User talk:Jallan

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Please use the "move this page" link to move pages in future. You can find out more on Wikipedia:Move. Here are some other useful links in case you haven't already found them;

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Angela 23:23, Nov 1, 2003 (UTC)

Why the move of Agenor to Agenor and Phoenix? Clearly, each should have their own article. John Kenney 03:29, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite a bit more to add to Agenor and Phoenix genealogy which I will get to eventually, unless someone else does. But outside of idiosyncratic genealogical links and inconsistant genealogical information, everything that applies to Phoenix in some texts can be found applied Agenor in other texts, including some of the genealogical links. A full discussion of Agenor alone would end up saying almost everything that can be said about Phoenix (and vice versa). They are impossible to separate in a full discussion.

And beyond genealogy there's almost nothing to be said about either. They are just links in the genealogical chain. jallan 15:18, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Dido

I noticed your participation in the discussion and editing of Dido. Thanks for fighting the good fight against cranks. I've been in that situation myself. -- Decumanus | Talk 23:41, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've attempted to incorporate some of the material from the alternative viewpoint on this page. However, I can see you do raise important and serious concerns. If you have time, please have a quick look at the article and add a {msg:disputed} flag and/or re-add the NPOV marker if you're not happy with the results (with hindsight, I should have checked with you before removal). Thanks! -- EuroTom 00:49, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Moloch

User:Trc, a Roman Catholic apologist with no previous interest in Moloch has reverted your excellent new material. This is a problem user to watch. Wetman 17:17, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have contacted him on his talk page asking him about his concerns. If they are stylistic, he might be able to improve the article or suggest improvements. (Unfortunately getting as technical as I did did made some of the early presentation somewhat turgid.) He may simply not realize how incorrect the previous article was and how much it owed to POV's that scholars have long discarded. Even the out-of-date Catholic Encyclopedia entry on [Moloch] which is pre-Eissfeldt has a POV denying a connection between Moloch and Milcom, makes no mention whatsoever of Carthage or Melqart and all that and is honest enough to mention the theory it is possible that some child sacrifices were to Yahweh though it argues otherwise and quite possibly argues correctly. jallan 17:41, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Names of Jerusalem in the main Jerusalem article

As much as I would really love to live every name of Jerusalem in Jerusalem, I've been advised in the past that it's not wise. Jerusalem is a site of frequent heated edit wars, and the more heated editors generally won't accept anything more than the Modern Israeli Hebrew and Standard Arabic names for the city. I've even heard some of the expanded forms derisively called "pseudo-IPA" and such. That's why I linked to Names of Jerusalem rather than listing all the names there. - Gilgamesh 03:37, 28 June 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Greek mythology

I've quickly cobbled up some of your thoughts on the Hellenistic literary approach (leaving out some casual asides), in the hopes that you'll look over this new section and bring it up to speed. Wetman 01:26, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What is persecution?

Hi, Jallan. Welcome and thanks for the honest critique.

Anti-<anything> might belong under persecution if you can find somewhere some people who are being persecuted for that anything, wherever exactly the lines between opposition, discrimination, and persecution are drawn."

I respectfully disagree. Persecution is a serious subcategory of violence, under which discrimination and harrassment are less serious subcategories, but there is some overlap. Some would justifiably argue that 9-11 was 'latent anti-Americanism' taken to the level of persecution. There is a case for that, but in perspective, its a fine example of the pot calling the kettle black... and thats the nature of pov... But "persecution" by its most general definition should trancend pov, no?

Then so define it with examples of what fits and what doesn't and obtain consensus.

"If you want a persecution category then obtain clear consensus guidelines for it that detail what constitutes persecution with clear examples of where it applies and where it doesn't. If there is no consensus for such guidelines and examples, then it's all individual POV and there should be no category.

I would agree with this, except that in my mind there can be a logical ordering of these issues into what they are. Ill plead guilty that my use of the classification question is to effect improvement in the articles themselves, by catalysing the questions, "what does this fit under" and "what is this thing, really?" This could have some postive effects within the articles for defining the scope and discerning genuine material from the pap, and this in turn might make the editing of these more reasonable. Thats where one's m:wikifaith must be strong. ;)

I've seen too many bad categories. I mostly stay away from all that. And I dislike the entire idea of heirarchical categories. This looks like another bad category. You might have a single non-heirarchical category of "claimed persecution" that was NPOV to allow searching for all such claims. That would be more useful to a researcher than attempting to settle in dogmatic NPOV fashion whether something was persecution or not. If you disagree, then set down your ordering that is in your mind and see if there is any consensus to accept it. Otherwise you will only inspire revert wars to get that category off various entries (and people who don't want such wars will want it off also rather than face another POV to argue about).

"For example, it seems to me that within the US in respect to anti-terrorist government policy that people who strongly support the current government position and those who are against the current government position can probably in individual cases claim persecution by others. jallan 18:47, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)"

Well, certainly there is a tendency of problematic wars to come back home; toothpaste may not go back in the tube, but the real ugly and dangerous demons need to go back in the box regardless; that's something that everybody (even the demons) can agree on. Yes, it would be difficult to call the Iraq War a "persecution" of Muslims and Arabs, because people in the US can be so completely convinced of its "humanitarianism," whether they mean "intended" or "genuine." People thought the Spanish American War was to "liberate" Cubans from the cruel Spanish; in the end some US admiral ordered his "troops" to kill everyone on a Philippine island over the age of "ten years."

I was thinking more of individual people losing jobs, etc. because they disagree with the local consensus or the boss on the issues, whether they are right-wing or left-wing.

So, yes, reality and fantasy have some distance between them. A great little test of this schism with reality might be to try put the Iraq War under the "humanitarianism" category.

Which would have the same results as trying to put it under a "persecution" category.

The opinion differences between US and the rest of the world is due a administration and media-induced ignorance, and this ignorance (unintended it may be) is itself a cause for "anti-American sentiment." "Dont speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin..." yes, but this is possible to do among reasonable people.

But perhaps not by using with blanket categories which oversimplify, especially something like "persecution" which is so often claimed where closer examinations shows it should not be. And some people deserve to be persecuted, i.e. trolls to take a trivial example. Also compulsive liars (of any philosphical persuasion whether they themselves know they are lying). Persecution is a weighted term. I think attempting to include terms weighted with POV as categories is most unwise! I can amuse myself by imagining a category Religious propaganda to be applied to most "sacred" books. But I don't think it would help in any way. -Jallan

ROFL. All your points are well taken. I will consider them carefully in my verdict; though I feel a slight favoritism toward action on the classification idea than inaction, I will do so in a way that generates dialogue and consensus, whatever that may be. -Stevertigo 22:14, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mediation

Actually, we tried mediation. I put some introductory observations (inherently POV on my part, subject to further overview). The next thing IZAK did was bring the complete argument over the the mediation request page. Also, mediation was rejected and instead there was supposed to be additional comment. Not sure, but I think this multi-user comment is what we've been seeing. :P - Gilgamesh 09:14, 8 July 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation for Hebrew linguistics project participation

Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism is trying to decide all Hebrew linguistics issues for Wikipedia by themselves. But Hebrew is not purely the realm of Judaism; it is also the realm of Samaritans, Christians and Abrahamic religion as a whole, and also secular Canaanite languages studies. I'm trying to challenge mono-cultural mono-sectarian dominance over a linguistic field that we all should be sharing together. I invite you to participate in trying to pluralize Hebrew language conventions for Wikipedia. In particular, not only is Tiberian Hebrew transliteration challenged, but also Standard Hebrew transliteration, as some people want to use only Israeli Hebrew colloquial transliteration or Ashkenazi Hebrew liturgical transliteration. I think these are perfectly valid and worthy of participation, but not at the total expense of every other Hebrew linguistics study concern. Please support a multi-religious multi-cultural scientific NPOV mandate for studying Hebrew linguistics on Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 02:43, 18 July 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew transliteration

That essay on the talk page of Wikipedia: WikiProject Judaism was really quite impressive. Thanks.

(One technical note on what you wrote: Yemenite Jews read Hebrew in a way, as you suggest, that may be correctly extrapolated from texts with Tiberian pointing. This in fact must be true, because otherwise they could never have adopted that pointing in any of their texts. However, at the same time, their Hebrew is not best represented by the Tiberian points, which they adopted over the course of time later in history, by rather by the Babylonian niqqud (supralinear), which corresponds exactly to actual usage with no need for extrapolation.)

I want to urge you to make a special contribution, which perhaps would best be in a Hebrew transliteration article. The idea would be to present the different systems of transliteration one at a time (not letter by letter as in Hebrew alphabet), describing when and how they have been used, by whom and for what purposes, what the rationale behind each one is, and what each one's weaknesses and advantages are.

If you could do that for the Tiberian points that would be wonderful. I cannot do it myself for two reasons: (a) because my graduate courses in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic were far too many years ago for me to remember this stuff; and (b) because I know absolutely nothing at all about how they are represented in Unicode.

As a practical matter, by the way, for articles on Jews and Judaism I happen to prefer the time-tested Encyclopedia Judaica system as a usable, practical compromise between standard modern Hebrew and historical purity. Do you know anything about Unicode for the special symbols in that system (e.g. het, zaddi with dots underneath)?Dovi 09:45, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)