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::I just notice all your guyses comments -- listen all my changes were throughly documented on the discussion pages for all the articles. Especially all the aggregation of people who according to completely different criteria belong to Germans, Danes, Norwegians, Austrians -- that is simply unscientific by any account. You want evidence for how Germans, etc. are defined -- well the only instance that gives you such a definition is the government of the country in question. Otherwise you should provide counter-evidence that the majority of the world population in fact defines Germans in an "ethnic way" according to which there are 155 million people that qualify according to that criteria. I am not promoting my own political opinion here -- this is what the countries in question have come to using democratci processes. Most of these countries have conservative governments. --[[User:Johanneswilm|Johanneswilm]] ([[User talk:Johanneswilm|talk]]) 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC) |
::I just notice all your guyses comments -- listen all my changes were throughly documented on the discussion pages for all the articles. Especially all the aggregation of people who according to completely different criteria belong to Germans, Danes, Norwegians, Austrians -- that is simply unscientific by any account. You want evidence for how Germans, etc. are defined -- well the only instance that gives you such a definition is the government of the country in question. Otherwise you should provide counter-evidence that the majority of the world population in fact defines Germans in an "ethnic way" according to which there are 155 million people that qualify according to that criteria. I am not promoting my own political opinion here -- this is what the countries in question have come to using democratci processes. Most of these countries have conservative governments. --[[User:Johanneswilm|Johanneswilm]] ([[User talk:Johanneswilm|talk]]) 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC) |
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== Childish pseudohistory == |
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Please check three maps: |
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* [[:File:Armenian Empire2.png|Armenian Empire2.png]] |
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* [[:File:Armenian Empire3.png|Armenian Empire3.png]] |
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* [[:File:MapSlide.jpg|MapSlide.jpg]] |
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All of them are made by one Armenian lad called [[User:Aram-van|Aram-van]] who is trying to convince us that '''[[Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)|Kingdom of Armenia]]''' stretched as far as India, China and Africa (as you can see it [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)&action=historysubmit&diff=414665864&oldid=414662221 here], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)&action=historysubmit&diff=417620906&oldid=417276239 here] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)&action=historysubmit&diff=417996899&oldid=417932433 here]). I'll also notice [[User:Dougweller|Dougweller]] about that issue since you aren't much active as I can see from leading infobox. --[[Special:Contributions/109.60.17.202|109.60.17.202]] ([[User talk:109.60.17.202|talk]]) 02:58, 10 March 2011 (UTC) |
Revision as of 02:58, 10 March 2011
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WP:ANI
- I imagine this block probably came as a bit of a horrible shock. I've unblocked both of you, per my comments at AN/I. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- actually, not as a horrible shock, but as a useful opportunity to reflect on the state of the wiki and my role in it. I will consider this for a few more days to avoid rashness, but I am thinking of having myself de-adminned, as the flak I am getting just for being an admin stands in no proportion to the usefulness of the occasional page-move or vandal-slapping. I will also consider moving on to being more active on sister projects such as wiktionary and de-wiki instead of giving more of my time to difficult areas on en-wiki. This "God of Israel" thing is really an excellent test case, as it shows the capability of the admin community to deal with clashes of educated editors with the absolutely clueless editing out of pure ideology or religious sentiment. WP:Experts are scum has always been a problem here, but it is up to the admins to tip the balance in favour of those with a clue. If the admin community cannot perform this, these religious topics will turn out as useless trash.
- This does not mean I simply class anyone who disagrees with me as an uneducated hack. I am perfectly able to distinguish informed disagreement from simple failure to grasp the issue. I have frequently accused Deacon of Pndapetzim of bias, yet I would never group him with the likes of Jheald, as he is clearly willing and able to read and discuss encyclopedic references. But the reality we are facing is that the religion topics are swarming with uneducated hacks. Not just the religionists, also the teenage atheists, both equally ideological and clueless. I used to be willing to spend time directing such deadlocks towards an encyclopedic outcome, and I have years of experience of how to do this, but right now I am seriously considering why I should think this is worth my time. --dab (𒁳) 12:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- I imagine this block probably came as a bit of a horrible shock. I've unblocked both of you, per my comments at AN/I. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- No comment on this particular situation, but unfortunately what you describe is just the way of English wiki. Most admins and arbitrators are unsuited to encyclopedic activities, don't have enough expertise to see the problems such editors bring and in any case regard themselves as being above the drudgery of content editing and childishness of caring about accuracy. I have a feeling this is reinforced by the US thing, a natural suspicion in US culture towards intellectuals as the natural enemies of the truest authority, market democracy.[1] So you'll just need to give less attention to controversial/popular content or accept that you will be blocked quite regularly for your efforts. I myself stay away from popular articles for this very reason, and there are several other areas I now avoid because they have been overrun by cranks. That still leaves plenty of areas for me to contribute. There are plenty of areas for yourself too if you want to contribute without maximum hassle. I think you have done remarkably well so far, though I don't think you make your own efforts any easier with the way you talk to/about them. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- Please do stay around on en.wiki, dab. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- For your information, Deacon, I do both content and administrative work. I recently made a major overhaul of Sante Kimes, which was being edited by someone with a massive and obvious COI. There was eventually a need for some administrative action there and as I was involved I did what I was supposed to do and found another uninvolved admin to handle it. And dab, I won't be apologizing or scrubbing your block log either. I realize you probably don't think much of me at this point but all of this has been in the interest of getting you to see the forest through the trees. Move warring and edit warring are unacceptable from any user, let alone an experienced administrator. I realize religious articles are a hotbed of uninformed, pushy behavior but what you have been doing is not helping the situation. I'm not trying to run you off, but I do think you have lost your way a bit and need to get some perspective on these issues. Much of the remainder of what Deacon has said above is good advice. There are plenty of areas of Wikipedia that could use the attention of a highly experienced user such as yourself that are not full of angry POV pushers. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- You "think you have lost your way a bit and need to get some perspective on these issues"? And your way of doing that is slapping me with a block without prior warning? Are you out of your mind or something? Perhaps you should consider handing in your admin buttons. I may have moved a semi-protected article, but at least I don't go around blocking veteran editors for no good reason.
- I have repeatedly asked you to step in and show how you propose to resolve the situation. I don't see you making any progress. This is probably because "hodbeds" such as this need experienced admins, with balls. As long as you do not have it in you to tackle this sort of situation, I will thank you for not stabbing those in the back who do. It is the angry POV pushers that make this difficult. Have a look at my contribution history, I do lots of edits to articles without these, it's not like I am somehow addicted to the angry mob attention.
- There are two ways for you to redeem yourself. Either apologize to me, or else, if you are too proud for that, grow a pair of your own and step in and show how you would handle the situation. That's the vastly more difficult approach, as you would begin with reading up on the actual encyclopedic content involved, but it is also the approach that would benefit the project the most (if you are up to it).
- Note that I do not insist on or even prefer an apology from you. I would much prefer seeing you actually fix the problem. I am not here to make friends, or to gain status, or to be respected. I am here to write encyclopedic articles, and I will prefer an unfriendly editor who gets things done over a friendly chap who just makes a mess of things any day. --dab (𒁳) 12:05, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
- Sigh. No, I haven't lost my mind, and my testicles are just fine. Just because I haven't chosen to become your pawn and join your "enforcement action" here doesn't mean I am incapable of acting in any such situation as you very nastily imply here. I blocked you for edit warring, which you did. You've been blocked for it before and we had already discussed the ill-advised nature of your actions in this area, so you were already more than adequately warned. Unfortunately you seem to be one of those users who has managed to make themselves immune to the rules and nothing short of an ArbCom case can stop you. And now you are making nasty personal attacks at me, so I will not be engaging in any further direct discussion with you. Please do resign your adminship, you have become truly lost and out of touch, despite what your apologists would have us believe. Goodbye. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
- For your information, Deacon, I do both content and administrative work. I recently made a major overhaul of Sante Kimes, which was being edited by someone with a massive and obvious COI. There was eventually a need for some administrative action there and as I was involved I did what I was supposed to do and found another uninvolved admin to handle it. And dab, I won't be apologizing or scrubbing your block log either. I realize you probably don't think much of me at this point but all of this has been in the interest of getting you to see the forest through the trees. Move warring and edit warring are unacceptable from any user, let alone an experienced administrator. I realize religious articles are a hotbed of uninformed, pushy behavior but what you have been doing is not helping the situation. I'm not trying to run you off, but I do think you have lost your way a bit and need to get some perspective on these issues. Much of the remainder of what Deacon has said above is good advice. There are plenty of areas of Wikipedia that could use the attention of a highly experienced user such as yourself that are not full of angry POV pushers. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- Please do stay around on en.wiki, dab. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- No comment on this particular situation, but unfortunately what you describe is just the way of English wiki. Most admins and arbitrators are unsuited to encyclopedic activities, don't have enough expertise to see the problems such editors bring and in any case regard themselves as being above the drudgery of content editing and childishness of caring about accuracy. I have a feeling this is reinforced by the US thing, a natural suspicion in US culture towards intellectuals as the natural enemies of the truest authority, market democracy.[1] So you'll just need to give less attention to controversial/popular content or accept that you will be blocked quite regularly for your efforts. I myself stay away from popular articles for this very reason, and there are several other areas I now avoid because they have been overrun by cranks. That still leaves plenty of areas for me to contribute. There are plenty of areas for yourself too if you want to contribute without maximum hassle. I think you have done remarkably well so far, though I don't think you make your own efforts any easier with the way you talk to/about them. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- You know all about when to switch to less controversial content or to devote your time and brains to other channels. At the same time, the work you do here in controversial areas is multiple the value, because we sadly lack people (with or without tools) who have the tenacity, knowledge, imagination and sense of reality to handle all sorts of tendentious editing in these fields. I cannot really characterize this incident positively, but I don't think it's very relevant, à la longue. Just like previous incidents, including an arbcom case with an odd outcome, haven't proven to be very relevant. Just time-wasting. You are the best judge of how and where to invest your energy, but you'd leave a vacuum here. I echo Itsmejudith's request. If this all makes me an apologist, so be it. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
- At the risk of being branded an "apologist", I agree, although I wouldn't blame you if took a long break from patrolling Wikipedia's no-go areas. Why not join the New Model Admin corps for a change? Then you can spend hours on end discussing minor points of process in a nice warm police station. Judging from the current ANI thread, this is predictably becoming more about hurt feelings and a quest for "personal validation" rather than improving the encyclopaedia. All the best. --Folantin (talk) 08:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- Beeblebrox's "apologist" epithet just reveals that Beeble has zero understanding of dab's history of interactions. dab and I have had more than one run-in in the past. We have the vices of our virtues. dab's virtue is that he knows a lot of stuff; his vice is that he knows he does. Tant pis, get over it, stick around and learn something. That we need to retain an editor with expert knowledge of Sanskrit, historical linguistics, Proto-Indo-European, Indian history, European history, is bleedingly blindingly obvious to anyone who has heard of those topics. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- dab don't deprive the rest of us of your presence because you have fallen out with a few misguided souls. You have an ascorbic style with editors who don't come up to the mark on your specialist subjects, but surely that makes us all try harder to make Wikipedia better? It would be a sadder place if we were all one homogenous mass! Best regards whatever your decision. Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- ascorbic style? Acerbic, perhaps. Where will we be without Dieter to insist on standards of literacy and scholarship? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC) No ascorbic as in 'acid', but acerbic will work too, but if you think about it ascorbic works better!! Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- (An essential nutrient, and effective at neutralizing harmful reactive radicals. I'd say it's a good choice :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 17:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- My attempt at Word play was entirely in deference to, dab Wilfridselsey (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- Understood. dab, you are officially declared antiscorbutic. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- ascorbic style? Acerbic, perhaps. Where will we be without Dieter to insist on standards of literacy and scholarship? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC) No ascorbic as in 'acid', but acerbic will work too, but if you think about it ascorbic works better!! Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- dab don't deprive the rest of us of your presence because you have fallen out with a few misguided souls. You have an ascorbic style with editors who don't come up to the mark on your specialist subjects, but surely that makes us all try harder to make Wikipedia better? It would be a sadder place if we were all one homogenous mass! Best regards whatever your decision. Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- Beeblebrox's "apologist" epithet just reveals that Beeble has zero understanding of dab's history of interactions. dab and I have had more than one run-in in the past. We have the vices of our virtues. dab's virtue is that he knows a lot of stuff; his vice is that he knows he does. Tant pis, get over it, stick around and learn something. That we need to retain an editor with expert knowledge of Sanskrit, historical linguistics, Proto-Indo-European, Indian history, European history, is bleedingly blindingly obvious to anyone who has heard of those topics. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
- At the risk of being branded an "apologist", I agree, although I wouldn't blame you if took a long break from patrolling Wikipedia's no-go areas. Why not join the New Model Admin corps for a change? Then you can spend hours on end discussing minor points of process in a nice warm police station. Judging from the current ANI thread, this is predictably becoming more about hurt feelings and a quest for "personal validation" rather than improving the encyclopaedia. All the best. --Folantin (talk) 08:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Here we go again... See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Kaveh Farrokh. --Crusio (talk) 13:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
your expertise
This is a pretty strange state of affairs, and since if I commented on it I'd piss off parties on both sides, let me just leave the message I came here to leave. When you come back, here's an article that could use some whipping into shape by someone with your experience and expertise. It's undergone recent expansion.Cynwolfe (talk) 00:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
In a similar vein, something strange has been happening at Nebra sky disk. If you get a moment when you get back, maybe have a look? Carcharoth (talk) 01:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Armenian conflict
I've been asked for advice on this, please see my talk page. I'll take a look at the two articles mentioned above. Dougweller (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
History of Africa
I've added some comments about your merge undo at Talk:North Africa during Antiquity. In short, you haven't actually undone the merge until you've removed the content from History of Africa. I fixed a huge duplicated content problem that you've just restored, basically. Please comment further at the North Africa during Antiquity talk page. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 19:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I also haven't undone the merge because I didn't just restore the broken article, I wrote a new article based on the broken one. Fixing the History of Africa article is quite another job beyond my present scope of involvement. "Duplicated content" is putting it mildly. "History of Africa" would probably be better of by being cut down to a very short WP:SS pointer page to the relevant articles. --dab (𒁳) 20:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
- Do you remember, a while ago I completely rewrote History of Africa, and people thought it was a good effort. Since then others have further improved it. I hope it does remain as more than just a page of pointers. It is a pretty essential topic for an encyclopedia. I know it will continue to attract vandals and POV pushers. Welcome back BTW. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
yes, sorry, I did not look at or edit history of Africa. I am sure it is in good hands. But I do not think there can be a meaningful "history of Africa" (as opposed to History of North Africa) article along the lines of ancient-medieval-modern. There was neither an ancient nor a medieval period in most of Sub-Saharan Africa. None of the work you did would be lost if it was distributed among History of North Africa and History of Sub-Saharan Africa (History of the Sahel, History of West Africa, History of the Horn of Africa, etc.) I much prefer the brief format of the present History of Asia, although it should be fleshed out with more pointers to History of East Asia, History of South Asia, History of Central Asia, History of Southwest Asia.
Now I spent a few hours with Wikipedia yesterday. This was due to current events in Libya, I tried to get basic coverage of the tribes of Libya, found that the Berber topics are in a sad mess, and finally stumbled on Berberism and its effect on our articles about the ancient history of North Africa. But I am still ignoring my giant watchlist, and I hope to limit my involvement here to weekends for the time being. Regards, --dab (𒁳) 09:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think we can agree that History of Africa must be consistent with the approach in recent historiography of Africa. So when I have a minute I will look at the major textbooks and see what divisions they use. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- of course. This isn't a content dispute, it is an editorial choice of how to present material. An encyclopedia article isn't the same genre as a textbook in terms of presentation, but the toc of a good textbook will still be a good guide towards the toc of an encyclopedia article.
- My entire involvement here is my recreation (and improvement) of North Africa during Antiquity. Whatever you do with the history of Africa, I assume it is clear that it cannot go into the history of North Africa during Classical Antiquity in enough detail to render such a standalone article superfluous. The present section of History_of_Africa#Role_of_the_Berbers imo is an unthinking copy-paste job moving sub-par material from one page to another. Of course the "history of Africa" article can have a paragraph about the Berbers, but that paragraph will need to be a sweeping overview, not some random detail about the Punic War. --dab (𒁳) 09:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Absolutely. History of Africa needs to have many sections linked to Main articles, my only quibble is whether it should mainly be a link to Main articles without much summary of them. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
(Butting in) :I used to have Berber people on my watchlist and thought about revising it once or twice using Brett and Fentress (the standard book on the Berbers in English) but the thing is a complete mess and I'm not sure I can be bothered to maintain pages like this any more. At least the dodgy population figures have now gone (they used to vary between 15 and 45 million, all random guesses added by fly-by-night IPs). Given the unusual status of the Berbers, it's also a magnet for race cranks of various stripes arguing about haplogroups - and I really can't be bothered by that kind of thing. From what I remember, problems were more likely to come from Arab nationalists rather than "Berberists" (for instance, AFAIK, the history section has no mention of the Berber Spring and a reference to the Tangier Revolt was deliberately removed). Slabs of random text have also been dumped there from other articles. I've just removed a huge, WP:UNDUE chunk about "Greek-Berber beliefs" from the section about Berber belief which does not even mention marabouts. Folantin (talk) 10:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
well, Folantin, if we can tackle the Hindutvavadis, the Illyrianist Albanians, the far-out Proto-Indo-European Armenians, and the eccentric and belligerent people formerly known as Assyrians-Chaldeans-Syriacs-Aramaeans, and the Atlantean-Lemurian Tamils, I am sure we can deal with a little bit of Arab chauvinism vs. Berberism.
The race cranks are probably the worst problem. Someone should probably charge in and lose all the genetics nonsense, and reduce the article to a brief but presentable basic overview. Once the mess is gone, the article will be much easier to protect, as it is difficult to justify rolling back bad edits to an article that is already so bad that it cannot really be degraded any further.
I think the Berber coverage just suffers from lack of attention from good editors in the past. I just came across Berber pantheon, a completely unreferenced eclectic list of North African gods. This should probably just be deleted.
Perhaps it helps to think of the Berber problem in terms similar to the Basques problem. Which seems to be reasonably under control these days. "Genetics" sections in ethnic group articles are always bad news, not because population genetics isn't a valid or interesting field, but because the proportion of editors that have sufficient knowledge to interpret the expert literature pales in comparison to the number of ethnic race cranks. "Spaniards have a common genetic identity of over 70% with Basques" is a surprising claim indeed, considering that humans have 98.8% genetic identity with chimps. Perhaps the idea is that technically, 99.9% is also "over 70%". --dab (𒁳) 10:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- If you consider yourself to be both Basque and Spanish, then you share more than 99.9% of your DNA with yourself. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, I have no expertise whatsoever in genetics. I know some of these kooks are pulling a fast one but I lack the scholarly ammunition to use against them. The Spanish/Basque common identity is funny though. I think another basic problem with the main Berber people is that the author(s) have no concept of chronology. The history skips around like crazy, e.g. Septimius Severus is mentioned before Jugurtha. It's been a long time since I looked into the Berbers, however, and I'd have to do a lot of re-reading. I also remember looking into the History of Libya, which had huge gaps (some now filled, apparently - but the 19th century section is inadequate as it omits any mention of Anglo-French rivalry in the early decades and the Italians just turn up out of the blue in 1911, whereas - IIRC- they had been gradually asserting their influence over the country since the 1878 Treaty of Berlin). Oh well, some other day maybe...--Folantin (talk) 10:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Berber pantheon should probably redirect to a fairly decent section here: Early History of Tunisia#Ancient Berber religion although I see we have a rather bad article Berber beliefs - maybe the section from the Tunisia article should be copied there? Dougweller (talk) 11:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- sigh, why do we have an article called Early Berber History of Tunisia? As opposed to Early Phoenician History of Tunisia? I can see there is a lot of junk to be cleaned up in this corner of Wikipedia. Yes, "Ancient Berber religion" belongs merged into Berber mythology. And "Berber mythology" is an excellent confirmation of Folantin's observation that whoever wrote this stuff has no concept of chronology whatsoever. This is of course a very common feature of ethnic essentialism. If you are an ethnic essentialist, time and chronology do not exist, the only thing that matters is your immutable racial essence. --dab (𒁳) 11:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- That's the essence of essentialism. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think you read that wrong, the article is Early History of Tunisia which has a subsection Ancient Berber religion. I haven't looked at it carefully but at first glance the section looks well referenced. Dougweller (talk) 11:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think you read it wrong. Early History of Tunisia was a redirect to Early Berber History of Tunisia, and that was a confused mess jumping here and there in the history and prehistory of North Africa, dumping the term "Berber" in every sentence if possible. --dab (𒁳) 11:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I was looking at the pre-redirect version I presume, but I'm puzzled as I saw it less than an hour ago. Something to do with Google I'd guess, as I found it through Google. It looked as though there were some useful references in it about Berber religion. Dougweller (talk) 11:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I tagged it for splitting, now at Prehistoric Tunisia. There is valid material in there, but as Folantin said, conflated without any grasp of chronology or topical focus. I also split the Berber genetics stuff to a new genetic history of North Africa. I don't have high hopes for that article, but at least it is now explicitly about genetics, and it stops messing up the Berber article. --dab (𒁳) 11:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I was looking at the pre-redirect version I presume, but I'm puzzled as I saw it less than an hour ago. Something to do with Google I'd guess, as I found it through Google. It looked as though there were some useful references in it about Berber religion. Dougweller (talk) 11:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Berber pantheon is probably unsalvageable as the article could well be an example of the existential fallacy. Maybe a redirect? --Folantin (talk) 12:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- yes, redirect. I tend to advocate deletion only if the term itself does not exist. In this case, google books gives me four (4) occurrences of the term "Berber pantheon":
- Bilmawn, celebrated everywhere at the Great Feast of the Sacrifice, takes his place in this venerable gallery, which indeed gathers together the ancient divinities of an original Berber pantheon.
- This cult [of Serapis ] spread to Tripolitania where, through the influence of Roman soldiers it was brought into the Berber Pantheon.
- Latin soldiers introduced the popular god Serapis ... into the Berber pantheon.
- (figurative) Resistance to Rome was symbolized by Jugurtha, who occupied a privileged place in the Berber pantheon.
- so, the term generally refers to the unknown polytheistic religion of Roman era Berber tribes which was undergoing syncretism due to contact with Rome. --dab (𒁳) 12:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Done. I'm probably going to move Berber mythology to Berber beliefs (or something like that). Bad as the article is, its scope is way beyond "mythology". I'm not sure if I've got much time at the moment to invest in improving these pages - although I'm sure it would be a good idea to do so before the Middle Eastern uprisings spread to Algeria. --Folantin (talk) 12:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- yes, redirect. I tend to advocate deletion only if the term itself does not exist. In this case, google books gives me four (4) occurrences of the term "Berber pantheon":
- I think you read it wrong. Early History of Tunisia was a redirect to Early Berber History of Tunisia, and that was a confused mess jumping here and there in the history and prehistory of North Africa, dumping the term "Berber" in every sentence if possible. --dab (𒁳) 11:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Early History of Tunisia
I am rather annoyed. Someone here manifestly did not possess the good graces and courtesy to inform the prior contributor of their plans to cut up into pieces and so appropriate what was a very long and well-referenced article. This article as "Early History of Tunisia" had been on Wikipedia for several years. That it is part of a much larger, tightly-organized, multi-article work, I vainly thought, would give pause to potential contributors. Naturally they would want to consider the views of another (presumably, having themselves written articles) and discuss the issues before launching any major revisions.
Unfortunately a few days ago I re-titled it "Early Berber History of Tunisia". Today the reversal of the new title was considered. The original title had left out the word "Berber" because, as I remember it, the word "Berber" appears to be a magnet for irresponsible users. Also, I realized that the article's subtitles were composed with the prior title in mind. Again unfortunately, what major changes I then found today were surprising and, of course, discomforting.
The article is meant to fit into a History of Tunisia. As the article's introduction states, it includes both history from inscriptions and writing, and prehistory from artifacts and ruins, and otherwise. The style of historical narrative it employes does not always follow a timeline. It does not, e.g., present a history of "ancient Berber religion" but gives information drawn from sources differing widely in era and location, which is clearly documented. As matters stand now, we know relatively little of early Berber religious beliefs and practices. By submitting what we do broadly know, it allows the intelligent reader to form their own ideas. For the unintelligent reader, who can say? That some beliefs seem to persist over time in a variety of cultures is well known.
In regard to Berber religion, the information in this article and the sources cited can be used to start independent research for another Wikipedia article. Yet it would be wrong to pirate the text itself for another article, and destroy the source article in the process. Certainly the worldview of the early Berbers remains somewhat illusive but nonetheless relevant to understanding early Tunisia.
Each section stands alone, and together they provide parallax views on the subject of early Tunisia (the introductory article History of Tunisia discusses the anachronism of using the name 'Tunisia' before the Islamic period). The "Berber language history" section is of a great time depth, yet does provide some clues as to the emergence of the Berbers from unwritten prehistory into recorded history. The section on Berber tribes spans a long period of recorded history and, as the section explains, is meant to provide background and some reference for the unfolding of the history of Tunisia into the Punic era, the Roman era, and then the early Islamic (Fatimid, Zirid, Almohad) period. The worth of such information is itself criticized and the article, of course, is part of a series on Tunisian history.
It is submitted that the best course now would be to return the article to its status prior to the name change. It would be appreciated if the person who did the changes undid them. In any case, several days courtesy time will be allowed to pass before any corrections from this end, if needed, begin.
Please notify and consult with prior contributors before making major revisions. Elfelix (talk) 20:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I understand your annoyance, but in my opinion the article was absolutely unsalvageable. Really. Please see the discussion we had about it just above on this page. You seem to think that the article as it stood made sense. It did not. It was a sort of confused essay on the hoary antiquity of the Berbers, with an elastic use of "early" to include anything between 20,000 BC and 1000 AD as "Berber" just because the author apparently liked stream-of-conscioiusness associating about Berbers. This is not what Wikipedia does. By your own admission, the article was an {{essay-entry}}, where you try to communicate to the "intelligent reader" certain general ideas you hold about the "Berber essence". Wikipedia is not for this.
But I do not have the leisure to begin a drawn-out dispute on this, so, WP:BRD. Perhaps you want to seek more input on this. I do not have a fixed opinion on how to fix it, and I hoped my cleanup suggestion was preferable over just deleting the article as unsalvageable, but it is beyond dispute that fixing is needed here.
Anyone else seeing this, please consider chiming in at the article talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 11:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Please don't move without consensus and proper procedures
If you want an article from an original name you need to discuss its move on the talk page and request page move through proper procedures.The article was created in 2002 under the name of Volksdeutsche[2]Also do not delete references regarding Nazi atrocities like you did here[3]. If you want to change the name of the article from its original version than start a discussion, request a page move and go from there. But I do not see chances of that succeeding-Volksdeutsche is a unique word, just like Kulturkampf, Blitzkrieg or Ostsiedlung, with unique meaning.
- I see now a problem-somebody created a link on Germans page to Ethnic Germans. I have nothing against creation of such a article(properly sourceed), but it must be seperated from Volksdeutsche article which is a different thing alltogether and was created to describe especially this specific word and definition.
- I also think there might be a bit mess up right now, since one user did enter a lot of OR and his own claims into the articles.But definitely Ethnic Germans and Volksdeutsche are not the same, and Volksdeutsche should be a seperate article
- In any case I created a thread here to discuss any changes if you are interested[4]
Have a good day. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 17:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
sigh, it is pretty difficult to know which is the "original article" because people keep moving things around without discussion because they are so convinced they know better (sound familiar)? It seems I moved Ethnic German to Ethnic Germans back in August 2007. This was then moved to German diaspora in September 2007. I reverted this to Ethnic Germans (together with a detailed rationale on talk) in October 2008.[5]
As you can see here, at that point we did have one article on Volksdeutsche (the historical nationalist concept) and one on the term "Ethnic Germans" as it is used in English today. Now what the hell happened to the former "Ethnic Germans" page? It took me about 15 minutes to figure out it was moved to Emigration from Germany without discussion, by Johanneswilm (talk · contribs) on 13 February. This was hidden from history because AnthonyAppleyard unwittingly deleted the redirect left behind on 18 February trying to clean up the mess you and Johanneswilm were making.
It seems that Johanneswilm has been disrupting things here, and your attempts to fix them have created even more of a mess. The only solution will be to put things back exactly the way they were before either Johanneswilm or you touched them, and you can take it from there via discussion. --dab (𒁳) 19:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
My chief concern here is that the article Volksdeutsche remains-as it is vital to many topics regarding XX century history. I am only partially interested in other articles connected to it. If you know how to fix the mess, please do. Have a good day.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
- I just notice all your guyses comments -- listen all my changes were throughly documented on the discussion pages for all the articles. Especially all the aggregation of people who according to completely different criteria belong to Germans, Danes, Norwegians, Austrians -- that is simply unscientific by any account. You want evidence for how Germans, etc. are defined -- well the only instance that gives you such a definition is the government of the country in question. Otherwise you should provide counter-evidence that the majority of the world population in fact defines Germans in an "ethnic way" according to which there are 155 million people that qualify according to that criteria. I am not promoting my own political opinion here -- this is what the countries in question have come to using democratci processes. Most of these countries have conservative governments. --Johanneswilm (talk) 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Childish pseudohistory
Please check three maps:
All of them are made by one Armenian lad called Aram-van who is trying to convince us that Kingdom of Armenia stretched as far as India, China and Africa (as you can see it here, here and here). I'll also notice Dougweller about that issue since you aren't much active as I can see from leading infobox. --109.60.17.202 (talk) 02:58, 10 March 2011 (UTC)