Blackthornbrethil

Tolkien articles

I'm really, really uncomfortable with your wholesale re-writes of Middle-earth articles in accordance with your strongly anti-canon point of view. I understand your position on this, and I can respect it, but I feel that your rewrites show very little respect for the others who have contributed to those articles before you, or for the previously existing general consensus on what form Wikipedia's Middle-earth articles should take. The material in your edits is very worthwhile and generally well-written (though you should probably be careful not to put a section heading like "Overview" before the first paragraph or two of the article, which are intended to appear above the article's table of contents). I just feel that your eagerness to make what you view as improvements is not in keeping with the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia. Let's try to get an active discussion of these things going at Talk:Middle-earth canon that involves a wide range of contributors to these articles, and only then decide what form we as a community want Wikipedia's Tolkien articles to take.--Steuard 17:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

While I respect your opinions, I must say that making someone else 'uncomfortable' can't, for me, be a guide. I have undertaken some pretty big rewrites (only a few have been implemented - the rest are all being developed offline). I take as many actual words from an article as I can, and I incorporate them into my rewrites - or rather, I rewrite around the original contributor's ideas. I don't simply delete an entry and replace it with my own. The only true changes I make are 1) grammar and syntax, 2) universally accepted style mistakes (awkward passive voice, etc.), 3) incorrect facts, and 4) missing facts. My own standard is that each article be as informative as is possible (and reasonable), that it utilize the best English possible, and that it contain nothing save what the contributor believes to be true (and can hopefully establish if pressed). I think that the 'collaborative spirit of Wikipedia' is best realized through active participation in shaping and reshaping articles, using the discussion pages to establish justifications, field concerns and questions, etc. With regards to the Middle-earth 'Canon' page, I have quite cleared the field of stones, and have turned the soil, so that the article to which it is attached is ready to be cultivated. Don't you think? black thorn of brethil 04:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

p.s. What's all the hubub with M Martinez?black thorn of brethil 04:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I see your point, and as I said, I do think that your contributions have been of high quality. My concern is simply that the moderately "canon"-based approach that has been used on Wikipedia thus far was the result after multiple lengthy discussions of the issue involving many contributors in the past. (Obviously, different people have strong feelings on different sides of the issue!) For one person to show up after all that discussion and say "your conclusions are clearly wrong" and then singlehandedly do exactly the opposite strikes me as a recipe for hard feelings or even eventual edit wars. It's certainly not in the collaborative spirit of the project. All that I'm suggesting is that we try to reach a new consensus on the best general policy before you put too much effort into an approach that the community might eventually decide against. (I suspect that people will see merit in your approach just as I do, actually, but I'd like to think that we could find some sort of middle ground.)

As for M. Martinez, you probably don't want to go there. Years ago, when he was a regular (and very expert) contributor to the Tolkien Usenet newsgroups, he was involved in a number of rather intense debates with other group regulars (including me, Conrad Dunkerson, and others). His views on many issues are very strongly held, and when others held equally fervent beliefs that differed (such as Conrad's and my disagreement with his "multiple distinct mythologies" notion, for example) the arguments could get, well, long. At some point, and for reasons that I don't entirely understand (everyone blamed everyone else), those scholarly disagreements turned into pure animosity for at least some of the people involved.--Steuard 15:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Orc

We have 7th century newly Christian literate Anglo Saxons being taught that Latin 'Orcus' is OE 'thyrs' and 'heldeofols' (giants and hell-devils, of course), and we have Beowulf, wherein appears 'orcneas' (written in the 12th century). That is, 500 years later, we have 'orcneas' (and not as a gloss). Are we to suppose that Orcus stayed a foreign word, distinct, for 500 years, to be borrowed by the Beowulf author on the spot? Or is it easier to think that the word was in use, somehow, alone or in compounds, such that the 12th century author certainly had an 'orky-thing' in his head (though we need not think the same of Beowulf himself)?

Beowulf cannot be 12th century (i.e., contemporary with Layamon); the language is simply too archaic. I have some sympathy with proponents of later dates for Beowulf (e.g. c. 1000), but any date in the 1100s is out of the ballpark.

I think that just about any interpretation of orcnéas must be shaky, due to the lack of evidence: one appearance in the entire textual corpus, no descendants, no exact cognates. This is generally the case with hapax legomena, where the chances that the word has simply been mistranscribed by the scribe are uncomfortably high. If orcnéas is not somehow connected to Orcus, then we have almost no chance of understanding what the original writer meant at all. On the other hand, we know that the author of Beowulf was capable of using Anglicized classicisms: he uses gigantas three times, a direct borrowing from Latin (ultimately Greek) gigantes.

I guess the question you are really asking is whether an Old English poet would have understood Orcus to mean "hell, underworld" or would have preferred to understand it as "demon, devil". To answer that question would require a better knowledge of the use of the word Orcus in manuscripts of early English provenance than I currently possess. RandomCritic 13:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Persian Jews and 3RR

Hey Black, just thought I would tell you that the last edit you listed is not actually a revert. I guess I should probably apoligize to you, although I stand by my stubborness and my conclusions, I feel it was uncalled for to act as condenscending as I did, it was very unlike me. You are right about the Parthian's tendency towards secularism and I never had a problem with including a reference to that as well, it's just what really made Parthia different from all the other Iranian empires was the Hellenistic influence on their culture, the Achaemenid Empire was also rather secular (although they were primarily Zoroatrian and the Parthians were primarily into Mithraism) so maybe we could mention that the Sassanids were really the first Iranian empire to have such religious zeal.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

For the most part It's good except that I don't think we should say it was negative since that is a qualitative statement, also Helenistic influence wasn't really felt in religious freedom because besides the Ptolemies, Greek civilizations weren't all that tolerant of other religions, in fact the Selecids were at times extremely intolerent, thats why the Jews rebelled. Plus, In the beginning the Sassanids weren't all that intollerant, but overall they were.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it is unethical of me to ask but do you stand by the 3RR complaint?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You'll see if you check that the complaint was disallowed. Of course, I made the complaint in good faith, though I appear to have misunderstood the intricacies of 3RR Law. Of course I stand by my intentions - it is wrong to engage in a revert-war. In your defense, it was also not wise to respond to your revert with another revert - your initial revert was the point at which it ought to have become a wholly Talk-page issue. black thorn of brethil 20:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ainulindale refs

Good job on the refs - I'm not entirely convinced that this "article" is encyclopaedic but the citations certainly help. It's mainly the tone that bothers me - it's a detailed essay on the contents of the book, rather than an encyclopaedia article. However, there does not seem to be any major complaint against it - if it comes up on AfD then specific problems can be addressed. QmunkE 10:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Persian Jews

Thanks, I'll take note. Pecher ^Talk 22:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey Black, is it alright if we only add like half of the quote until the admins I asked give their opinion on the matter?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I definately see what you are saying, but I wasn't deleting it becasue I thought it reflected badly on Jews, quite the opposite. Instead of directly quoting the priest I would propose basically summing up what he was saying. I'm always kinda weary of providing quotes to illustrate these kinds of things because they usually lack context, and they are from a different culture anyways, do you know what I mean?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, except "smashed in the empire" is kinda a confusing metaphor.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why your getting angry, I'm merely writing that it is confusing what he is saying. What does "smashed within the empire" mean? if you want you could add the phrase as long as you also add context that explains what that phrase indicates.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes that version is fine.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 07:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I just thought I would warn you that I'm removing the passage altogether!.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just kidding, I thought I would tell you though, that in changing so much of the passage I think we kinda missed the jist of the original point in adding the quote, but I dont think we should delete anything, maybe just add more.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:3RR

I've read the policy, but it still seems a bit convoluted. A person is allowed to make three changes to an article in one 24 hour period, correct? Changes that don't count as additional changes include 1. self-reverts, 2. rv vandalism, 3. anything else? So, if a person makes four seperate revisions in one 24 hour period that are not self-reverts or rv vandalism, then they have broken the rule, correct? black thorn of brethil 00:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Right except for one thing: it refers to "reverts", not just "changes" or "revisions". A revert is specifically the removal of material inserted in an edit with the purpose of changing the page to some previous version of that page. No user may make more than three reverts on any page in 24 hours.

Additionally, before you immediately say "oh I'm reverting vandalism, it's all right", please first read what vandalism is not. Stifle 11:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hinduism

You misunderstand, Hinduism is not only heterogeneous in the people who practice it, but also in the way they practice it, some cities might primarily worship Shiva, while other cities might concentrate on Vishnu, my remark wasn't disparaging at all.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 23:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Evidence of Compromise

Blackthornbrethil , can you please go here[1], and see if you feel like leaving a short comment there?; it is very important to me. Thanks Zmmz 09:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Black, it was kind of you to take took time and leave a comment in my case. And, I hope you and Moshe are doing well. Thank youZmmz 00:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

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