Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-01-29 Sassanid Empire infobox

Who are the involved parties?
Various editors, mostly from Wikiproject Iran, prefer to represent the map of the Sassanid Empire (a subject of Wikiproject Iran) to include territory occupied by the Sassanids during a war in the early 7th century with the Byzantines. A few other users have previously pointed out that this map exaggerates the extent of the Sassanid Empire, but this position is now taken primarily by User:Larry Dunn.

What's going on?
The key to the objection is that the territory was lost by the Iranians during the course of the war when it was taken back by the Byzantines, and the Sassanid Empire lost all of these territories, and more besides, when the war was over, so the territories shown as annexed were never in fact "conquered" or "annexed".

An analogous situation would be the German occupation of parts of France, and much of European Russia, toward the end of WWI. When Germany was defeated, the territories were lost. a map showing the German Empire, which indicated that France and Russia were annexed by the Germans, would never be tolerated on Wikipedia, as users would see a clear bias in such a claim. Unfortunately, on a more obscure topic, there is much less outside vetting, leaving the page to users who may not do objective vetting.

This contest has previously taken place, last year, and a de facto comprimise was reached when 1) the Iranian users got the map showing the territory held for a time during the war with the Byzantines and 2) Larry Dunn inserted the comment that this land was temporarily occupied during the war with the Byzantines. User:CreazySuit, an account which appears to have been created primarily to change this template, then reverted back to old language, claiming the territory as conquered by the Sassanids. An edit war ensued, and an admin, User:Nishkid64, chose to lock the template as edited by the Creazysuit account. Larry Dunn (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

What would you like to change about that?
I would like to see the compromise reached in 2007 restored. The Iranians get to show the territory taken for part of the war with the Byzantines, as long as the map clearly indicates as such. Larry Dunn (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Administrative notes
I suggest we close this request - unfortunately it seems unlikely that informal mediation will be of much help. Addhoc (talk) 01:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Xavexgoem (talk) 01:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)