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Europe Unassessed

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see also:Talk:History_of_elephants_in_Europe/archive

New information on Suleyman makes me suspect that the "first" Suleyman paragraph is a confused rendition of the information in the second. I won't remove the first, though, until I'm sure. -- Someone else 02:08, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Distinguish Asian and African

Could you please mark which of these elephants were Asian and which African? Especially the Hannibal ones. I thought that there were a group of Elephas, not Loxodonta, in Northern Africa that disappeared in historical times. Is that true? -- Error 01:50, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

El Bosco's elephant

The tryptichon painting by Hieronymus Bosch features a stunningly accurate elephant figure of the african variety as well as a less perfectly rendered, but still appearent giraffe. How could he, who never left northern Europe in his life, paint such a perfect african elephant, when it is well known that african elephants are untamably wild and cannot be trained? The first human rideable elephants of Garamba were tamed with modern behavioural biology technics in the 1960s. Therefore no one could ship a wild beast of african elephant to Europe in the medieval ages, only docile asian elephants. I think some form of photography must have existed at the time, else we cannot explain the origin of a perfect african elephant seen in Bosch's painting. 195.70.32.136 18:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Era notation

I feel strongly that editors should not edit for the sole purpose of changing BC to BCE or vise versa. It is a pet peeve of mine. Just let things be. An editor recently changed this article's notation, when it had been stable for over a year or so. I feel that there should be discussion and reason before a change like this should occur. It seems like the creator of this article did not use any era notation, and that another editor (not the creator) introduced BC first. What does everyone think? Should we change the era notation, or leave things be and find better things to waste our time on?-Andrew c 02:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The point is that it was changed randomly without an explanation, by an overzealous editor. I don't think that we should just ignore this and leave it alone, simply because he was able to do without attracting interest, or because it's "been stable for over a year or so". And I looked at the edit history myself, and while the creator didn't introduce the era notion, it was originally BC/AD, and remained that way predominately throughout this article's history. Chooserr 02:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The current policy states "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Misplaced Pages editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." and it also says "Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable;". To me, there is no reason for anyone to change BC to BCE or CE to AD. Period. If I was here when that change was first made, I would equally have opposed it. But I do not go around editing wikipedia for the sole purpose of changing between era notations. And I believe the guidelines, talk pages, RfA, etc all agree. Both are ok, so there is no reason to change. Two wrongs do not make a right. BC is fine. BCE is fine. But switching between the two is not. I'm not going to fight this change. I'd just simply ask that you leave it alone in the future. If you see someone changing the dates, tell them that's not a good idea without prior discussion and that there are much better ways to help out with wikipedia. Don't go around changing them yourself, regardless how justified you feel. Both are fine and the less changes between one or the other, the better.-Andrew c 02:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I haven't gone "around wikipedia for the sole purpose of chaning between era notations" in a long, long time. I came to the page because I was genuinely interested about whether or not Elephants had ever lived freely in Europe - not because I was following someone around. And really while I'm glad that you'd have opposed it if you were here at the time when the first change between era notations was made, I don't think that just because someone is able to make an edit that goes unnoticed it should just be kept and called "stable". If vandalism goes unnoticed for a year would you just say "oh well, it's stable"? I don't think so. So why is the violation of the Misplaced Pages Policy you just refered to any different? Both are against the "rules" of wikipedia. Chooserr 03:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Please, Chooserr, a style dispute can in no way compared to vandalism. Per Misplaced Pages:Vandalism: "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." Changing the era notation from BC to BCE or vice versa is not vandalism. Aecis 14:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

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