the talk page before altering the naming scheme of an article series. You may respond at the talk page if you have any further disagreements or concerns.'' — Sowlos 18:10, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Peter Joseph - Notabilty
I presumed Peter Joseph is notable because he has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. 4 millions of notability reasons — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magomandrake (talk • contribs) 13:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The question is, does his biography have notability beyond his WP:1E association with the "Zeitgeist Movement". Obviously, he is notable enough to be discussed within the "Zeitgeist" article. The question is, just how many article about him should we carry? I see no notability sufficient for "standalone" coverage. This is more than suggested by the brevity of his "biography" article, which does not have more substance than what could be covered in a brief paragraph at the main "Zeitgeist" page. --dab (𒁳) 13:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

On inline hieroglyphs
Hello Dbachmann. I need to be able to use inline hieroglyphs for some pages I'm working on. I noticed that you proposed a div workaround on the page Help:WikiHiero syntax. But as may be seen from the example given, as well as my own poor attempts, it doesn't work, or perhaps no longer works. Do you have any other ideas about how to achieve an inline hieroglyph or hieroglyph group? Any suggestions would be extremely welcome!! Thanks--NfrHtp (talk) 14:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

March 2013
Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to His Holiness, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. AJ Kirwin (talk) 15:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * AJ Kirwin (talk) 19:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

For interest
Please don't take this as in any way polemic. It is not at all intended as such. I just think that you might be interested in this article. Esoglou (talk) 11:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

well thank you, I do not see what could be polemic about this link, but is there anything in particular you wanted to draw my attention to? As far as I can see, Wikipedia has already much deeper coverage than what is on that page, and these day journalistic pieces are more often than not actually based on Wikipedia. I know I would base my stuff on Wikipedia if I was an under-paid journalist. --dab (𒁳) 08:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Weringerode Armorial
Why is there a discrepancy between the article title "Weringerode" and the lead sentence ("Wernigerode")? -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:32, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

It's just a typo. --dab (𒁳) 09:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Elder Futhark reference
Several years ago you inserted a reference to Wetergaard, without a title or anything else. Would you please complement?
 * —Lgfcd (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I can comment if you can show me the diff. I have made some 2E+5 edits over the years, and I cannot remember them all. I imagine it will be apparent from the context, perhaps the same work was cited elsewhere on the page. --dab (𒁳) 17:34, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

In case you are referring to the current footnote 7,
 * "Westergaard (1981) postulates occurrence in 34 Vimose and 23 Letcani, rejected by Odenstedt (1990:118)"

which may well have been inserted by me several years ago, I have to say,
 * it's Westergaard, not Wetergaard
 * it was not "without a title or anything else", but clearly cited after Odenstedt (1990), complete with page number and full biographical details in the bibliography. In other words, if you want to find Odenstedt's source, which for your convenience I cited along with the actual reference, you have two options:
 * you can consult the reference I gave
 * you can google "Westergaard (1981)" which immediately yields Kai-Erik Westergaard, Skrifttegn og symbooler, Oslo, 1981.

But perhaps my sarcasm is misplaced and you are referring to something entirely different. Then please show me the diff. --dab (𒁳) 17:41, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

 * Sockpuppet of Paul Bedson. . Dougweller (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * well as long as the sock is just used to give me barnstars I can't say I object too much :) --dab (𒁳) 07:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You put merge tags on a number of this sock's articles - now all deleted by me. Dougweller (talk) 12:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, Doug, perhaps the articles could indeed have been merged instead of deleted. The Varðlokkur page consisted of this


 * In Old Norse tradition, Varðlokkur was a magical incantation to summon protective spirits. In the Saga of Erik the Red, Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir is alleged to have learned the varðlokkur from her  pagan foster mother. She sings the invocation at a ritual conducted by Þorbjörg Lítilvölva, who suggested that it was sung well enough to attract several helpful ghosts.

Now, this isn't an "article", but it could very well become a paragraph in Saga of Erik the Red, or in some article on Old Norse magic (Seidhr etc.), or it could be dumped on wiktionary, which lacking the word. No, of course we shouldn't stoop to spending time discussing a guy who calls people "institutionalized racist", but this doesn't mean we need to go out of our way to lose relevant content. --dab (𒁳) 06:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Bedson misused sources - see the RfC - thus all his articles are tainted. Although he denies it, he was given a lot of lack for a long time and a lot of advice more recently which he ignored. I wasn't going to check the sources myself, and I also like many others have strong feelings about socks. I was also unwilling to decide some should be kept and others not. I did leave the links in so they became red and others might recreate them. Dougweller (talk) 09:43, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not objecting to the ban, indeed I would myself smack IPs for block evasion as they come in. Quite apart from that, I question the validity of your syllogism of "Bedson misused sources - thus all his articles are tainted." I am not blaming you Doug, even though I do not share "strong feelings" towards socks, I just see them as a minor inconvenience. I am not asking you to sift through a banned user's contributions to decide what should be kept. What I am saying is simply that I have done this for you in a small number of cases, I have reviewed the stubs, and what you ended up deleting was my version of the stub, even if derived from a sock's contribution, and I am not a sock of anyone's. --dab (𒁳) 11:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I should rephrase that to 'all his edits are tainted'. Is there anything you actually want me to do here? Obviously you are no sock. Do you want help recreating anything from scratch? Dougweller (talk) 11:42, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No Doug, please accept my thanks: I am grateful that you are still around and taking care of the trolls. I realise that more often than not this is a thankless job. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * That's much appreciated. Dougweller (talk) 19:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Douglas seal
Hi, I wondered whether you could elucidate on your assertion that this seal is a fake? I have no access to MacAndrew's work, though I am presently ordering a copy, and the googlebooks link does not allow access to page 141 which according to the index discusses seals. Certainly the seal of the 1st Earl of Douglas's son, James Douglas, 2nd Earl of Douglas and Mar, is in the Gelre Armorial, and is the same, excepting the Mar quarterings. Regards. Brendandh (talk) 09:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, google books displays p. 141 for me, I don't know what they base this difference in access on. I can send you a screenshot if you like, but of course I also do not have access to the entire book.

McAndrews calls it "a dubious seal" and explains "The seal's complexity, with two ordinaries juxtaposed, makes it very questionable." He doesn't go into further detail, as the seal is not his present focus on that page.

Do you have a link to an image of the Douglas arms in the Gelre Armorial? Should be fol. 64v. --dab (𒁳) 10:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Not a particularly good one, but it is here: No. 288. You have to flick through quite a few pages! Brendandh (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

No. 288 (plate 51). You are right, the drawing corresponds exactly to File:Blason Douglas-Mar.svg (and File:Seal of 2nd Earl of Douglas.jpg), at least as far as the Douglas coa is concerned. This is interesting to me. So if McAndrew is right, the William Douglas seal could not have been "faked" more than 20 or 30 years after William's death. --dab (𒁳) 11:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

This is the seal that McAndrew is referring to as dubious I think rather than this one. The problem with the first is the fess chequy below the chief. Brendandh (talk) 09:58, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I am grateful you took the trouble to double-check this. I will look into it again over the coming week. But I really appreciate it, it bugs me when I make mistakes like this. --dab (𒁳) 15:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)