This is an archive of past discussions with User:Cplakidas, for the period 8/2013 – 12/2013. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Please help to edit london greek commitee — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahusha (talk • contribs) 04:45, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kostas. How are you? I hope everything is well with you and yours. Sorry for the disturbance but there have been a lot of edits in the past few days on the article, all unsourced, and some sections look like OR to me. Could you please check and advise whenever you have the time? Thank you. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 05:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Doctor! I am quite well, I hope you likewise. On Attaleiates, the stuff that has been added is mostly kosher from what I can see, and aligns with what I've read on the historian. If this new user is, as he claims, a professional Byzantinist, then I'm more than happy to have him, but we should send him a polite explanation on policies, i.e. that it would be better if he cited his statements to the sources he's brought up. --Constantine ✍ 09:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi again Kostas. I am very well, thank you. Thank you also for the clarification. I will leave a note to the editor as you suggest. Take care. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 14:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Hallo Constantine,
I need the advice of an experienced user (you :-)). If someone goes against a guideline (in this case, WP:OPENPARA) what possibilities there are to enforce him to respect it? In concrete, it is always the same story about citizenship of famous people...in this case an italian born physicist emigrated in the U.S. after his college studies, Riccardo Giacconi. According to OPENPARA he should be defined as American, but the nationality has been repeatedly changed to Italian-American. Thanks for your advice, Alex2006 (talk) 06:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, strictly per the guideline, you are right, but in practice, ethnic labels often get mentioned. As "Italian-American" is a shorthand for "Italian-born or Italian-descended person of American citizenship", there is room for argument here; the question is one of relevance, i.e., is Giacconi's Italian-ness a distinguishing feature for him? If so, then I too would prefer "Italian-American" to plain "American". From the present article, I cannot see anything particularly Italian about him other than his country of birth, so I would agree with you, but this case IMO is not so serious a breach of policy as to warrant admin action. I would suggest the typical remedies recommended for edit disputes, i.e. thrash it out at a talk page first, get a third opinion and only if that fails, get to a WP:RFC. If the other editor does not respond at all and continues to revert back, then this is WP:ANI territory. --Constantine ✍ 08:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Constantine! Of course there is nothing against defining him as Italian-American, but my question was another: can a guideline be enforced, or not? Because WP:OPENPARA clearly states that in the opening paragraph of a biographic article (NOT in the whole article, of course) there is no place for a double citizenship/nationality: the subject in this case is described either as Italian or as American. This has avoided a lot of edit wars: a typical example is Enrico Fermi, whose nationality, before applying the guideline, oscillated between Italian and Italian-American. I have no interest in discussing about fried air (as they say in Naples :-)), above all with people which have a clear nationalistic agenda, also because - without the guideline - in this case I can accept his version without any problem. Thanks again! Alex2006 (talk) 08:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I understand and appreciate your position, but as to your question "can a guideline be enforced, or not", I gave you the answer. Enforcement of guidelines is not automatic (even in far more blatant and serious breaches), users are supposed to discuss first, and only then seek administrator intervention. Of course, if the user in question has a long history of nationalist-POV editing, then that is a matter for ANI or for WP:LONG straight away, but even there you will see comments to the effect of "has he been warned for his conduct before coming here?" or "were multiple attempts made to contact him about this or that issue?". You can contact an admin and see what he tells you, as I am not too experienced with this sort of stuff, but I have a hunch he'll answer pretty much the same. Constantine ✍ 08:58, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Now I understand: the enforcement comes only at the end of the process that you described. Of course I wrote to him several times (and now I moved the corresponding thread on the Talk page, as you suggested) but with no result, since he keeps reverting to his version. I never started such a process until now, but sooner or later one should to do something, otherwise entropy will approach infinite, like in Italy... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 09:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know it is a wearisome process, but necessary. Especially since two persons' perceptions or interpretations of the same policy may vary considerably, as us Mediterranean people know too well ;). Cheers, Constantine ✍ 09:41, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

:-) Alex2006 (talk) 09:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. The thread is "Talk:Sasanian Empire#The_map_of_the_Sassanid_Empire". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot ^{operator / talk} 23:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

On 9 August 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Gregory Taronites, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Byzantine general Gregory Taronites was killed while trying to rescue his son from a Bulgarian ambush? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gregory Taronites. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:49, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi,

NativeForeigner (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned Oh Yeaaahh (talk⁺ · contribs · deleted contribs · tag · block user · block log · CheckUser) yesterday following a sockpuppet investigation. Per WP:EVADE, this means that all of Oh Yeaaahh's contributions should be reverted (verify).

However, this is not going to be a one-user task given the scope of the user's contributions and you may want to ensure that edits by other users are carried over. Luckily I have User:Marianian/checklist to keep track of the task. Suggested reasons for the summary box are also there. I appreciate your assistance. --Marianian^(talk) 02:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, can be. Should they be constructive you don't have to. NativeForeigner ^Talk 02:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

		The Categorisation Barnstar
		I appreciate your outstanding work on Ottoman and Byzantine architecture cats. Thanks Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 21:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Nedim, much appreciated! I was planning to do this for a long time now, I always got lost in these huge categories with over 200 entries... Any suggestions for further improvement/fine-tuning are welcome! Cheers, Constantine ✍ 23:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a note to let the main editors of Sack of Amorium know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on August 20, 2013. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or one of his delegates (Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), and Bencherlite (talk · contribs)), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 20, 2013. If it needs tweaking, or if it needs rewording to match improvements to the article between now and its main page appearance, please edit it, following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. The blurb as it stands now is below:

The Sack of Amorium by the Abbasid Caliphate in mid-August 838 was one of the major events in the Arab–Byzantine Wars. The Caliph al-Mu'tasim targetted Amorium, in modern Anatolia, as it was one of Byzantium's most important cities and in retaliation for Byzantium's attacks the previous year. He defeated the Byzantine emperor, Theophilos, and his forces at Anzen. The Abbasid troops then sacked the city of Ancyra and arrived at Amorium (siege depicted). Faced with intrigues at Constantinople and an army rebellion, Theophilos was unable to aid the city. Amorium was strongly fortified and garrisoned, but a traitor revealed a weak spot in the wall, where the Abbasids effected a breach. The commander of the breached section left his post to try to negotiate privately with the Caliph, allowing the Arabs to capture the city. Amorium was systematically destroyed, never to recover its former prosperity. Many of its inhabitants were slaughtered, and the remainder driven off as slaves. The conquest of Amorium not only was a major military disaster and a heavy personal blow for Theophilos, but also a traumatic event for the Byzantines, its impact resonating in later literature. (Full article...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok look, the reason why I threatened those respected editors is because I got extremely angry at an administrator by the name of Sowlos who chewed me out in front of everyone. I had to go to a bureaucrat to get those threads on the talk pages reopened for discussion and he chewed out the administrator who closed the discussions in the first place. Kansas Bear came off extremely rude when I proposed that merger on the talk page of the Roman Empire and idk why. Since Sowlos had already chewed me out and I loathe being chewed out multiple times in the same hour, I took all of my anger and frustrations out on him and the other editor and threatened to get that same bureaucrat on both of them. Also, I am sorry for the big edit war we had on the Sasanian Empire talk page!But since I wan to end it all right now, I took a look at your talk page and saw the thread titled "HistoryofIran" and saw that you were right and they did not conquer all of Anatolia, but only the central part of Anatolia. So I modified my map as you can see here where it looks exactly like the current map only it doesn't show that they controlled Transoxia so it is more accurate than that map. Let me link it to you: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sasanian_Persian_Empire_ca._620_A.D.jpg

And just in case you and the others are not satisfied with that map, I filed a request on map workshop to either improve my map which I cannot do because I do not have the paint apps they have, OR make an entirely new map of the Sasanian Empire that looks exactly like my map in the sense of having a physical and topographical background. I am not trolling when I state this, this is my honest opinion; Personally I do not like maps having those ugly white backgrounds with the countries shown in green. I rather have all of the maps have this type of background: http://www.treehouse-maps.com/mims/m2l/tglrg918_l_eastasia.png. For example, if anyone is to make another map of the Qing Empire to go in the infobox, they should add a physical and topographic background like how my maps have. My old maps used to be red, green, orange, etc. with a white background because I thought it was easier to make it that way, but then I realized that maps such as this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/AchaemenidEmpireTerritorialExpanision.jpg and/or this: http://www.opcdorset.org/FordingtonFiles/Mapofchina.gif are much better suited for infobox images for Wikipedia Articles that associate with Historical nations.

Also, I am sorry for taking my anger out on those other users on the other talk pages! That was very immature of me and completely uncalled for and I went to Sowlos after that whole incident and said this: "I see. Unfortunately, ignorance will not necessarily protect you from hostile reactions to disruptive acts. If you really did not intend to spam trollishness, you must remember it is incumbent upon you to understand the situation you are entering and the effects of your actions. The relationship of the Roman Empire to the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Empire is a controversial topic. Many nationalistic and ethnic biases play into the historical revisionism and vandalism the related articles have had to grapple with over the years. Also, your contentious posts appeared to have little logical underpinning (another trolling red-flag): How does listing Ottoman Empire as the Byzantine Empire's successor mean they should be merged into a single Roman Empire article? By that logic the Roman Kingdom and Republic articles should also be merged. And, what about the Republic of Turkey? It is the continuing legal personality of the Ottoman Empire. Under that logic, shouldn't it be merged into the Roman Empire super article? Even if they did all rightfully deserve representation as a single state, encyclopaedias have separate articles for a reason. One article just cannot cover everything. That's what parent and subarticles are for. Lastly, your suggestion would require completely ignoring centuries of establish academic understanding."

"I find it hard to believe you were completely ignorant to all these issues, but if you were, you essentially kicked a hornets' nest."

He was right about me on two things, that I am a new user who was completely ignorant on all those issues and that I kicked the hornet's nest.

Finally, as I said to everyone on the Sasanian Empire talk page, I have created my first article that is endanger of being either deleted or redirected. It's called List_of_species_rumored/believed_to_still_be_alive. It is a great article and I have been doing my hardest to cite accurate, credible and reliable sources if you see the references section of the article. There are so many species that went extinct from the Paleocene Epoch all the way to 2011 A.D. and so many of them are rumored and believed to still be alive today. With that being said, please help with my first article. That is all that I ask of you now. I am going to ask the others to help as well. If you do not wish to partake in contributing to the article itself, then at least put your opinion of it here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of species rumored/believed to still be alive. I won't bother you again after this. Peace ☮

But then again you no longer WP:AGF Assume Good Faith in me so that obviously means you despise me regardless of what I say. ☮ Keeby101 (talk) 01:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I won't begin a discussion with you again, I know it to be fruitless. I just want to point out a few things and let's hope you will take them to heart. If you are a new somewhere (be it a workplace, team, class, online game, forum or Wikipedia), then it behoves one to be extra careful, extra patient and extra civil towards everyone else, and to seek to learn from those who know a thing or two. When your reaction at being thwarted is to rant and threaten with bureaucrat intervention, and then to apologize with "peace everyone", then you will lose any sympathies you may have earned. On the off chance you are actually serious about working here: stop blowing your fuse; stop making ridiculous "grand proposals" and focus on actually getting something useful done, like a new, well-written and well-referenced article, and try to get it through WP:PR and WP:GAN to see how a proper article should be; stop replying by walls of text and be concise and to the point; finally, as far as the maps are concerned, start reading some books instead of relying on websites and GBooks snippets, because to everyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the topic you clearly don't know the period in depth. This is not a question of appeasing me or anyone by accommodating our desires, it is a question of proper behaviour in an online collaborative encyclopedia. Please don't bother to reply, just try to actually think about what I wrote. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 08:23, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Cplakidas can translate this article Γοδεφρείδος ντε Μπρυγέρ. A greetings Kardam (talk) 17:59, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Kardam! Yes, of course, this guy it is on my "to do" list, though I'll probably write the article from scratch rather than translate it, as the Greek articles rely on rather antiquated sources. --Constantine ✍ 11:59, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Done: Geoffrey of Briel. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 11:58, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Cplakidas, if you ever had time, or ever had the will to do it, then could you please do me a favor and expand the Farrukhan the Great section as you did with Khurshid of Tabaristan? since i can't really find much information about him and i am still learning the Persian alphabet (i live in Europe) so i can't translate it from the Persian wiki, and i can't understand what it says when i translate it to English with Google translate. --HistoryofIran (talk) 19:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I certainly intend to expand the article (and write the other Dabuyids as well), though, as you say, it is a matter of having time. I can't say for sure, but I'll probably get back to writing on Persian/early Islamic articles only in late September or thereabouts, right now I am focusing on my Byzantine and Frankish & Ottoman Greece stuff. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 19:50, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks :). --HistoryofIran (talk) 20:07, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Gerda, much appreciated! Cheers, Constantine ✍ 06:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

There are two WP:RFCs at WP:FOUR. The first is to conflate issues so as to keep people from expressing meaningful opinions. The second, by me, is claimed to be less than neutral by proponents of the first. Please look at the second one, which I think is much better.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks at the death of Osama bin Laden Op-ed: Sturmvogel_66 presents his secrets of prolific contribution

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Gabras you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by GA bot, on behalf of Dr. Blofeld -- Dr. Blofeld (talk) 10:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The article Gabras you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Gabras for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by GA bot, on behalf of Dr. Blofeld -- Dr. Blofeld (talk) 20:17, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

On 24 August 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Gabras, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that members of the Byzantine family of Gabras rebelled against the Byzantine emperors, governed as independent rulers and ruled a principality in the Crimea? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gabras. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:03, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Martino Zaccaria you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by GA bot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

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	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thank you for your work! Երևանցի talk 21:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Your kind gesture is much appreciated! Cheers, Constantine ✍ 06:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. They certainily have a fair number of contributions left, and I'm not sure how aggressively to attempt to revert them all. I think I've gotten all of the created articles, and some of the most egregiously irrelevant redirects. NativeForeigner ^Talk 16:54, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, some of his edits may be good. I can't really speak for the football articles he's contributed in, but it is my impression that there, where there's little text and mostly tables etc, it is more likely that the info he's added is OK. It is his attempts at adding chunks of "translated" text from the other-language Wikipedias that are invariably bad. In the past, me and especially Markussep (who has made some truly heroic efforts in this regard) have tried to clean up Pumpie's mess by re-translating from scratch, but due to the sheer number of articles there are still lots out there that haven't been looked at, and I fear that it will be the case here as well; IMO any major edit (say, above 500 chars) by Pumpie should be reverted, the rest is probably either OK or too minor a problem. Of course, you have more experience with this sort of thing, so I defer to your judgement. Constantine ✍ 18:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

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The article Geoffrey of Briel you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Geoffrey of Briel for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by GA bot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:07, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why am I, a Wikipedian need to hear about conflicts between Pumpie and others if I am not an admin and I don't even know the whole story. It turns out that I receive this on commons and since I don't know the story I don't know what to do?--Mishae (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Ouch, sorry you got dragged into this mess. Pumpie (talk · contribs) and his socks are a long-running concern here, but I have no idea why he chose to communicate with you, and in Commons of all places. It may well be that someone impersonates him for trolling, but even if he is the real thing, he is a complete nutcase either way, so please just blank his posts and ignore him. Constantine ✍ 15:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello Cplakidas. This article has been expanded in greek you can translate it from there. This as Πολιορκία και Άλωση Τραπεζούντος. A greetings. Kardam (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Please take a look at Artishert. DragonflySixtySeven has been deleting the articles created by Oh Yeaaahh and Da Desirer 2; one was Peace and Friendship station, which Oh Yeaaahh had created at SEF tram stop. After an AfD that ended with no consensus, it was moved, and Artishert has now recreated it at the original title. I've pinged Markussep and will now write Dragonfly, but I'm at work, which is not conducive to a close examination of Artishert's work with comparison of deleted versions. I hope it's just a rail maven who wants there to be articles on all these stations. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Sigh, just confirmed at the sockpuppet investigation page. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I just saw that as well. Pumpie has discovered a liking for sockpuppeting, and it does not bode well... Constantine ✍ 15:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I wonder if I should block this one :-( I'm inclined to leave it for someone totally uninvolved. Part of the issue is: what to do about articles he creates? DragonflySixtySeven believes they should be nuked. The three of us (though me hardly at all now) and quite a roster of railfans have been trying to rescue them, to put it simply. It seems to me that policy and consensus can be read either way, but if he's going to sock, Dragonfly's probably got it right; we should be making it as unrewarding as possible for him to do so. Or should we recreate the articles in Markussep's and your userspace so the sock's name is disassociated from the history? If so, then that should be done as fast as possible as a new sock is discovered, to minimise losing others' good-faith edits, but any such losses violate the attribution policy and might tend to imply those people did something wrong, by inflating their deleted edit counts. Sigh. Thoughts? Yngvadottir (talk) 16:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Markussep has displayed far more patience with cleaning up than me, so what I am to write comes from a purely selfish standpoint. IMO, the priority would be to discourage him from making new socks, so that he leaves us and WP in peace. This would require swift blocks of his socks, and nuking each and every one of his creations, so as to deny even a shred of recognition. It is not something I would usually advocate, but given the nature of his contributions, i.e. usually obscure rail articles, and mostly stub-level at that, it is not a real loss to the project. I am sick of running after his mess, and like you and Markus have far better and more interesting things to do. Constantine ✍ 16:30, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Trying checking what the user's IPs are. If it is static put a anon plus temporary account creation block on it. --Marianian^(talk) 03:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, any chance you could reserve the review for this and review it for me? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

If you don't mind waiting for a few days more and being reviewed by someone who is not terribly good at reviewing, then I'd gladly take this on. Constantine ✍ 15:17, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello Costa. I was wondering why you are continuously reversing the map of the Balkans to a map that does not represent the current situation. The map should clearly refer to the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' as FYROM. This is not an insult, it is what has currently been agreed upon by the united nations. I didn't write it myself. Could you kindly help me understand the reason you are doing this? Regards Veluhi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Veluhi (talk • contribs) 03:14, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello! The name of our northern neighbour has been disputed and debated over and over here, and the project has adopted a set of mandatory guidelines, WP:MOSMAC. "FYROM" might be OK for us Greeks and used by the UN pending a solution, but it is considered an insult by those who actually live there, so this is a rather delicate issue. Constantine ✍ 08:11, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

An wp:spa account you know (who recently created large scale disruption as unlogged in en:wiki) found a quite bizarre way to take his revenge by performing a tit for tat strategy via de:wiki. Since you know his case, in these days he is into large scale disruption in various articles in de:wiki, for example Arvanites (claiming that there are 2 million i.e. all the population in Peloponess&Central Greece minus Athens), using wrong [[1]] sources and instead of explanations, no wonder, writing tendentious comments and personal attacking [[2]].

Sounds weird none wants to deal with him (although he received a short block in de:wiki too), since most third-part users believe that they should... not be involved in national disputes[[3]]. Similar disruption in Epirus where he uses his reviewer button as a way of light edit-warring. Alexikoua (talk) 07:44, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

You made some changes, I made some other changes, and then you undid all my changes without going through them. There is a reason for everything... Neo ^ (talk) 05:57, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and with you unfortunately the reason is that if someone changes your stylisfic preferences, and you WP:DONTLIKEIT, then you simply change back, e.g. the removal of redlinks or the persistence in a specific transcription style. You've demonstrated WP:OWN on this article repeatedly. Seriously, please try to accept the fact that others are both capable and allowed to tweak around it without your approval. My edits were intended to bring it more in line with WP:MOS as well as reduce overlinking etc, so please, unless my edits introduce factual erors, leave them alone. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 06:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Message received. Try using actual expressions, not Wikipedia expressions, which I am not familiar with. Thank you. Also, I know that some people are much more capable than me, not to worry!Neo ^ (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining to me about Pumpie and his socks, however rather deleting his articles I would propose to give them to users that are interested in such stuff. He mentioned to me that he tried to translate an article about something from Greek. Can you be so kind and give a link of such article (although as I read the other posts on your talkpage, I assumed it got deleted)? Either way, I have a Wikipedian here who writes articles on Greek football teams, maybe he will be kind to help us translate Pumpie's articles. Thoughts?--Mishae (talk) 05:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello! Originally, that was our approach to this problem as well, but there's only so much mistranslated gibberish one can tolerate. As I wrote above, I think it best in this one case, to apply the nuclear option. Constantine ✍ 06:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

On 12 September 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Geoffrey of Briel, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Baron of Karytaina, Geoffrey of Briel, was held to be best knight in the Principality of Achaea, and maintained a school where he trained young Greeks as knights? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Geoffrey of Briel. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Constantine, I hope you'll consider running again in the coord elections. - Dank (push to talk) 02:07, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello Dank, sorry it took me so long to reply, but I've been rather busy in real life and I wanted to thing my reply a bit over. Despite my best intentions, I was not able to help out much during my tenure the previous year, and from what it looks like, I fear I will be even less able to do so this year. What time and energy I have I much prefer to spend in article-writing, and besides, I really don't feel I am up to the job of being a coordinator. The project needs people with ideas and experience on structure, collaborations, outreach etc, and I don't see myself too able to contribute there. I wish you all the best, and any support I can give, I will give, but there's definitely other users who will do a better job at it than I did. Constantine ✍ 16:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your service, and I'll be happy to ping you when things come up that I think you'd like to know about. - Dank (push to talk) 17:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 12:55, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Greetings from WikiProject Military history! As a member of the project, you are invited to take part in our annual project coordinator election, which will determine our coordinators for the next twelve months. If you wish to cast a vote, please do so on the election page by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September! Kirill ^[talk] 18:21, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks at the American Civil War

Wow, thanks! -- llywrch (talk) 04:31, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

And thanks for deleting that external link to the Order of Eugene. When I first saw the link, I thought the Order was simply some Greek Orthodox religious group (monastic or lay), but upon following the link I found it did not pass the smell test & left a post on WP:FTN for lack of a better place to ask. I know of one more external link to this group which I will handle. -- llywrch (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Good. When I first came across this group, I was by turns laughing and aghast at their presumption... By themselves, they are a tragicomic curiosity, but it appears there are enough gullible people out there who will pay for anything, so if you come across any other reference to them, nuke it with extreme prejudice. And once again thanks for your contributions on the Empire of Trebizond. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 17:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Do you have any information about these alleged members of the crispo family, Fiorenza II Crispo, Co-Lady of Milos and Maria Crispo, Co-Lady of Milos? I don't find anything in the sources except the mention of 2 unnamed daughters in Hopf's genealogical tables here, and the mention of this information in subsequent books by later historians (incl Miller). The problem is (apart from the absence of a name) that Hopf contradicts himself in some of his other books (he writes somewhere that Giacomo died without children, and somewhere else that Giovanni Michiel married another woman of the Crispo family) ; (in his genealogical tables he provides no source, and they are well known for beeing full of errors). Plus, the brides would have been very very young (their parents married only in 1414 of 1415 according to Peter Schreiner) (the first one is supposed to have married in 1419!). There is neither any mention of children in the contemporary Venetian documents about Giacomo's succession (in Thiriet's Régestes du Sénat de Venise. I think that these articles should be deleted, and stay only as a note in Giacomo's article.--Phso2 (talk) 09:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I didn't know anything about these two ladies, and seeing as you have access to more and better sources than I do, I trust your judgement. There's nothing I could find on them in Greek, and the website used in their articles fails WP:RS since the sources used appear to be other genealogists of unverifiable reliability rather than scholarly sources. So go ahead and WP:AFD them. Constantine ✍ 10:51, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Constantine,

There are a lot of very definite statements in Wikipedia about Philippopolis being Bulgarian at the time of Sviatoslav's invasion. To be fair there are a number of academic works which state the same. However, most historians just seem to register the fall of cities to the Bulgarians and not negotiated restitutions. We know that the peace negotiated with Tsar Peter included the reversion of the border to treaties in place before Symeon's conquests, though we do not know the precise geographic demarcation.

Constantine VII says that Philippopolis was in the eparchia of Thrake " In Eparchia Thraciae habet metropolis Philippopolis "- and therefore presumably Byzantine in the mid 10th century. Also John Fine considers that Philippopolis was Byzantine when sacked by Sviatoslav, which makes a lot more sense than a Bulgarian provincial governor putting up a pointless fight once his Tsar was in Sviatoslav's hands, not to mention that at the time Sviatoslav's army included Bulgarians.

I think that greater degre of uncertainty should be introduced into descriptions involving the ownership of the city at this time. I even found a statement that Tsar Peter retained Philippopolis supported by a reference to Fine which flatly contradicted this assertion. Urselius (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, you raise an interesting point, but for this particular period, I think the city was Bulgarian (or at least, under Bulgarian government. The citizens themselves may well have continued to be Greek-speaking and felt themselves "Roman", at least in part). I wouldn't trust Porphyrogennetos too much, as he mixes antiquarian terminology with his own contemporary situation (the quote you gave refers quite clearly to the late antique situation by the very use of the term "eparchia"), and the city was certainly well within the borders of the Bulgarian realm for a long time by Sviatoslav's invasion, borders extant IIRC long before they were recognized by the Byzantines since their 920s peace treaty. I don't know why Fine makes this claim, perhaps the city declared itself free from Bulgarian authority after Sviatoslav's invasion, but I'll have to check this. Give me a few days to re-check the primary sources. Constantine ✍ 14:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Fine's assertion is on p. 186. He contrasts the leniency of Sviatoslav to those Bulgarian towns which surrendered to him, saying that Sviatoslav was trying to prevent his troops antagonising the Bulgarians, with his treatment of Philippopolis. His cruelty to the people of Philippopolis, impaling 20,000 of them - allegedly, is hardly in keeping with this policy. However, as an opening attempt to horrify Byzantine public opinion and cow Byzantium's leaders, the Byzantines still being in open arms against him, it is more understandable. Urselius (talk) 19:24, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally I recently bought a book - The Byzantine Art of War by Michael J. Decker (2013) Westholme Publishing with several campaign maps inscribed "after Cplakidas" - fame at last? Urselius (talk) 20:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Hah, that's nice, and ego-boosting ;). I think I remember some email some time ago requesting permission about such a use, I'll have to re-check it. Good to see that the author attributes the maps, I've seen many maps and other images in Greek newspapers and you'd never know they were taken off Wikipedia and not laboriously made by their graphics department... How is the book, BTW? Is it worth buying? Constantine ✍ 21:21, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

It's not too bad, but the time period - Justinian to 1453 - is too long for much meaningful detail, one section of "illustrative campaigns" jumps from Belisarius in Africa to Nikephoros Phokas in Cilicia-Syria! The arms and armour section is fairly appalling. Urselius (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I see. Perhaps one day you should take a shot at writing a more fleshed-out work, I for one would read it (and make more maps for it). BTW, I don't remember if I've asked you before, have you read this book? It should be right up your alley. Constantine ✍ 22:03, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I have sometimes thought that I could do a better job than some authors; no doubt you have thought the same in regard to your own compositional skills. I would have some difficulty with the book you recommend as I have zero understanding of German. I can read French and make sense out of most of the Latin phrases I come across; I also did a bit of Anglo-Saxon but even that has little in common with Modern German. I’m a typical product of the English educational system, early specialisation. I knew I was going down the science route, so foreign languages were of little or no practical use to me. It did regret it many years later when I had to translate a number of very relevant papers from French. I was once told by a Bavarian friend that my few bits of spoken German had a distinct Sächsische accent. Urselius (talk) 07:39, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Right, I finally got around to checking Leo the Deacon in the original, and this is what he says: "Ὁ δὲ Σφενδοσλάβος, [...] περιδεεῖς καὶ καταπλῆγας Μυσοὺς τῇ ἐμφύτῳ ἀπηνείᾳ κατεργασάμενος (φασὶ γὰρ τὴν Φιλίππου πόλιν τῷ πολεμεῖν ἐξελὼν, δισμυρίους τῶν ἐν τῷ ἄστει ληφθέντων ὠμῶς καὶ ἀπανθρώπως ἀνασκολοπίσαι, καὶ ταύτῃ τὸ ἀντίξουν ἅπαν ἐκδειματῶσαι καὶ θεῖναι ὑπόσπονδον)", i.e. "Sviatoslav, [...]. had cowed and subdued the Mysians [Bulgarians] with his innate cruelty (for they say that when he took Philip's city by force, he cruelly and inhumanly put to the stake 20,000 of the inhabitants, and in this way all his enemies were terrified and sumbitted seeking terms)". This seems to imply that the city was in Bulgarian hands, and indeed all modern retellings of the Rus' invasion I have read (Obolensky, Stephenson, Whittow, et al.) seem to include the episode within the context of the fall of eastern Bulgaria, and Whittow explicitly calls it a "key Bulgar fortress". Given that Philippopolis along with Serdica and much of Macedonia fell into Bulgarian hands in the mid-9th century, and no (successful) Byzantine attempt at recovery is recorded or even hinted at after, plus the fact that for until Sviatoslav's invasion the Byzantine-Bulgarian border ran approximately along the lines of the modern southern Bulgarian border, Philippopolis must be regarded as a Bulgarian city. Constantine ✍ 10:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The wording of Leo suggests that Philippopolis was Bulgarian, but does not state it beyond dispute. There are some pieces of evidence which might suggest the reverse. I found two Bulgarian publications in English which state that Philippopolis was recaptured by Michael III and Bardas in the 850s (Gjuzelev, V., (1988) Medieval Bulgaria, Byzantine Empire, Black Sea, Venice, Genoa (Centre Culturel du Monde Byzantin). Published by Verlag Baier, p. 130 and Bulgarian Historical Review (2005), United Center for Research and Training in History, Published by Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, v.33:no.1-4, p. 9). In Leo VI's Notitia Episcopatuum Philippopolis is described as a metropolis with a number of dependent bishoprics, including: Leuke, Joannitza and Bukuba. The last bishopric was represented in a church council of 869, whilst all three of these bishops subject to Philippopolis were represented at a council of 879. There was one bishop from a see outside of the Empire at the council of 979 - Ochrida in Bulgaria - but this see is not listed in Leo's Notitia. This tends to suggest that the Notitia represents cities within the Empire at the time, rather than being an excercise in antiquariansim; this is supported by the fact that the names of the sees dependent on Philippopolis at the time of Leo VI are entirely different to those described as such in the time of Heraclius. Fine states that the peace treaty with Tsar Peter returned the Thracian frontier to the position it occupied at the time of previous treaties in the 890s and 904. These treaties are not described in detail, or on surviving record, but they date from before the conquests of Symeon. Bulgaria may have had difficulty in retaining Philippopolis long-term because the area, like the rest of Byzantine Thrace, had a monetary economy and Bulgarian beaurocracy, based on renders in kind, was unable to function effectively. Also the actions of the local governor in relation to the threat of Sviatoslav makes no sense if it was a Bulgarian city - all the "other" Bulgarian cities opened their gates to Sviatoslav's army, which at the time included Bulgarian troops, and the Bulgarian Tsar himself was Sviatoslav's prisoner and enforced ally, confined to his own capital. I think that the available evidence is not strong enough to make any certain assertion as to the political status of Philippopolis at this time in its history. Urselius (talk) 11:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The points you raise are interesting but there are two objections. First, the most direct reading of Leo, to me at least and apparently the major modern historians as well, indicates Philippopolis to be in Bulgarian hands; indeed, the argument that the other cities surrendered as opposed to P. is moot if we suppose that Sviatoslav assaulted P. first, after which the other Bulgarian strongholds were cowed and submitted, a reading entirely in the spirit of Leo's passage. Second, your theory contains much hypothesis and little solid evidence, esp. since the Bulgarian Church in its early years is known to have been under Constantinopolitan authority; I don't dispute that your suggestion is a plausible, but I am not qualified for passing judgement on it. As regards the article, I am forced to follow the bibliography I have used, and that is pretty clear. Barring a direct statement to the contrary from a RS, I cannot alter it. Constantine ✍ 21:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a considerable difference between reversing a thesis supported by some evidence, and introducing an element of uncertainty, which in turn is supported by other evidence. The Byzantine historians and chroniclers note the loss of cities in battle, but often do not note their later restitution by treaty. This is something that modern historians, such as Steven Runciman, have often repeated. It is generally assumed that Adrianople returned to Byzantine control after being taken by Symeon, but I have never seen a reference to this as a chronicled event. Fine and Ostrogorsky (in Early Medieval Byzantine Cities) place Philippopolis in Byzantine hands in the reigns of Leo VI and Constantine Porphyrogenitus, presumably on the strength of the ecclesiastical records. Fine states that many Bulgarian towns opened their gates to Svyatoslav before the storming of Philippopolis, and makes a pointed contrast between their treatment and the fate of the latter city. BTW, Fine does make a bald statement that "Philippopolis was a Byzantine city" at the time of Svyatoslav's storming of it. Urselius (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Al-Mu'tadid you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:40, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The article Al-Mu'tadid you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Al-Mu'tadid for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:42, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

On 9 October 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Al-Mu'tadid, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Caliph al-Mu'tadid managed to halt the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate during his reign, but at the cost of a huge bureaucracy and some 80 percent of expenditure going to the army? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Al-Mu'tadid. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

On 10 October 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani ruled a short-lived bedouin state in Palestine, governed Armenia for the Abbasids, and finally became ruler of Diyar Bakr, where he was succeeded by his son Ahmad? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

On 10 October 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ahmad ibn Isa al-Shaybani, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani ruled a short-lived bedouin state in Palestine, governed Armenia for the Abbasids, and finally became ruler of Diyar Bakr, where he was succeeded by his son Ahmad? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas. I know that you didn't create such article, but maybe you can help me. I translated it recently and as you can see in my version, and I put sources in all parts that was missing, but yet there is one phrase that I don't find any source that say this, could you help me? It is: "Since 1071 he was a governor of the Theme of Iberia". The article theme of Iberia says the same thing, however there is any source too. thanks.--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 04:09, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello! This probably comes from his own statement in the typikon of the monastery he founded, that he was doux of Theodosiopolis. For persons of this period, the PBW database is very useful, Pakourianos is here. Constantine ✍ 13:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. It's really marvelous that we have someone like you to help us to improve the articles. Keep on doing this good job.--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 03:17, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I have some information of the regents.

• [4]
• [5]
• [6]
• [7]

Mr Hall of England (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Great, but where is Venizelos mentioned as a regent? Between Alexander's death and Kountouriotis' appointment there was a vacancy in the position of head of state in Greece. Venizelos de facto was the senior Greek official as the PM, but that does not make him a regent, as he was never designated as such. Constantine ✍ 06:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:33, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kostas, do you have any idea where to obtain a license-free contemporary image (coin, seal) of Alexios II. Komnenos? Or is the seal on Dumbarton Oaks website the only one known? Is there a chance to find something in pre-1923 literature? Thanks for info! --SJuergen (talk) 22:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello! I don't really know, but from a search I had done some time ago I too had only come across the seal you mention. I haven't been able to find a coin from Alexios II's reign, nor a portrait or anything similar, unless you want the rather generic portraits found in the Codex Mutinensis gr. 122 version of John Zonaras' history, of which I have been able to find and upload only a handful. If you happen to come across anything, please let me know. Constantine ✍ 09:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The article Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Isa ibn Shaykh al-Shaybani for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:32, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello Cplakidas! Sorry dirturb you again, but there is another thing that I don't know what it is right. Well, in article Theodore Gabras, it's written that Constantine Gabras was the younger son of this general, but in another article, about the family Gabras, it's written that the same Constantine was the nephew of Theodore. Do you know what is it right?--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 18:15, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Better rely on the Gabras family article, which I've written relying on the most pertinent prosopographical studies. In short, Constantine's relation to Gregory and Theodore is unknown. It is possible that he was Theodore's son or nephew, but nothing like this is indicated anywhere. In the lede, the mention of him as a nephew is a leftover from a previous version of the article, which I had failed to correct. Thanks for pointing that out! Oh, and please call me by my first name, I feel awkward when people address me by my username. Cheers,Constantine ✍ 18:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I didn't know that your username it is your surname.--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Cplakidas. You recently removed this item, noting 'the Napoleonic Guard was neither small nor known as "the Immortals"'. Not being an expert in European military history, I have only this to go by. You may want to see to any necessary clean-up. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 07:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello! Well, the Guard began as a small elite force, but by 1810 it had grown into a parallel army... And yes, the moniker "the Immortals" was applied to some of the more select regiments like the Grenadiers à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, along with other nicknames like "the gods", or "the High Heels", etc, but this was simply a nickname, in no way official, and did not apply to the Guard as a whole, at most the Old Guard units. Constantine ✍ 08:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks Austro-Hungarian battleships of World War I Op-ed: Advice on reviewing Featured and A-Class articles

Thanks for your help on the Pyrosvesteiou Square issue. I was also going through several articles on neighbourhoods in Patras, most of them created by our friend Pumpie, and in rather bad shape. I wouldn't know whether these places have any official status, or whether they are even notable. I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Greece#Neighbourhoods in Patras, maybe you can help. Markussep ^Talk 12:01, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine. I am bit lost here, i am currently trying to create some articles about the Marzban's of Armenia, but i am not sure that i should put the royalty infobox or the office holder infbox, some of them were after all from noble families, while some were not. --HistoryofIran (talk) 18:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello to you too! Well, seeing as the marzbanate was primarily a gubernatorial office, I'd say the office-holder infobox is more appropriate. The fact that it was held by Armenian and Persian nobles is irrelevant, since the noble classes either way monopolized the higher appointments in both Armenia and Persia. Happy editing! Constantine ✍ 19:11, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Alright, thanks :-). --HistoryofIran (talk) 19:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, if you haven't already, you should consider signing up for WikiCup 2014. Cheers, --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 02:56, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine! Do you know what the (Byzantine) Greeks used to call the city of Ani? The articls says "Ανίον", but I can't find a source. --Երևանցի ^talk 15:04, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello! The correct form is Ἄνιον, on the authority of the ODB, article "Ani", p. 98. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 15:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Երևանցի ^talk 15:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello again. Sorry to bother you with my questions. Can you please check if the Greek names of Dvin are correct and can you please find sources for them if possible? --Երևանցի ^talk 22:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

On 5 November 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Abdallah ibn Ali, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that after the death of the first Abbasid caliph, al-Saffah, his uncle Abdallah ibn Ali led a revolt and tried to claim the throne from al-Saffah's brother, al-Mansur? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Abdallah ibn Ali. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine, in Byzantine Coins, p. 257, Philip Grierson cites a publication by Ioannis Svoronos from 1908 giving a coin image of Michael I. Komnenos Dukas (wrongly attributed to Michael VII.) in the Numismatic Museum at Athens. Do you have the chance to find out more specific bibliographical data? This seems to be the only way to obtain a contemporary illustration of Michael in public domain. (Grierson himself gives a copyrighted one on pl. 80, No. 1277). Cheers --SJuergen (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, there is no major publication of his from 1908 on Byzantine matters, so this is most likely a reference from an entry of the Journal International d'Archéologie Numismatique. Although the 1908 Journal mentions a couple of coins of Michael VIII, from their description they are gold coins of the usual type struck after the recovery of Constantinople, and cannot be mistaken for Epirote ones. I also had a look in the volumes for 1907 and 1909-10, but again, nothing. I may have missed the reference, but either way there are no image plates of Byzantine coinage as far as I could determine. Constantine ✍ 10:06, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the barnstar! I can't express how timely it was, and I was feeling pretty down today about everything until you came along. I know it's just a box on the screen, and it's good to be a gnome, but I'm really thankful to you! Ithinkicahn (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Good, I am glad it cheered you up, it was meant to! After all, even gnomes need to be appreciated, since they do most of the actual work ;) Keep it up! Constantine ✍ 09:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Constantine,

I have just redone the Portuguese article by translating Siege of Constantinople (674–78) and I was wondering if it isn't good for featured article. I know you are too strict with that kind o f things, but what do you think?

Thank you very much.

PS: You must know it already, but PT.WP owes you already, indirectly, about 16 FA and more than 50 GA. Thank you again. :-) --pt:Stegop ^talk 02:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, the Portuguese WP owes a lot to your dedication and diligence in translating articles, and I know you do a good job because you always spot errors that have escaped my notice. On the 674-678 siege, there are two problems that hold me back from nominating the English article for FA, because without them I cannot regard the article as "comprehensive": one, I am waiting to see what impact Howard-Johnston's views will have (if any) on the issue, and two, I am waiting to find an article concerning the sole near-contemporary source on the siege, a celebratory poem by Theodosius Grammaticus. If you can somehow find the article (cf here, it's the last one), I'd be grateful! Constantine ✍ 10:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply and your compliments, although I don't remember spotting any errors, at least these last months. I see your point and I'll meditate on them, but at first sight it seems to me that you are being too perfectionist, which isn't a bad thing, as those points are kind of "nice to have" things, i.e., they would be great complements, but they hardly affect that much the comprehension of the theme. After all, Howard-Johnston's views seem a novelty so far and the article looks pretty comprehensive in presenting the traditional versions. But I am not qualified to discuss such matters, as I am talking based mostly on the text you wrote. Best regards. --pt:Stegop ^talk 02:14, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I rather agree about Howard-Johnston, it's just that in an FAC, this question will be asked (and, quite frankly, accepted or not his reading of the sources makes a lot of sense in many ways). Strictly on comprehensiveness, I am more concerned with Theodosius Grammaticus, precisely since he alone wrote immediately after the events themselves. I have a reference to the effect that his laudatory poem seems to verify the "traditional" account, but without having read the paper in question I don't feel confident enough to include this. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 09:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas, would you please take a look at this contradiction? Oddly enough, it's a tag on a FA, but I think Simeon's article is correct and other two incorrectly date the battle on the same day he died in Preslav. But I'm not sure because the battle's article cites Theophanes Continuatus as the source. Do you have any insights on this? Thank you in advance. José Luiz ^talk 10:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, Obolensky, Curta, Fine and the The New Cambridge Medieval History date the event to 926, so I'd definitely go with that. The dating to 927 seems to stem from the phrase of Theophanes Cont. that "Learning of Symeon's death, the surrounding foreign peoples ( ethnê ), the Croats and Magyars, determined to march against the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian people was gravely oppressed by a great famine and locusts, they feared the invasion of the other peoples, but all the more they feared the arrival of the Romans." but as far as I can tell, 926 is the universally accepted date. Constantine ✍ 12:25, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought so. I corrected both articles (I think). José Luiz ^talk 19:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas, I was wondering if you could give your feedback in the proposed split of the article Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece. There are comments on the talk page here:

• Split "Patriarchate of Constantinople Era (732–1850)"

Any feedback would be appreciated. If you know how to do the split and agree with the comments, I recommend we go ahead with that. Many thanks, salut, ΙΣΧΣΝΙΚΑ-888 (talk) 14:31, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas, I just noticed this individual in Template:Rebellion and secession in Byzantium, 1182–1205. I went thru the index of Donald Nicol's The Byzantine family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) -- & his "agenda & corridenga in the 1973 Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1973) -- & cannot identify this figure with any of the John K's Nicol has information about. (I was concerned because I'm about to return this book to my library. I obtained his monograph thru ILL, so it may take me as long as 18 months to consult this book again.) Do you have a reliable source that this person did exist? (Or even a detail or two that can further identify him?) If not, we probably should remove his name from this template until a reliable source for him can be found. -- llywrch (talk) 18:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for the heads up. I'll check it tomorrow... Constantine ✍ 22:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

My source for this was Alexios Savvides' essay on revolts and secessionist movements in Byzantium, 1189-c.1240. I don't currently have access to it, but the info is repeated elsewhere, e.g. by Aneta Ilieva in her study of the Frankish Morea, and I think even by Nicol in his study ([8]). Could you check it? I'll have a closer look when I get my hands on Savvdies again (it should not take more than a couple of days). In the meantime, I think you'd like to check out this as well. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 18:06, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Aha, now I know why I missed it in Nicol's book: his 100-odd entries are about the people whom he believes were part of the aristocratic family of Kantakouzenos, not anyone who had that last name. This particular John Kantakouzenos appears in a footnote in his work, which leads me to conclude Nicol has reason not to include him with the aristocratic K's. It's the same issue that not every Palaiologos is related somehow to the family of Michael VIII Palaiologos. A fact that needs to be added to that article, if & when it is written. -- llywrch (talk) 17:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

On 16 November 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kharijite Rebellion (866–896), which you recently nominated. The fact was ... that the Kharijite uprising that began in the Jazira in 866, would last for 30 years before being suppressed by the Abbasid government? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kharijite Rebellion (866–896). You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:03, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

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Hello Constantine. As you know, everybody on wiki pt. admire your work about Middle Ages, specially Byzantine Empire. And as maybe you also know, I like to translate so much your articles. And two of them, the officials Salomon and John Troglita, made me think. Both are good articles here, but looking for more information about them, specially in Martindale and Bury (finally I have the entire pdfs!), I haven't found anything more substancial to complement your work. That's why I would like to propose both to featured articles? What do you think, do you suggest any source for me to read?--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 11:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Troglita should more or less be OK, although I haven't had time to check Moderan's article on him and I really would like to be able to check Pringle's The Defence of Byzantine Africa before nominating him for FA, as it is the main recent work on the subject. On Solomon, the reason I am keeping him at GA is that he was the major builder of fortifications in Byzantine Africa, which are the main Byzantine archaeological legacy in the region, and I would like to go through the relevant parts of Diehl's work and add a separate section on this. As with Troglita, I'd also like to have a look at Pringle. Constantine ✍ 11:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok. I'm going to try to help you to improve them. Recently I'm translating, according to Martindales's account, some articles about historical characters related to them, it won't be so difficult to do it. --Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 13:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas, I wonder if this article is expandable, because this character has done more than his predecessors, but its history is very short, I would like to expand, but my English is very poor and not any Greek. A greeting and good luck in your edits Kardam (talk) 23:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine, thanks for your feedback for spliting the Timeline article. You can find the split articles here:

However, the last article, from 1821-present, is still quite large, and has already been tagged for another split. Do you think that a split from 1821-1974 and then 1974-present would work; OR, should we go 1821-1967, and then 1967-present? Please let me know your thoughts, with many thanks! Salut :) ΙΣΧΣΝΙΚΑ-888 (talk) 16:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello! Good work! On the question of splitting the last one, 1974 would definitely be the date to choose, it pretty much marks the beginning of "contemporary" Greece. Constantine ✍ 21:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Battle of Baykand you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomobe03 -- Tomobe03 (talk) 23:12, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello. Can you please just add a "Support" vote, since it was you who suggested "Arminiya". Thank you. --Երևանցի ^talk 20:58, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The article Battle of Baykand you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Battle of Baykand for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomobe03 -- Tomobe03 (talk) 14:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The article Battle of Baykand you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Battle of Baykand for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomobe03 -- Tomobe03 (talk) 11:42, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

You removed the dates from the title, but there were lots of Pisan and Genoese expeditions to Sardinia in the Middle Ages. There is a bigger problem, however. The article is not only about the Pisan and Genoese response, but about Mujahid's campaign as well. It needs a new title altogether. Any ideas? Srnec (talk) 00:15, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the Christian focus in the name had striken me as well. On the other hand, I can't think of a title that is not too cumbersome, along the lines of "Andalusian–Pisan–Genoese contest for Sardinia" etc. Perhaps, in view of the eventual outcome, "Pisan conquest of Sardinia" might make sense? Constantine ✍ 11:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

On 2 December 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Battle of Baykand, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Battle of Baykand, in what is now Uzbekistan, was won after al-Harith ibn Surayj suggested that it was better to die fighting than to die of thirst? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of Baykand. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Alexios Strategopoulos you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Moswento -- Moswento (talk) 11:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Battle of the Baggage you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 09:02, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Alid Revolt (762–763) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 09:02, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Alexios Strategopoulos you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Alexios Strategopoulos for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Moswento -- Moswento (talk) 16:42, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

An article that you have been involved in editing, Osmanoğlu family, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Ithinkicahn (talk) 01:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Constantine. In Uprising of Ivaylo, a certain Byzantine general called "Michael Glava" is referenced and I'm wondering if he is not Michael Doukas Glabas Tarchaneiotes. What do you think? Thank you in advance. José Luiz ^talk 00:50, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello! Yes, it is the same person. The PLP says: "in 1278 he campaigned against Ivaylo Vurdokva, pursued him until Silistria and in 1279 captured the latter's wife Maria, Tsaritsa of Bulgaria, and their son Michael at Tarnovo." This reminds me that I have to expand Glabas' own article with the PLP, I'll do this within the next few days. Constantine ✍ 10:02, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! José Luiz ^talk 11:26, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, in case I forgot again, I expanded the article today. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 17:25, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Day of Thirst you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Typing General -- Typing General (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:23, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Alid Revolt (762–763) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Alid Revolt (762–763) for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:12, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Siege of Kamarja you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

On 14 December 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Alid Revolt (762–763), which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that when the Alid Muhammad the Pure Soul launched his abortive uprising against the Abbasids, Caliph al-Mansur is said to have remarked that at last he had "enticed the fox out of his hole"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Alid Revolt (762–763). You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Orlady (talk) 04:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kosta. Subject to the usual disclaimers of you having the time, inclination etc. could you please check Template:Did you know nominations/Venetian arsenal, Gouvia because the DYK nomination has stalled. It got a "non review" review, in the sense that the review did not affirm the validity of the hook. I would appreciate your advice on the current hook's acceptability. I could modify it or create another if need be. Thank you for your time. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Hallo Constantine. This might be of some you to you [[9]]. It seems some dozens of interesting WWII pics (1943-45) can be finally uploaded. Thank God we don't need this fair use rational tag any more.Alexikoua (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I will check them. There are already some WWII-era pictures from the IWM collections in Commons. Good find! Constantine ✍ 11:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Day of Thirst you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Day of Thirst for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Typing General -- Typing General (talk) 14:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

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This letter is in regard to the translation of King Tahmasb or Tahmseb, (both spellings/pronunciations are accurate and commonly used and will be used interchangeably here) and its incorrect INCORRECT translation of “Tahmasp” on Wikipedia ending with the letter “p”. In all of Persian/Farsi literature, the King’s name is spelled طهماسب. (see link 1 below). The letter-by-letter translation written and read from right to left in Farsi, is as follow: “ﻁ” for T, “ه” for H, “ﻣ” for M, “ﺍ” for A, “ﺳ” for S, “ب” for B (see link 2 below). So in essence it’s spelled as THMASB and pronounced as either Tahmasb or Tahmaseb. (Because there is no vowel between the letters “S” and “B”, it can be pronounced either way) If you notice here, most vowels are eliminated, as is the case with all words in Farsi. The last letter “ب” represents the “B” of the English Language and is pronounced identically in both languages.

The elimination of the vowels in Farsi acts to shorten the word, providing a smaller distance for the eye to scan. This vowel elimination becomes especially relevant when reading articles or books composed of large number of words as this creates a significant decrease in the time required to scan / read the subject matter.

A descendant of King Tahmaseb or any work attributed to him is given the name Tahmasebi, (translation تهماسبی) with the suffix “i” denoting “of” or “from”, meaning “of Tahmaseb” (“i” in farsi represented by the symbol “ﻯ”) (see link 3) The letter "b" is still present here and symbolized by "ﺑ"

On Wikipedia, there seams to be a translation error in which the King’s name is written as Tahmasp ending with the letter “p”. The letter p in farsi is represented by the symbol پ" 2 " (see link 2). Placing the Farsi letters “B” and “P” side by side, "ب" and "پ" one can see that although similar, the letter “p” has two additional dots at the bottom of the symbol. As mentioned in the first paragraph, King Tahmaseb’s name is spelled with a B in Farsi, Tahmaseb (Farsi: طهماسب) and never with a “p”.

Aside from all the accurate historical literature in which the King’s name is spelled Tahmasb/Tahmaseb, for consistency of Wikipedia articles alone his name should reflect already existing articles on wikipedia, (as shown in the links below) and on the net.

1. If Wikipedia article titled “شاه طهماسب یکم” (Translation: King Tahmaseb/Tahmasb the First) spells King Tahmaseb’s name ending with a “ب” or “b” (link 1) and King’s own book is titled “Shahnameh Tahmasebi” طهماسبی (Tahmasebi meaning “of” or “from” Tahmaseb) (see link 3) and spelled with a “b”, “ب”

AND

2. If Wikepdia article titled “Persian Alphabet” shows that the translation of the letter “B” is “ب” in Farsi (see link 2)

THEN

Without resourcing to any historical data or translation knowledge, one can deduce that the English Wikipedia page written about him should have the correct spelling of Tahmasb / Tahmaseb.

Nowhere else in Persian literature is King Tahmasb’s name written ending with the letter “p” and it shouldn’t be on such a far-reaching and significant page as Wikipedia either.

Link 1:

In the Farsi Wikipedia, you can find the correct spelling of King Tahmaseb as it has always been written and used in Farsi/Persian literature, http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/شاهنامه_تهماسبی

Link 2: 2 Details of the Farsi to English alphabet translation can be seen on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia’s table of translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_alphabet#Letters

Links 3: 3 The book of art titled “Shahnameh Tahmasebi” attributed to King Tahmaseb is one of Iran’s most significant works of art. The King’s name is spelled correctly as Tahmasebi (meaning “of” or “from” Tahmaseb) http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/شاهنامه_تهماسبی http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/articles/tahmasbi_shahnameh.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahtahmasebi (talk • contribs) 08:09, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, nice. Did you read what I wrote in your talkpage? You do not need to convince me, you need to begin a WP:RM at the article talk page where you will present your arguments. And before you go in with this phonological analysis, the prime criterion for article titles is usage, i.e. WP:COMMONNAME. Since this is the English-language Wikipedia, and since foreign scholars are not obliged to follow a precise transliteration from the original language, what you have to prove is that "Tahmasb" is more common in usage than "Tamahsp" in English-language publications. Search Google Books and Google Scholar, and if the findings confirm your suggestion, go ahead with the WP:RM. Otherwise, you can insert a linguistic note in the shah's article (preferably referenced to some reliable source) and explain the discrepancy between the "English" spelling and the phonetic one. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 08:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not trying to convince you, I am responding to your message threatening that I will be blocked as an editor because I corrected an error on Wikipedia.

Within the guidelines of wikipedia, I have made attempts to correct this information. It is very possible that my procedures were incorrect, however regarding the correction of title of a wikipedia article, I have followed the the proper steps. This is a technical move, (e.g. spelling and capitalization), and have followed Wikipedia guidelines of "Reasons for moving a page

There are many reasons why you might wish to rename a page:

The title has been misspelled, does not contain standard capitalization or punctuation, or is misleading or inaccurate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Moving_a_page#Reasons_for_moving_a_page" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahtahmasebi (talk • contribs) 08:44, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Erm, no. "Spelling and capitalization" means that if the title is at "nEw Yokr", then one can without further ado move to "New York". What you propose is a different transliteration, which is a matter of usage, like Bosphorus over Bosporus, Belarus over Belorussia or Myanmar over Burma. Furthermore, I have responded telling you why your renaming was wrong either way (the "Wikipedia:" part) and what you need to do to carry out a proper renaming procedure. Now, this discussion is over. Either initiate a WP:RM, or leave the article (and me) at peace please. Constantine ✍ 09:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I will not leave the article alone until it is corrected. As far as leaving you alone, it is you who contacted me initially. You did not introduce yourself, (who you are and in what authority did you/and are sending me messages) you did not explain your role in wikipedia, and with all due respect, I have no reason to go by your requests until you explain your role here. As for the instructions you provided, it is best if you explained in terms that are understood within the english language and terms that do not rely on codes and abbreviations. Then all problems will be resolved faster. Best, Shah Tahmasebi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahtahmasebi (talk • contribs) 10:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

My role here is as another user, who has been here far longer than you and knows Wikipedia's policies (these "codes and abbreviations") and tries to help others to follow the same. If you think that one needs to have a "role" or "title" in Wikipedia, then you don't understand how this project works. This is one more reason to actually heed the advice I gave you, which is based on having been around here for 8+ years, knowing how this project works, and wanting to spare you the trouble of doing it the wrong way again and again. And make no mistake, no matter whether your reasoning was sound, you did go about it the wrong way. I have repeatedly pointed out why, if you don't want to understand it, it is not my problem. Being "right" (yes, there is a silly abbreviation for this as well) is not a guarantee that your view will get through. Take my advice or leave it, the policies are there, I suggest you read them. I have better things to do (and you too, I suppose) than debate this over and over. BTW, as an indication on how a WP:RM is supposed to look and work, cf here). Cheers, Constantine ✍ 10:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Quadell -- Quadell (talk) 23:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Quadell -- Quadell (talk) 21:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine. I have a doubt about this map. According to the articles, the Theme of Opsikon was splitted up ca. 750, but this map, that says to show the empire one hundred before, represents the Optimatoi and Bucellarians. Don't you think that someone made a mistake about the date, putting 650 instead 750?--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 09:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the map is wrong, an error carried over from the one it is ultimately based on. These errors are what prompted me to make maps of my own in the first place ;). Someone probably should correct these files, I'll probably get around to it in the weekend. Constantine ✍ 10:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok!--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 11:28, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Battle of the Baggage you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Battle of the Baggage for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:42, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Please help to edit London greek commitee.

The article Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Quadell -- Quadell (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello Constantine, could you help me about a strange thing? According to the article Theme (Byzantine district), Justinian I abolished the Diocese of Egypt and put dukes to rule into new provinces created in the area. Until here ok. The strange point is, in the article Exarchate of Africa there is a phrase that says: "Among the provincial changes, Tripolitania was detached from Africa and placed under the Diocese of Egypt, Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania..." How is it posible?--Renato de carvalho ferreira (talk) 02:23, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, I think this refers to the establishment of the praet. prefecture of Africa in 533, when IIRC Tripolitania was assigned to Egypt. The Diocese of Egypt was abolished some years after that (the suggested dates are 534/5 or 538/9), but any changes pertaining to the Pentapolis (Cyrenaica) are lost, and Tripolitania appears to have returned to Africa, as seen during the revolt of the Leuathae. I'll have a look for more sources in this regard, stay tuned ;). Constantine ✍ 11:05, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, the only info I could find was that Tripolitania was ceded to "Egypt" under Maurice ([10], [11], Diehl p. 467), but clearly the mention of a diocese of Egypt at this time is anachronistic, likely the dux of Pentapolis is meant. There is nothing about a cession in 533, though. Constantine ✍ 13:50, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

On 29 December 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Battle of Tawahin, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that at the Battle of Tawahin between the Abbasids and the Tulunids, the commanders of both armies fled the battlefield? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of Tawahin. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Harrias ^talk 00:02, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

The article Siege of Kamarja you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Siege of Kamarja for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cplakidas, thank you for your recognition of the new article ekklesiasterion I created. In turn I'd like to thank you for your help in improving it. However, I also noticed you removed the hanging indent in the list of sources I had originally used and replaced them with bullets. I wonder why? According to Template:Refbegin#Option 3: Hanging indentation it is a valid approach. Also note that in books you'll never see bullets used in the bibliography; most of the time the hanging indent will be used. Besides that, I think the hanging indent is aesthetically better and helps with separating the individual entries. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 22:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello! Well, aesthetic preferences obviously differ, but the main reason was that I find it hard to distinguish between individual sources with the indent, especially when they are divided into two columns and on smaller-width screens, which I am frequently using. The indented titles tend to become rather jumbled in those cases, at least that's the way I perceive it. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 22:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

You mention the combination of two or more columns and smaller-width screens is detrimental to the reading experience, but there is a solution for that. As can be read in Template:Refbegin#Option 2: Multiple columns a minimal column width can be given so that the browser can determine how many columns should be used. This is best demonstrated in the article Sybaris which I've also written: column widths for the References, Sources and Further reading sections are specified as "30em" which is most commonly used for this. On my widescreen monitor the list of sources uses four columns, but on my smartphone it adapts to use just one column: in all scenarios it is very convenient to read. In the ekklesiasterion article I had also specified 30em. I assume this fixes the issue, so I'll revert to hanging indent there. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 09:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)