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Indo Aryan

Dab, I have started a informal discussion at Talk:Indo-Aryan migration/chat2007. The purpose is to resolve the conflict over said article. A couple of decent points have been raised. Your input would be beneficial. Geo. Talk to me 05:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not trying to circumvent policy here. Your input would be beneficial. I am trying to stop the edit war that is currently in progress, without someone being blocked. Even if you only bring up policies, you will help to end this dispute. Geo. Talk to me 22:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

look, I commend your effort, and if you succeed in reforming trolls in to bona fide editors I will certainly thank you, but I see no problem with blocking users for policy violation. And I also don't see why I should be required to point out policy. Every good faith editor can go and read up policy for themselves. If they decide not to observe it, or are unable to understand it, I do not think other editors should be expected to waste time with them. Misplaced Pages has grown far too big for us to take every teenage zealot by the hand and gently lead them towards encyclopedicity. You are free to do with your time as you like, but I am not here to chat, and I do believe in using the block button against editors who show they are not prepared to follow the rules. dab (𒁳) 10:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Map making question

How do you make maps like this one Image:Europe 34 62 -12 54 blank map.png. I just can't get anything usefull out of the interface. Fornadan (t) 23:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You have to select the "Postscript" option, and then convert the postscript file back into png or something. dab (𒁳) 09:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Indian Mathematics

Hi Dab, I have been editing the Indian Mathematics article, trying to tone down all the bogus claims being made for Vedic Mathematics. I've basically made two changes: a) I added some minor details to some claims, added some references, and explained a formula for square roots as a first-order Taylor approximation; see here (essentially all the material that doesn't have a "citation needed" tag on it), and (b) I created a new sub-section "Assessment of Mathematics of the Vedic Period" see here. Well, this is where user:Freedom skies comes in. At first her/his complaint was that I was adding "Wikiquote material" (perhaps, since I was using "cquote"). I then began to paraphrase the quoted material and s/he complained that I had violated WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in my paraphrases. See the discussion here, where s/he produced some exact quotes (which I had added earlier) and claimed that my paraphrases were not accurate. So, I finally added the exact quotes again. Well, earlier today s/he made a number of edits, where s/he mostly removed material that was critical of the notion of Vedic mathematics. (See here). The material s/he has removed was all sourced and consists of text from articles in known journals or well-known text-books published by Wiley and searchable on Amazon. From the frustrating discussions on the talk page, I get the feeling that s/he doesn't really understand understand the mathematics involved. I don't know how the article can be improved if s/he keeps reverting anything and everything I do. Please advise. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

oh dear, why cannot they just leave good enough alone. Vedic culture is fascinating, but if you have to cut through layers of bullshit before you get to the facts, it somehow spoils the experience. I'll try to help. dab (𒁳) 09:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't realize S. Kak had "solved" the twin paradox. Looking forward to his "publication." This is going to be hilarious. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit I feel rather gleeful about this myself :) dab (𒁳) 15:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Introduction Sanskrit

In the Sanskrit Talk I am hoping for some valid arguments to justify the deviations from basic facts as represented in Britannica. I don't think concise representation of sourced facts being childish. If you think the representation is silly or clumsy I invite you to improve on it, rather than to destroy sourced information. Rokus01 14:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

don't give me that, Rokus. Your edits are not an improvement. You cannot expect to impose your changes to the intro of a long-standing, evolved article just like that. Convince us why we need it, I say we don't. See also WP:LEAD, Misplaced Pages:Lead fixation. dab (𒁳) 14:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You need a lot of rhetoric skills and especially blunt power to convince me of the sense of reverting to an overview outlining the cultural/religious and political characteristics to introduce Sanskrit, but not linguistics. Rokus01 09:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

my focus happens to be linguistic, personally. I don't see the problem. dab (𒁳) 10:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbcom

Please see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan/Evidence.
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan/Workshop.

Thanks.--Nadirali نادرالی

comments

< quote > our html comments== Could you stop sprinkling articles with your html comments? If you have an issue to raise, please do it on talkpages. dab (𒁳) 07:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not have issue to raise. Do you have ?

When you use comments ? Nasz 08:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sory but i do not use this language: " what is the matter with you? All I ever see you doing is adding completely confused nonsense to articles. I don't enjoying following you around undoing your damage. If you have a problem with an article, try bringing it up on the talkpage next time before adding random comments, images or broken text. dab (𒁳) 08:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC) "

I think you are dab = Dbachmann the author of image of r1a1 distribution. Are you sincerly shure that all data there(for the image) ara corect ? I understand you since i commnted out your image as questionable to the data i know. Nasz 08:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

the data is not "correct", it is the data from one particular source, and I am giving that source (McDonald 2005). That's how Misplaced Pages works. It doesn't matter what you "know", but if you can cite other sources, we can include those too. dab (𒁳) 08:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

what is wrong with you? Go to the image page, check the pdf linked, and compare my map to the map there, which is referenced with a full bibliography. dab (𒁳) 08:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you select data to fit your image my answer is:: I don't eat in Mc Donald. Nasz 08:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There is answer to you lat warnings to me User_talk:Nasz#warning. I like also to know your answer to the one question i asking there.

Nasz 01:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

National Development Front

Hello Dbachmann: First of all, thanks a lot for your initiative to resolve the dispute on the article National Development Front. Please review the combined version of the different views. The editors who are leaned towards NDF didnt add the allegations on it. But from a independant perspective, I think this also need to be included, but not as what is NDF, but as allegation to it. This is beautifully downe by user:sundaram7 and I have reverted the article to this version.

Kindly review this page and edit as appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ganeshco (talk • contribs)

The page is under continous attack again. I strongly suggest to lock the page again and review the edits. It is being changed couple of times by user:128.83.131.123. I would suggest to review this user. This IP is from US, not even from India. Sundaram7 08:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

POVFORK

Hi dab. Would you like to offer your opinion in Talk:Cretan Turks? Some editors have been edit-warring on a version which makes it a POVFORK of Cretan Muslims. This has been going on for some weeks now, and those editors refuse to participate in discussion. The article was recently protected in their version, so I think now they have an extra reason not to care. Your opinion on whether or not the current revision makes it a povfork would be useful. Thanks. Miskin 11:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

lang templates

What's wrong with {{lang-xx}}?? I've noticed a bot doing this substitution, and then undoing it again, and Template talk:Lang-de indicates that I'm not the only who doesn't understand at all why we suddenly shouldn't use lang-xx anymore. Was there some discussion somewhere about this? Lupo 13:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sock of User:Maleabroad

I noticed that you blocked user User:Screen_name1234. Can you please take a look at the edits of User:Username2577u who almost certainly is another sock ? More details at the ANI report and related links. Is there some solution to this persistent problem ? Abecedare 22:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a hunch that this is another one - Special:Contributions/Sattelitesqdf - reverting edits on the Hindu article again. Regards, Gouranga(UK) 20:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Please check user Nasz

user Nasz

I noticed that user Nasz came up on your radar, and I just had a transaction with him that I did not like. I follow a practice of not repeating a reversion, so I am backing away. Can you check Sarmatians to determine if User:Nasz deletion of content is correct? I do not know the facts of the issue. Buddhipriya 02:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

What's up with this person? I can't tell if it is a troll, a mental condition or poor English skills, or all three. The edits are bizarre. -- Stbalbach 03:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Long pattern of disruptive behavior needs to be interrupted in some way to get his attention I think. I found him quite by chance on Recent edits patrol. Buddhipriya 03:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I ran into him first a few weeks ago making bizarre edits to blond and two-finger salute. A look through his most recent edits shows similar patterns of bizarre edits and edit warring. I restored his talk page as he keeps deleting it. -- Stbalbach 04:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Astonishing failure by anyone to take action. Here is the response I got when I complained: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism&diff=110004237&oldid=110004051 Personally I find the Misplaced Pages attitudes toward these things incomprehensible. Buddhipriya 05:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

And then he reposted the complaint about himself, perhaps trying to make it look that I was re-reporting him: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism&diff=110006479&oldid=110005843

This behavior is not right. Buddhipriya 05:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If I am any judge, I'd opt for "ADHD kid". I'll warn him again. After that, I'll block and post on WP:AN/I for review. We can't be expected to prance around like that. dab (𒁳) 07:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the daily Nasz report: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Saganet Buddhipriya 08:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

user Bakasuprman

Please check this user. From the contribs of this user, and by analyzing the editing history of this user, it is clear that he is biased and he is communal. He is against mulims and now he is trying to tarnish the image of muslim human rights organization. He is a person who believes in hindutva ideology brought up by RSS, VHP( they wants to make our democratic, secular nation to be a hindu nation). These groups are responsible for Gujarat massacre where thousands of muslims were burned alive and for the demolision of babri masjid and for lots of other communal riots in our country.

I am sending this message to you because i have seen that your edits on the topic "national devolopment front" is again getting attacked by these hindutva fascist. I am a new user to wiki and i dont know how to block this user. For time being i am reverting the article back to what you have edited. Pens withdrawn 04:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

i am not able to revert because i am a new user and the article is protected. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pens withdrawn (talk • contribs) 05:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

Bakaman has a mind clouded by ideology if I've ever seen one. He is so steeped into Hindu=good, Muslim=evil that he believes in it in best faith. Apart from that, he's quite intelligent. This is not the sort of editor WP is looking for, but it isn't a straightforward policy violation to have your head stuck in the sand, so there is no easy way to deal with the problem. You'll just have to treat it as a content dispute, and his more unreasonable edits as policy violation of course. dab (𒁳) 07:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that he is fully intelligent. The last time in regards to a dispute with ARYAN818, he tried to say that Dravidian meant south in Sanskrit. I proved him wrong by showing him that Daksini meant south in Sanskrit and that Dravidian is a family of related ethnicities and languages. Wiki Raja 08:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Most intelligent people specialize in particular fields. Btw, pens withdrawn is no perfect user either on those terms. His inclusion of what's been categorized as a riot as terrorism while his decision to not include the same term on other pages in which the attackers were from the other side is questionable. — Nobleeagle 08:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Pens withdrawn" is a new account; I have no idea about his or her characteristics or former identities. Just because Misplaced Pages gets a lot of new accounts doing stupid things is no excuse for editors in "good standing" to switch to the intellectual level of foaming zealots in a mob lynching. dab (𒁳) 08:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

i didn't mistaken riot as terrorism. Babari masjid was demolished not in a riot. it was a well planned act. In Babri Masjid page, many people tried to mention the groups which were behind its destruction, but these editors deletes that part. Each and every Indian knows that RSS and VHP is behind it. They say that it was demolished by hindu activists. Many people even tried to change 'activist' to 'extremist', still couldn't succeed. i have also given a try and now i left that issue. check editing of Nobleeagle on that page and see how biased he is

. ----Pens withdrawn 13:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:RFCU#Pens_withdrawn.Bakaman 23:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Nasz again

Nasz keeps making nonsense pseudoscientific edits to R1a1. He used to do such things on Polish Misplaced Pages (you can see his logorrhoea on pl:Wikipedysta:Nasz/b/teoria wszyskosci...). Please do something to free Misplaced Pages from this troll.--Al-Bargit 19:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree - I think he is actually more or less in good faith, but apart from anything else his English is too poor to contribute usefully, or to discuss matters with him effectively. I have had his talk page on my watchlist for some time & his history conceals a huge number of warnings, which he just blanks. Johnbod 16:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Kocchar evidence should be removed.

Hi Dab, I propose removing the items attributed to Kocchar since he is not an historian but an astrophysicist by profession. Critisism of his work is given here http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/reviews/kochhar.html. Tens of lines of his points are not justified. More so since the book was written in 1999 and the best satellite evidence of the course of the Saraswati has come only after that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.126.222.21 (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

you could at least give me some hint as to what article you are talking about. dab (𒁳) 21:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I was refering to the article on Saraswati River. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.126.222.21 (talk) 21:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

RfC on Indian Mathematics

I thought you might be interested (at your convenience). Talk:Indian_mathematics#Request_for_comment:_Reliable_Sources_for_Indian_Mathematics Feedback is requested for a problem on the Indian mathematics page, where two users have a disagreement about what constitutes reliable sources for claims in the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dab, Thanks for commenting on the Indian Mathematics Talk page. At your convenience, you may want to update your comments, since Freedom skies had added his statements. Also, it was felt by some that your comments were about the people rather than about the citations. Sorry for the extra work, but an update would be great! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Re:Blocks

Hi Dab - the case to block Haphar is based on his "disruption" - a combination of problems that do nothing save disrupt the work of Misplaced Pages(ns). Haphar has been harranguing Blnguyen ever since troubles arose over his RfAR candidacy - I have been aware of this for some time, but my decision to block came after his latest attack on Blnguyen. He has been "persistently incivil," but also throwing all kinds of accusations against Blnguyen - it is fair to have a few incivil exchanges, but this has gotten to the point of obvious harassment. Haphar has already been warned several times (and blocked as well) regarding incivility and personal attacks. On charges like why I blocked Haphar when Blnguyen could have done it - I'm just doing my job. I saw a violation and I acted. I don't know why Blnguyen didn't do it (perhaps he has more patience) but a violation is a violation. And its not as if Blnguyen could have done it - doing so would immediately create a hue and cry of how he was party to the dispute and he should have gotten an uninvolved admin to block Haphar.

As far as the "India-Pakistan great tag team war" goes, I cannot in the least agree with you. I am actually quite peeved at your willingness to declare that this is an India vs. Pak issue and that I've been acting on that line, "not exactly neutral." I strongly reject any accusation of bias or willingness to ban Pakistani contributors. And the charge that I "tag-teamed" with anyone is purely ridiculous - I have never acted in that way and I have absolutely no sympathy for those who edit in that way. It may be wise to recall your own involvement in the "Rajput" wars to try and understand the presssures I'm facing. The only line of defense the trolls could present was that you were anti-Hindu. That is exactly what the other parties in the ArbCom case are doing - only I don't have the advantage of actually being a non-Hindu. Have you read their nonsense about banning Indian admins from taking action against Pakistani editors? Can't you see the obvious bigotry in this? Of course I was aware that the first thing they would attack me for was my being a Hindu - which is exactly what happened when I blocked Szhaider.

And just like you would have appreciated some help on the Rajput disputes, it would have been nice to see a reputed admin like yourself (in fact, any admin whosoever!) helping me stop the disruption on the Indo-Pak pages. If you believed this was a "great India-Pakistan tag team war," why didn't you do something to help stop it? Bias or no bias, that's all I was trying to do, alone. I don't know why other admins were "missing in action," but I prefer actual work to having the luxury to complain afterwards. Rama's arrow 14:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

that's all fair enough; I did not want to accuse you of anything, and I do not know how exactly this case ties into the "tag team" thing (which is no doubt a reality, there is even an ongoing rfar on it). Your point on the Rajput mess is well taken, and I confess that I did not investigate the background here; I would be most willing to assist you in your efforts if you could just point me to some telling diffs now and again: I am generally quick on the uptake and have learned to tell bona fide disputes from mere wiki-buffoonery with some accuracy. I strongly agree that you are entitled to act as admin regardless of your religion or background. It is still in the nature of things that you will be exposed to special scrutiny here, there is no way around this, but I am willing to assist you and back up your decisions, if you will just make evident what they are based on. My entire point is, you blocked an editor for incivility with no warning and no apparent immediate cause. You allege incivil edit summaries, but I couldn't find any. If you could just point me to one or two "typical" diffs that exemplify the disruptive behaviour you base your block on, it would be much easier to form a quick opinion. dab (𒁳) 15:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab, the following diffs are a few examples of what Haphar has been doing with Blnguyen, since February 12-13. His posts are full of accusations, incivility and taunting - his edit summaries are incivil, mocking and taunting - Please do maintain civility + who's doing a windup now ?, , please focus on other bananas in your basket, Not your concern Blningu, for "the bananna".

I have never (and The Rock means "never") had a problem with criticism. I'm sorry that I lost my cool, but you can see why. The only criticism that has been offered against my blocks of the Pakistani editors is that I am a Hindu. Szhaider, Nadirali and Unre4L have all had their blocks reviewed, so its not like the block(s) were not properly re-assessed by someone else - I also posted reports on ANI. As to what role I would like you to have played - I have been accused of ignoring the other side, when in fact I have absolutely no sympathy for either side's behavior. This dispute was a 2-3 admin job, and several posts on ANI of the cases failed to arouse sufficient concern. I'm not a guy who just steps back and let someone else have to do the work. I had my hands full and I could have used some help. I endorsed user:Daniel.Bryant's block of user:Rumpelstiltskin223 (although I didn't think it was a 3RR vio, I certainly agreed that Rumpel was disruptive) and I endorsed an indef-blocking of user:Hkelkar. But yet, I am accused of bias just becoz in this mania, I missed out on Bakasuprman. Where is WP:AGF in all this?

I have fully defended myself on ArbCom, but let me point out the one thing that frustrates and enrages me more than anything - I was the one who started the effort at Misplaced Pages talk:Notice board for India-related topics/India disambiguation discussion to derive a consensus amongst editors about the content disputes of nationality, the ones that have caused this hullabaloo. I knew that such a war could and possibly would happen and I was doing what I could to avert it - to have an educated consensus on how to deal with such issues. I have had a good relationship with editors like user:Spasage, user:Khalidkhoso, user:Fast track, but of course, nobody likes to focus on that.

When you or any of the others who advise me about exercising restraint, I take that advice to heart but then I expect more admins to do their job of stopping disruption - if I don't get help, if the problems are not being dealt with, CYA is not a priority for me. Rama's arrow 15:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. According to the email Haphar sent me, he recognizes his behaviour has been less than pristine, and is happy to sit out the block. That's a reaction to being blocked we can only hope for. So I think we can regard the Haphar issue settled for now; I do maintain you could have given him a warning, especially since he wasn't doing anything intense, and you argue you have a lot of other stuff on his hands. A full week of prolongued pestering, you should think, would generate a couple of warnings first. That's the Haphar thing. I shouldn't have brought the whole Indo-Pak mess into it, it should stand on its own, my mistake.

regarding your efforts in Indo-Pak peacekeeping: I do commend you for that. I say again: do let me know if you are under pressure and need backup. I am extremely fed up with the childish behaviour we get on both sides, and I feel annoyed enough to clamp down without regard for sex, age, race, creed or intelligence. Please let me know. Do we have any Muslim (ideally, Pakistani) admins? We could form an admin Indo-Pak intervention trio: the Muslim, the Hindu and the Swiss, seeing to it that this childish mess comes to an end the NPOV way :p dab (𒁳) 16:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your understanding - I too, respect your opinion and I will proceed to reduce Haphar's block to 24 hours - for the record, although Blnguyen warned him about stopping this behavior, Haphar did not heed. Being so rude and aggressive over this long period of time does not help him as he is obviously aware of WP:CIVIL/WP:NPA.

I am entirely in agreement with you in your attitude towards such troublesome editors. I will certainly ask for your advice and help in the future - in this case, I thought the ANI reports should have alerted other admins, but what's done is done. I do not think one should ever bring nationality/religious identity between admins, but user:Ragib is the finest editor/admin I know, who happens to be a Bangladeshi Muslim. Others include user:Pepsidrinka (a bunch of people are assuming that he is Pakistani, but I'm not sure) and user:FayssalIF. Rama's arrow 16:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that nationality or creed should not be an issue between admins. But it happens that editors blocked will be of the less understanding sort, which is why they are blocked in the first place, and as such will always be happy to jump on the acting admin if he happens to be from the "wrong" background. A Hindu or Muslim troll blocked by a Muslim and Hindu admin in concert will offer much less opportunity for such complaints. dab (𒁳) 17:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Ragib may be Muslim but he's not Pakistani.So we have both Indian and non-Indian admins in the disputes but no Pakistani admin.Pepsidrinka hardly visits[REDACTED] anymore,so thats the problem.I 100% agree the need for pakistani admins.I proposed on the workshop of the Arbcom case that admins should be barred from participating in disputes related to their ethnicity.The Indians,for obvious reasons,strongly oppossed that.Since we have no Pakistani admins,I suggest that non-South Asian and nuetral admins like you should handle these disputes rather than Indian admins like RA,Samir or Ganshk who are usingtheir tools to push Indian POV on Pakistani users.RA blocked Unre4L for a week for stating "160 million people (Pakistanis are being denied their history".RA's accusation was that Unre4L was "insulting Indians and Hindus" by saying that.I hope you can see the imbalence here.--Nadirali نادرالی

Nadirali, as I argue above, to experienced editors, an admin's background shouldn't matter. All admins have proven to have detached and reliable judgement to some extent. We don't need a Pakistani admin. It should be enough to have a couple of neutral admins monitoring each others' actions. dab (𒁳) 19:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you.That's why I proposed that admins shouldn't be allowed to participate in disputes related to their nationality or national orgin at the Arbcom workshop. I suggested this because Indian users keep turning to Indian admins for support.I don't sse that as fair.There is an entire category of Indian admins. What my proposal is that we have neutral admins from niether countries.I'm not saying all admins are biased in issues related to their nationality but it's generally the case. I my proposal was rejected harshly by Indian users for obvious reasons.--Nadirali نادرالی

you don't agree with me then -- if you agreed with me, you'd say that admins can participate in any dispute they like, just as long as they don't use their admin privileges in cases where they are involved. If you have evidence of Indian admins acting unfairly, you should bring it up in an RfC. But yes, I suppose in this case, every Indian admin before blocking a Pak editor would do well to ask themselves "would I block this guy if he was pushing the opposite pov, too?". dab (𒁳) 14:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Manuscript names

I think it it is best to follow the practice of most articles (all except yours perhaps) in the category, & not use just the catalogue/shelf ref as the title of the article. Either the name of the Library or some descriptive phrase should also be included. Also in some, you don't actually say which Library they are in. Cheers Johnbod 15:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

PS I'm also a bit dubious about using a German plural form and an umlaut in Category:Fechtbücher. Normally you can add redirects for -buecher & -bucher, but not with a category. Is there no English term? Johnbod 15:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

can you link to the article you are talking about please?? what manuscript? You can suggest moves on talkpages, or just move things, I tend not to care about the exact title of an article on a manuscript. Category:Fechtbücher could be called "Historical European martial arts treatises" or something, although I don't think that's too pretty. dab (𒁳) 16:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You will see there are 5 number-title only articles in the Fechtbucher cat, plus a few more in cat Illuminated manuscripts; I think all were started by you - most certainly.CPG 339 and 359 don't give a library - maybe others too. Both "Fightbooks" and "Combat manuscripts" seem to have some currency looking at Google - the 2nd would probably be best. Johnbod 16:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

um, yes, that was ad-hoc; feel free to move them to a more descriptive title. Note that "combat manuscripts" is not the equivalent of "Fechtbücher", since some of the 16th century (not to mention 17th to 18th century) treatises were printed, not handwritten. dab (𒁳) 17:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

ok - maybe "Combat treatises". Where do CPG 339 & 359 live? I think in general the formula "Title/type of book (Library, Cat #)" is best for future titles, with a redirect for the Cat number. Johnbod 17:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

in Heidelberg, see the facsimile links; I know these aren't good articles, they are just quick stubs created in passing. dab (𒁳) 21:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

s:la:Vulgata

Hi Dbachmann. I search the user s:la:Usor:Dbachmann, perhaps it is you (more precisely the contributions of this user have been imported from Wikisource with the creation of the latin subdomain, I think).

If it is the case, has you some informations on the book/edition of the Vulgata where you has found the text, to know what version of the Vulgata it is (it's parly a question of s:la:Vicifons:Scriptorium#Vulgata and to add information in the page s:la:Vulgata). Thank you Seb35 (la) 10:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It's again me :) I just see in s:la:Pagina prima it is written that the edition is the Clementine. So I've found what I searched. Seb35 10:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

you can just link to w:Lorem ipsum for explanation. But, since it isn't Latin, it shouldn't be kept in the la subdomain, it should be in subdomain-less wikisource.org. dab (𒁳) 14:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

it's a wiki, I suppose you'll still have to verify the claim. I don't remember where on the internet I got the text, and cannot vouch for its correctness. dab (𒁳) 14:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

good faith

I understand the reasoning behind AGF but when an editor's conduct is characterized by bias and lies, surely there must come a point when other editors are no longer obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt. CiteCop 13:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

that's my opinon entirely. Are you referring to a specific case? I'm afraid I cannot block even obvious trolls in cases where I am involved as an editor, unless the case is utterly beyond the acceptable. dab (𒁳) 13:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Did it seem like I had anyone specific in mind?
I understand that you have to recuse yourself where there is conflict of interest, but when a users contribution history is as clear as day, there really ought to be a way to deal with them quickly instead of letting them continue to harm Misplaced Pages for months and years. CiteCop 14:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

yes, but which user?? I am dealing with several such users at any given moment. If the case is abundantly clear, a few diffs to WP:AN/I should do the trick, don't you think? Or maybe we need a new noticeboard for "admins willing to investigate trolling patterns". dab (𒁳) 14:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to Freedom skies. His edits to Indian mathematics reflect a broader pattern of dishonest citation. He either tries to pass off a patently unreliable source as a reliable one, or he misrepresents or outright lies about the content of sources. CiteCop 14:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

ah of course; the problem is not so much this user himself, but the mindless loose tag team of nationalists we get on Misplaced Pages, that will jump to the defense of any Indian editor that happens to be criticized, regardless of the actual merit of his contributions. Freedom skies is naively misguided but honest, and would meet the fate of so many other misguided pov pushers in due time; it is campaigning editors who are perfectly aware of what they are doing (like Bakaman) that pose a far more serious problem to Misplaced Pages. I have no ready solution. I would be willing to issue blocks for such behaviour, but I will need to submit to the judgement of uninvolved admins. The problem being that admins unfamiliar with the literature will be less quick to recognize bad faith pushing of fringecruft. I am willing to publicly repeat my take on the situation anywhere, but beyond that I don't think I can do much. dab (𒁳) 14:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur except I think that Bakaman is not as problematic as Freedom skies. Bakaman exhibits a sense of perspective and at least some decency. Freedom skies, on the other hand...I've explained to him on multiple occasions exactly what constitutes a reliable source. And even if I didn't, he could always consult WP:RS. At this point it is clear that his inappropriate citations are not honest mistakes but show deliberate intent to mislead Misplaced Pages users. Take a look at Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts, for example. That article is just one poorly sourced citation after another. CiteCop 15:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Illuminated manuscripts

There's nothing difficult about it; for both WP and normal Library/scholarly purposes any manuscript with illustration or decoration is illuminated. Any further distinctions between period and type are subordinate to that. An extreme example is the Codex Usserianus Primus.

What is your point about Codex Vindobonensis B 11093? That it has too many pictures to be illuminated? No. "You need to realize that "illuminated" manuscripts are (typically) medieval manuscripts with ornamental artwork" - thanks for the tip, but I don't think I need lessonss from you on the subject.

There is a discussion going on at Talk:Illuminated_manuscript#Illuminated_manuscripts if you want to give your views. Johnbod 15:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you trying to maintain that if illustrations are "part of the content" and not decorative, the Ms is not illuminated? And that there is a parallel category of "illustrated manuscripts" going back to, for example, the C6th Vienna Dioscurides? That is just nonsense I'm afraid. If so the Vienna Genesis and many other MS would not be illuminated. What I said is correct: "for both WP and normal Library/scholarly purposes any manuscript with illustration or decoration is illuminated". The OED you will note refers to the addition of miniatures - whether they are decoration or content is an oversubtle and fairly meaningless point. Johnbod 15:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

PS You might also consider Mesoamerican codices, the earlier examples of which are by definition pictures only, and are counted as illuminated manuscripts. Johnbod 16:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop this silliness, which is verging on vandalism. If you have an issue with the categorisation everyone (including yourself) has previously used, you should raise it at the ongoing talk page discussion I linked to above. Johnbod 17:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You should also consider the meaning of "miniature" as well explained in the first para of that article. I'm afraid you are getting into an area you clearly have little knowledge about, and I would suggest you do some basic reading on the matter, and put your opinion on the talk pages, before making further changes to long-established articles and category structures. Johnbod 18:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Persian Language

the statitcs that you included in the List of languages by number of native speakers was just about Iran. It is also spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan (and are official)and Uzbakistan, , but some times the local name of them are Dari and Tajik. even some may include Luri or Tati as the dilects of it. I revert it in to its previous number. please if you have more questions, review Persian Language or ask me. take care--Pejman47 16:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dbachmann, 31-million figure is just about Iran and incorrect. There are at least 40 million native speakers in Iran plus tens of millions of native speakers in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere. --Mardavich 17:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but ethnologue.com has (in millions):

aiq:  0.65
bhh:  0.11
drw:  0.01
deh:  0.01
jpr:  0.06
prs:  7.60
pes: 24.32
haz:  2.21 
phv:  0.002
tgk:  4.38
-----------
total: 39.35

dab (𒁳) 17:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, the ethnologue's figures are incorrect, there are at least twice as many native-speakers. You can simply add-up the numbers from CIA factbook and see the results, I'll see if I can find other primary sources with correct numbers. --Mardavich 18:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

100% of poeple of Tajikistan (with population of 7.3)speak only Tajik see the wiki article or CIA fact book but ethnologue gives only 3.3, I think maybe in this case the reason is that the date of ethnologue is 1991

but take in account that the population of these three countries double every twenty years (unfortunately or fortunately!) You should at least multiply some of the above figures by two or in some case 1.5 or using CIA fact book for relative percentage .--Pejman47 19:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

look, these are the current ethnologue numbers. If we're ranking every other language by them, we cannot use other numbers just for Persian. dab (𒁳) 20:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

but you have a point. It is not true that 100% of the people of Tajikistan are native speakers of Tajik. But the Tajikistan page gives 7M for population, but numbers for native speakers only add up to about half that number. This is a problem. This whole ranking business is flawed anyway, and we need to to sort languages according to one single authoritative source, otherwise there will be no end to disputes. Ethnologue is the best such source I know, but maybe you can think of some other suggestion to bring up on Talk:List of languages by number of native speakers. dab (𒁳) 21:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi about ethnologue I had contacted them a long time and they accepted their number is incorrect. I'll be glad to send you the relevant e-mails. It should be removed all together. --alidoostzadeh 02:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

that's not the point, alright? the number is outdated. So will be any number of other ethnologue entries. As long as we say "this list is sorted by ethnologue date", we cannot sort Persian, and only Persian, by some other criteria, just because Misplaced Pages's Persians happen to care about the issue, and, say, Misplaced Pages's Telugu speakers don't. If you think the sorting scheme is flawed, suggest another one, to be applied to all entries, not just Persian. thanks, dab (𒁳) 07:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sayana

Thanks for cleaning up Sayana's page. mlpkr 17:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

it was my pleasure -- it still needs a lot of work of course, it's just a stub. dab (𒁳) 17:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this page a candidate for speedy deletion?

Jainism and Hinduism is a new page that says nothing about the topic. Check the contributions by the editor who created it and you find a great many edits related to the Bhagavata. Being new to Misplaced Pages I do not know what to do procedurally when I see something like this. Can you help me understand it better? Buddhipriya 22:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Illuminated manuscripts 101

• 1)First, read this quote carefully:
• Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983. Page 15 (first text page):

"...art historians, who study the decorations, usually small painted pictures. These illustrations are often called miniatures, not because of their size but rather after the minium or orange lead used... Actually the miniatures may constitute only a small proportion of the ornament in a manuscript, for frequently the text also contains decorated letters and penned calligraphic flourishes....

-you will see you are misunderstanding the meaning of decoration, which you take to be abstract or non-illustrative, and of miniature , which you take to mean very small.

Now look at the following on-lines refs (my bolds):

• 2) http://www.artlex.com/ def Illumination

"Illuminated Manuscript" from http://art-history.on-topic.net/art_history/Illumination Books written by hand, decorated with paintings and ornament of different kinds. The word illuminated comes from a usage of the Latin word 'illuminare' in connection with oratory or prose style, where it means 'adorn'. The decorations are of three main types: (a) miniature, or small pictures, not always illustrative, incorporated into the text or occupying the whole page or part of the border; (b) initial letters either containing scenes (historiated initials) or with elaborate decoration; (c) borders, which may consist of miniatures, occasionally illustrative, or more often are composed of decorative motifs. They may enclose the whole of the text space or occupy only a small part of the margin of the page. Manuscripts are for the most part written on parchment or vellum. From the 14th century paper was used for less sumptuous copies. Although a number of books have miniatures and ornaments executed in outline drawing only, the majority are fully colored. By the 15th century illumination tended more and more to follow the lead given by painters, and with the invention of printing the illuminated book gradually went out of fashion. During the 15th and 16th centuries illuminations were added to printed books.

• 3)"Illumination" from same

The decoration of manuscripts, one of the most common forms of medieval art; because of its monastic origins, usually of religious texts. The practice extends from heavy decorations of initial letters and inter-woven margin patterns (as in Celtic examples) to miniatures and and full-page illuminations, often of a formal and grandiose kind (as in Byzantine manuscripts).' Rich colors are a common feature, in particular a luxirious use of gold and silver. Illuminations survived the advent of printing for some time and only died out with the rise of printed illustration in the 16 century.

• 4)"illumination" from here: http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/don/dt/dt1802.html

The decoration of a manuscript or book with painted pictures, ornamented letters, designs, or a combination thereof, in colors and (usually) burnished gold or silver. The design was first drawn and then sized with a mixture of clay, gypsum or lime, followed by an adhesive (glair). The gold or silver leaf was laid on and burnished, and the colors were then applied.

Although illumination is considered to be a medieval art, its origins can be traced back to illustrated Egyptian papyrus rolls and especially to Greco-Roman book illustration. Classical artists illustrated the text of codices with continuous chronological sequences of scenes, which often filled the entire page.

The word "miniature," which comes from the Latin minimum (red lead, which the Romans used for initial letters), is frequently used with reference to the individual pictures in an illuminated work; however, a "miniature painting" is not synonymous with "illustration," (a typo here it seems - they must mean illumination) because illuminations are usually executed in gold or silver while miniatures generally are not.

• 5) from here: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s30/pub/mg1.htm#5 NB German equivalents!

282. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT Manuscript adorned by hand with richly coloured ornamental letters, decorative designs, or illustrations. DU - verlucht handschrift (n); boekverluchting (f); illuminatie (f) FR - manuscrit enluminé (m) GR - Illumination (f); Buchmalerei (f); Miniaturmalerei (f); Bilderhandschrift (f) IT - manoscritto miniato (m) SP - iluminación (f) SW - illumination; bokillumination; bokmåleri

283. ILLUSTRATED BOOK Book that includes visual images to explain, augment, or embellish the text. DU - geïlustreerd boek (n) FR - livre illustré (m) GR - illustriertes Buch (n) IT - libro illustrato (m) SP - libro ilustrado (m) SW - illustrerad bok

284. ILLUSTRATION See also PLATE (432) A drawing, photograph, or other image representation designed to decorate or to clarify a text. DU - illustratie (f); afbeelding (f) FR - illustration (f) GR - Illustration (f) IT - illustrazione (f)

- no "illustrated manuscripts" here, or in any other Glossary I have seen!

I hope that is enough for you Johnbod 03:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What on earth is the distinction supposed to be - there is none! How would you classify the following, and why: Utrecht Psalter, Vienna Dioscurides, Velislai biblia picta, Matthew Paris's Chronicle, and examples of the Biblia pauperum?

You now have to produce credible references to support your view that there is a difference - so far you have only produced two websites, one Indian (!!), and one book-title. Let's see some text clearly defining this supposed category from Glossaries of art terms, major text-books etc.

It is clear from the references I have cited that illustration in medieval manuscripts is completely subsumed by "illumination". I accept that after about 1600 the term illuminated is less likely to be used, but that is a very different thing from the wild assertions in your Illustrated manuscript - which you now seem to be back-pedalling on. How is the Codex Wallerstein categorised in German, other than as a fechtbuch - as a Bilderhandschrift perhaps?

What in this detailed account http://freywild.ch/index.php/Codex_Wallerstein supports your idea that it is not an illuminated manuscript? It clearly falls under the definitions above.

The categorization scheme is not mine - I have only done anything on it in the last few days. You yourself categorised several of your articles as ill Ms, and have still not described where the supposed dividing line occurs. You won't take your views to the article talk page, where there is current discussion of categorization.

I think it is clear you have never read or seen the Olson book you cite - it would be interesting indeed to see how the author deals with the matter. Her sub-title Visual Textuality In Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts hardly suggests she shares your view! Leaving the indian website aside, are you suggesting that any of the 27 manuscripts the Heidelburg site you link to shows would not normally be described as illuminated? If so which ones?

Your "references" are, to be blunt, meaningless. The whole article is POV/OR. Johnbod 15:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

dear Johnbod, I never cited Olson in "support of my view". I have no "view" I wish to defend except that "wikt:illustration" is not synonymous to "wikt:illumination". You seem to think I claim the categories are mutually exclusive. They are not, of course. Many illuminated manuscripts have illustrations, and are as such also "illustrated" manuscripts. What is your problem? You could as well rant at me asking I cite references that "pear" and "kernel" are not synonymous. My entire point is that there are late Medieval manuscripts that have illustrations, but cannot be considered "illuminated". That's it. If you are not interested in the category, you are most welcome to ignore it. I happen to be the author of http://freywild.ch/index.php/Codex_Wallerstein , so I would imagine it doesn't contradict anything I just said. dab (𒁳) 16:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Why cannot they be considered illuminated? All illustration of medieval manuscripts is illumination. That is what the definitions above clearly show! I have no objection to them being described as Illustrated, illustrations etc, but I do object to Illustrated manuscripts being set up as something separate when they just aren't. That is your view, and it would seem your view alone. There may possibly be a finer distinction in German, but in English it just doesn't exist. I find many of the apparently perverse positions in WP arise from similar attempts to import concepts from other languages. Please either address my questions oor rethink your position. Johnbod 18:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I am sure we can come to an understanding. The entire point is, that while an "illumination" may or may not be an illustration (I never disputed this), an "illustration" likewise may or may not be an "illumination". All your references define "illumination" as something decorative. A manuscript illustration that is decorative (that is, not part of the work recorded in the manuscript, but incidential to the medium, to the 'edition' as it were) can be counted as "illumination", no problem. An illustration that is part and parcel of the work, that is, every copyist is bound to reproduce the illustration lest his copy be defective, is not an "illumination". That is, if you are doing a copy of the gospels, and you add illustrations of the evangelists, angels and whatnot, these are illustrations but also illuminations, since pictures of angels are not part of the gospel. If you have a manuscript about human anatomy with illustrations of, say, what a stomach looks like, that is due to the author of the text, that image of a stomach is not an "illumination". Can we agree on this? dab (𒁳) 18:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid not. As I pointed out at the start above, you misunderstand the meaning of "decorate" in this context. See the definitions. Using 2 of the examples I asked about aboove, the Vienna Dioscurides is a pharmacological C6th Byzantine ms with several hundred illustrative miniatures of plants, and no florishes, fancy initials etc - it is a classic illuminated manuscript. Also the Vienna Genesis - many narrative illuminations, no initials or abstract decoration - also illuminated. Your distinctions just are not used.

Oddly enough I think it is Germans who try to say things like "he decorated several palaces" of a fresco-painter. Johnbod 19:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

again, I completely agree with your examples: Vienna Dioscurides is a copy of Dioscurides. The images are not part of the work but inserted by the copyist. Vienna Genesis is a copy of Genesis, and again, of course, the images are not part of Genesis. You are again reiterating exactly what I have stated myself. In what way, pray, am I misunderstanding the meaning of decorate? This is not a problem of German. All English dictionaries we have consulted point out that "illuminations" serve decorative purposes. If illumination merely meant "applying various colours to the ms" (which indeed is an 'obsolete' meaning in mapmaking in particular, according to the OED), why do the dictionaries bother with "decorative"? As I try to point out in my admittedly very off-the-top-of-my-head illustrated manuscript, the distinctino only becomes important in the 14th to 15th century. The question is, is this an "illuminated manuscript". I put to you that it is not. It is a page of handwritten notes with illustrative drawings. Now, between the Book of Kells and Leonardo, the categories will overlap, but that does not mean that they do not exist. It really appears that you are used to thinking in dichotomies, since this is about the fourth time I have to point this out to you. dab (𒁳) 19:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

You are probably wrong that the copyist of the Dioscurides inserted the pictures - as it is the earliest version of the text we have, how would we know? Is that what your distinction consists of? Artists sketchbooks or loose sheets are I think an exception - for example those of Jacopo Bellini are not illuminated, whilst Botticelli's illustrated MS Dante is. Mind you many would be so classified - for example those of Viilehard de Honnecourt. The fightbooks do not fall under this distinction. I quite accept there could be overlapping categories, but as it happens there are not (in English anyway), because nobody else uses illustrated manuscripts as a distinct category seperate from illuminated ms except for you. Have you checked the OED meanings of "decorate"? You still have a much too limited idea of this, as I have pointed out many times. You are the one insisting on dichotomies surely - I & everyone else say they are the same thing! Johnbod 20:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not insisting on dichotomies. I am merely attempting to cover a certain topic, the rise of pragmatic literature in the 15th to 16th centuries. You have yet to convince me that "illumination" may apply to pragmatic illustrations. Whatever subtleties of the semantic field of English decorative I may not grasp, pragmatic is pretty much the straight opposite of decorative. dab (𒁳) 20:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it does refer to "pragmatic" illustrations. I can only refer you to the references above. Look at this There are very many such manuscripts much earlier - Bestiary-ies, travel books etc. Try to think if this distinction would have made any sense whatsoever to a C15th person! They thought religious works were supremely "pragmatic". Where would you put the Ars moriendi - originally an illuminated manuscript? Johnbod 21:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

look, I am ready to entertain the possibility that "decorative" includes "pragmatic". If you can show me some sort of WP:RS which says as much, fine. But you must admit, I hope, that to the average English speaker, "decorative" and "pragmatic" are not exactly mutually inclusive. Your citations above certainly don't imply as much. It's not a big deal either. I don't object to your making the "illustrated" cat a subcat to the "illumined" one, although I argue that's not strictly correct, and I am not opposed to merging the "illustrated" bit into the "illuminated" article. I just maintain that "illustrated manuscript" is a valid term in wide use that is not equivalent to "illuminated manuscript", or at least that you have so far shown nothing to support your claim that they are. dab (𒁳) 21:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It isn't "decorative", which would be misleading, it is "decorated". A manuscript with painting in it is called decorated, and the painting called "decoration", regardless of the type of painting. See 1), 2) 3) above - they use the verb and noun, but not the adjective. I agree all of this needs to be made clearer, but these are the established terms. They go back to the C19th, maybe earlier. As I've said I've no objection at all to using illustrate/illustrations/illustrative etc as descriptive terms, but I do object to them being used as a categorising term as opposed to illumination for manuscripts, including ones like the Wallerstein.

What I would like to do is to have the current Cat:illustrated manuscripts, which I think are all Fechtbucher, renamed "Manuscript Combat treatises" or something more explicit. As I've explained before I don't think Fechterbücher right for a category name on various grounds. If there are any Chronicles left in there they should have their own sub-cat when there are enough of them. The main category has too many items in it & is being put into sub-cats based on type of work by content, so I think this is the logical way.

Can we agree on this? Johnbod 23:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

sigh, I never suggested an "as opposed", as I've pointed out repeatedly. The terms overlap, and are independent. An illumination (or "decoration") may be an illustration, and an illustration may be a "decoration". I accept your specialist use of "decoration". This is a term used within the framework of manuscript illumination and as such tells us nothing: especially not that any picture must be an "illumination"/"decoration". Now if you could please stand down a little bit and be reasonable about categorization. I leave it to you if you want to make "illustrated" a subcat of "illuminated". If you do, only "illustrated" should be present in some articles as the more specific category. If you do not, both categories may be present in some cases (like the Lucerne Schilling) but not in others (the pragmatic cases). This has all grown too pedantic for me now, and unless you can present some unambiguous source, I suggest we leave it at that. OED at least is entirely on my side, and knows no such specialist meaning that would allow "pragmatic decorations". dab (𒁳) 16:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are just not reading the references. They don't overlap; illustration is a subset of decoration, as they make crystal clear. All illustrations in manuscripts (with minor exceptions not relevant to the examples you are concerned with) are described as decoration - not decorative NB. "Pragmatic illustration" is not idiomatic English - "practical" might be a word for the Fightbooks, but not for the Codex Manesse or the Chronicles. OED is not on your side at all; only the careless translation by Heidleburg (Illuminés on the French page, I notice) and Ganz, who also avoids the term illumination, but is hardly a guide to the correct English terms. Read the text on the Lucerne Schilling facsimile link again - they use the terms correctly. Have you looked at the OED on "decorate" yet - I haven't bothered, because I already know what the word means, but you don't, so you should. There's nothing pedantic about this on my side - you are trying to create distinctions that just don't exist in English. Johnbod 18:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's another simple and concise one for you,from the National Gallery, London:

"Glossary Term: Illuminated Manuscript

• Illuminated manuscripts are hand-written books, generally on parchment or vellum, with illustrations, which were produced during the Middle Ages, before the invention of printing.

The illustrations (illuminations) could be just an initial capital letter, a whole page, or part of a whole page. They were often very elaborate, using gold leaf.

Many of the greatest illuminated manuscripts were produced in Paris and Burgundy in the 14th century; 'Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc du Berry' by the Limbourg brothers is one of the most splendid (Chantilly, Musee Conde)." Johnbod 20:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Btw, if the Wallerstein codex is an "illustrated manuscript", what is it illustrating? Better check illustrate out in the OED too! Johnbod 01:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

For your taking the time and effort to raise the issue of my block. Haphar 15:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

you are welcome. dab (𒁳) 15:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Centum-Satem isogloss

I was asked to adminstrate an article about satemization to the Dutch[REDACTED] and thought about consulting the English version. However, I discovered this article assumes a Centum sound change, first mentioned by one of your edits. To my knowledge only Satum sound changes have been described. The generally accepted view is Centum being IE languages not affected by the Satem sound shifts. The statement Tocharian, on the other hand, combined all rows into a single velar row, and is therefore typically considered "Centum" suggests such a change would be related to the evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows. However, if such a theory exists (do you have a reference?) this could easily be contradicted by the discovery of labiovelars in Linear B. I think the article needs to be corrected on this issue. Rokus01 20:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

briefly: not quite. the mainstream view is: Centum merged K and K', Satem merged K and K. These are both sound changes. There are minority views, such as, there never was PIE K (just biphonematic /Kw/), so Satem couldn't have merged it, and the labiovelars are an innovation of the Centum group. I don't know what Linear B has to do with it, since it is undisputed that Proto-Greek had labiovelars.

The statement on Tocharian could be improved. The point is that the sequence in which the three rows were merged is not known, but there is no phonetic Satem-like assibilation, therefore, while phonologically, Tocharian is neither-nor, phonetically it is closer to Centum. The same holds for Anatolian. Since Tocharian and Anatolian are widely accepted to have diverged from PIE first, a widely admitted possibility is that they did not undergo the Centum merger, but are really neither Centum nor Satem (there is evidence for all three rows in Luwian, which, if true, woudl prove that Proto-Anatolian was neither Centum nor Satem. This is pretty mainstream). dab (𒁳) 20:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab, please read Britannica (15 edition) 23 page 57. Earlier scholars attached great significance to a division between Satem and Centum according to the lines you describe. Nowadays less importance is attached to the centum-satum distinction. The value of such a general centum sound change is not generally accepted. "But it is still generally held that in an early period of Indo-European, there was a sound law operative in the dialects or the dialects from which Sanskrit, Iranian, Slavic and the other so-called satem languages developed that had the effect of palatalizing the original Proto-Indo-European velars and eventually conveting them to sibilants." In other words, while it is true Tocharian and Anatolian diverge from other centum languages, the statement "Centum merged K and K'" does not reflect a mainstream view about a Centum sound change that should exclude Tocharian or Anatolian from being Centum. I suppose you have been reading old books. On the other hand I agree with satemization being still generally accepted and actually even supported by a lot of circumstancial evidence. By the way, labiovelars had been assumed in Proto-Greek, but their existence has been proven only in Linear B. Anyway, you seem to agree the very existence of K contradicts this statement about Tocharian and Centum. In short: this introduction needs a facelift. Rokus01 22:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

you are mistaken. I am perfectly on top of the subject, and maybe if you re-read my explanation you will detect your fallacy of "In other words "Centum merged K and K'" ". Your error is based on a confusion of phonology and phonetics. But I do not wish to argue about this further, I recommend you consult the literature. here is an old writeup of mine that shold give you the references you need. dab (𒁳) 16:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I am completely aware of phonology, we are talking about reconstructed PIE velars, (palato)velars and labiovelars. Mainstream is the Satem sound shift would be explained sufficiently assuming palatization of velars followed by sibilisation next to velarisation of labiovelars, thus assuming just two series instead of three. Existence of a third series of velar has only been noted in Luwian and has been assumed in proto-Albanian. Involving this third series within a hypothetical Kentum sound shift makes a nice theory and story, but is not essential to describing or understanding Kentum nor Satem and certainly not mainstream. You are very funny, to supply me an old writeup of yours instead of reading the mainstream reference I supplied to you. It makes me wonder what kind of masquerade this is. I don't think you are PHD, although this wouldn't make you mainstream nor would it matter or be of any importance as long as you could just show me an open mind. Anyway, you make me curious about your psychology so could you please supply me a mainstream readable version of your thesis instead of having me to decipher a postscript file? I suppose at least you have to be able to explain the views you sell to the world, especially since those views contradict other information, let us say Britannica. Thanks. Rokus01 18:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

you misunderstand. Mainstream assumes three PIE rows. Attested Centum languages have two rows. Hence some sound shift must have taken place between PIE and the attested the Centum group, never mind Luwian or Albanian. The Centum merger of K and K' is fundamental to understanding the topic, if you reject this merger, you reject standard PIE phonology. All I said is that it is pretty mainstream to be agnostic of whether Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Tocharian had participated in the Centum merger; it is certainly not mainstream to be in any way positive on this. Since Melchert accepts the three rows in Luwian, it is "pretty" maintream to accept that Proto-Anatolian may not have. Maybe our misunderstanding is mutual. I gave you a summary in best faith, free for the asking, and would ask you to take it or leave it as it is. I pointed you to my 'writeup' for the bibliography, not for any of my own claims. If you are not happy with my explanation, I suggest you go and ask on WP:RD/L, I am in any case not interested in continuing this discussion. dab (𒁳) 18:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You are not interested in this discussion, not surprising since you hardly accept any input, even if someone tells in good faith something is wrong. Misunderstanding, certainly, and I am growing more wary with every revert and discussion cut short. Of course I am very happy with your explanation, but this doesn't imply you understand my point. Your "hence" sounds logical, but is not mainstream and has a taste of OR. Only look at what it says in the article itself:

"The presence of three dorsal rows in the proto-language is still not universally accepted. The reconstructed "middle" row may also be an artifact of loaning between early daughter languages during the process of Satemization. For instance, Oswald Szemerényi (e.g., in his 1995 Introduction), while recognizing the usefulness of the distinction *kʷ, *k, *ḱ as symbolizing sound-correspondences does argue that the support for three phonologically distinct rows in PIE is insufficient and prefers a twofold notation of *kʷ, *k. Other scholars who assume two dorsal rows in PIE include Kuryłowicz (1935), Meillet (1937), Lehmann (1952), and Woodhouse (1998)."

"Still not universally accepted" sounds pretty NPOV, as if acceptance is some kind of obligation imposed by Misplaced Pages. Also, it has a taste of tampering with the definition of "mainstream". I would rather call "mainstream" the agnostic definition of Britannica. So please tell me, if not even the existence of three dorsal rows is universally accepted, then how will you make me believe a sound shift based on such a theory will be? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind you mentioning such a deduction if with the proper reference from your bibliography (just for avoiding the impression of OR). However, adhering to such a view implying an early and separate two-way division has consequences that are certainly not mainstream, like reusing the definition of centum to a subdivision that experienced such a centum sound change and excluding others. You call it agnostic, but I doubt many respected scholars will be interested in keeping an almost obsolete definition like "centum" alive like this. Satemization is much more interesting! (I wonder why no separate article about this subject exists). And please, at least improve the statement on Tocharian: it is not typical centum to combine all rows into a single velar row, this is a feature of Tocharian only. Rokus01 22:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I am most happy to discuss the topic itself. May I request you use Talk:Centum-Satem isogloss for that. My "cutting short" of the discussion here is motivated by your allegations of bad faith and attempts to second-guess "psychological" issues on my part. If you're going to focus on the article, that's fine. Go ahead and edit it, and I will tell you what I think of your changes. Be aware that the assumption of three tectal rows is absolutely, dyed-in-the-wool mainstream. And I say this not because I endorse it, but even in spite of myself tending towards assuming two rows. The reference to Szemerenyi etc. is to show that assumption of two rows isn't in any way 'original' but has been considered many, many times, but without enough success to alter basic mainstream. dab (𒁳) 08:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I would be very happy to delete this single word "still", to defocus the definition of Tocharian as a Centum language from merging velars and add context for better understanding the three-row theory next to an "agnostic" two-row view (as supported by Britannica), leaving the choice to the reader. Having fixed this, I would propose to focus more on satemization, since the discussion reflects a lot more than linguistics. To this I think a separate article would do more justice. Rokus01 08:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Rokus, whatever you're going to do, you'll need to accept that three rows is teh standard. If you don't accept that, you'll need to discuss changing Proto-Indo-European_language#Phonology first. All debate on alternative suggestions should be in the light of this standard. I may myself be agnostic, but there's no way around admitting consensus. If you cannot make sense of, or cannot agree with what I am saying, I suggest you go and have a chat with Angr (talk · contribs). If you can get Angr to agree with what you suggest, I'll be happy to let it stand blindly. dab (𒁳) 09:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Kannada

Sir, I have reverted your edit on the concerned article. You say "one of the oldest languages of India" is a nonsensical claim. How did you arrive at this conclusion. Kannada inscriptions are older than most Indian languages, with the exception of Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tamil. Same goes for Kannada literature. What more proof do you need?. Please read the whole article before deleting from it.ThanksDineshkannambadi 03:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input.Dineshkannambadi 13:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Nirukta

I have made a few edits to the Nirukta article and would benefit from your suggestions on it. I see that this is a topic you also have interest in. Please revert or correct any errors I have introduced. Buddhipriya 07:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Translation

Dab, I would like an exact translation of a line from Mahabharata. At one point Duryodhana says : "janaami dharmam na cha me pravruthi; jaanamyadharmam na cha me nivruthi". What does the verbs in the second halves of the lines mean - do they say that (in the second line) I know what adharma is, but I do not keep away from it, or is it I cannot keep away from it. Tintin 07:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

please, if you want me to translate Sanskrit (I am not fluent in Sanskrit, I have to look things up), either give me a precise transcripition, or point me to a specific verse number. The proper transcription is:

janaami dharmam na ca me pravRtti / janaamy adharmam na ca me nivRtti

and there is only one verb, janaami "I know". Your literal translation would be something like

"I know right, but there is no activity for me; I know wrong, but there is no inactivity for me"

the intended meaning of course being, somewhat like Matthew 26:41, "I know right, but I cannot get myself to do it; I know wrong, but I cannot keep myself from doing it". dab (𒁳) 09:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry for the trouble, I had written it from memory. Tintin 09:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

you're welcome; I'm always glad to learn something new, and this verse has many real-life applications :) dab (𒁳) 09:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Ypdeka

His contibs are only vandalism. Please block him Al-Bargit 20:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

care to use WP:AIV? dab (𒁳) 20:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for an Independent Admin review

Dab, I have requested a reveiw of your action of blocking me in a content dispute by an independent admin. FYI ]Sbhushan 20:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab, you did not leave me much choice. The request is for review of your action to block me in content dispute. You should not have unblocked me.

Regarding content dispute, I have requested Third party mediation and also mediation by Mediation Cabal and have also asked other editors to get involved. If you have any other suggestion for resolving this issue, please suggest. If you only wanted to present this as ideological theory, go ahead. But you can not make a statement that this theory is compatible with any mainstream theory, unless you have a citation from a acceptable publication.

Regarding my word, I have already demonstrated I walk the talk. I was in middle of responding to Rudra, regarding his note, when you blocked me. I have not responded to him yet, only because I said I will not edit article for 48 hours. Because of his paranoia, I will not respond on his talk page either.

You might dislike the facts that I can find, but you will never find me quoting original research.Sbhushan 21:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I blocked you for your fourth revert immediately after I had warned you. I commend you for your mediation efforts. Your position doesn't make any perceptible sense, as people have taken great pains to point out to you, but your request for mediation at is at least a gesture of good faith, and if you are prepared to pay attention to input from third parties, this may yet be resolved to your satisfaction. dab (𒁳) 08:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Because of recent edit-warring and WP:3RR and other problems in this article, I have reported the WP:3RR offences at WP:3RR, in the hope that the edit-warring stops and you and Sbhushan discuss the things together.

I'm not sure if I have to report Sbhushan again, because he was already once blocked for the same offence some hours ago. If he should be blocked again, please provide evidence (diff's) for his WP:3RR, and he will be reported again. And if Sbhushan thinks he has not made WP:3RR or was not warned, he should explain it. --RF 13:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I seem to remember you as better (more fair) editor too, but having just a glance at some recent edits, including the deletion of Kazanas, WP:BLP issues at Subhash Kak and some other things, I think you have lost much of your previous fairness. I don't know if Sbhushah is right, but he is clearly editing in good faith. --RF 14:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

you mean deletion request, I didn't delete anything. If you're going to accuse me, try to be precise. I am perfectly entitled to submit the Kazanas article to AfD. "AGF" doesn't mean you have to ignore all common sense, and Kazanas is clearly of dubitable notability, and the creation of his article is obviously related to pushing fringecruft. We can cite Kazanas, we fully agree on that, but that is no justification at all to give him his own article. What "WP:BLP" concerns on Kak? BLP essentially stresses everything should be sourced. Since we can turn up solid academic authors saying that Kak is a complete ideologist crank, there is nothing that speaks against including that. BLP doesn't say criticism (even harsh criticism) may not be included.

Look, I tend to all but shed tears of joy every time a Hindu editor turns up who shows actual propensity to edit critically and in good faith. Anyone will recognize that this topic is inundated with trolls, no matter what your opinion on the topic itself. All we have to restore balance between a concerted trolling attack (I won't have to point you to the legions of sockpuppets and bogus claims that have been thrown to the fray) and a small number of Wikipedians trying to keep the article together are tools like semiprotection, and a basic consensus that the only thing that counts on Misplaced Pages are peer-reviewed academic references. I will be most happy to welcome you as an editor in these topics, even if your outlook is completely opposite from mine, if you will adhere to these basic principles. But the sad reality is that there is no academic case to be made, this is a topic of pseudoscience, and the people pushing it are using the tools of cranks, not scholars. We go out of our way to concede the most marginal academic notability of some "out of India" claims, but unsurprisingly such efforts are never enough for the trolls. dab (𒁳) 14:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Haplogroup R1 distribution map

Thanks for the map of the distribution of R1 at Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA). Would it be possible to change the colour for R1a from pink to (say) yellow though ? I find the pink and the red quite hard to distinguish, particularly in the thumbnail. Best regards, Jheald 09:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I chose similar colours to give an optical impression of "R1" as well (possible later addition of "R2" as well), but feel free to fiddle with the hue controls. dab (𒁳) 11:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello dab. I made a comment in the Dene-Caucasian language talk page (Talk:Dené-Caucasian_languages#Haplogroups). Your comment is greatly appreciated. I feel I have discovered something that is not on the literature yet so we cannot put it on WP but we should look out for any scientist that believes in my hypothesis. Thanks. --Kupirijo 07:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for your opinion on a couple of pages

I know that you are busy, but if you get a chance would you mind taking a look at the pages for Kundalini and Chakra? I somewhat accidentally fell upon them in the course of following other things and have made a few edits. But these are pages where there are many points of view. Can you suggest an approach for working with these pages, which seem to be activating strong POV issues? Any coaching would be appreciated. On the same vein, I made a few changes to Vedas and immediately realized that there is no way to significantly impact those pages without raising the dating questions. I can see POV issues coming if I persist in providing citations there. What do you think? Buddhipriya 02:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

it's a mess. I'll try to come back to these. In general, try to avoid descending into dating questions on Vedas. It's a red herring. There is no way around briefly stating academic consensus, but don't let it descend into bickering and hand-waving. It should be made clear that dating is of no importance to the religious significance of the Vedas, and just a pre-occupation of Western philology. I do wish we had more capable Hindu editors with a motivation to keep the articles on their faith crisp and encyclopedic. But I cannot help but note that while we get a lot of Hindu editors, depressingly the vast majority appears to be entirely clueless, without editorial skills to speak of (a language problem, I suppose), and bent on piling on rambling nonsense. I really appreciate if you can invest some effort into patrolling these articles and remove the more obvious crust of the piled up rambling. If you look at Aum, you can see a radical cleanup effort I made on one of the notoriously problematic articles, and its comparatively stable state since. I suggest you try a similar approach with the articles you mention. dab (𒁳) 10:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The Vedic issues

I am looking forward to collaborating with you, if you wish, on this topic. I had not finished the development of my flow of ideas. I will not revert your changes and will defer to you. I would take a different approach, however. Do you wish to dialog about it, or would it be best for me to just back off? I know this is a sensitive area and my intent was to try to different spin. But I trust your judgement. I will hold off on further edits until we are in good alignment. Buddhipriya 10:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

sorry, I didn't mean to interfere. It was just a quick cleanup in line with my comment above. Do feel free to go ahead, I will look at it later. regards, dab (𒁳) 10:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me review my general idea here first so you can help me. First, my intent was to simply note that there is conflict over the issue in a way that is respectful to both sides, but making a clear statement, with strong references, on the academic view of dating. The reference to Radhakrishnan and Moore was intended as an opening shot in what may be a long war. In a nutshell, the argument will be that 2500 is the greatest possible outer limit, but that the issues with age strata make it very difficult to date anything with precision. After drawing a line in the sand I was then going to shorten the rest of the sentences and then sit back and see what happens tomorrow. :) I have been watching the dreary conflict on the Aryan pages and have no intent of pulling the Vedas article into it. My goal was to be succinct, set the matter aside, and then get into the other sections. What do you think of this plan? i will not revert you, so if you wish me to proceed it would be helpful if you would self-revert. Buddhipriya 10:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

again, we should avoid dwelling on dating issues as much as possible. The point is that there is not really a controversy. academic mainstream is pretty stable, give or take a few centuries (nobody claims that the texts can be dated to anything more precise than one or two centuries). But the main discussion should be at Vedic period. De-emphasize it: there is scholarly consensus, but that's irrelevant to spirituality. The Hindu nationalists who try to bullshit people into believing there is an academic controversy should by no means be presented as the "Hindu side". Any detailed discussion of that belongs on another article. There is a philological and a spiritual side, and the spiritual side doesn't bother with centuries. This is pretty much related to topics of Christian fundamentalism. It isn't the "Christians" who push bullshit like "creation science". The articles on the Vedas should be along the lines of Bible, while dating and philology are a separate sub-topic, along the lines of Biblical criticism. Note that Bible and Biblical criticism are not to contradict each other (that's pov-forking), but they have a different focus. Please feel free to revert me -- I am sorry but I have to run now (real life). dab (𒁳) 10:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will restore the article to the point I had it and try to briefly sum up. I think that providing some referenced date in the article, and I think Radhakrishnan and Moore are as mainstream as they come. I will add a link to the Vedic Period as you suggest. I am only working on the Vedic article at the suggestion of another editor, by the way, and if this is not the best use of time, I am sure you will tell me. :) Thanks for your continued dialog. Buddhipriya 10:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid the 2500 figure is really, really stretching the term "Vedic period". I take it they refer to various baths, phallic symbols and statues found in the Harappan layers. That's "Vedic" in a very loose sense and has nothing to do with the Vedas (the texts). Distinguish the Vedas (subject of article) and a more fuzzy concept of a Vedic period beyond the texts themselves. Any pre-1200 date is Rigvedic exclusively. The bulk of the Vedas is post-Rigvedic and dates to ca. 1200 to 600 BC, which is the Vedic period proper. The Rigveda kind of frays into the more remote past, it is true, but tha makes up for a very tiny fraction of text, and a time where religious practice was still rather different from that of the classical Vedic (shakha landscape) time. dab (𒁳) 11:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

oh, and please be sure to rely on Vedic civilization/EB 1911: that's an excellent article, and we couldn't aspire to anything much better at present. At least make sure all that's in it is in our article too before adding fringecruft like archaeastronomy and whatnot. dab (𒁳) 11:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I have finished what I intended for the dating section. I would encourage you to keep the two references in. The article must say something about dates, and both of the two references are solid. I will leave the article alone for a few days and see what happens. I hesitated to get into this arena, but you may find some comfort by having another voice participating in some of these discussions. Buddhipriya 11:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The second quote from Flood nails down the dating of the texts to about what you give. The Vedic Period in R&B is intended to include the period of gradual cultural developments which eventually gave rise to the texts. I only quoted one line from their rather eloquent introduction to the topic, which lays out that it was "an age of groping, in which religion, philosophy, superstition, and thought were inextricably interrelated and yet in perpetual conflict." (p. xviii) I do not see any need to shrink away from the dates they give, since they would be considered a reliable source. Tightening things up by citing Flood brings the nearer dates into focus. Buddhipriya 11:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The Vedic Period in R&B is intended to include the period of gradual cultural developments which eventually gave rise to the texts. -- ah, but this you have to point out clearly: The "dating" section of the Vedas article is obviously about the dating of the texts. Your source is indeed serious, but you should not misrepresent it as claiming something it doesn't. dab (𒁳) 12:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. Take a look at the change I just made and see if it is any better. Let me know if you would make any further changes. If there are particular books that endorse for Vedic study, please let me know. Perhaps I could find them somewhere. In matters like this, perhaps getting agreement on basic questions such as which sources are fair game would be a place to start. Buddhipriya 17:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I recommend again that we base this in essence on the EB 1911 article: it is a throughly learned summary that is to the point (Vedic literature) and doesn't mess around with hype or red herrings. The sources so far listed are all fair game as long as you keep discussion of the "Religious Interpretations" ones stricly within a separate "In Hindu reform movements" section. Aurobindo and Frawley can be taken as sources declaring contemporary religious attachment to the Vedas, but all their claims regarding philology or history are spurious. I would hope we can keep Frawley-style claims of "human langauge and culture originated in India 10,000 BC" out of the article, since these tend to make Hindus look like drivelling idiots. dab (𒁳) 18:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I will certainly read over EB 1911 and try to work it in regarding the overall article. If it is dated 1911 tt was written nearly a hundred years ago. It think that is best to include more recent work too, particularly non-controversial mainstream works that are likely to be on the reading lists of current Indology departments. I do not consider any of the authors to be cranks. So I would agree that EB 1911 would be an additional reliable source. If EB 1911 conflicts with a modern reliable source, that can be noted. You seem not to want to include the 2500 date at all, but I am not sure why it is a problem. All the authors are saying is that India has been around for a very long time and that the works which eventually were written down did not spring fully blown upon the scene. I think that is all they are saying. If we can dialog about which sources we would both accept as reliable, then we need not worry so much about what you or I may think, but instead focus on what those reliable sources actually say, which is a verifiable matter. The first few references we exchange with one another are a good opportunity for us to become familiar with what is on each other's quick reference bookshelf. :) Buddhipriya 18:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

India has been around since the Eocene, but the article is on the Vedas, not India. You really need to detach yourself from the idea that an article on the Vedas (the text) is the same as an article about India. You might as well say the Middle East has been along for a very long time, and date Genesis to 4000 BC. But never mind, 2,500 is a fair upper bound for Proto-Indo-Iranian, and we have more pressing matters at hand than discussing whether Proto-Indo-Iranian is "Vedic". The important thing is that you remain aware of the scope being the text themselves, not the "Vedic period" in general.

You see, this is a topic of classical learning, and the EB 1911 account will be essentially up-to-date. Only a very few texts have since appeared, for example the Paippalada recension of the AV. We can of course furnish the 1911 outline with such later development, but no the whole, it will be up-to-date. dab (𒁳) 20:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I just found the Misplaced Pages page about Wikipolicy regarding EB 1911, which says: "The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica is out of copyright and can in some cases be used as a source of material for the English Misplaced Pages. However, it is now quite old, and there are many problems with this material in a modern encyclopedia." That is the same concern that I mentioned. So I think simply relying on EB 1911 leaves us open to challenge in ways that modern reliable sources can better defend against. Buddhipriya 18:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

yes, I was saying. Information on this topic did not change so much, and we can use EB with the addition of some pop culture. Of course if you took the "Physics" or "Capitalism" article from EB 1911, it would be practically worthless for being outdated, while articles on historical topics remain more stable. Of course we can and should discuss recent literature as well, but the EB overview is still valid. dab (𒁳) 20:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the academic view has been stable for a long time may be worth mentioning. Personally I would never cite a reference that old unless I had a specific reason to do so, e.g, to establish a long continuity of opinion. Do you feel that the target page for Vedic period covers things in an adequate manner? I understand that the cutoffs for terms differ there, but personally I am not sure it matters. If there is a specific modern academic book that you feel needs including, let me know and I can see if I can get a copy of it. With regard to Ganesha studies, which interest me, things are quite lively and citations to books published earlier than perhaps 1970 are now out of date with regard to historical matters. Buddhipriya 22:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

the reason is that we have it right here, free for the copy-pasting. You are very welcome to work from a more recent encyclopedia too, it won't matter. That's nothing special, if you want to write about, say, the Iliad, a 1911 article will also be just as good as a 1991 one, except for some additions on recent literature. It's really alright, cite whatever you like, as long as the source is encyclopedic. dab (𒁳) 23:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

RfC as you suggested

I have opened an RfC related to IAT at ]. Could you please add your views to that.Sbhushan 16:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

that's not an rfc on "IAT", that's an rfc on me. dab (𒁳) 18:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Indigenous Aryan Theory

An editor has nominated Indigenous Aryan Theory, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Misplaced Pages is not"). Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Indigenous Aryan Theory and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. Jayden54Bot 18:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Your Mediation Cabal case

Good Morning (GMT time); I have accepted your Mediation Cabal case - requested by Sbhushan - on behalf of the Mediation Cabal. I am prepared to commence mediation as soon as possible. I would like to start by enquiring if you wish for mediation to be conducted at the Mediation Cabal subpage, or on the article talk page. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to Contact Me; I will try to answer all your questions as fully as possible in so far as it does not compromise my neutrality. Kind regards, Anthonycfc 01:57, Friday January 24 2025 (UTC)

India Demographics

Because of India's rich diversity, no one image can represent all of India's one billion people. That is why I propose selecting a new demographics image every three months. This would allow for a regional balance and would show India as a whole. Many people have agreed that this is the only way to represent India's rich and varied diversity. Since you have voted for a change in the demographics section, I wanted to update you on this proposal. I would love to hear your comments on talk:India. Thanks so much. Have a great day!

-Coollemonade 23:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that a decision to keep the article changing is silly. It's like agreeing to change a certain disputed sentence every week or so. It's like a consensus to keep edit-warring. You seem to be forgetting that articles are for the benefit of readers, and any given reader is not going to realize that the image he is looking at is part of a slowling rotating slideshow. Your basic fallacy is that you seem to assume that the image is expected to "represent India's rich and varied diversity", which is of course not the purpose of any inline image we happen to put into the demographics section. However, beyond stating that I think this is a silly idea, I am not going to oppose this in any way. dab (𒁳) 08:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Historical Eastern Germany

I think you'll be quite interested in this:Talk:Historical_Eastern_Germany#Requested_move. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 04:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I can be bothered. All titles suggested are fine with me, except that some are a bit awkward for trying to stash too much PC into them. dab (𒁳) 09:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Teething trouble?

Google had the most strange difficulty on your Einstein quote, with the word die Masern. I finally had to look it up in Wikiquote. It didn't help that, although I read it correctly and so did other people, the word should be spelled Krankheit. As it was, Google came out with "child craneness", which for a moment I took to be "child crankiness" - not inappropriately though? Thanks for the quote. Shenme 06:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the problem. Masern is "measles", Kinderkrankheit is "childhood disease". dab (𒁳) 09:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

He meant this. :-) Lupo 09:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

aha, sorry -- that appears to have been a typo of mine; thanks Lupo :) "Masern der Menschheit" translates very well to English "measles of mankind", but "Kinderkrankheit" has connotations that aren't easy to reproduce, indeed somewhere between "childhood disease", "infantile affliction" ("childish crankiness") and "beta version issues" (implying a lot of bugfixing will eventually bring about a brighter future). dab (𒁳) 09:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It is strange, as I'm no good at grammar, that I can't help but notice most any spelling error. By the time I was finished typing a friend's dissertation I was noticing spelling errors in German, French and Latin. Even though actually learning German totally defeated me! :) Shenme 11:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

the nice thing is that English crank is indeed etymologically cognate to German krank, so the aphorism really makes linguistic ends meet... dab (𒁳) 11:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Re-Directs of Meso- and Paleo-Paganism

Thank you for your redirecting of these stubs. Including them as you did as a sub-section of the Paganism article does seem better. -- Davidkevin 19:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Heads up

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Known_bigoted_user_subtly_subverting_Wikipedia_again a post about you. InBC 02:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP

I've replied to your posting at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#First_sentence. Walton 09:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Indigenous Aryans

I am sorry if you feel that way whenever anyone disagrees with you or reverts your edits. Anyone that does engage in editing contrary to your wishes can see that you have knowledge on the topic. This knowledge can also give your edits and talk page comments an uncivil tone of superiority and dismissiveness. That's what riles me up about Indigenous Aryan Theory, the fact that you are dismissing everything as the words of some random Hindutva propagandists whose job it is to make up theories postulating that the Big Bang resulted first in the creation of India and then in the creation of the universe. The facts are:

1) The Sangh Parivar actually believes that in justification for Western colonial conquest the Aryan invasion theory was fabricated and indeed the concept of invasion was fabricated.

2) They do not have this view simply because they feel like creating controversy, they believe it is the answer to the problem.

I must ask you to remember that some hundred years ago we thought the Earth was flat. If Misplaced Pages existed, claims that the Earth was round would be reverted as mysticism. When a theory is a theory, treat it like a theory. I think you need to refresh your view on Hindu nationalism, it is not a supremacist Nazi-type movement. In fact, Hindutva simply opposes pseudo-secularism and rather asks for a Uniform Civil Code for all religions.

Also, I need to address your claims on Dravidistan and the Dravidian question in general. The paragraph seems to imply there is ethnic conflict between Dravidians and Aryans out of which Hindutva movements are trying to make the Aryans win. Nothing could be farther from the truth. India has Hindu-Muslim conflicts, Brahmin-Dalit conflicts, but not North-South conflicts. The entire concept is unsourced and in this case a primary source from a Hindutva movement would almost be necessary. It's simple negative portrayal of a peaceful nationalist movement.

By the way. I don't care if you call me WIN, Bakaman or anyone else for that matter. What you call me will not change me. I am I, no-one else. — Nobleeagle 09:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry you seem to take this personally. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, as you'll find if you review my discussions in the many, many topics I contribute to outside Indian nationalism. I appreciate that Sangh Parivar has "beliefs". But Sangh Parivar is a political movement, and their beliefs are politically motivated. We can present them in all fairness. But as it happens, they insist on presenting their "beliefs" as scholarship, which means it qualifies as pseudo-scholarship, as does any "scholarship" proposed and pushed for political reasons. I appreciate that there is "pseudo-secularism" in India that is also motivated by political agendas. But you need to appreciate that this is not the issue here at all. I would not allow such "pseudo-secularism" any more than "relativist Vedic universalism" or whatever you will call the hilarious position that scientific method is as good as any, but whatever we read in the Vedas is universal truth (that's Biblical literalism by any other name, and we don't buy that, either). I will appreciate your contributions as to the political background (rephrase north-south to Brahmin-Dalit; but why "Aryan" then? "Aryan" is evidently in opposition to "Dravidian". There are movements of Aryan vs. Dravidian supremacism, even if you do not subscribe to them). "peaceful nationalism" is of course a contradiction in terms. Nobleeagle, I have no problem with anything you say (except for the "peaceful nationalism", which is a terminological problem. anti-Muslim and anti-Dalit sentiment in any case is no more "peaceful" than anti-Hindu or anti-Brahmin sentiment). I have a problem with your attempts to conflate scholarship with political propaganda. If Misplaced Pages was written 400 years ago, yes, some things would look different. For example we would favour a geocentric universe (not flat Earth, you may want to look that up), and, per WP:RS, justly so. You need to accept that Misplaced Pages can and should only ever reflect mainstream expert opinion, not "truth". If there is a political movement like Sangh Parivar which pushes a "truth" rejected by mainstream experts, we can WP:NOT argue along the lines that "for all we know, if their wishes come true, it might be accepted as true in another 500 years". Because you could sell anything and its opposite as "true" with such an argument. If you do not understand why your "flat earth" argument is useless, you really need to review our NPOV and ATT policies. dab (𒁳) 10:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

and yes, my patience is growing thin sometimes. I am sorry if this activates some sort of reflex to oppose me on principle. Many people have expressed respect for my endurance to even muster the patience to keep involved in this sad mess at all. I put it to you that anyone who had to put up with the amount of trolling, wikistalking, unadulterated abuse and vandalism, sock orgies and orchestrated bullying I have cannot be expected to issue welcome templates to new troll accounts as they come in, and to cease to make a clear distinction between conscious trolling and merely belligerent cluelessness. This is why I dropped you a note in the first place: you seemed to be one of the few "Indian patriots" with some sense of appreciation that there is a lot of bad faith horsing around going on. If you are prepared to treat politics as politics, religion as religion, and scholarship as scholarship, and if you are prepared to avoid siding with trolls just because they happen to be sympathetic to your general gist, we can work together splendidly. If you are not prepared to do as much as this, you are in violation of policy, and we will not be able to work together. There is a Hindutva campaign to instrumentalize Misplaced Pages (mainly implemented by your typical young male Indian American ("ABCD") engineering or math student), and we have to be vigilant about this. Bona fide points sympathetic to the propagandists can still be made, but they will have to be scrutinized with extra care. dab (𒁳) 10:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It happens. I understand, you probably feel the same thing I do when random people come and tell me that Italy is a great power. Firstly, these people are all Italian and present sources from Italian newspapers and translate it for us. Secondly, these people don't get the points other users make can keep insisting that Italy is part of G8, thus is great power, when scholarly opinion does not reflect that. — Nobleeagle 06:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you know the feeling, although I imagine these Italian patriots at least forgo ethnic or national mysticisms and claims of proto-Latin in 4000 BC and the like. "Great Power" can be a fuzzy term, "4000 BC" cannot. dab (𒁳) 07:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

edit warring on Indigenous Aryan Theory page

Dab, this is a warning to stop edit warring on Indigenous Aryan Theory page. I will have to report you if you continue to do edit warring. It would be better to discuss on talk page and get agreement with other editor. Also when you add a text that is challenged by another editor, it is your responsibility to provide citation before adding the text back.Sbhushan 14:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You call it edit-warring, I call it working on the article. You seem to support outright deletion of the article anyway, so why don't you just sit out the AfD vote. dab (𒁳) 15:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

commons:Image:Pre Migration Age Germanic.png

The image description page commons:Image:Pre Migration Age Germanic.png indicates that the image is licensed under the GFDL and it is from the Putzger, Historischer Atlas (1954), p. 24. Is the atlas really licensed under the GFDL? --Iamunknown 23:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

try to be more polite

Dab, your edit in Talk:Turkic_alphabets looks like a personal attack. What Barefact is suppose to answer to this? It usually worth to spend some time explaining your position and weeding out what look like ad hominem arguments, rather than have a prolonged edit war Alex Bakharev 00:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well Barefact has made such edits more than 100x+ times from non-academic sources. I symphatize with dab here and if such users are not stopped you will have many wrong information on your hand in the future of Wiki. --alidoostzadeh 04:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Alex, I don't know if you are aware of the history of this. I did not attack barefact personally, I observed that he keeps creating bogus articles, which result in cleanup work for other editors. He has been warned many times about this, and at some point, I really see no point in not calling a spade a spade. My comments are restricted to the content of barefact's edits, and as such not personal at all. But I will call shoddy editing shoddy editing, at first putting it politely, but after months of horseing around, I will take the liberty to put it more bluntly. regards, dab (𒁳) 07:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

re: reference of 3rd millinium Indo-Iranian

Dab, the reference that you cited is not proposing Indeginous Aryan theory. Parpola is mainstream, who is in favour of Aryan Migration theory. You can not use him as a reference for IAT proposal. The text in question is postulating the 3rd millennium BC Harappan civilization as the locus of Proto-Indo-Iranian. As I have explained to you number of times now, no one who proposes IAT talks about Indo-Iranian. From IAT point of view IVC was Vedic/Indo-Aryan and they are proposing Rigveda composed before IVC. I am not sure why are you so stuck up on the 3rd millennium Proto-Indo-Iranian.Sbhushan 14:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

re: your note to stop it

Dab, the text and reference you cited would be more appropriate on Indo-Aryan Migration page. On OIT page, it is OK to cite that mainstream proposes Aryan Migration. Citing every single version of Aryan migration is not acceptable. Especially of a theory that has so many technical flaws. Can you to move it there?Sbhushan 14:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

race and ancient egypt

Just want to alert you that you're editing a very controversial version of the page, which I'm just keeping there until this dispute is over. I suggest you work on solving this controversy before making edits to a version which may be reverted later.--Urthogie 16:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

the debate isn't about reverting back to a year ago. The debate is about reverting edits made today within the last couple hours.--Urthogie 16:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Turkic alphabets

Hi, Dieter. I reverted the article cause i find your merge so quick. You did it without any discussion. Apologizing. In my opinion, the entry "Turkic alphabets" is useful. You may object its contents but there are other ways to improve the article rather than simple revert. As you might have remember, you did such kind of quick revert proposal for Barefact's Kurgan Obelisks entry (merging it with the Ukrainian stone stela). Would it be possible to discuss the issue at the talk/discussion page before merging/reverting? Kind regards. E104421 22:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hi, thank you for your reply. As i said above, i reverted just because of the merging without discussion, not because of the contents. Actually, almost all the Barefact's articles are being criticised by the same users, for this reason, i wanted to mediate the case. In addition, i find the title useful. Anyways, i saw your edits for the Turkic alphabet page. Then, we have the list. For the Kurgan Obelisks, i still support Barefact's view that this article covers the other. I do not think that he's creating parallel articles on purpose, but he likes to generalize the separate cases which most of the time causes controversies. Best regards, E104421 13:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• I meant all the controversies Barefact involved in, not only the Turkic alphabets article. Regards. E104421 13:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

OK

OK. I saw the note now and removed the tag. Good luck with your article! BlackBear 13:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

yep

That is what I said 6 months ago. ]. The man is just copying from his OR page to wikipedia.. and has probably created dozens of unscholarly articles already. --alidoostzadeh 15:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

yes, but the funny thing is that he is now copying his Misplaced Pages writing back to his homepage. dab (𒁳) 15:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, actually one of his article ] is the copyright article I was talking about. I am sending you the original in .pdf so you can see. Unfortunately this sort of abuse of[REDACTED] is going on too long. --alidoostzadeh 16:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, i like to mediate the case. Please, let me know, where the copy-vios are. I'd like to work on these. Actually, Barefact is a good translator, he introduced many Russian sources to Misplaced Pages. I know you all are knowledgeable guys. Instead of accusing each other, maybe we can work together. Best wishes. E104421 13:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Tolklang

Another editor has added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Tolklang, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not and Misplaced Pages:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Misplaced Pages or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. utcursch | talk 11:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Old Turkic and Proto-Turkic

Thank you for your work on the Old Turkic and creating an article for Proto-Turkic. I had the impression that Old Turkic was a proto-language for the whole family, but this makes much more sense. I have a plan to write a history section for the Turkish language article and these will be valuable links from there. Regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 14:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The Greek Myths

Your thoughts on Talk:The Greek Myths would, I think, be helpful. --Macrakis 18:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

On good faith and accents

You're quite right: we probably should assume good faith. The "accent" does sound very Slavic. If it's made up, it's made up by someone who knows the accent. This edit summary made me wonder though: it's a bit too bad to be true. Having spent two years teaching English to Russians, I'd have expected someone who knows the word "dots" to also know what the punctuation mark should be called. Also, the way "missing" is used seems too idiomatic compared with the rest of the sentence. But this is poor evidence. People learn language in strange ways. It's probably for real. And it's certainly possible that the whole thing's for real. I've heard of people believing stranger things. garik 23:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

indeed. You'd expect someone with an approach to scholarship as confused as this to maybe also learn their English in eccentric ways :) The cranky mind isn't dull, it excels at detecting patterns preferably where there are none, with no interest in any sort of linear progress or the merely obvious... dab (𒁳) 09:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Mani Shankar Aiyar

Hi dab

Big Dt is on wikileave therefore I am consulting you as an administrator concerning an issue about which i am unsure.

There was a passage in this article which goes as follows:

• Despite being a Cabinet Minister,he continues to reside at Sainik Farm declared an illegal colony by the Delhi High Court.

It was not created by me but I notice quite a few of Aitar fans are bent on deleting it as well as other material which to me appears well-referenced.This passage was removed by Hornpelase as he says the reference is not permissible-I wonder why!The reference is from the Lok Sbha(Indian Parliament)entry provided by Aiyar himself!To em it should be perfectly acceptable but I would value your opinion.Regards(Vr 06:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC))

I noticed you've moved that statement elsewhere in the article rather than deleting it. As a synthesis of public sources, its probably OR. More to the point, its an illustration of why that's part of the OR policy: far too many people live in areas of Delhi that have dubious legal status because of various leaseholding and tenancy agreements, or lack thereof. That this individual does so is probably not notable unless clearly remarked upon as such by an RS. Thanks. Hornplease 15:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right, the information can stay in that section. Hornplease 23:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

I noticed this . Should that be taken as a vote to keep the picture or simply a statement against removing the picture on the basis of being 'not-average'? I have made a case on the page in favor of including a visual of demographic information such as those found on the Demographics of India page so as to avoid the arbitrary selection of people-pictures. Would you be against such a measure? It is not clear from your post. Thanks. The Behnam 10:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

it should be taken as a comment. I find the entire debate silly. People should invest their time building Demographics of India (which for some reason doesn't have the image), Racial groups in India (historical definitions), and Adivasi (which doesn't have a single image!). This is Misplaced Pages:Main article fixation at its worst. People spend weeks haggling over some detail of the main article, while the relevant sub-articles waste away in dilapidation. dab (𒁳) 10:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Demographics of India seems to have a good image approach, but I agree that the smaller articles should get some of the attention that India has been hogging. I will see if there is anything I can do for those & other pages. The Behnam 10:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Reason to keep adding it

I think the last time I added it was simply due to what I saw as the implication of your accusation of spamming. The second most recent time it was added was because I had not carefully looked over the new links and was under the impression that the replacement was the one whose only pictures was of the handle. You may think that it is silly that I took anything personal but I assure you that people on[REDACTED] like anywhere else will respond much more favorably when you are polite.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 13:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

fair enough. You know, politeness is one thing. Politeness after months of rather belligerent, and rather less than circumspect, pushiness is for Zen saints, the heavily medicated and the terminally patient. dab (𒁳) 13:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding me, that was a single bad joke in one edit summary made during a lapse in judgement that I apoligized for many times. And you were not remotely involved in that dispute (which the administrator who arrived to sort things out agreed with my point of view), so it is beyond hyperbole to state that you have somehow been putting up with my abuse for months. Furthermore unless I have midjudged your meaning or I have encountered you somewhere before and do not remember, your recent tone in our little encounter has been completely uncalled for.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 13:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not claim I had to put up with your abuse. I was not aware of your apology. I am not involved as an administrator but as an editor: I did not take any administrative action. I am not aware of any instance where my tone was in a lower register than yours. Life tends to hold the lesson that you should be prepared to take as good as you give. Apart from such grandfatherly aphorisms, I do think the matter can be laid to rest. dab (𒁳) 13:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I regret that this encounter was somewhat negative and I hope the next time we meet will be more pleasent.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 13:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to seeing you around in the blade weapons department. happy editing, dab (𒁳) 13:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for formal mediation

This user page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you might try contacting the user in question or seeking broader input via a forum such as the village pump.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/OpenNote is deprecated. Please see User:MediationBot/Opened message instead.

Sbhushan 13:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Albion Swords

I tagged it as such, because of the large amount of outside links, and because of the bold text for each of the names of the swords. Especially the emphasizing on product names makes it "read" like an ad. That is I am not saying that it is an Ad. Andante1980 09:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even mention the notability in this case. So I'll disregard the comment about notability. Andante1980 09:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm probably somewhat on the harsh side, when it comes to such things. Especially considering the amount of cruft I'm tagging for deletion whenever I decide to go and watch the new pages. (You tend to develop a very low threshold for how much naming of products etc you can take.) So, don't take it the wrong way, if you find that the article is fine as is, give me a yell and I'll remove the tag, or remove it yourself. Andante1980 10:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh. Dab, take a look at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Albion Swords (closed delete 2006-10-10) and at the deleted revision. This article indeed needs quite some work. Lupo 10:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I see. Well, it seems I skipped DR then (but did not recreate from deleted content). I argue that the article does not violate WP:CORP in any way. I fail to see why Misplaced Pages should have articles on every last video game company nobody has even heard of, but delete an article on one of the most respected bladesmiths as unnotable. That's inherent bias for you, Wikipedians are far more from the video gamer than the metallurgist demographic. We have to be strict about company spam. But there is the backlash of Misplaced Pages's weakness on notable companies. Additionally, the Afd vote really was no consensus. Xiliquiern (talk · contribs) presented perfectly sound evidence as to the company's notability within their field, but was told "Look, I am not going to argue over this" by Arbustoo (talk · contribs). I know Afd is broken, it is near impossible to get the least notable of internet fads deleted (GNAA, Essjay controversy), but good-faith articles on things not digital or online get clamped down upon. dab (𒁳) 10:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I didn't want to imply that this AfD made any sense. I just wanted to point out that there had been one to avoid that somewhere along the line you'd get caught by surprise by it, and that there are earlier revisions that actually don't look too bad to me and that could thus be used to improve the current article. That's all. Cheers, Lupo 10:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

removal from Indo-Aryan migration?

Hey, I know there have been some disputes on this page (I have it watchlisted due to unrelated vandalism) and I see you just removed a paragraph of cited text, with just "rv" as the edit summary? I'm a little confused by this action, as the paragraph is cited. Natalie 22:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph isn't so much "cited" as mentioning some literature with a very loose connection to the claim made in Misplaced Pages's voice. The pov-pushers have learned that you can just sprinkle your edits with some random references and they will have a much better chance of survival (people only check if any references are present, they hardly ever check the references themselves). dab (𒁳) 09:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm still catching up on the policy pages, maybe they need refinements? Specifically, the troll brigade loves to crank out the "you've deleted sourced material!" squawk. It probably needs to be made painfully and explicitly clear that while not citing sources may be sufficient grounds for deletion, citing sources is not sufficient grounds for inclusion. rudra 03:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

this is certainly the case. The point made must be in the source, the point made must be pertinent to the article's topic, and the source must be reliable (respectable, academic). If all three points are satisfied, an editor may indeed insist on inclusion, but not otherwise. Then, of course, the debate about "reliability" will begin, since if the crank brigade had a grasp of the concept, they wouldn't be cranks in the first place, would they now :) dab (𒁳) 09:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

This is all bullshit. Anybody can use whatever argument just to quell facts they don't want to hear. There are many ways to push POV, and removing sourced material is one. Possible phony arguments: a stylistic or grammatical error (so why the reverter did not correct?); the fact contradicts generally accepted hypothesis (unscientific and dogmatic reasoning); the fact does not reflect a neutral stance (pov against pov - how do you measure this? Should a fact be neutral?). I don't mind the reversal of stupid and off-topic remarks, but I've seen how nationalists and fanatics are successful in reverting just anything without a good reason, flouting all arguments and defending popular views by abusing the "generally accepted" wisdom to their own ends. You are either with the trolls or against them. If somebody wants to make himself credible, fighting such senseless and far too easy reverting behaviour would be a good start. Rokus01 15:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome

What shocks me is that Misplaced Pages isn't more active in protecting itself from these organized gangs who hide behind "Assume Good Faith" when other editors point out uncivil, POV-pushing behavior that is plain for all to see.

I mean, how many months of personal attacks and blatant lying did it take for Subhash bose/Shiva's Trident/Hkelkar/insert-username-of-latest-sockpuppet-here to get himself banned?

And the amazing thing is that all it would really take is enforcement of WP:RS to keep their crap off of Misplaced Pages.

CiteCop 23:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I know, its frustrating. Misplaced Pages increasingly resembles a dinosaur, or the Russian Empire, a giant monster with a tiny central brain. The raptors can eat half our historical articles before a warning signal somehow impresses itself on its consciousness. Still, I don't look beyond being a badass T-cell. Maybe the brain will notice at some point and implement some remedy. The problem is that the brain is American. Randomly insult one USian pundit and all the alarms go off, but a concerted attack on any number of articles dealing with the barbarian wastelands beyond America doesn't as much as raise an eyebrow :) dab (𒁳) 09:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Rehash of old discussions

Would you ming poking your head in over at Persecution of Germanic Pagans? They seem to be conflating that neopagans and historical pagans are one and the same again. I'd appreciate it. - WeniWidiWiki 15:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wise words

here: "The paragraph isn't so much "cited" as mentioning some literature with a very loose connection to the claim made in Misplaced Pages's voice. The pov-pushers have learned that you can just sprinkle your edits with some random references and they will have a much better chance of survival (people only check if any references are present, they hardly ever check the references themselves). dab"

- I will take it you have no objections to my changes on the manuscript categories, outlined above, unless I hear from you. Johnbod 03:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

outlined where, exaclty? Did I miss a proposal of yours amid all the point-scoring? dab (𒁳) 09:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, on mine in fact: User_talk:Johnbod#.22illustrate.22 here Johnbod 11:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)