Talk:Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires/Archive 4

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Archive 4

Truly Pointless

I am completely am for this article's deletion. There is truly nothing else like this on wikipedia. The closest thing I can find is an article comparing the Iraq War and the Algerian War. Yes, both empires were marvelous, and I am positive we all would like to imagine what would happen if the two met. However, the Han and Roman Empire never did. It is true that goods from both empires were exchanged, and there were envoys that traveled to each other outskirts(and I seriously doubt the historicity of the "Battle of Sogdiana"). Though, these empires were very much separate from each other, and honestly there is no good done in comparing the two. It would be an entirely different matter if there were articles comparing the Byzantine Empire to the Western Roman Empire, or The Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. However, there are no such articles on wikipedia, and this article does not even fit the criteria above. Press the DELETE button Jump to: navigation, search —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

^{Above account appears a little suspicious very few edits, on very few pages over a very long period of time. Rhetoric is really close to other opponents on the deletion request page.SADADS (talk) 19:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)}

A candidate for the worst history article ever

Hi all. This 'article' is a complete travesty about what history and what intellectual honesty is about. This pamphlet is a shame for Wikipedia. It is completely uninformed and biased towards the Han point of view. It is 'my dad is stronger than your dad' playfield turned to an encyclopedic article. Wikipedia has not deserved this kind of 'article'. Frankly, I am of the firm opinion that this topic is unencyclopedic and the whole article should be deleted.

Yes, I am angry. But yes, I can prove my point. For any given assertion favouring the Han point of view, I can bring in line tons of authors who state with much more authority than the feeble sources now given that the Roman Empire was the largest, most populous, wealthiest, most urbanized, most militarized, most venturous, advanced etc. etc. political entity of its time. Many people who occupy themselves with the Roman Empire and have access to the necessary references can do that. It is no source problem, just a question of time and devotion.

But is this the point, to line up arguments in support of a foregone conclusion? Since the 'article' has - incredibly - been rated by some dude as B-class, I am beginning to feel that this may be indeed the game here. I am just saying one thing to those few who feel comfortable with the article now, mainly the creator himself, User:Teeninvestor. Don't believe that more than 5% of the content of the 'article' can and will stand up to close scrutiny...</rant>

In the indefinity of issues three points to justify the 'article' tags:

1. Lack of neutrality: just some cases in point: quotes mostly contain views favouring the Han point; Uncalled-for generalizations about the alleged backwardness of the West are placed even in the lead; outdated minority views about the Huns being the Xiongnu (Gibbon for one is 18th century!) are favoured to present a viewpoint of Han military superiority; numbers on Roman troop numbers adjusted by modern scholars are unsymmetrically and unfavourably compared with Han troop sizes from vastly inflated primary sources (Battle of Mobei)
2. Unencyclopedic: Most of the article is WP:SYNTHESIS because there is no actual comparison taking place. Most of the discussion of the Roman and Han Empire is deconnected. First the one is talked through, then the other, but there is little in the way of relating one to the other directly. It reads as crude as if two separate articles have been merged.
3. Factual accuracy: Most quoted sources are poor, amateur and not free of bias, either. Views on the Roman Empire are mostly presented by (second-class) scholars of Han China as if not many of the best brains in the historical science have devoted their time studying and writing on the Imperium

A final note: I am disappointed by the way User:Teeninvestor(?) moves conveniently the many strongly negative reactions regularly into the archive to give the article a neat appearance of silent approval. Yes, I know, this is normal WP procedure done for tidyness but, come on, we know better. Now you. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to give an idea that it is easy to give the 'article' a quite different spin if we continue with the 'my dad is stronger than yours' attitude. No problem, all respectable sources: On engineering. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Registered users who have shown an interest in the article and participated in the past on the talk page are notified of the debate according to Wikipedia:CANVASS. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome and WikiProject Chinese history, all of which the article is within their scope, have been notified of this debate. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

well, the article is clearly improper synthesis at its core, but what do you want to do about it? I'd suggest AFD, which probably won't fly, but it might draw enough attention to the issue that some more knowledgeable people might split it up into other articles. --Ludwigs2 07:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that the article was brought to AfD previously, at a time when it was in a less impressive state than today, and it survived. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 14:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Although the article lists sources, superficially it looks like a piece of synthesis. From a quick skim through the bibliography, the works focus either on the Roman Empire or the Han Empire, not both (and the vast majority of sources focus on the Han Empire, which suggests the article fails WP:NPOV). The previous AfD was not well put together, but will a good nominating statement, I think some headway could be made. Nev1 (talk) 14:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Nominate it for AfD again. I'd like to see this synthetic piece of work deleted. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 14:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would support nominating this for AfD as well. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There are real sources on this subject (most obviously Arnold Toynbee); but this article does not cite them. Even from them this would violate the fundamental rule of WP:NPOV; state facts, not opinions.

Those are fundamental flaws; the errors of fact in discussing Rome (The Roman army was first challenged by the Gauls, and so on) could conceivably be fixed, but it would be less work to rewrite from scratch. Please let me know when this is nominated. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• When this previously came up on AfD I reluctantly supported keeping it, in large part because it was a new article with lots of work being done. At this point, it's been a year, and many of the problems have not been fixed, so I'd support deletion. As pointed out above, if a suitable article can be written on this topic, it would be less work to do so starting from scratch than to deal with this mess. cmadler (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

A word from the creator

Is the article perfect? No; as of present, it does suffer from signifcant problems. As some of my first contributions to wikipedia, I do admit that I did make many mistakes when creating the article, and had left some of them unfixed as I went on to work to promote Economic history of China (pre-1911) to GA and hopefully FA. However, I just want to address a few criticims of the article, and hopefully show that they are nowhere as near as malicious as some editors have claimed.

WP:OR. This has a complaint raised against the article since the beginning. To have raised it in the days of December 2008, when the article had no sources comparing the two empires, was reasonable. However, a similar complaint has no justification. The article features many sources discussing the two empires, from brief summaries such as W.W. Norton to whole scholarly papers such as work done by Walther Schiedel and Princeton on monetary matters. Yes, sources that only describe one of the two subjects are used- which does not constitute WP:Synthesis or WP:OR. Synthesis and OR refers to the creation of new ideas and thoughts- no new ideas and conclusions are created from sentences describing detailed. For example, on an article comparing apples and oranges, if it is written "Apples are red (source on apples only) and later written "oranges are orange(source about orange only)", it is not synthesis or OR- new ideas and conclusions have been presented. The only effect is that 2 facts are presented to the reader. And besides, the main information in the article comes from sources that do compare the 2 empires; the other sources are used for supporting info.

WP:NPOV . Some critics have accused the article of being NPOV, going as far as to say it is a "my daddy is bigger than your daddy" issue. Not at all true- nowhere in the article can you find a statement such as "Han is MUCH STRONGER THAN ROME" or vice versa. Yes, in some sections there is more information on Han china than Rome, but this is due to the limited sources available for use for myself(my main work was on Economic history of China). In order to remedy this problem, I have repeatedly asked other users if they could contribute Rome-related information to the article, which they refused to do so, out of hostility to the article, a factor I could not control.

WP: Encyclopedic This article is obviously encyclopedic. Since its establishment, several new papers by respected scholars have been published on the subject, showing that this is definitely a notable topic, which was confirmed in the last AFD. Just because an article is of poor quality in the eyes of some editors is not grounds for deletion- if you don't like the article, improve it. Some critics have mentioned that they would delete it and rather write a new one- If you have good sources and the time to do so, do so! Simply delete all existing information and replace it with your own (as long as it is good, I will not object). Although the article's quality is not the best, I think it would be very hard to deny that it has improved greatly since the last AFD. Further work is needed, but deletion is not warranted.

My thoughts on the issue - Recently I have not been very active on wikipedia due to school, SAT and other factors, but with the advent of christmas I will have more time to devote to wikipedia. I have already submitted this article to ARS as a first step, and after I deal with another article I will try to improve this article with the other more reputable sources currently available. I feel it would be a great travesty to wikipedia to delete an article on an encyclopedic topic and which, while not perfect, has obviously been much improved since its creation.Teeninvestor (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires (2nd nomination)

The easiest way to delete all the troublesome information is AfD; it is a great travesty as it stands. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Nominated; discussion here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Support. The main point is, one year ago, when this article just survived so the first AfD, many users who voted for keep did so with the explicit hope and wish that the fundamental issues of the article will be addressed soon. Namely that is not enough to source the facts for each empire by reliable references, but particularly the comparisons between them. As it stands, the 'facts' particularly on the Roman Empire are still terribly wrong, and the comparison has remained no less WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:ORIGINAL as then. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Please list some wrong facts and examples of WP:OR- Despite your exaggerations of "worst history article" ever- you have yet to present a single example.Teeninvestor (talk) 20:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, the thing I dislike about this article is that it stops just a hair's breath short of the cheesiest form of innuendo. it reminds me of the argument style in "Chariots of the Gods": e.g.: The ancient Egyptians built massive pyramids; the ancient Mayans built massive pyramids - could this be evidence of extraterrestrial contact? the article hasn't actually made a statement of the last sort (which would have gotten it axed almost immediately), but there is no other possible reason to juxtapose these two historically unrelated objects except to encourage people to speculate on that kind of innuendo. Encouraging people to speculate on unspoken and unproven theories in not what wikipedia was designed for. --Ludwigs2 21:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This speculation just happens to be the subject of academic papers.Teeninvestor (talk) 21:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Papers which you did not even bother to consult for this 'article' for one full year, and, frankly, don't quite seem to understand. When Scheidel endeavours to compare certain aspects of both empires, he does not do it for establishing a who is better, greater and more advanced of the two as you did. That wargame mindset is something he is not at all interested in.

He does it rather to fill in gaps of our knowledge of each empire, namely the Roman. For example, there is a problem with the late Republican population count. So Scheidel takes a look across Asia to see whether the missing figures could be filled in with corresponding Han numbers. Might not turn out correct, but at least worth a try. Scheidel's account is 95-99% reasoning, and 1-5% - very cautious - conclusion. The conclusion, being preliminary, is not so important to him, it is the how to come to the conclusion which is valuable from a scholarly viewpoint.

But your 'article' is all about how to let best Roman and Han armies virtually clash and who would prevail in this fantasy scenario. This has nothing to do with Scheidel's intention. It's a perversion of the whole thrust and intent of Scheidel's work, so please stop to refer to him.Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

(e.c.) So was the speculation that the Egyptian and Mayan empires had some regular form of interaction (alien or not). Academics are paid to speculate on that stuff. If you want to rewrite this article to talk about the academic theory of a relationship between the Han and Roman empires, that would be much better. however, I don't know that such a rewrite would pass the litmus test of WP:VERIFY since it does not seem to be a well-established or well-accepted theory (the current reference list contains maybe a half dozen distinct authors, but most of those are writing about China or Rome individually, not comparing the two). You may be able to revisit this article in 10 or 20 years, when the theories have gained acceptance. Simply mang the comparison yourself (as you have done here) is obvious synthesis. --Ludwigs2 21:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

My "fantasy wargame"? Your assumption and personal attacks are extremely derogratory, and frankly unfit for discussion on wikipedia. You make personal attacks, yet you have not pointed out a single example where the article was a "fantasy wargame" scenario. I ask you this: Can you find a paragraph in the article, right now, that states what you have just said (e.g. Han and Roman troops clashing). Yes, little work has been done on the article since January- because I was working on another article. Mr. Ma, just because an article doesn't fit your personal biases doesnt mean it should deleted. I ask you again: Do you not admit there are scholarly sources on this topic, and this topic is encyclopedic?Teeninvestor (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Teeninvestor, there was no personal attack there, please remain calm. Nev1 (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Teeninvestor. I know Scheidel's work, it is directly in front of me. He does not talk about a fifth of the things you tried to 'compare' in your article. His work concentrates on aspects of population size and monetary issues, and, as far as they are related, political system. He never ever writes about the two empires' military, navy, architecture, technology and what not you have made the focus of your 'article'. Your comparison is as distant from Scheidel's work as the moon. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

And your knowledge of the article is as far from the moon as Schiedel. Yes, in some areas, most notably the military sphere, sources not comparing the two empires have been used. However, in this case no direct comparison has been made, no new ideas and conclusions presented- therefore there has been no WP:SYNT, which refers to the creation of new conclusions.Teeninvestor (talk) 22:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there articles titled something like "pyramid conspiracy theory" to that effect.Teeninvestor (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That's because those are theories. This article is more akin to "Comparison between the polar bear and the grizzly bear", and talks about which is the better hunter. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 22:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:CANVASSING

It looks like Teeninvestor took the time to notify some of the people that participated in the last AfD[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. But it's a bit strange that he only chose to notify the users that voted to keep last time... Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's give Teeninvestor time to inform the others as he's been advised that he can inform everyone involved with the last AfD, but not just supporters. I'm sure he'll right it soon. Nev1 (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I've already informed User:blue-haired lawyer and User:Voidvector, both of whom voted delete in the last discussion.Teeninvestor (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Any single voter in the last AfD should be notified. Otherwise, this is a gross violation of Wikipedia:CANVASS. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not only them, but also editors who have participated in discussion of the article in the past.Teeninvestor (talk) 21:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you inform every single one of them regardless of their voting behaviour? Please do so, this is mandatory for Wikipedia:CANVASS.Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Already informed all of the ones you didn't, I think.Teeninvestor (talk) 21:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure...? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

GPM informed people of the discussion here, but not the AfD; they need to be updated. Nev1 (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

??? Didn't he inform the following people?

1. 02:15, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Cmadler ‎ (notify) (top)
2. 02:15, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Moonriddengirl ‎ (notify)
3. 02:14, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Itsmejudith ‎ (notify) (top)
4. 02:14, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Seidenstud ‎ (notify) (top)
5. 02:12, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Ludwigs2 ‎ (notify) (top)
6. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Flamarande ‎ (notify) (top)
7. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Taemyr ‎ (notify) (top)
8. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:EuroHistoryTeacher ‎ (notify) (top)
9. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Patar knight ‎ (notify) (top)
10. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Teeninvestor ‎ (notify)
11. 02:11, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:TheLeopard ‎ (notify) (top)
12. 02:10, 17 December 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Dougweller ‎ (notify)

Teeninvestor (talk) 22:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Look at the time stamps, they're before the AfD started. The notices need to be updated. Nev1 (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Restructuring

In response to the comment on my talk, yes that is beginning to clarify the position. I think a little more discussion of the historiographic approach may be necessary. What assumptions are each author bringing to the table? Try looking up book reviews for the authors. See what other historians say about it, etc. SADADS (talk) 01:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC) Also, try incorporating the discussion about scholarship from the Stanford article that you link to in the external links section.SADADS (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Sadads, do you think the current changes have resolved the article's problems?Teeninvestor (talk) 01:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Could you give a reason why the templates are removed and links to non-scholarly sources are reintroduced? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure Scheidel's paper on Roman and Han state formation is a non-scholarly source.

• Scheidel, Walter, From the 'Great Convergence' to the 'First Great Divergence': Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and its Aftermath(10/2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1096433

Gun Powder Ma, why do you try to prevent other editors' work on the article? Why are you obstructing progress on the article by making false claims such as the above paper is not a scholarly source? Teeninvestor (talk) 16:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The point is your source Scheidel does not support what you make Scheidel say in the article. Take a look at p.30f. I have given my reasons in the edit summary already, while I am waiting for yours. For the dubious template about the "several scholars" at the beginning: If there were this corpus of scholars, the AfD would have never been considered necessary by so many users, don't you think? Please don't try to predetermine things in the lead. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Absolute rubbish- what is this quote then:

Beginning in 295 BCE, and certainly after 202 BCE, Rome did not normally face state-level competitors with matching mobilization potentials. This, and the consequent absence of prolonged inconclusive warfare against other states, obviated the need for farther-reaching domestic reforms promoting centralization and bureaucratization. In other words, the benefits of asymmetric warfare (against states that relied more on mercenaries in the eastern and southern Mediterranean and against less complex chiefdoms and tribes in the northern and western periphery) enabled Rome to succeed with less domestic re-structuring than was required in the intensely competitive environment of Warring States China.10

.

Gun Powder Ma, have you even read Scheidel's work, or are you just trying to misrepresent his work? Based on the ignorant statements you've made, You know absolutely nothing about this topic. I suggest you read your source before adding any more tags. Also, please reproduce p.30f (which is incidentally not available through google book preview today). I have produced my quote. It is time to produce yours. Teeninvestor (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

And before you start saying the formation paragraph is wrong, consider this:

Both the Roman and Qin-Han empires were built on templates provided by antecedent states and expanded into a widening ecumene: in the West, from the river cultures of the Middle East into the Mediterranean and on to continental Europe, in the East from the Wei and middle Yellow River valleys into the Central Plain and then on to the south. In the East, the basic context had been created by the Shang-Western Zhou polities (c.1600-771 BCE) and their dominant elite culture and the spread of the Western Zhou garrison cities across the Central Plain region. In the Mediterranean, this role had been performed by the spread of Greek settlements across the Mediterranean littoral (from the eighth century BCE) and the cultural Hellenization of autonomous local elites.

..Teeninvestor (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I also reproduce another quote, from page 29:

The pattern of Roman warfare was quite different. Rome began as the dominant city-state in Latium, and it's path to dominion in Italy was largley uninterrupted despite major military challenges and occasional setbacks. Beginning in the late fifth century, it overcame one rival after another in the Italian peninsula, and even when it faced war on more than one front, it was generally able to keep it's opponents from combining against it. After c.275 BCE, it's existence as a state was threatened just once, by Hannibal, and from a brief period from 218 to 207 BCE..... It did not face the sort of long-term challenges that threatened states in China, and this fact may to some extent account for the failure of the Republic's leaders to make the alterations in the institutional structure of the republic that Chinese rulers resorted to survive.

Teeninvestor (talk) 17:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Sources for information.

Listing some sources of information here. Add anything you think its valid please. If anything on the list doesn't seem like a reliable source of information to you, then comment on it.

• China in world history By Samuel Adrian Miles Adshead[8] compares the two empires in detail at places throughout the book. Good source of information.
• National Geographic concise history of the world: an illustrated timeline By Neil Kagan page. I added some information from there to the article, making a section for plagues, something that devastated both empires, causing the same problem. Dream Focus 03:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Tweak

{{editprotected}} More than half the world's population is much more than we know. The Han population is not certainly known, the population of the Roman Empire is uncertain by a factor of about two, and the population of the rest of the world is guesswork. A large portion of the world's population be fine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

How about whatever population pmanderson assigns to them? That seems more reasonable.Teeninvestor (talk) 16:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could search, find, and present a couple of credible sources (and if diffrent sources give diffrent numbers the article should clearly point it out) instead of giving childlike and spiteful remarks. Flamarande (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I've implemented the requested edit and made minor alterations at the same time.  Skomorokh  18:31, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Was the latest AFD appropriately closed?

I feel the latest AFD was closed as a de facto delete (userification) when there was clearly a consensus the subject was notable and the number of keep votes and arguments clearly exceeded the delete side(many ex-delete voters had changed their vote to keep). Nevertheless, the AFD was closed as userification, which is only used for content inappropriate to the wikipedia; a case that clearly does not apply. See definition of userify below:

Userfication is usually performed because material is added in article space that is inappropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia, but not objectionable as content in a user page or a subpage thereof. This can be a satisfactory result for new users unfamiliar with the boundaries of Wikipedia content, and for users who inadvertently create personal templates in the main template space.

Teeninvestor (talk) 16:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Stop complaining and go and edit it in the incubator. Nothing has been deleted. It'll only languish there if effective editing isn't done on it, and this RfC will contribute nothing but drama and bickering. Fences&Windows 21:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Note The emerging consensus at WP:DRV is that the closure was acceptable, if the implementation was slightly unconventional. Nev1 (talk) 21:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not at all a specialist of this subject, and I am also not at all a specialist of conflict resolution in wikipedia. I also don't know the whole story of this so maybe I miss something. I am just looking due to the request for comments.
  • My feeling is that the solutions found are too complex. In my simple knowledge of wikipedia, I thought that:
    • deleting a page needs some good reason for that. This is obviously not the case here, since everybody recognizes that the subject is notable.
    • if there is consensus to believe that this page has a right to exist, then what is happening should be seen an edit conflict and treated like all edit conflicts: those who criticize the version of Teeninvestor should just bring some edit of their own until a final better version is found.
  • The solution that has been found seems to me:
    • a bit unusual
    • a bit one-sided: those who criticize a version should not simply request the guy who had made the work to redo it. They should bring their own modifications.
  • On the wikipedia page about wikipedia, it is written that the growth of the number of pages is slowing and also that "A 2009 study suggested there was "evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content."". When there is such risk I would err on the side of accepting the content.Voui (talk) 23:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Erring on the side of inclusion is one of our philosophies; but, as one of our core policies says, The burden of proof rests on the editor who adds or restores material. I speak for a large majority at the AFD in doubting that Teeninvestor has met this burden; it has been endorsed at Deletion Review. Enough. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The article's just under gone a major rewrite. It's not complete but input on whether it's the right direction is needed. Nev1 (talk) 02:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

No lack of controversies

There was a city in ancient China with a Roman name (I believe there was one other city with a foreign name, named so because of its immigrant population). Not necessarily applicable here, just interesting. More to the point, this project description, THE STANFORD ANCIENT CHINESE AND MEDITERRANEAN EMPIRES COMPARATIVE HISTORY PROJECT (ACME) might be of use. Sorry, a bit too painful to read through diffs to figure out what used to be at the article here.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  04:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

There's a new draft of the article being worked on here which uses the ACME link. Do you have any more info on that city in ancient China with a Roman name? Was it simply a Roman alternative for a pre-existing Chinese city, or was it a Roman settlement? Nev1 (talk) 12:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

It was Li-Jien (Chinese name for Rome) in north-westward Gansu province. It appeared in the Chinese register in 5 AD (but not present in BC 79). Google snippets implied settlement, but it's one of those things where when you read the whole paper, there's the "However, unlikely..." part that was missing. Wang Mang had given it an appropriate (descriptive) place name of Jie-lu, which might imply captured legionaries. I have to read and digest Dubs' paper in full to offer further comment (bought it @ JSTOR):

A Roman City in Ancient China

Author(s): H. H. Dubs

Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Oct., 1957), pp. 139-148

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

 PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  16:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Having just read the article Dubs makes a very interesting case for that settlement being a settlement of 100+ legionaries brought back to China in the second half of the 1st century BC. It's an interesting study, but I don't think the article really makes comparisons between Rome and Han China, apart from the fact that the testudo formation (which was probably what looked like fish-scales) was used only by the Romans. The article is currently referenced in Sino-Roman relations though. Nev1 (talk) 16:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

You're a step ahead, then. I do think that contact between the two empires makes the comparison less of a hypothetical exercise (rather like comparing baseball players of two different eras) and underscores that it's a true comparison of contemporaries on the world stage—well worth mentioning as part of an informative and interesting narrative.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  00:02, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm lucky enough to have access to jstor so checked out the article after you mentioned it. I do think it does provide a little background and interest, so the latest draft of the article has a section on contact between the two empires, although it's going to be slimmed down a bit (because there's little in the way of comparison) and at the moment doesn't include the bit about the soldiers or possible Roman settlement in China. Nev1 (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

(od) Generally speaking would it be better to consolidate discussion at the WP:Article Incubator/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires page? Not having incubated (or is that intubated) an article before, we'd want to have all talk together when done.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk  02:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Histmerge and move?

Comparison between Roman and Han Empires → Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires —

• This request was in Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen (Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)) :-
  • Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires: As there's been no activity on the above page for over a month, I think we have a stable version of the article that can be moved back into article space. The desired title would be Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires, rather than the old Comparison between Roman and Han Empires, as explained here and consensus has been reached in the linked section for such a renaming. Currently, there's a fully protected stub under the name comparison between Roman and Han Empires. The history of that article and its associated talk page is spread across at least two locations (comparison between Roman and Han Empires and Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires, and possibly Comparison between Roman and Han Empires/Draft as well but I can't remember), so a history merge would be needed. It looks complicated, but given the complex history surrounding the article I think both article and talk page histories should be preserved if possible. Nev1 (talk) 17:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• That is, histmerge Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires and Comparison between Roman and Han Empires and put the result in Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires, and ditto their talk pages. In both cases the two pages are very unlike in text and length, and their histories overlap by 4 days (25 to 29 December 2009), at the supposed cut-and-paste point. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• If there's some overlap, it will just have to be put up with; it's the same article, so while it may look odd further down the line all the info needs to be in the same place. How many edits are we talking about? Is the only issue the overlap? I noticed that you removed the request from the holding pen page. Nev1 (talk) 23:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• The overlap contains many edits. See WP:Parallel histories. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oh well, fuck it then. Nev1 (talk) 14:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Histmerge & move (part 2)

Discussion copied from User talk:Anthony Appleyard.:-

• Hi, as there was consensus on Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Comparison between Roman and Han Empires for the move to Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires and the request at WP:RM has languished for five days I've performed the move myself. Never mind the old history merge request, the article needs to be back in the mainspace where people will actually read it. The one lose end is Comparison between Roman and Han Empires. The page is fully protected, so could you turn it into a redirect or unprotect it so that someone else can? Cheers, Nev1 (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
•  Done I histmerged Comparison between Roman and Han Empires to Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires and make Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires and its archives into archives of Talk: Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires. I checked the edit version compare astride the merged cut-&-paste point and this histmerge seems valid. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

FAQ re editing & moving history

Text copied from Talk:Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires/FAQ:-

Q:The article has been through two AfDs, but the article's history starts on 25 December 2009. What's going on?

A:The article was originally found at Comparison between Roman and Han Empires; it was created on 24 December 2008. After the second AfD work began on rewriting the article in the article incubator; at the same time there was a mainspace stub that was being edited. As a result, a history merge is not practical and the histories are spread across two locations. Previous versions of the article can be viewed here.

The same problem applies to the talk page. Discussions pre-dating those on this page can be found at Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires, Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires/Archive 1, Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires/Archive 2, and Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires/Archive 3 going back as far as 25 December 2008.

18:42, 11 March 2010 User:Nev1