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Nabatean script

Is it really true that the great majority of Nabatean inscriptions are found in the Sinai? The capital and most famous site, Petra, is in Jordan. AnonMoos (talk) 22:12, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: I was surprised too, but the source is crystal clear. See the pdf here. It seems to be because the term "Nabatean" is used as a synonym for "of Arabia Petraea". Onceinawhile (talk) 22:21, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

That article says:

"Sinai, for example, is a major source of Nabataean inscriptions: the corpus of M. E. Stone contains 3,851 Nabataean items! But most were written by individuals who had no connection with Nabataea itself during the period of the Nabataean kingdom or its immediate aftermath and they may not normally have spoken Aramaic. The texts have generally been thought to have been written long after Nabataea as such disappeared."

In other words, those inscriptions were in Nabatean script, but were mostly not written by people affiliated with the Nabataean kingdom as such. I think it would be good to very briefly explain this on the article. AnonMoos (talk) 21:39, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi AnonMoos, I agree. Healey is saying that most inscriptions called “Nabatean” are misleadingly labelled. The only reason I didn’t add that to the article is that it seems like it might be a controversial statement so it would be ideal to find other sources to confirm it. In the meantime perhaps we could add it in-line attributed to Healey? Onceinawhile (talk) 21:59, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for adding necessary info. AnonMoos (talk) 21:06, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

FYI

Uploaded image deletion discussion: Iskandar323 (talk) 08:15, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Palestine Open Maps

They are advertising a major upgrade. Zero 14:45, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Zero0000: thanks – I noticed that yesterday when using it to check some maps. Looks good, albeit a little buggy on my system. They added in a bunch of cross-links to major websites on the villages, although not to wikipedia from what I could see. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Dubious claims

See this and this. Note that Stripling is a senior member of Associates for Biblical Research, which is a literalist organization that is (at a minimum) soft on creationism. I've often wondered why Israel grants excavation permits to people like that. Zero 02:00, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you Zero0000. Certainly looks dubious to me… Onceinawhile (talk) 06:11, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Heh: “We’ve had many months to study those scans, so when someone looks at them for the first time, it may take time for their eyes to acclimate" Thankfully we have Twitterati translating that for us: "Another way of saying: There probably aren't really any letters on this piece of lead, but if you stare at it long enough you'll see what you want to." 😊 Huldra (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Once I attended a seminar on human pattern perception. The speaker told us that a message can be heard when Neil Armstrong's words on the moon are played backwards. They played it but nobody could make out any message. Then the speaker told us that the message is "man will spacewalk" and played it again. This time the message was as clear as if it was spoken plainly. The difference was startling. Zero 04:04, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

By the way, on the subject of ancient inscriptions, I wondered if you would be interested in helping at Ancient text corpora – it is supposed to be the ultimate combination of numbers and history. The idea is to quantify all known writing prior to 300 AD – in other words put a numerical boundary around all ancient human knowledge that has come down to us.

It was built mostly using the estimates of German scholar Carsten Peust. Peust stated that he didn’t know enough about certain corpora, so he left them out. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:19, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

On a president of Misplaced Pages

In re Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy/Proposed amendment (May 2023), CC FenrisAureus.

I've had an idea bouncing in my head for something like this for the better part of a decade. I wouldn't call it "president", maybe "advocate-in-chief". To me the core of it isn't anything to do with appealing ArbCom decisions, but the basic problem that, when the general public has a question about Misplaced Pages, they tend to go to the WMF, which doesn't actually have authority over content. There isn't really anyone out there who can speak on behalf of the community of editors. When there's Twitter drama over a deletion or removal, you get 20 random editors speaking over one another to explain it, with no guarantee they even get it right. So I think it would be interesting to have some elected person whose primary job is to speak on behalf of the community, and who would also have a role within the community to resolve potential failures of the system—except without the power to formally overturn. The way I see it, for anyone who could meet whatever lofty standard we'd set for such an office, if they were to say, "Dear ArbCom: Respectfully, I think in your recent decision you may have erred in imposing a topic ban on User:Example without discussing the mitigating evidence presented during the case, and urge you to discuss this matter further with that consideration in mind", one imagines ArbCom would take such a statement quite seriously. Likewise, in the event of any constitutional crisis, their proposed solution would be taken very seriously as a first among equals. I wouldn't make it a 1-year term, though; better 2 or 3. -- Tamzin (she|they|xe) 22:46, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Tamzin: very well said. I agree with your explanation completely. It would help greatly with public advocacy. And would be a check-and-balance on various elements of our system. The person would almost certainly end up on the Foundation's board as well. Onceinawhile (talk) 03:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Hmm. I don't think a cetacean is needed, -Jimmy Wales is in the offing, but this is sensible. Perhaps an ombudsthinkster elected for that sin-dickering investigative role/roll in/amidst the endless waves/waifs of wikiworrying. Nishidani (talk) 08:24, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yousef Munayyer

Greetings. Little over a month ago, you reverted a section I had written on his page detailing his spat with Sean Hannity concerning the Summer 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas. Your justification was that it was "non-notable and written in an unbalanced manner." Considering that what I wrote was not editorialized (that is, written in such a way as to be construed as supporting a particular point of view), and that the back-and-forth was covered by various news outlets (https://www.google.com/search?q=hannity+munayyer+hamas&rlz=1CATATK_enUS1026&oq=hannity+munayyer+hamas&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.5048j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), how can you argue in good faith that my content was non-notable and unbalanced? NavyBlueSunglasses (talk) 03:44, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi NavyBlueSunglasses, because the article "Hannity shouts at Palestinian guest" was notable for Hannity losing his cool, not for anything Munayyer did or said. I don’t believe this incident warrants taking up 25% of Munayyer’s article, per WP:DUE. Perhaps it could be summarized down to a single sentence? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:08, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

NavyBlueSunglasses (talk) 16:33, 2 June 2023 (UTC) Ok, I understand. Sorry about that.

DYK nomination of Ein Samiya

Hello! Your submission of Ein Samiya at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) at your nomination's entry and respond there at your earliest convenience. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Ffranc (talk) 10:57, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Ancient text corpora

On 18 June 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ancient text corpora, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that all known writing in Ancient Hebrew totals just 300,000 words, versus 9.9 million in Akkadian? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ancient text corpora. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Ancient text corpora), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Aoidh (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Need any help

Hey buddy, just wondering if there's anything I can help with. I am sporadically here, and I see you're quite busy creating and inventorying inscription articles, among other things. Let me know if there's something I can do. el.ziade (talkallam) 13:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Elias Ziade: my plan is to get Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions to be the best available repository of the notable inscriptions, with each inscription or set of inscriptions having its own article including precise information on its discovery and an image of the text.

The challenge is being "comprehensive" - to my mind that means including all known inscriptions contained in the published "selected" collections. That doesn't mean CIS or TADAE, which intended to include all inscriptions regardless of their notability; it means just KAI, KI, NE, TSSI and NSI, which only covered the most important examples. I have now identified all of these - almost all have rows in the table already (albeit some still with a blank name, or black or red text), and the ones that don't have now been added to the talk page (the most recent talk comment). Some of these may be able to be grouped together rather than needing new individual articles for all, but we need to see how the sources deal with them first. If you ever find yourself with a spare hour and would like to create one of these articles, it would be great.

It could help support a meaningful improvement in scholarship in the area, allowing readers to get a clearer and broader feel for the hard historical evidence of this group of cultures. What I have found most interesting is sorting the table by date discovered - it allows you to follow the evolution of this area of study, and see how various the scholarly consensuses were formed in the area. I suspect that some mistakes were made early on that were never reassessed in light of the available evidence in more modern times...

You are doing great work with the sanctuary of Kharayeb and other similar articles. There are still a few of these important locations without articles - one of the most notable being the Ayaa Necropolis. And do let me know how else I can be helpful on supporting the effort to get the sarcophagus to FA.

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:31, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

CS1 error on Zionism, race and genetics

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Zionism, race and genetics, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

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New article

Thirty-seventh government of Israel and the Palestinians Chip in, please.. Selfstudier (talk) 16:45, 11 July 2023 (UTC)