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only 0,05% with 450,000?

maybe it's correct, but how come that there are 0,04% albanians when there are only 150,000 of them?

Denise Richards?? WTF??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.24.209 (talk) 00:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

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Related nations

In my oppinion we cannot write that Croatian Americans are related only to Croatians, Bosnian Americans, Serbo-Americans and Slovene Americans because if they consider themselves of Croatian descent then who are we to limit their related nations to some of the Slavic Americans and Croatians in general. I think that it is offensive to consider that Croatian Americans are only related to Croatians as if they were two different nations. Croatian Americans have the American citizenship and Croatians can have the citizenship of the Republic of Croatia and the citizenship of any other state (country) of the World. Direktor's position is false if he belives that Croatians are not related to Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins as well as all other South Slavic Nations. -- Imbris (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The ethnic groups Croats are related to are Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, and (least of all) Slovenes. Its simple: the term "South Slavs" includes Bulgarians. An ethnic group Croats are not particularly related to (any more than some other Slavic ethnic groups, like Slovaks). While they are extraordinarily related to Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, and Slovenes. Therefore, there is no reason not to list the particular South Slavic ethnic groups Croats are related to, especially when they may not be anywhere near as related to other South Slavic nations.

While you may be Croatian nationalists, and you may dislike the fact that Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, and Montenegrins are among the most "related" nations on the face of this planet, this is of no concern to Misplaced Pages, and is no reason to remove perfectly valid information. (Also, please try not to edit war. You're the ones trying to push this edit. It was contested, and I'm asking you to please have the decency to wait until discussions are over.) --DIREKTOR 00:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This kind of behaviour is orriginal research at its core, who are you to insist that Slovenes are least of all related to Croatians. Where do you get such kind of information. It is not painfully simple as you put it. If you cannot understand Macedonian, why do you insist on nonsense that everybody doesn't know Macedonian which has lots of simmilarities with Bulgarian.

You speak of ethnic relations between nations and then claim only the simmilarity of languages as a standpoint. This is unacceptable.

Your "accusations" of a nationalist POV will not work here, as well as omitting Montenegrins. You are the one who insists on using a void phrase that Croatian Americans are related to themselves (Croats in general) and other Slavic Americans (of your particular choice). Plese stop this intimidating behaviour of expecting that your POV will stand in the article as long as we wait for someone to join the discussion. I will not wait for that momment in time because it is most NPOV to phrase ethnic relations with all of the South Slavic Nations.

Imbris (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, stop it with the Montenegrins. I did not originally write up the related ethnic groups list, and I obviously agree it is an oversight (which I fixed). Further, my logic is not "flawed". You are obviously trying to push this edit through with edit-warring. Whether or not your version is "NPOV" is your own opinion, which I happen to disagree with here. I can assure you that edit-warring will not work as a edit-pushing method.

Now then, please do your best to respond to actual arguments: not once did I mention language. If you actually believe that Bulgarians are as "related" to Croats anywhere near as much as Bosniaks (for example), you're logic is undoubtedly tainted by nationalism. If you need sources to prove what is basically obvious, you're demand shall be satisfied:

• "The Serbs and Croats are two Southern Slav nations having many common traits.", Journal of Anthropological Research‎, page 156. Note that Serbs and Croats are singled out as having "many common traits", not Bulgarians and Croats.
• "...it is often forgotten how small the differences are among the current warring factions ", Genocide, an Anthropological reader by Alexander Laban Hinton, page 335.
• "In one of the most detailed accounts of ethnicity at the village level, Bringa (1996) shows that (...) the cultural differences between the groups are negligible..." Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Reduction, by Richard D. Ashmore, Lee J. Jussim, David Wilder.

etc, etc... I found this in 10 minutes, and can by all rights use it to source the removal of your edit. These scholarly sources are just a few of many that can be used to confirm the extraordinary similarity between Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. Do you have sources that confirm the allegedly equal similarity between Croats and Bulgarians? --DIREKTOR 09:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

You often seem to be polite in your conversations and then insert something like "you're logic is undoubtedly tainted by nationalism". I would greatly appreciate if you could stop with such accusations. I would defend myself by commenting that it could not be anything less nationalistic when someone would like to strees that Croatian Nation is related to all Slavic Nations with an emphasis on South Slavic Nations. When someone oppose such opinion and insist on looking only certain Slavic Nations we could be speaking about ethnic exclusivity which could lead to more precise definitions. Enough said on that topic.

When you insist that we use sources to explain the relations of Croatians to South Slavs, we could be speaking about apsolutely no need of such a undertaking. except in the case of fulfillment of your strange request.

You have found unacceptable sources for the allegedly defining the Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes as "closer" than other South Slavic Nations. The sources you have found have not proven your POV because:

1st source speaks about other peoples in the brackets as could be seen from the previous link.

1st source aslo on its page 163 is an article, or a chapter dedicated exclusively Vicarious Paternity among Serbs and Croats thus you have included it in your "evidence".

2nd source speaks about the war in former Yugoslavia and is totally unacceptable to be used in the discussion about simmilarities of certain South Slavic Nations. It is very well known that all of nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina were involved with the defence of their homeland (with different POV toward that defence). The author is concerned with politics, war, social structure of former Yugoslavia. The author is concerned with the common history of Yugoslavia and not on any fact which would pertain to this discussion.

3rd source is also unacceptable because starting on page 47 it speaks of Culture and breakup of Yugoslavia. The author(s) quoted "A widespread view nevertheless sees the cultural differences between the constituent groups as a basic cause of the conflict (cf., the influential analysis by Ignatieff, 1994, or Huntington's controversial model, 1996)." on page 48. The book is like the previous concerned only with the conflict and former Yugoslavia thus irrelevant. On page 50. this source says that the difference between Croats and Serbs is perhaps comparable to those of Norwegians and Swedes. The Bringa 1996 speaks of Bosnia alone.

Your method of decontextualisation is what is bothering me the most.

Anyone who has aspirations of unconstitutional acts such as the return of a certain joint state and all should stop with their greater nationalism.

Imbris (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh you find these sources "unacceptable", do you? That's a shame because, as I'm sure you know, these people were published and, to the best of my knowledge, you were not. I'm quite sure that any and all sources presented would be "unacceptable" because they disagree with you, and some excuse or another would be found to label them as such. The best example of this would be your marginalization of Bringa. Are you saying that Croats in Bosnia are not really Croats, I don't understand? Maybe the Serbs aren't really Serbs?

I have no choice but to repeat myself: Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bosniaks are amongst the most similar nations to be found anywhere. This plain and obvious FACT can easily be supported, not by one, but by a dozen scholarly published sources. If you think that you can disregard all sources I present to this effect by imagining some reason why they are "unacceptable" to you personally, and then continue to edit-war in the article until you've pushed this edit, you can forget it. These sources are fully in accordance with WP:SOURCE and I am completely within my rights as a Wikipedian to source my wording with these references.

For another example, author Kathryn Woodward in her ("completely unacceptable") scholarly source Identity and difference even states that the Serbian and Croatian identities are defined by "what they are not", i.e. Croats or Serbs respectively. Now, I know this too is an unacceptable source, but I was hoping you would tell me why? --DIREKTOR 09:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

In the Introduction (p. 8) we have an excerpt from Michael Ignatieff's story about an event when he interviewed a Serbian soldier in 1993. An opinion based on one-man's opinion is not a scientific method but rather newspaper's sensationalism. He asked the soldier what he belives are the difference between Croats and Serbs. He said something about cigarettes and then explained his POV that "Look, here's how it is. Those Croats, they think they're better than us. They think they're fancy Europeans and everything. I'll tell you something. We're all just Balkan rubbish." (Ignatieff, 1994. pp. 1-2).

Your precious Kathryn Woodward constructed the entire epilogue on the basis of one-man's story. This is substandard in many ways, and could not be used as a valid source in any debate (maybe as a dinner table story). Her interpretation of is offencive and her "superior" posture over the poor SE European Nations is not worthy of commenting.

Your sources are void because of quoting certain articles which do not describe the entire South Slavic population (they do not speak of Montenegrins and most certainly not about Slovenes and others, Macedonians and Bulgarians). This way you could always use a source which concerns Croats and Serbs to falsely construct whatever your POV could be.

You have no sources that Bosniaks, Bosnians, Croats, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes are "more" related and Macedonians and Bulgarians should be excluded from that group.

Your POV is hardly neutral and quoting misleading sources is at least rude.

Imbris (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

1) Here's the thing: you cannot simply disregard sources you disagree with. If you personally think that the methods of "my precious" Katheryn Woodward were incorrect, that's your opinion (and in any event anyone with half a brain can see the story was only an example). If you want to discredit a source, you'll need references to that effect: scholars that have denounced her as the unprofessional fraud you believe her to be: a published scholar who forms opinions on one single conversation (LoL). In short, nobody cares about your damn analysis of a published work, especially when it is presented against you. You would probably say the same about every source I present.

2) "DIREKTOR's POV is based on false quoting of sources which (...) do not deem the MKD and BUL as not related." That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in weeks. Now you want me to find a source which says "Croats and Bulgarians are NOT related"? My point is that if we use "South Slavic nations" in the article, we may as well use "ALL Slavic nations" since Croats are no more related to Bulgarians than they are to other Slavs (the best example would be Slovaks). Are you aware that:

a) the rules of logic prevent you from demanding I prove a negative. Before something needs to be disproven, it has to be PROVEN FIRST.

b) nowhere did I state that Bulgarians and Croats are NOT related. As I've clearly stated more than once, while Croats are related to every single Slavic nation on this planet (including Bulgarians), they are extraordinarily related to Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. This I have corroborated with anthropological scholarly sources.

By the rules of logical debate, without which discussion makes no sense, you should now attempt to prove that Bulgarians are extraordinarily related to Croats as well. This would, in turn, support your edit which states that Croats are equally (or nearly equally) related to all Southern Slavic nations in particular, which of course, they are not.

Instead, you just edit-war and haughtily proclaim published scholarly anthropological sources I've presented as "unacceptable". Are you aware how utterly irrelevant your own personal opinions on the methods and hard work of professionals are? --DIREKTOR 08:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Your sources do not prove that Croats and certain South Slavic Nations are "more" related than all South Slavic Nations. Your sources describe the war in former Yugoslavia, the villages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and some remarks by a single author which you decontextualized by quoting a part of her sentence where she describes (on the basis of one Serbian soldier) that Croatian and Serbian identity is based (in majority) on what the other identity is. This is highly controversial and you are the one who should prove that it is highly acceptable by anthropologists that Croatian and Serbian identity doesn't exit and that those nations are defined as not-the-other-nation. -- Imbris (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, the sentences I quoted from sources are not decontextualized. You do not apparently know what that means. They are not removed from context in such a way that alters their original meaning.

Your idea that a scholar has based an entire theory on national identity on the testimony of a single Serbian soldier shows exactly how far you are willing to stray from logical thought in order to discredit a source that contradicts your opinion. The conversation with the soldier is quite obviously an example she used. He may not even have existed at all, it is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, your cunning attempt to divert this discussion will also not work. I do not believe, nor am I trying to prove, that either the Serbian or Croatian identities "do not exist". Neither does the author state that: it is your own interpretation. In any event, the source is meant to show that the two nations are so similar, some authors even believe their identities define each other. This is the author's view, stated plainly in the text. As is quite obvious, this source, and the others, do indeed prove that Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins are far more similar than other South Slavic nations.

In order for you to prove that Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins are not extraordinarily related nations when compared to other South Slavic peoples, you must (by all the laws of logical argumentative debate) provide sources that support your idea that Croats are equally (or nearly equally) related to Bulgarians. You have provided a grand total of zero sources to that effect. --DIREKTOR 22:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)