Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:47, 28 November 2006

RfC

Dieter, when you have time, could you take a look at these edits. I'm not competent to assess these assertions, especially as they are unsourced. Thanks, Ghirla 07:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Multitudes

It's in 17:4 too, but 17:5 should be sufficient as well. -- Avi 14:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Nazi mysticism talk page

Just calling your attention to the thread at Talk:Nazi mysticism#Project templates. - Lawrence King 07:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Deleting comments

I was wondering why you deleted WIN's comment on Talk:Out of India theory. It may not be an intelligent comment, but wouldn't it be better to ignore it rather than remove it, which I thought was bad ediquette. Regards. Nobleeagle 09:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Not again

Please take a look: Bad grammer, Original Research, Bringing contents from articles that were deleted due to OR. I really think it is time to take some action against this user since his effort seems to be pushing the claim that Ossetians are not an Iranian speaking group and Scythians are Turks and etc. I do not think such a user can play a constructive role in Misplaced Pages. Plus his poor grammer and spelling are substandard as well. I wanted to put a delete on the article but this is the third or fourth time the user is doing OR. I am hoping you will take some action on this issue. --alidoostzadeh 17:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the warning, but this is not a random article. As you know, I avoided a nonsense editing war on the Ossetian lang. page, one of the subjects of the war by alidoostzadeh and his militant Iranian supermacists was to delete the results of the genetic research that illuminate the linguistics of the Digors, Irons and Ardons. Their joined efforts enforce a censorship intended to supress facts. In removing the "Genetics" section, they also removed the very references that substantiate the material. That the Ossetians are not an Iranian speaking group is stated by Abaev, whose citation the same group censored out from the article. Abaev states that language is 80% non-Iranian. And the material is not original, Abaev published in 1949, and Nasidze did his studies in the 2003 and 2004. The Ossetian Genetics article uses authentic materials but it has not been completed yet with Literature section, and it definitely will be. I will gladly go back to the "Ossetian Language" article, but I do not want to start alidoostzadeh and his team on another editing war

As you know, I offered compromizes a number of times, I also lined up a mediator, and an Admin offered him to compromise, but alidoostzadeh declined all offers and meditation, and he always elects to run editing wars, enforcing unbalanced contents with Iranian nationalistic contents. Many of those contents are completely absurd, like stating that Ossetian language formed in Russian neighborhood, and then he is running a war to enforce that nonsense, and whines about being abused. In fact,it is the Iranian censorship and chronic deception that abuses the system.Barefact 04:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

PS Please look at the war alidoostzadeh/Kosrow are running on Kurgan, wiping out referenced kurgan architecture descriptions and even citation by M.Alinei that discusses the etymology of the word itself. It is a pure nationalistic vandalism. Kurgans are cemeteries, they need to be treated as cemeteries, and archeological treasures, and not as emblems for a supermacist ideology. Barefact 04:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Barefact, you operate a pan Turkic website, you write all these articles yourself, put them on your website, then transfer then copy paste them on Misplaced Pages, and you also make up quotes and facts. Your credibility is very very low, and its not going to get better if you continue editing the way you do.Khosrow II 05:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Kosrow, your ability to lie and deceive is not far from alidoostzadeh, I do write the Tertiary articles based on Secondary articles, but your pretense that you do not like my spelling and bad grammar is a long nose lie, you do not like the facts of life that I bring into the broad light. This is what really bothers you, the genetics and architecture, not my spelling that is corrected anyway by computerized program. If you were a man you would attack the facts, not the massenger, and attack facts by disavowing them, not erasing them in a vandalic manner. Your favorite method is backstabbing. Your backstabbing manners stink. My regards. Barefact 08:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually when you cite references, you have been shown to cite them erroneously and making false ones. For example you claimed Herodotus in book 2 says the Scythians speak a variety of languages. This was shown to be false. You claimed Zosimus considers the Huns and Scythians to be the same, this was shown to be false. Also I would watch the personal tones here. You were shown in the Ossetian language thread to actually disfigure the words of Abaev. I showed that Abaev clearly states Ossetian is an Iranian language. You disfigured it: . As per genetics, that article you were also shown to disfigure and take out what you like and remove what you do not like. That is also shown in the Ossetic language article. As per barefact claiming that he offered administrators to get involved, no administrator actually got involved in any of the articles he claims was disputed. As per the word Kurgan, it entered Polish and other indo-european languages through Russian as the dictionaries have clearly said. I checked Merriam-Webster on this issue which is a very valid and sound etymological dictionary. Here is another dictionary: . And you have no right to remove scholarly citeed journals on the Kurgan theory. Your most ridicolous claim in that article is citing a pan-turkist manual History of an ancient Turkish script and claiming the Issyk inscription of 4th century B.C. to be proto-Turkic! You do not seem to understand that proto-Turkic is a hypothetical language and no proto language in the world has scripts! For example proto-Indo-European or proto-semitic or proto-elamite do not have scripts. Also the EB 2006 clearly states the oldest Turkish writing is Orkhon inscription. So I think you need to stop citing invalid pan-turkist sources. For example the guy Diker which you cite in your website claims Sumerian, Parthians, Elamites and many other groups as Turks. As per genetic studies, accultration is the key and usually a dominant group can spead its language. So genetics studies do not actually reject the Iranian language of Ossetians which is accepted by Abaev himself. Also English dictionary is mostly latin and greek. Abaev's Slovar contains more than 16000 indo-iranian terms. And I quoted Ilya Yakubovich an expert on Ossetian and Iranian linguistics that the Swadesh list of Ossetian has only 4 non-foreign words. It is clear for everyone that you are not here to write and contribute scholarly materials, but you are in wikipedia to write pan-turkist revisionist history and you will be firmly opposed. I would check with EB 2006 before writing articles since your theories are either outdated or outright invalid. --alidoostzadeh 11:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I offered to mediate your deceitful accusations, and you are refusing, because they are not defensible. I even agreed to your friend Ilya Yakubovich to arbitrate, counting that a scholar would not be dishonest like you. Your "proves" are stipilations taken from tertiary sources, they express opinions instead of facts, and you just repeat the suitable opinions deeming them facts. Your militant enforcement of censorship in historical matters is preposterous and racist, and your use of pan-turkist demagogy is full of racial hatred. Abaev, Nasidze, Alieni, Ismaigulov, Hildinger, Pletneva, Yablonsky, Tolstov are not pan-turkists, many of them were followers of the Scytho-Iranian theory, but their research speaks louder than their (in many times forced) opinions. Your censorship promotes ignorance and dogmatism, your tools are deception, lie, and backstabbing, and your militance is equal to your ignorance. You initiate wars and can't sustain a discussian without resorting to deception and mudslinging. My regards. Barefact 15:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

You were caught red handed disfiguring Abaev's quote here: . You were also caught redhanded disfiguring the quotes of Herodotus and Zosimus. I think you need to get it through your head. Ossetic is considered Iranian by all linguists even Abaev. Scythians are considered Iranians by all sources (Britannica 2006) included. The Orkhon inscription is considered the oldest Turkish inscription (Britannica 2006). The Alans, Samartians, Cimmerians are not considered Turks (Britannica 2006). Any deceitful tactics and plagarism and fantasy relating these groups to turks is considered pan-turkism. There is no such a thing as scytho-Iranian theory. Scythians were considered Iranians way before Abaev. Misplaced Pages is not a debate club. It will reflect the genuine opinions of scholars. As per your accusation I ask Dab to look into it: deception, lie, and backstabbing, and your militance . Your efforts are dishonest. For example you do not look at Abaev's 4 volume monumental Slovar. Or when Prof. Ilya Yakubovich clearly states that only 4 words in the Swadesh list of Ossetic is non-Iranian in origin. The fact is Ossetic is considered Iranian by all scholars including Abaev himself. If you have a problem with that, then your place is not wikipedia. No ands or ifs or buts as Misplaced Pages will reflect the latest scholarly opinion and everything you say contradicts Encyclopedia 2006 as well as what many of the scholars you misquote say. --alidoostzadeh 16:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, stop lying. I looked into "4 volume monumental Slovar", you did not, I even suggested that you can convince yourself by doing a quick estimate, which you militantly declined. In the "Slovar", Abaev lists 18% elucidated Iranian words (and 82% non-Iranian), versus his 20% estimate he made in 1949. And "elucidated" is not "evident", in most cases these etymologies are very doubtful, as Abaev himself confirms in many instanses in his "Slovar". To produce his elucidations he sweeps territory from Tian Shan to Baltics. Words that have any chance of mutual comprehension with Iranian are maybe 1%, like shakh etc. Considering that centuries before the 10th c. and centuries after 10th c. Persian and Azeri were lingua franca between the 360 Caucasian languages, every language in the Caucasus has Persian and Azeri loanwords closely matching this 1%. Many scholars in the world do not buy into Scythian-Ossetian theory, and are resarching alternates. The very fact that there are so many alternate hypotheses certifies that your stipulation about universal acceptance of the Scythian-Ossetian theory is a clear deception. Your vigilant efforts to supress the subject highlight this situation. Instead of suppressing information, you could, for example, find an alternate reference explaining why beech, bore etc that you cited are shared between Turkic and Germanic languages, and we all will benefit from your constructive inputs. As it stands, now WP gets an unbalanced, censored, and grossly primitivised view enhanced by ignorance. And Swadesh list for Digorian/Ironian is still waiting to be delivered. Barefact 18:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

You did not look into it or else there is at least 16000 Iranian etymological terms that are not Ossetian but are cognates with Ossetian. It contains 14000 non-Indo-Iranian (possibly Indo-European terms) that are cognates with ossetians. You also claimed you looked into a Persian dictionary and 1/3 of it was Turkish! Nice joke. You were caught red handed disfiguring Abaev's quote here:.

Stop making demands and trying to change scholarly accepted facts.If you have a problem look at Encyclopedia Britannica 2006. Plain and Simple. I do not have to prove Ossetian is this or that, since all the references support me. Abaev clearly states it is Iranian and you disfigure his quote. And I have total right to suppress false information you bring to reach false conclusions specially when the material can not be verified since so far you can not provide any English sources supporting anything you wrote. For example you try to blow up the caucasian influence on Ossetian whereas you do not mention all the times Abaev says clearly Ossetic is Iranian and he has never called the language Caucasian! Yet you reach a false conclusion which Abaev does not. BTW an English dictionary has more Latin and Greek terms than Germanic terms. Yet English is classified as a Germanic language. As per Swadesh list, I quoted Ilya Yakubovich. He said that only about 4 terms are non-Iranians. I have his email available still and can easily forward it to dab. If you have a problem with that, it is not my problem. Right now WP is not unbalanced, since it reflects information that are supported by scholars and EB 2006. I would check EB 2006 if I were you since it is an encyclopedia that is used by many universities. If you have a problem with their articles, it is not my problem. --alidoostzadeh 20:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

it is very simple. The plain mainstream classification of Ossetian is "Iranian". After that, and under that heading, we can certainly discuss etymological peculiarities, if you cite sources. As for "Many scholars in the world do not buy into Scythian-Ossetian theory", if you would just cite them, instead of putting illegitimate spin on mainstream opinions, we might get somewhere. Misplaced Pages can discuss such alternative speculations, but it cannot portray them as mainstream if they are not. Less spinning, Barefact, more reference to specific studies. dab (ᛏ) 19:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Its a good productive rule, and it is very simple. The plain mainstream classification of Ossetian is "Iranian", yes, and it is based on Abaev's 1949 "Ossetian Language and Folklore". Any secondary work refers to it, and many tertiary works, like BE, refer to it. But his work has 2 contradictory sets of statements. The mainstream secondary works use exclusively one statement, not knowing or not addressing the second statement. Mainstream tertiary works just repeat the mainstream secondary works, mirroring their positions. The second statement, is phrased by Abaev himself: all, that is all, properties that make a language, the phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics are not Iranian, and are not Indo-European (p.95). Abaev analizes each one separately, demonstrating his point (pp. 96, 99). On page 103 he reviews the lexicon. I posted a copy of tha page, and I can send you other pages (or the whole book, if you want, it is about 2 lb of paper). He says in his (rough and preliminary) estimate that 20% can be elucidated to Indo-European. Among the remaining 80% he lists Arabian, Persian, Turkic and Georgian, including 50% Caucasian. He also (in 1949, p.95) complains: "a number of the Ossetian language facts, because of impossibility to tie them with the Iranian, Aryan or Indo-European facts, until now (1949) were left out from the sphere of attention of the traditional linguistic school." This situation has not changed since 1949, 80% of the language still was not studied by independent experts outside of his 4-volume study.

Now, Abaev's 1949 evaluations of the Ossetian Language are a secondary source, the primery source is his 4-volume study (it is not a dictionary, he specifically addressed this topic). There are a lot of idiosyncrasies in the 4-volume study, but his 1949 evaluation still basically holds: Caucasian 43%, Iranian 18%, Turkic 10%, IE 10%, Kartvellian 10%, 5 other languages hold the rest of the 4-volume study. The source that Ali doostzadeh cites calls 16,000 NON-Ossetian, i.e assuming Ossetian is Iranian it is 16,000 NON-Iranian, which Ali perverts to Iranian, we already covered this before. I would not cite the percentage numbers in the article until I see them in a secondary source, but similar numbers in the 1949 are a legitimate source. So far Ali doostzadeh tried to remove it by the way of war and brute force. BTW, the entries in the 4-volume study are in Latin alphabet, you do not even need to know Cyrillics to see by yourself, just be able to read and count.

The problem is not that I want to represent "non-mainstream" as "mainstream", I think that both (or all) points can be presented in a balanced teriary article. And as far as the sources, the "Masguts" article intentionally consisted of 100% sources. The problem is that a group of supermasist-minded militants attempt to enforce exclusively their primitive viewpoint, censoring out sources and contents, and falsifying accusations and facts.

Look at Scythia, how Ali doostzadeh is warring with readers, distorting the clearly visible name "Atails" and forcing his supermasist distortion down WP throat, without any proofs in the form of reference images showing the purported distorted spelling, just pure repeated vandalism. Or deletion of C14 evidence (referenced!) from Scythians, it is another example of vandalic supermasist censorship. Or sensoring out Anatolian and PCT theories in favor of discredited Gambitus theory which they run as a supermasist commercial everywhere. Or deletion of "Masguts" 100% referenced article. Or deleting illustration because it is not in English. These examples are too many to list. Barefact 23:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually you are wrong again. Before Abaev there was miller. And Ossetian is considered Iranian unanimously by scholars. There is no other POV except the pan-turkist viewpoint which has no place in wikipedia. Non-mainstream viewpoints if they are pan-turkist viewpoints will not be represented. Actually you did not read the source correctly. It has 30,0000 non-Ossetian words, 16,000 Iranian. Furthermore you were caught disfiguring Abaev's word.. Also you claimed Ossetic is agglutinative which was false again (the same talk page). Since you were caught disfiguring Abaev's quote, you have no reliability. I brought clear and plain ENGLISH sources on Ossetian. One very complete one from 1989. Also I quoted Ilya Yakubovich that only 4 words in the Ossetic swadesh list is non-Indo-European. Also note how you contradict yourself above. You claim 20% of Ossetian is Indo-European and yet claim 80% is Arabic, Persian, Turkic... It seems you forgot Persian is an indo-european language!! Note also that you claimed 30% of Persian is Turkish and this was false. So you have brought a lot of false statements already. And yes Abaev's 4 volume work is a etymological dictionary. And BTW Technical English is 90% Latin and Greek, but English is a Germanic language. So lexicon is not necessarily the determining factor. There could be translations of a lot of caucasian works (say Georgian) to Ossetic and so foreign lexicon pops up. It does not change the classification of language. Else English would not be a Germanic language. If your article can not be supported by modern English sources and Encyclopedia Britannica and goes against what scholars say unanimously, then it has no place in Misplaced Pages and it is Original Research. I also draw the attention of Dab to the following misquote of Zosimus by barefact. . Note I speak Persian very well and I have studied etymological dictionary, yet barefact claimed 30% of Persian is Turkish. And of course he will misquote a source or something like that. As per the word "masguts" do a google search and you will not find anything related with Scythians (except perhaps barefacts own website!). As per Scythia, the Ateas is not Atails, but the A looks like a lambda because of wear and tear. Do a google search and . Note for King atails except barefact's material nothing else pops up. But for king Ataias/Ateas even the university of chicago website pops up. With this regard to a google search on authentic coin sites. The fact of the matter is the user lacks credibility and so far has failed to support any of his material with English references whereas English is the number one language with regards to linguistics and history right now. Even when the user cites a material, he picks and chooses. For example the first 80 pages of Abaev's Ossetian folklore is about Ossetian and its Iranian roots, but nothing is cited from there. But there 10 pages or so about Caucasian influence is quoted and this is unbalanced research in order to reach a wrong POV which Abaev does not claim. So 80-90 pages are ignored and only 10 pages are used in order to reach an unbalanced conclusion. This is an example of unethical behavior and misguided research. --alidoostzadeh 02:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Your change on Muhammad

You said: "I did a single edit yesterday. Also see my comment on talk, as long as we have no better identification of the image, I suppose we should not keep it after all. dab (ᛏ) 07:44, 29 September 2006"

You said: "hm, I think our first question should be, is it really Muhammad preaching? The image page description claims as much, but I haven't found any reference for the claim. The source given is a deep link directly to the jpeg file. We'd need at least a link to a description on expositions.bnf.fr. dab (ᛏ) 14:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)"

You also said: "guys, regarding zombietime and what not, it is very simple, if you upload a manuscript image, it is your responsibility to give encyclopedic identification of the image. It doesn't matter if you found the image on zombietime or myspace, you'll just have to do your own research and identify the image. The French "manuscrit Arabe" in this case translates to "Arabic manuscript", the MS is in Arabic, but made in Persia. Nobody claims it is an "Arab manuscript", made by Arabs, but the Persians happened to know and write Arabic, too. I agree that we should have fewer Persian images and more calligraphy here. Therefore, dear aniconists, instead of complaining of the images we have, do upload us some nice images of notable "Muhammad" calligraphy, and I will certainly suppport giving those precedence over Shia portraits (although at least a single Persian image should remain here for balance). dab (ᛏ) 09:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)"

Why you still reverted back that image (saying notable) whose source you yourself doubted (above) and which you yourself acknowledged (above) that we do not know who is preaching in it (and other such things). Also you said that at least one image should be remain there for balance. The article do already had one but still you reverted it. I am confuse and cannot understand you since I am here in wikipedia. Please help me out sir. --- ابراهيم 11:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually portrait of the Prophet Muhammad is popular amongst Shiite's of Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. So Dab is totally correct here and I have seen many of these portraits. They are like the portraits of Jesus in Christian countries. --alidoostzadeh 11:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

May be you are right. But I lived in country of 160 million Muslim and have never seen a single picture of this kind while spending my life in many cities and meeting with many people. Hence leaving aside what percentage of Muslims like those pictures, here I just want to know why what dab says and do looks conflicting to me. His writing gives me some other impression but his action are in other direction. I hope I could better understand him by his answers of questions I posted above and if he not opt to reply then it is okay. --- ابراهيم 12:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well here is a portrait from a Safavid manuscript from approximately 400 years ago. You can see the angels in heaven and the Prophet's ascension (Me'raj). (Note the image is not copyrighted as it is from 400 years ago as well as Iran does not have copy rights on old images). Here is also a potrait from an Ottoman (Sunni) manuscript from the 14th century. . Note the winged figure is the Archangel Gabriel. --alidoostzadeh 13:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the problem with this image. I was wary about its identification, but I think we have established its provenance now, and afaics it is not disputed that it does depict Muhammad. If you have never ever seen such an image in your country, well, thank God there is the internet now, and especially Misplaced Pages, so that you can take a glimpse beyond your borders while comfortably sitting at your desk. Not at all, it's all in a day's work for Misplaced Pages. 13:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Now I have made my mind about you and will need not to talk about this issue any more. Now I can revert your changes without any doubts in a second. You could do mine. Bye. --- ابراهيم 13:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

an unfortunate attitude, I would like to keep you around as a good-faith editor, but you're practically declaring an edit-war jihad here. dab (ᛏ) 13:34, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I cannot assume good faith towards you. I am sorry but I cannot at all ... anymore. You are even not man of your words. --- ابراهيم 13:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

And I liked a lot your usage of word Jihad. --- ابراهيم 13:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

well, your "struggling" on that article does seem a tiny little bit fuelled by a religious motivation. I do not see that I didn't keep my word in any way. I said that I would support more calligraphy over Persian art if people would upload nice examples. So I suggest you struggle a little bit to find nice calligraphic images, you will then be in a position to remind me that I supported replacing a Persian image or two with those. I do not care very much about investing time in the Muhammad article, I really just occasionally try to balance it out. You would do well to remember that back when the Islamophobes tried to rip apart the article, you were rather grateful to have my support. dab (ᛏ) 14:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is motivated by my believes but everyone edits is motivated by their believes (e.g. secularism, atheism, Christianity etc). Tell me why these people removed the image that has no face of Muhammad (mirage one) and replaced it with those new image with face. Do you think that because these new images are more useful or may be more irritating to some editors? Do not you think we finally had long peace on that no-face image and article was going in good direction?

Using words like Jihad and crusade is never appropriate. Furthermore, if it would had been be my jihad then I do edit it 3 times a day everyday (without talking on any talk pages at all). Yes I had been thankful to you in the past but also mad at you when you called me with some not good attributes (do not want to repeat them here). However, I remain always confused what you write and your writing gives me double meaning. You could say that this problem could be because my English is poor but I have this problem not with other editors. May be you try to be too much political and hide what you really mean somewhere in words. May be you try to please everyone. That is why I get wrong impressions. May be it is how a good admin should be but I really prefer if people say things very clearly (no politics) and then stand by them very firmly even if other do not like their stand. I myself try to do that. okay sorry if I get little bit annoyed previously. I take my words back about not having bad faith towards you but I remain really confused about you at best and will try to read your post many time carefully (if that could help). --- ابراهيم 12:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Maome image mediation

Hi Dbachmann, I notice that you have reinserted the maome image. You may be aware that there is a discussion of this image at talk:Muhammad/Depictions. I have requested assistance from the mediation cabal to fascilitate this discussion. If it is your intention to continue reinserting the image, would you be amenable to participating in this mediation? Please let me know. Sincerely, --BostonMA 13:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

not really. these discussions have been going on for ages, and I've heard all the arguments several times over. It's just strain on the servers to keep discussing this. there are exactly two considerations that have to be made wrt this image:

1. is the Muhammad article already too crowded with other, more encyclopedic images, so that it should be removed to avoid clutter?

2. is there another, better quality or more encyclopedic image of a similar work of art?

that's it. there can be no debate that the image is pertinent to the article per MoS, and the only admissible debate is on whether there are too many better images already. Restating the obvious points of Misplaced Pages policy to each and every editor that stumbles in and complains about the image is just so much wasted breath. 14:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)dab (ᛏ)

Removal of article and a suggestion

Dbachmann, will you please let me know who had erased "Ossetian Genetics", and what WP rules he/she used in doing so. I agree that its contents belonged to a more general article, making it a separate stub was a temporary tactics to avoid wars and to develop presentable contents in normal quiet atmosphere. But the contents were removed without a trace in a fasion that appear to be inside work, and I want to appeal on procedural grounds.

I also wanted to suggest that general articles have a pre-set, agreed upon table of contents, channeling editors into topical contributions. The contents stubs would help to reduce vandalism where ideologically motivated editors wipe out contents by blatant excisions. We have good examples of table of contents in the exemplars of "Good Article", like English language, Uralic languages etc. Now, the amorphous ad hoc composition of the tables of contents lead to inflammatory situation. A pemanent topic on the table of contents on the discussion page would facilitate its orderly modifications. You know that any writer creates a table of contents before he starts any work, and the status of "Good Article" can't be achieved without such a gentle guiding hand. I am sure that this question was raised before, and if there is a standard solution, please let me know. Thanks, Barefact 16:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Old accusations rehashed

Hi Dieter. The old accusation against me regarding sockpuppetry has been rehashed by certain users.I believe that such an act is unwarranted and I was wondering if you could lend me some assistance in making my case.Please contact me if you are interested in the details. For reference, I invite you to look at the RFCU in question:

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Hkelkar

as well as the associated talk page:

Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Hkelkar

which adequately summarized my position. Thank you and have a pleasant day.Hkelkar 20:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, this case was just filed on RfA.Hkelkar 00:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I have sent you a mail yesterday about this incident as requested by Hkelkar. Forgot to leave you a message about it here. Please confirm that you got my mail. - Aksi_great (talk) 08:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I thank you

For your dispassionate analysis of the situation regarding my RfA. I find your term "Bose-Singh" continuum very interesting and it may have the potential to evolve into a full fledged wikipedia neologism :) (by the way, where does the "Singh" come in here?).I hope that you do not have the impression that I am engaging in any sort of "hivemind thinking" with any particular group. While I admit to have sympathies with the Hindus in South Asia related articles, I myself don't regard myself as one.

The key difference between my edits and those of the more emotive wikipedians (at least in South Asia matters) is that I carefully research my edits by using all the academic and scholarly resources at my disposal. I spent 6 hours last week in the Indian History/Culture section of the Perry-Castañeda Library (which has an excellent and surprisingly non-partisan collection of books on India related matters, better than most Indian libraries certainly), and I access sociology papers using JSTOR subscription etc. and cite them properly. In addition, I also use normal news sources.

My personal political/social philosophy tends to be a syncretic mixture of left-wing and right wing ideals. This unique concoction of views often pits me against what I believe is the "wikipedia groupthink nexus" (at the risk of using more neologisms, heh) which tends to skew many articles with a systemic left wing bias.I believe that many wikipedians are of this opinion and actively discuss ways to counter it. This is especially true in religion related matters.

It is the inherent naivete produced by such groupthink, as well as it's "horse-blinder" characteristic that allows some editors with virulently extremist and religious views (particularly Islamism) to weasel their way into the wikipedia community and carefully detune many of the wikipedia articles away from neutrality and make them tacitly sympathetic to their ideologies.As eminent physicist Steven Weinberg puts it in his essay Zionism and it's cultural adversaries:

My primary purpose on wikipedia is to counter this disturbing trend and maintain all significant viewpoints and perspectives while keeping a scholarly and neutral narrative and staying within the bounds of wikipedia policy. I believe that I have scrupulously adhered to academic integrity and wikipedia policies in my edits to articles. Regarding my interactions with users, many of them have been cordial and productive and some have not. I am not proud of my reaction to the likes of User:BhaiSaab and others who hae consistently baited me, attacked my religiosity, my family history, doggedly stalked me and engaged in irrational edit-wars that were completely unwarranted (edit wars never are, of course) and now are trying to get me censured for my work, and dragging poor user Subhash Bose into the mud, even though he has nothing to do with my edits at all and , despite his many faults, does not deserve an indefblock.

In summary, let me state that I do not belong nor subscribe to this "Bose-Singh continuum", nor do I subscribe to the larger wikipedia groupthink nexus. I have some views that are common to the former, and some that are common to the latter.I feel that my being subjected to the treatment that I am getting from the instigators of this RfA is tasteless, unwarranted and counter-productive.

Anyway, thanks for your contribution and good luck.Hkelkar 09:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

your commitment to basing your edits closely on academic sources is heartening, that's really the single most important feature of the useful Wikipedian. "Poor user Subhash bose" is a known sock artist. But while you may or may not know him personally, I do recognize you are not him. The "Singh" part is from this case (that angry young man is still active). dab (ᛏ) 11:38, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"I do recognize you are not him." If you still think that even after aksi great's evidence, Hkelkar is fooling you like no other. BhaiSaab 23:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

This case is really the climax after months and months of these two groups of users. Terry J-Ho, BhaiSaab, Ikonoblast (Holywarrior) (along with perhaps Basawala and others) have been at loggerheads with Hkelkar and Bakasuprman as well as Subhash Bose since these users entered Misplaced Pages. I do not believe Subhash and Hkelkar are sockpuppets, but want to watch the case a while before I give my comments. What interests me is that the reason they want Kelkar blocked or discredited has nothing to do with sockpuppetry, Shiva's Trident has been inactive for a long time so it's not like he's been stacking votes or evading 3RR, they're going after him because of the fact that these two groups of users have lots of edit wars with each other. How convenient if this case takes people's eyes of the real essence of Misplaced Pages, the editing. What's disturbing to me is that there is an undertone, probably religious (based on the fact that users keep distrubing Hkelkar over his Jewishness), which shouldn't make its way into a sockpuppetry case. Regards. Nobleeagle 06:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

RfC

Would you please comment on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Muhammad#Request_for_Comment Thanks --Aminz 10:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Dbachmann for your input. --Aminz 11:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Maeotae

It so happens that I spent a part of Saturday sorting out the articles imported from Smith's dictionary: Maeotae, Sindi (people), etc. Then I moved to Scythians. Therefore these topics are on my watchlist. --Ghirla 18:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Neither did I, before Saturday. I wonder how many stubs User:Carlossuarez46 imported from Smith's dictionary. I suspect that many are completely lost and linkless. --Ghirla 18:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's a list of them all: User:Carlossuarez46/Smithlist. --Ghirla 18:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Repeat Request

Dbachmann, will you please let me know who had erased "Ossetian Genetics", and what WP rules he/she used in doing so. I agree that its contents belonged to a more general article, making it a separate stub was a temporary tactics to avoid nationalistic wars and to develop presentable contents in normal quiet atmosphere. But the contents were removed without a trace in a fashion that appear to be inside work, and I want to appeal on procedural grounds.

If you look into article history, you will find this. No deletion took place. If you want to discuss Ossetians and their genomes, I suggest you use Talk:Ossetians. I repeat my request to you to edit honestly. You are most welcome to discuss minority opinions on Misplaced Pages if you source them. To misrepresent them as mainstream or even fact is not. Therefore, stick to citing whatever studies you like, but stop your "Indo-Scythian hypothesis" and "Türkic Scythians" idiosyncracies. dab (ᛏ) 22:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Than you, it was very helpful link. Barefact 00:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

and stop changing image tags. . I am losing patience with you here, what makes you think you'll get away with this? Would you please follow the rules like everyone else. You can argue fair use for your images, but you'll have to cite your source cleanly. And I'm not going to do that for you. dab (ᛏ) 22:21, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I need help on this one, I received a note that the "fairuse" label I thought is totally right is "not specifying the copyright status of the image", and that I shall add "copyright tag". I need to add this copyright tag in a right way, if my first attempt was not right, and I need advice on how to do it rigth. The image(s) are mine, and I am giving them for GDFL Barefact 00:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Arminius Vandalism

Hello Dbachmann, I've never reported a vandal before and this may not be the way to go about it but the Arminius page is plagued with a certain user (IP 12.218.128.125) who repeatedly vandalizes the page with various opinionated and unsourced statements. Myself and a few others have reverted him a few times and he doesn't seem to want to use the talk page - I can't catch him every time and he's probaboly doing the same to other pages. Where do I go from here? :bloodofox: 02:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For your hardwork and dedication to making Misplaced Pages a better place. I, Sharkface217, award you this Original Barnstar. Good job! :-)Sharkface217 04:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Samsara Image

Dear Dab, I was wondering if you would be able to help out with this dispute over a fair use picture. Is the image totally off-track in terms of Misplaced Pages criteria? I didn't upload it, but it seems appropriate for the page? See: Image talk:Samsara.jpg Many thanks, ys, GourangaUK 11:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

New Right

Hi, you added Category:Nationalism as parent cat to Category:New Right (Europe). Now the term "New Right" has also been used to describe movemements in Europe which have nothing to do with nationalism, like U.K conservatives who rallied behind Thatcher. Maybe we should rename Category:New Right (Europe) to Category:Nouvelle Droite? Intangible 01:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Assyrians, etc.

Hi Dbachmann. I noticed you made some edits to the Assyrian people article. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there was a dispute about the intro for awhlie, and it was finally resolved. Any future changes like that should probably be proposed on the talk page so there can be some sort of consensus. Anyways, I hope you understand. Cheers, Khoikhoi 06:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Bronze Age swords.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Bronze Age swords.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Misplaced Pages articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to the image description page and edit it to add {{Replaceable fair use disputed}}
2. On the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our fair use criteria. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that any fair use images which are replaceable by free-licensed alternatives will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sherool (talk) 16:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Decius

Was Decius banned indefinitely from editing wikipedia? Or is it an impersonator? Miskin 19:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well..?? Miskin 13:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Alemanni expansion.png

Dear Dbachmann, I really liked this image as I am convinced of the value of maps for understanding history. I hope you won't mind me pointing out a small error. You have placed Moguntiacum (now Mainz) at the place of Ludwigshafen/Mannheim. Maybe you want to correct this some time. Good luck with your efforts on the Misplaced Pages. Guusb 20:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I will, thanks for pointing this out. dab (ᛏ) 21:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

You're wellcome. Guusb 16:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Falcified name at "Scythia"

Hello Dbachmann, please look at continuous falcification of the name Atails => Ataias by Alidoozade/Khosrov team, without a reference whatsoever. I posted a request on the Talk for justification of this evident distortion, and did not get any results. The falcification is more evident in that there are other copies of the same coin, and they all read the same name. Barefact 00:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

India page

Hi Dab,

We had once briefly talked on the Indus Valley Civilization talk page. Since I valued your calm advice then, I thought I'd ask again. There is a user: Hkelkar who suddenly appeared on the India page last week and since then has been very unhelpful in his edits. First he uploaded a number of pictures and cluttered up the page and got into conflict with an admin Ganeshk. Now he seems to be pushing a nationalistic POV on the abolition of sati (widow burning). Lately, he seems to have been joined by a user Bakaman (or Bakasuprman). Please see the last two sections of the talk page. He seems to come up with very obscure references, and then seems to aggressively push them. The whole thing seems a little bizarre and I don't know what to do. For now, I'm not doing any thing. Please advise. Fowler&fowler 01:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi dab.Thanks for your attention to this matter. I would like your opinion of my edits regarding Sati in the India article (not the pictures part, that I have backed down on so moot point). I believe that F&F above is whitewashing Raja Ram Mohan Roy's role in the abolition of Sati and, in the process, is citing equally obscure historical references from old and backdated textbooks to advance the POV that RRR's role was subservient to the British ban. My contention is more balanced, that while the British had a significant role to play in mandating the ban, the key lobbying and grassroots activities were carried out by the Brahmo Samaj under RRR both prior to and after the nominal enforcement by the British. May I have your opinion on this matter? I take great offense at the charge of "Nationalist POV" above as I spent 3 hours in a non-nationalist section of a non-nationalist library looking up all the references that I have cited in support of my viewpoint. The refs are definitely not obscure since they are available in scholarly repositories.Hkelkar 03:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to fill up your talk page like this, but let me present my take on this matter in a non-emotive way. There are two aspects to the issue of banning Sati, political and cultural. Culturally, there is no doubt that RRR was strongly influenced by Western thought and Western ideals into regarding the immolation of widows as inherently amoral.Thus, from a cultural standpoint, western ideals got the upper hand. The Brahmo Samaj was a unilateralist Hindu movement that had the same role in Indian history that similar reform movements in Christianity did in the west (who advanced that the immolation of "heretics" was inherently amoral, for instance).However, the implementation of this ban was largely Indian, with westerners playing a nominal role in the process. The latter is a political matter, not a cultural one.Politically, the unilateralists of the Brahmo Samaj have the upper hand here.I believe that the sentence, as it stands, reflect both aspects of the situation. I am not some rabid hesperophobiac and won't deny the cultural contribution of the Europeans in this matter. I have advanced sufficient evidence to support the contention that the political aspect was different from the cultural one.Hkelkar 03:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Finally, I find Fowler&fowler's accusation of "Nationalist POV" rather ironic since Nationalism is also a western concept that was embraced by Indians around the time of the Sati business. Indians had no concept of a "Nation" prior to the Europeans' dropping by.Hkelkar 03:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

in my humble impression (I don't pretend to know much about the recent history of India or Sati),

• Sati doesn't warrant more than a very brief mention on the Republic of India article anyway. Debates about cultural vs. political aspects should go to to the Sati article.
• the whole "Indian vs. Western" dichotomy is a gross simplification, and Hkelkar seems to make good sense by recognizing both influences and their inseparability.
• the point that nationalism is a "Western" concept in the first place (and a modern one at that I might add) is an interesting one, and sheds some ironic light on rabid anti-Western Indian nationalism, but of course the dull "us vs. them" mentality embraced by nationalists everywhere is as old as the human race
• I do not know if Hkelkar over-emphasizes the native Indian contribution to the ban, because I am not familiar with the topic. It's really reference vs. reference here, and evaluating their reliability, which should be possible in an amicable good faith discussion.

dab (ᛏ) 09:50, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dbachmann. What are the reasons for your contention that Indian Nationalism is hesperophobic? Most Indian nationalists that I have spoken with and whose literature I have read emphasize:

1. Cultivating better relations with the USA, UK, Turkey and Israel
2. With respect to the highly controversial "Clash of Civilizations" theory, they see themselves as tactical allies of the western countries
3. Technological growth and advancement
4. Modernization of the military through technological means

None of these seem to follow the rabid hesperophobia like that of, say the Islamic Fundamentalists (recall bin-Laden's rhetoric of the "Western Christian crusader", the "evil Jewish puppeteers of Israel", the "degraded and amoral western culture" and other such kookery). While parties such as Shiv Sena have expressed similar disdain for that valentine's day stuff, I posit that it is incorrect to view Shiv Sena as a "Nationalist" party but more of a "Maratha Ethnocentric Nativist" party with ideologies along the lines of Pat Buchanan and his cohorts in the US,or Baruch Goldstein, or the Irgun or whoever.

Also, in contrast, Pakistani Nationalism and Palestinian Nationalism are rigidly hesperophobic. Both Pakistani and Palestinian Nationalists see the west as "the other guy" and "the oppessor". They find western values and western society inherently amoral. I have found little to indicate that a systemic hesperophobia exists in Indian Nationalism (or even Hindu Nationalism for that matter). Most Indian Nationalists come from the urban middle class, are well-educated, English Speaking, and fairly cosmopolitan.That's my perspective anyways.Hkelkar 23:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

well, yes. Of course, compared to Bin Laden, a lot of people will seem sane and moderate. It seems Hindu nationalism is based on a notion of "Hinduness" that distorts and simplifies the history and ethnic composition of India. Hindu nationalists will likely be more actively anti-Islamic, because that conflict is ongoing, but they also feed on a lot of anti-Christian conspiracy theories, and paranoia related to the British Raj. A lot of British infrastructure and organisation went into building modern India, and among fanatics of Hindu purity and superiority, this seems to have triggered some sort of schizophrenia, including strange fantasies of evil Christian conspiracies vs. millennia (six, if not eight or twelve...) of monolithic "Aryan" civilization. These are just the lunatic fringes I meet when dealing with ancient history, I am not saying this is anything like an openly mainstream mindset (at least I hope not). dab (ᛏ) 08:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It is possible that some of those things happen. However, Hindu nationalists have also engaged in interfaith dialogues with Jesuits, Pentacostals and other Christians, many of whom have come out in support of orgs like RSS. Point fo fact, RSS has adopted Muslim kids who were orphaned by the Islamist terrorism in Kashmir.Plus, the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam (an Ajlaf low-caste Muslim), has come out in support of orgs like BJP. In addition, BJP has even had a Jewish member who was prominent in his support of them (war hero J.F.R. Jacob).

Also, the large bulk of Hindu Nationalists are fervently anti-Caste, and have tried to build bridges with the Dalit and OBC communities with this. Prominent HN's are low-caste, such as Bangaru Laxman, Uma Bharati and Narendra Modi.HN's are pissed of at Muslims largely because of the Islamist propensity for intolerance towards other religions, literalist interpretations of Koranic scripture that condone violence, war and genocide, their own violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, Kashmir, Sind etc., perpetration of the Muslim Caste System (Beradaris,Qoum, Ashraf/Arzal etc.) which has not reformed at all because of the literalism of many Muslims that keeps their society rigid (unlike Hinduism which is ideologically much more fluid and amenable to reform, such as the Brahmo Samaj or whatever),and the fact that a great many Muslims in India are turning to Deobandism, Wahabism, and other Fundamentalist sects that drive them to terrorism or tacit support of terrorism.

Plus, while I admit that some HN's tend to take the Christian agenda an exaggerate it's portrayal, one cannot deny that several sects of Christianity are engaged in a systematic persecution of Hindus, both in India and abroad.Many of them profess to an agenda to destroy Hindu society, so you can;t blame the HN's for reacting badly. Witness the national Liberation Front of Tripura and their atrocities on hindus, Southern baptists under Jerry Falwell or whoever, the mandate of the Papacy that says that India should be "fully Christianized". Plus, Hindus are not the only people in the world who are annoyed with Christian prosetylization. Look at Jews for Judaism, a group opposing the anti-Judaic Jews for Jesus.Also, I'm sure you have heard of the documentary "Jesus Camp" circulated in the US, where they show Fundamentalist Christians engaged in systemic missionary training, as well as arms training, marksmanship and unarmed combat.You have to admit that their motives are highly suspect. Also, it is a fact that Christian missionaries often take control of food supplies in a region and starve the population until they convert en-masse. This is not only true in India but also done in Ethiopia, Kenya,Lesotho and other countries where missionaries are active. There were particularly egregious instances of this tactic in Uganda (which is like 88% Christian now). Many secular writers in the west have come out in protest against Christian prosetylization and their precept of religious imperialism (at least, the Bible thumping ones, who seem the most vocal and active nowadays).

I'm just saying that the matter is not black-and-white. There are shades of grey involved here.While not all of the ideologies of HN people are palatable, their rhetoric and actions are far less severe than those of the growing cabal of Islamic Fundamentalists and Jihadi Islamo-Nationalists who are completely and totally exclusivist, intolerant, normatively destructive, medeival minded and pose a far greater threat to modernization and democracy in the long run.

Of course, we have been talking about Indian Nationalism here, of which HN is just a part. There is also Indian Muslim Nationalism, with the "great Qoum" and all that to consider. Plus, the large bulk of secular nationalists in India also come into the fold of Indian Nationalism, even those from the left wing.Hkelkar 22:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear Dab, Sorry, I hadn't seen that you had replied. Thanks. The issue got resolved. The resolution can be seen here. As for your remarks above beginning, "well, yes. Of course, compared to Bin Laden, ..." all I can say is that your remarks are pretty insightful for someone who claims to be only a distant observer of the Indian scene. My own sense is that the schizophrenia you mention is more widespread than in just the lunatic fringe, but it just an impression, not something I have hard evidence for. Thanks again. Fowler&fowler 20:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Belgaum

Hi Dab, While removing the latest unsourced info added by some anon user, I believe you have reverted to a much older version. The article had undergone several changes over the last couple of months. Can you please take a look at the diff of your revert, and act upon accordingly? Thank you! - KNM 15:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Ebizur

I'm seriously annoyed by his activity here. The guy adds tons of serious assertions, without citing his sources. I would like to seek an expert opinion, but I don't really know where. --Ghirla 11:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Nearly all my changes to that page were simply elaborating on the previous edits, which had already referenced Rootsi 2004. Please take the time to peruse the references before criticizing my additions to the Misplaced Pages article. The Haplogroup I page in particular was terribly out of date, as it did not even mention the discovery of two shared mutations that link haplogroups I and J nor any of the recent work that has been done on determining subclades of haplogroup I and their geographical distribution. If you would rather leave the article in a terribly outdated and practically useless state, then please do go ahead and revert it to its earlier form. Ebizur 13:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 12:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

pic deletion

Hi Dab - could you please delete Image:Lothal (Small).JPG? It is a part of those 2-3 pictures (maps of IVC) that I uploaded back in Feb/March w/o understanding image policy. Rama's arrow 22:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Indo-European s-mobile

Hi there. I've done a fair bit on Indo-European s-mobile today and would now value feedback. Thanks. --Doric Loon 18:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Super, thanks for those useful edits. Can you explain to me why you didn't like the Greek and Gaelic examples? Greek because it does funny things with initial s? And Gaelic because...? I did wonder about putting in the earliest attested forms (Old English etc) since those are what scholars prefer to work with, but I thought most readers would find it more useful to see the thing working in languages they know, especially modern English. What do you think? Anyway, thanks for your input. --Doric Loon 20:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

RV

Respected Db, Thanks for your edits on the history of Hinduism. Just one thing I'm unclear on: Why did your remove my Coulson citation for the date of the Rigveda and replace it with your own? We have two different authorities citing different dates. However, Coulson's date includes your dates, since it says "at least." I'm not going to fight to the death over this or anything, but I'm just not sure I understand your reason for changing it.HeBhagawan 14:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Zygii and Zyx

Dab, I would like to ask you to take a look at these old stubs. I have tried googling for "Zygii+Strabo" and then tried to search in Google Books. The result is zero. I'd like to post them for deletion, but decided to ask your opinion before doing so. I also welcome your opinion on the recentmost additions to Early Middle Ages. Thanks, Ghirla 16:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

never heard of them, unsubstantiated, unsourced, delete away :) dab (ᛏ) 23:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Need admin advice

I'm asking you this because I think you have met such users before. In case you didn't know, Great power is a term used in power politics and political science to define a nation which has a large amount of power projection over other nations but is below the level of a superpower, or a dominant nation in a bipolar or unipolar geopolitical climate. The term was coined in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna. Since then, academics, analysts and political people have been using it to describe such nations. I've edited this page since I started Misplaced Pages. An anon user and a more long-term user User:Casey14 believe that me, User:Xdamr and User:Gerdbrendel have placed some sort of dicatorship over the page (such accusations have come before) because we don't allow countries to be added without a reliable academic source proving that that country is/was a great power. It's not new, it happens all the time (check the archives on Talk:Great power) but it is incredibly frustrating. Now, recently this anon user added Bulgaria as a great power sometime in 1000 AD, when I asked for a source I received one from www.tripod.com where you can create free websites. Not reliable, so I reverted and got engaged in a revert war. It's going nowhere and I'm not sure whether I should forget about 3RR because my one and only (12 hour) block came in a similar dispute on the same page. I've told the user about policies many times but they accuse me of bias. Comments like but we simply have people with their own biased views who will not allow that to happen make me feel like hard work is never appreciated, especially since this article has been pulled out of unsourced, mass tagged rubbish to become something with decent information. No admin visits the page and deals with such users. I want advice for how I should deal with this and whether I should still conform to 3RR even if he/she gets the last revert. Nobleeagle 03:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ulritz

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

Ulritz and Rex Germanus are placed on revert parole. They are limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, they are required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Ulritz and Rex Germanus are placed on probation for one year. They may be banned from any page or set of pages for disruptive edits, such as edit warring or incivility. All blocks and bans and are to be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ulritz#Log of blocks and bans.

For the Arbitration Committee --Srikeit 06:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Ancient peoples of Russia

I created this category as part of massive cleanup of Category:History of Russia which was littered with stubs such as Zygii, Obidiaceni and whatnot. All the peoples that lived on the territory of Russia in antiquity should be put into a single category. Since we have Category:Ancient peoples of China, I don't see why there should not be comparable category about ancient peoples of Russia. Your argument that "Unlike China or India, "Russia" refers to a nation (state) but not to a geographic region in general" needs substantiating. So far it's only a personal opinion. If you feel that the category should be split according to some criterion, you are free to do so. For instance, Proto-Indo-Europeans may go, but Kurgan hypothesis should stay, as it is part of Category:Ancient peoples anyway. --Ghirla 15:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

By saying that there are no "people that should be in Category:Ancient peoples of Russia but not in Category:Ancient peoples at the same time", do you mean that these peoples lived not only on the territory of present-day Russia but in adjacent countries as well? Such peoples as Zygii and Sindi seem to have been attested within the borders of Russia only, so they should not be included into the parent Category:Ancient peoples per WP:CAT. I don't care how the category that holds them is named as long as they don't litter Category:History of Russia which is for general topics and not tiny stubs. I can't agree that China is primarily a cultural region, as opposed to Russia. Xinjiang, Tibet, Manchuria — all these are distinct cultural regions from China proper, yet their ancient inhabitants are categorized together. This is a matter of convenience, not ill-conceived nationalism. --Ghirla 15:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

If you put the category for renaming to Category:Ancient people on the territory of the Russian Federation, I will support. --Ghirla 16:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that Category:Scythia is really a solution. It is part of Category:History of Romania, Category:History of Russia, and Category:History of Kazakhstan, among others. Thus, the items stored in the category (such as my favourite Zygii and Sindi (people)) appear to be as relevant to Romania and Kazakhstan as they are to Russia (on whose territory the tribes lived). This is rather misleading. --Ghirla 16:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

King of the Gypsies

By the way, when you have time, please take a look at Komedes and King of the Gypsies. I could not believe my eyes when I saw these entries. And another query for you: do you think it worthwhile to upload a copyrighted image of the chariot found at Pazyryk to illustrate the Scythian culture of the 400s BC? --Ghirla 15:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know any St. Petersburgers in English wikipedia. I may ask in Russian wikipedia later. Anyway, obtaining a free photograph in the Hermitage is sort of complicated. I visited the museum more than once and never saw any Scythian artifacts. They are exhibited as a separate collection, for which you have to buy a separate (and rather expensive) ticket. And I would not be surprised if they don't allow photographs there at all. Not for free, anyways. For the time being, I could not resist uploading Image:Scythiancarpet.jpg, Image:Scythian tatoo.jpg and Image:Hermitageswan.jpg from the same website. I expect our image police on my talk page from minute to minute :) --Ghirla 16:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Archiving of Assyrian people

All i see is a mess! I am really not following the chronology of events! I can't follow the mess re to the archiving process!!! -- Szvest 23:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The solution to that is what i did (not just being bold but Archive 5 is soooo short!). I hope it is ok now. -- Szvest 23:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Request

Hi Dbachmann,

There is a dispute over the reliability of sources mentioned here . I think they are reliable but Opiner thinks they are not. I am trying to form a consensus. Would you please let me know what changes should be applied to this section so that you agree with its addition (to *reformer* section here or to some other article). Thanks very much. I would like to chat with editors individually and when a consensus is achieved, request them to comment on the talk page that they agree with the section. Thanks in advance. --Aminz 22:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Swisstopo Bluemlisalp 100.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Swisstopo Bluemlisalp 100.png. The image description page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Misplaced Pages articles constitutes fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Misplaced Pages page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions. 13:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Swisstopo Bluemlisalp 25.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Swisstopo Bluemlisalp 25.png. The image description page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Misplaced Pages articles constitutes fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Misplaced Pages page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions. 14:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Mythical chronology of Greece

Dab, I have no objection to Jerome's chronology of Greek mythology, but in my opinion that old article was so OR it was better to delete it. Making it specific to Jerome is a vast improvement already. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Maps

There is no broad consensus against the entries maps of ... I even got a barnstar for that and other people are also editing the entries. Only a few editors do not agree. I have clearly given the advantages of these entries and I gave alternatives. I tried to find compromises, so I am not convinced by your arguments. I like your improvement of the cartography, but I didn't like the removal of the galleries in this articles. Please be aware that a lot of the maps are not published at the commons. The page you created at commons isn't complete. Are you going to upload all the maps? Electionworld Talk? 22:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Do I understand well, that for you entries named Gallery of maps of Switzerland would be acceptable? The reason that not everybody uploads images to the commons, even if they would fit into the criteria of commons. Electionworld Talk? 18:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

DOnt destroy the galleries

You might have noticed that I started to move the galleries to my userspace to prepare a transfer to commons. During this proces, do not destroy the old galleries. (I couldn't find the content of the old gallery Maps of religions. Give me some time. Electionworld Talk? 18:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It will take some time to rename all the files. I am busy with that, they will be put temporarely in my userspace, further elaborated and transferred to the commons. So for the time being, do not interfere with the galleries names Maps of XX. Tanks. Electionworld Talk? 09:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Gelonus

What's going on? --Ghirla 08:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Maps of religions

I don't know what happened and I am aware - off course - of the history feature, but the history of Maps of religions is not complte, the first is your moving the entry. So therefore, I ask you not to hurry, but to wait until I moved all the files to my user space. Electionworld Talk? 10:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the history. Electionworld Talk? 11:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Asii redux

The userpage of User:Sze cavalry01 lists all of his articles, which are recognizable by his insistance on connecting various classical people to Cambodia. See Cambyses, for instance. --Ghirla 16:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

"my articles contain elements of original research. If you are a visitor here and have some please impartially list your views or start discussion in the discussion page" — not a great attitude :\ dab (ᛏ) 17:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably the best way to go is to raise the issue of this "original research" contributor on some high traffic board, such as WP:VP or WP:AN. Let the others judge on the merits of "his" articles. --Ghirla 17:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Barbarious Pre-Christian Barbarians

Hey Dab, the Charlemagne article is currently experiencing some controversy about a strict need for the term Barbarian to be applied at a mention of the Franks. See: Talk:Charlemagne#.22Barbarian.22_Germanic_Pagans. You may be interested, something of a revert war has come out of it and I am not sure how to proceed. It seems to be that "Barbarian" is an inherently loaded term, being a slur in antiquity and dominantly also modern usage - not to mention that the term denotes being from a specific point of view even in scholarly context. However, this is an apparent need to keep it there. :bloodofox: 21:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, your edit was reverted and the debate continues on. I've made my points and am not willing to get into a revert war on the article about this subject. I've refrained from reverting it back since it's the same user that seems to keep reverting the article. Since you probably have a ton of stuff on your watch list, I thought you may be interested. :bloodofox: 04:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Prabhupada Stamp

Hello Dab, sorry to keep coming to you with these but I feel you would give an informed opinion - Would this image qualify as fair-use on the A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada article to illustrate the fact that as some stage some honour has been shown to the man in an official capacity within India? Regards, GourangaUK 13:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

in my view, this should be no problem, at least not until a representative of the Government of India requests we take it down (which I'd say is extremely unlikely), but Sfacets has told you, it may not fall strictly under undisputable fair use. I think this is copyright paranoia, but I am no lawyer. dab (ᛏ) 13:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Please keep an eye on this discussion. Tintin (talk) 13:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I see -- in the light of this, it's probably better to do without the stamp. Or at least crop it and convert it to black and white. dab (ᛏ) 13:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. That link to the discussion clarifies things - I have replaced the image with a photograph I took of the New Delhi temple. which also fits in with the article. Best Wishes, ys GourangaUK 11:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Motion passed for Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ulritz

A motion has been passed for the case linked above.

The anonymous editor who edits from the 194.9.5.0/24 range and was also a part to Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Ulritz shall be subject to the same restrictions as Ulritz and Rex Germanus for edit warring at involved articles. See #Ulritz_placed_on_Probation and #Ulritz_placed_on_revert parole for the applicable restrictions.

For the Arbitration Committee --Srikeit 21:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

In line moon phase tempate broken

Here's what you get when you use your moon phase template {{moon phase}}

Template:Moon phase The percent illuminated is wrong. I've removed this from the Moon page until this is fixed. Lunokhod 18:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Zygii

After I noticed this stub, it started to attract significant attention and I'm not very happy about it. Could you take a look at what's going on? User:Johnmarks9 seems to have registered an account specifically to spam unsourced and unverified information about "Zyx" to articles about the North Caucasian peoples and republics. Regards, Ghirla 16:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_candidates/Sviatoslav_I_of_Kiev

Thought you would be interested in this vote, since you did some work on the article. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Michael Witzel

I'm fine with your edits.Hkelkar 13:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Need Help

There is an article, Aryabhata's relativity principle which is up for AfD. While I think that the article is poorly worded, it seems to me that the basic information is sound. It's just that pop-culture associations with the term "relativity" creates the misconception that Aryabhatta came up with Einsteinian relativity (whereas here he is talking about a qualitative form of Galilean Relativity). See this eprint paper here, and my response to the AfD .I think that the article (title included) needs a major rewrite but the basic information is sound.What do you think?Hkelkar 08:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Bible Translation in Middle Ages

The real issue here is, was Bible translation actually discouraged in the Middle Ages? I was under the impression the the Bible was translated into a multitude of languages during the Middle Ages. Mongolian, Old Saxon, Old High German and almost every other conceivable language...?

this is, after all, precisely what we are saying: translations were discouraged, particularly of the Old Testament, but nevertheless there is a fair number of medieval translations. Translations were only actually outlawed in the 13th century (i.e., in the High Middle Ages). dab (ᛏ) 11:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

OIT (again...)

Mr.Bachmann, while I understand your viewponts very well and agree with them I fear that your present course of action is not fruitful for our ideas. Instead of deleting sections which will only cause revert wars I would appreciate it if you were to help me in constructively making the article better - so that we can get it to a state where the reader upon reading the page can see why the OIT is not a probable hypothesis. I agree with you that the article is longer than it deserves to be and that there is not really any need for including so many tiny non-arguments. But this is where we must be a little tolerant to theiir need to represent the theory in what they feel is the best light - by simply giving them thee leeway to present their arguments. If our own stand point is worth what we think it is providing arguments against theirs sould be easy (and in fact it is since it turns out their entire theory rests on negative evidence).Maunus 10:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not in principle opposed to a section on "memories of an Urheimat" or archaeoastronomy, as long as they are phrased neutrally and give a fair impression on mainstream positions. The parts I deleted contained practically no statement that was phrased in an acceptable way, and since I do not consider it my burden to clean up completely flawed passages, I have removed them. I do point out my reasons in detail on the talkpage regarding the "Urheimat" section. If Sbhushan wants his contributions to stand, he will have to learn to write from a neutral point of view, instead of just dumping verbatim quotes of his favourite fringe author in Misplaced Pages's voice. dab (ᛏ) 10:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Do me a favour and instead of deleting offending sections tag them as POV. I will try to go through them and balance them out, as I get the time. Maunus 10:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why this cannot be done in user space or on the talkpage; I did copy the text of the section to talk now, which is, after all, common Misplaced Pages practice. I see no reason why the section in its unacceptably flawed state needs to stay in article space until someone gets around to fix it. The section isn't just "POV"-but-pertinent (and salvageable). It is simply devoid of any value whatsoever. An informed discussion of what we mean by "Urheimat" belongs on Urheimat, and not on OIT in particular. The statements about Celtic or Semitic Urheimat were completely wrong, and even if you were to straighten them out they will still not contribute to a discussion of "OIT". dab (ᛏ) 10:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

"We've discussed this"??

From what I read on the Abraham Talk page, nothing like a consensus is reached on "historicity" (and this perfectly mirrors the debate between serious scholars). I suggest you read some serious sources on the debate since about 1980. If anything, the weight of scholarly opinion comes down on the side of historicity... Are you really going to make me dredge up sources to keep you from fighting to maintain an absolutist statement to the exact contrary? JDG 23:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

now, now, I am not an edit-warrior. But of course I would be pleased to see you 'dredge up' your sources all the same. I restored the statement in the intro because it is repeated in the body, and you didn't touch the statement where it is discussed in context. So yes please, show us your post-1980 secular academic sources. Since it is anyone's guess if even Moses (Osarseph?) is historical, it is, I suppose, safe to say that Abraham's chances are dismal. I find it interesting to speculate about a possible historical nucleus in the Moses story, but earnestly looking for a historical Abraham is just silly. dab (ᛏ) 00:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> Please see the Talk page... As for the body of the article, it will have to wait. Nothing in my intro edit conflicts with it, as I make no statement that Abraham was in fact historical. JDG 00:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hinduism in Switzerland

Of all Hinduism articles, you should definitely be expanding it!--D-Boy 19:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Barefact & Scythians

It seems that barefact under an ip address has been preparing for a massive distortion of the Scythian article and has removed some facts that I have referenced already to end that annoying discussion. He is doing multiple edits so it is hard to catch him on 3rr. But one look at the spelling and it is clear who is behind the ip address. --alidoostzadeh 06:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Barefact just broke the 3rr rule in Scythian under his new IP address:

• 1st revert:
• 2nd revert:
• 3rd revert:
• 4th revert:

There is no doubt that it is him..just check the composition. --alidoostzadeh 09:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at this forgery: . Barefact is quoting from a pan-turkist source whereas the Issyk inscription has not been deciphered yet and some sources claim it is an Iranic. Although the inscription has not been deciphered yet.. Britannica also clearly says Orkhon is the oldest Turkic inscription (8th century A.D.) and so does every reliable reference I have looked at. --alidoostzadeh 03:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC

Besides the above, Barefact consistently edits the Kurgan article and writes: catastrophes, overlaid by a 19th century belief in Aryan supremacy which created the myth of an Indo-European people. --alidoostzadeh 03:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Amazons

You can nitpick over vocabulary all you want, but please stop deleting material relevant to the basic definition. AnonMoos 21:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

You only ever mentioned objections to single words in your edit summaries, but each time your action was to delete a whole major clause (raising the question of whether your objection was in fact to a specific vocabulary item, or something else that you weren't saying). AnonMoos 16:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"a specific vocabulary item" may change the entire meaning of "a whole major clause". The "major clause" I removed was nonsense. You added something more sensible back. I shouldn't be expected to second-guess intentions to fix nonsense statements. And you shouldn't use terms like "only ever" and "each time" to refer to two (2) edits of mine, no reason to make a case of this. dab (ᛏ) 16:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethnicity templates

Hello Dab, thanks for writing. Actually I'm just being bold. I saw how Template:Navigation is being used in a cascading style like on Template:Africa in topic (see the bottom of Geography of Africa) and elsewhere and realized how that made sense. The part about facilitating access is twofold. I explained the first way (in the ethnic template talk space) in that it allows for a narrowing down of editing by separating the ethnic details (numbers, etc) from the actual article. The second way is that with Category:Ethnicity templates there's a centralized access to just the ethnic details. I realize it seems kind of funny but there are folks out there that are crazy about numbers and populations, etc. and by facilitating access to such information in this way those folks will have an easier time focusing on doing this type of work. I hope that helps understand the logic I'm applying. Does that help you to understand? (→Netscott) 12:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Map of Scythia

Hello, I asked User:MapMaster to create a detailed map of the northern littoral of the Black Sea and to represent Greek colonies there. The guy has some questions on Template talk:Pontic colonies and I would appreciate your opinion. Best, Ghirla 18:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Szhaider

Hi dab. Where should I report these troublesome edits? — goethean ॐ 19:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

hm, which ones in particular? Clearly an Angry Young Man, but concerning his Wikiproject tag removals, well, this is one of the effects because of which I was opposed to have bots add those templates based on categorization. dab (ᛏ) 20:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you think that his Wikiproject tag removals should be reversed? — goethean ॐ 20:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't help overhearing this conversation. WikiProject India seems to be sticking to every article related to Pakistan. This is diminishing separate identity of Pakistan as a country. It is obvious that historical articles about Pakistan will have some references to Pre-Pakistan India. Then is this nationalistic approach towards another country necessary where someone comes and tags all Pakistan related articles with WikiProject India tag. This tag should be confined to articles about present day India only. In one instance, this tag was added to Afghanistan related article. (see and ideology of Undivided India which is being demonstrated in this case). Szhaider 20:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

now look at India (disambiguation). The term "India" can refer either (and originally) to the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan), or (secondarily) to the Republic of India only. In my opinion, India should be the disambiguation page, not the article on the Republic, to prevent such misunderstandings. Particularly in pre-1947 contexts, which obviously includes the IVC, the geographical, not the political (post-1947) meaning applies. I agree, again, that auto-tagging with Wikiproject templates is a bad idea, even independent of such political issues. dab (ᛏ) 20:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

In this case not only link to Republic of India but also the flag of republic of India (which is not the flag of pre-1947 Subcontinent) should be removed from the WikiProject India tag, but also "South Asia" or "Sub-continent" should be used instead of "India". Otherwise, this tag should stay away from Pakistan related articles. Szhaider 20:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kurgan