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I guess I don't know much about classical paganism and never really wondered if they have an authoritative scripture– authoritative in the sense of the Bible for Christians in that it defines the religion and is the basis for opinions on doctrine and practice. And the Illiad page doesn't mention it.
Was the Illiad really considered by many at the time to be divinely inspired? To be scripture? If so, it deserves a reference.
I know it's a little thing. But it's an off-hand remark that seems to have some big implications. 64.61.220.89 ( talk) 01:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Greg
The result of the proposal was no consensus. 199.125.109.126 ( talk) 02:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Julian the Apostate →
Flavius Claudius Julianus — His name is not Mr. Apostate, Apostate is an extreme and offensive POV, its factual accuracy is disputed, Jewish writers call him 'Julian the Hellene', as per
WP:PBUH honourifics etc. violate wikipedia's neutrality policy, as per
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) name stylings should not be used, as per
Wikipedia:Naming conflict wikipedians should not seek to determine who is "right" or "wrong" nor to attempt to impose a particular name for POV reasons, and where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications —
Clinkophonist (
talk)
00:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's naming conventions.I'm going to note this request at the Classical Greece and Rome Wikiproject. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
"Apostate is an extreme and offensive POV" to whom? Julian and his co-religionists? Should unsupported POV arguments trump 1500 years of usage and override WP:UCN? I would be more offended by Charles the Bald or James the Fat myself. — AjaxSmack 16:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Obviously this will sound biased (and maybe it is) but perhaps this should be decided on merit rather than concensus? And perhaps the arguments brought by User talk:Doktorspin have the most merit? Just a thought to whichever admin deals with this request. Druworos ( talk) 19:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Some google results:
Search | Hits |
---|---|
"Lyndon B Johnson" | 1,210,000 |
"Lyndon Baines Johnson" | 1,410,000 |
"Lyndon Johnson" | 1,300,000 |
"LBJ" | 2,550,000 |
Hmm, should we lobby to change the name of the Wiki article presently called "Lyndon B. Johnson" to "LBJ"?
Search | Hits |
---|---|
"Ted Kaczynski" | 148,000 |
"Theodore Kaczynski" | 148,000 |
"Unabomber" | 567,000 |
But strangely "(The) Unabomber" redirects to Theodore Kaczynski. Surely it should be the other way around, shouldn't it? People have been arguing that we have to be dictated to by mere popularity. -- spin control 22:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I would like it if someone tells me the next time someone tries to move the page. I have twice tried to get it moved and failed. Thegreyanomaly ( talk) 06:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
So that people can know what the situation is in scholarly literature, here are all the articles referring to the emperor Julian in the title in the first 50 hits on the name "Julian" at JStor, searching classics:
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You'll notice that "Julian the Apostate" is not frequent. -- spin control 02:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Septentrionalis has twice mentioned G.W. Bowersock's popular work "Julian the Apostate". It should be noted that a search of Google scholar produces three works by Bowersock referring to Julian:
It's notable that none of them refer to Julian as "Julian the Apostate".
It's very strange that the survey was closed after barely six days. -- spin control 02:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"it has been appropriately displayed that "the Apostate" is not at all common usage in scholarly research." This is false, and the searches above don't demonstrate anything other than the fact that a JSTOR search for "Julian" in classics journals turns up a number of results. If one searches JSTOR for Julian the Apostate, a fairly large number of articles come up. --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The statistical distribution at JSTOR is dominated by lack of reference to the misnomer "Apostate" in the title (the dominant term is simply "Julian" or "Emperor Julian"), and the mention of the misnomer "Apostate" in the body of the articles. WIKI editors might think about emulating JSTOR editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.109.98 ( talk) 00:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
To show that Julian the Apostate has a poor showing on JSTOR it provides a total of 510 hits from 31 classics journals, while a search for (((Julian) AND (Constantius)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) provides 642 hits, which is obviously far fewer than the total number of articles about Julian on JSTOR, but I wanted to guarantee that no-one couldn't deny the figures so I did a conservative search. (((Julian) AND (Ammianus)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) provides 759 hits. (((Julian) AND (Constantinople)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) gets 741. Get the picture? There are actually 2847 references to "Julian" on JSTOR from ((((Julian) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) NOT (Julian dates)) NOT (Julian calendar)). Remove scholars whose names are Julian and basically the rest are our emperor.
31 peer reviewed scholarly journals in the area of classics on JSTOR and you would like to believe that JSTOR is not a good representation of what you call reputable secondary sources.
Your accusation of falseness, Akhilleus, is simply baseless. You are spreading disinformation. Please be more careful in the future. -- spin control 01:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Here I go, spreading baseless disinformation. Ok, so a JSTOR search for "Julian" NOT "Julian the Apostate" NOT "Julian dates" NOT "Julian calendar", limited to journals in classical studies, gets 2847 results. I'm going to guess that Dr. Spin hasn't read through all the results. Here's results 101-112 that I got when I did the same search, enclosed in a collapsible box so it doesn't take up too much room. (Please note the results were renumbered when I used JSTOR's export function.)
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Sorry for the awful formatting. Anyway, aside from #10, none of these has anything obvious to do with our emperor. #9 and #11 have clearly popped up because one of the authors' names includes "Julian"; I doubt these citations contain anything about our emperor in the full text.
So, to sum up, some of these results are about our emperor, but several are merely citations and not good examples of English usage; one result pertains the the Julian calendar, one to the emperor Augustus, 4 results give writing or photo credits to someone whose first name is Julian; one result tells us about a "Julian the Sophist" who was a near-contemporary of the emperor. That's just results 101-112, but it doesn't give me any confidence that the search results mentioned in this thread provide good evidence of how the emperor is referred to in JSTOR articles (let alone the wider world). It does make me think that some of the people who are complaining about "POV in the title" don't understand how ambiguous "Julian" can be, since in English, it's not just a proper name, but an adjective derived from the name of the most prominent Roman gens in all history... --Akhilleus ( talk) 05:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
You'll note I specifically said earlier: "Remove scholars whose names are Julian and basically the rest are our emperor." Regarding Julian as an adjective, I omitted to say that as only four search parameters were available, I didn't include the Julian basilica in the figures I gave. There were 190 articles on the basilica from my calculation (I did it indirectly), so that doesn't ultimately have an effect on the minority status of "Julian the Apostate".
You obviously accept that "Julian the Apostate" is the minor representation of the emperor, ie the reference gets fewer hits than any of the combinations featuring Constantius, Constantinople and Ammianus. If not yet, do the search yourself and be satisfied. All you are doing now is nitpicking, as the position you seem to be defending is already clearly lost. In fact I took quite a sample of the latter part of the 2847 hits and there were substantial numbers referring specifically to the emperor. You are just shaping the information to lessen the lost cause effect. Further, if you look at the reviews containing "Julian the Apostate" as the book title, 9 of the first 13 reviews never used the reference themselves. One even described "the so-called 'Apostasy' of Julian" as "a reproachful epithet, which no fair-minded Christian should have applied to him". You are obviously championing a minority form in the reputable secondary source materials. It's time you bit the bullet and stopped beating your dead horse. :-) -- spin control 06:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I see the following Pros and Cons of changing the title to Julian's name:
Pro
1) Legal name should be the default position
2) Legal name is the most objective. No chance of confusion over what was the legal name.
3) The cruncher as the Brits say. "Julian the Apostate" is clearly POV as this is a Christian creation. A primary purpose of Wiki is to avoid POV. As Spin has demonstrated references to Julian are influenced by POV. Hoffman I believe has the current book on Julian and it's titled Julian's Against the Galileans. Hoffman is not Christian (surprise). Our own ultimately limited survey here also reveals POV influence in title as Carl is Christian and I have faith Spin is not.
Con
1) Existing title has precedent at Wiki
There appears to be no existing policy here. Sometimes titles are based on common usage and sometimes they are not. See Dizzy Dean. Who has ever heard of his real name (a better question though is whether he should be in the HOF and an even better question is why Greenburg was not elected o the All-Star game when he set an all-time record for RBIs at the All-Star break)? On the other hand, see "Ivan". Who would know who "Ivan" is? In between see Henry VIII of England.
2) The purpose of Wiki is information for the masses which supports using the most common reference. The average person has never heard of Julian but the most common scholarly reference is "Julian the Apostate".
Conclusion = Support change to Julian's name.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Alas, the problem here is that there is a potential conflict with Wiki rules Wikipedia:Naming conventions that says:
"General conventions
Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications. "Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications."
Emphasis mine. This appears to supersede the Common Name rules. So, do we eliminate the Common Name rules here or use both as guides rather than rules?
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 22:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Nickname "A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing."
Emphasis mine. I believe you are running out of words who's definition you can challenge.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 23:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
When the man's name was Flavius Claudius Julianus, it's a non-sequitur to talk about "Julian the Wise". This is more post hoc rationalization. There are guidelines on Wiki for article names. People have attempted to be extremely zealous over the use of them for Julian. This zealousness is usually a sign of manipulation rather than NPOV. As they are guidelines, there are numerous examples of them not applying to article titles.
Do I have to find more examples of where the guidelines are not adhered to? (Like Rangoon, Saigon, Caractacus or Scooter Libby.) Surely if you would accept Julian as the article title, by analogy you should also accept Flavius Claudius Julianus, just as Wiki accepts Publius Septimius Geta instead of Geta. The maintenance of the POV title of the article is totally against Wiki procedure, despite the fact that Wiki provides ways forward. Julian is obviously preferable, but then one needs to disambiguate, as seen in the case of Geta. Instead, we've had people shamelessly saying that "the Apostate" is not derogatory. We've had others claiming that it must be a part of Julian's name because that what he was called, though no-one ever called him that to his face. Septentrionalis has not a single functional argument for maintaining the POV title. His reference to Bowersock seems unaware that in Bowersock's literary output he didn't usually refer to Julian as "Julian the Apostate" (which was probably the book editor's choice). I've shown above that scholarship doesn't generally refer to Julian that way. I've also shown that most common name, while a guideline, is not a necessary criterion for Wiki. There are no arguments for the maintenance of the POV title. -- spin control 19:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, it has been appropriately displayed that "the Apostate" is not at all common usage in scholarly research. Furthermore, Google demonstrates that it is only marginally (if at all) more common in general usage. The most common usage in scholarly research is Julian, this also being almost as common (if not more so) as "Julian the Apostate" in general English usage. Thus, the title should be Julian. In fact, since the common names of emperors own wiki articles, as per the guidelines, it is the other articles that should be disambiguated. However, it would perhaps be appropriate to add a proper NPOV disambiguation to the title, such as Flavius Claudius Julianus, Julian II, Julian (Roman Emperor, 360-363), or any other preferred method of disambiguation. Might I point out that Queen Mary I is disambiguated in the title of her article as Mary I of England and not Bloody Mary, though this is in fact common usage. The epithet "the Apostate" should of course be mentioned in the opening sentence of the article, as it already appropriately is, and wherever else in the body of the article it is deemed appropriate. It should *not* however be the title of the article. Druworos ( talk) 17:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The Plaintiff will attempt to prove the following:
The Article name Julian the Apostate is a violation of Wikipedia POV rules and should be moved.
Main assertions of Plaintiffs's argument:
1) Subject's given name was Flavius Claudius Julianus. "Julian the Apostate" was a POV Nickname used by Church Fathers to refer to FCJ (Flavius Claudius Julianus).
2) The Wikipedia article for Nicknames Nickname explicitly states that a nickname is a Descriptive Name:
"A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing."
Emphasis mine.
3) The Wikipedia article for Proper Names Proper name states that a proper name does not tell us anything about the subject:
""A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ii. 5.), "but not of telling anything about it"."
Emphasis mine. Therefore "Julian the Apostate" is not a proper name.
4) Wikipedia rules for naming articles states Wikipedia:Naming conventions
"Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded."
Emphasis mine.
Plaintiff confesses strong precedent that Wikipedia rules specific to naming Roman Emperors support The Common Usage rule as decisive Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ancient Romans):
"The "most common" rule always trumps, so for instance we use Livy instead of Titus Livius, and Germanicus instead of Germanicus Julius Caesar. In addition, the usual names of emperors "own" those articles, even for the less-well-known ones, so we have Titus, Claudius, and Nero as articles on individuals, even though these are generic names shared by many other Romans; but Tacitus is the historian, not the Emperor.
The essence of the convention is to use the shortest unambiguous name as the title of the article, and to add a dated biographical detail, such as the date of a consulship, if the full name is shared by several. If a reliable birth year is not available (which is usually the case), the biographical detail should be the first time in the highest office recorded for the individual."
But plaintiff notes that as Bill Murray said in the classic Holy Ghost Busters it is actually more of a guideline than a Zul, er, rule:
"This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception."
Plaintiff respectfully requests the exception here based on:
1 - The extreme POV of using the descriptive "the Apostate".
"Many religious groups and even some states punish apostates. The concept of apostasy is used to enforce group cohesion and utilize fear to suppress the free will of the individual. Apostates may be shunned by the members of their former religious group[1] or worse. This may be the official policy of the religious group or may happen spontaneously. A church may in certain circumstances respond to apostasy by excommunicating the apostate, while some Abrahamic scriptures (Judaism: Deuteronomy 13:6-10) and Islam: al-Bukhari, Diyat, bab 6) demand the death penalty for apostates."
In the words of Bush the Elder, "It's bad, it's bad." Note that under the list of alleged Christian apostates Julian is the sole person with the Nickname.
"the Apostate" is further POV as misleading as per Hoffman's Julian's Against the Galileans starting at page 49, "III The Religion of Julian", the Pagan sources (including Julian) seem to indicate that Julian was already Pagan as a child while it is the Christian sources that claim Julian was a devout Christian before he became Emperor.
Wikipedia Naming Conventions Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) specifically allows an exception to the Common Naming guideline if the common name is misleading:
"Do not overdo it
In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative. For example a "common" name for a tsunami is "tidal wave" (this term being less often used for the tides-related tidal bore). For this reason, the Tidal wave page is a disambiguation page, with links to the two other pages, and not a page giving details about either tsunami or tidal bore."
This is than followed by another exception to the Wikipedia Naming Conventions Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) for offensive names:
"Also, some terms are in common usage but are regarded as offensive (Mormon Church, for example). In those cases use widely known alternatives (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). When in doubt, check a mainstream reference work. A term can only be considered offensive if a verifiable, authoritative source can be quoted as citing it as such."
Wikipedia itself defines Apostasy as an offensive term.
Both of these exceptions apply and note that in the cited article these are the two exceptions specifically identified by Wikipedia.
2 - Spin's demonstration that "Julian the Apostate" is not the most common usage.
Wikipedia Naming Conventions for people Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) gives the following guidance:
"Nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens
The most used name to refer to a person is generally the one that Wikipedia will choose as page name, even if this sounds awkward for those seeing the name the first time: Alfred the Great is the name most used in literature to refer to this person. Changing the name to Alfred-not-so-Great-after-all or whatever would be more POV than using the name that is most commonly used. It is best to remember that Wikipedia does not make reality: Wikipedians note down what is the closest to facts they can find, in this case that the name "Alfred the Great" is most often used to refer to a certain person."
Note the extreme example here of changing the descriptive to the opposite ("the Great" to "not so Great"). The logic is there that changing/removing a POV name is a POV process itself. But the example fails to quantify, which is more POV and potentially, which is much more? Guidance at Wikipedia normally brings the POV discussion into Naming Conflicts because POV is one of the 3 pillars of Wikipedia and it is therefore clear that all Wikipedia subjects, including Article Naming, are subject to the POV issue. Wikipedia in general communicates that Naming Conventions for people are exempt from the POV issue. Plaintiff could argue based on the above that this is a rule that should be modified. There is no need for Plaintiff to do so here as Wikipedia already provides for exceptions to the general Naming Convention guidelines.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:30, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
5) Per Wikipedia definitions:
1 - "Julian the Apostate" is a descriptive names.
2 - "Julian the Apostate" is not a proper name.
Therefore, the use of "Julian the Apostate" is a POV name which violates Wikipedia naming policy. Quit, quote, pro (move).
6) The heart of the Plaintiff complaint is the POV issue. As a majority of English speakers are Christian, a designation of "Apostate" would be one of, if not the most, negative descriptions a person could have. If there is a conflict of Wikipedia rules here the extreme specific POV here combined with Wikipedia's general fanaticism to avoid POV should take priority.
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
""Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. The other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because the policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these policies are based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Core content policy pages may only be edited to improve the application and explanation of the principles."
Emphasis mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoeWallack ( talk • contribs) 20:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
7) Pm Anderson Sues that the relevant paragraph above:
""Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded."
Has an implication that "descriptive names" as used in this paragraph does not apply to persons.
This assertion is too weak to discredit the Plaintiff argument above for the following reasons:
1) There is nothing within the paragraph itself to support the assertion.
2) The reference to the Naming Conflicts article deals with naming conflicts (surprise) and not POV which is the issue at hand.
3) The Defense has not provided any reason why the intent of the paragraph would be to allow POV for naming persons. Logically, POV should be more applicable to persons than things.
4) Plaintiff argument contains clear, simple and explicit classification of "Julian the Apostate" as a Nickname which is a descriptive name. In contrast, any Defense based on the paragraph is unclear, complex and implied and is therefore superseded by Plaintiff argument.
That being said "Julian the Apostate" fails the common usage test anyway. Spin has already provided evidence that "Julian the Apostate" is not the most common scholarly reference. On the non-scholarly side, if you do a search of "Julian" at IIDB, the most popular Skeptical Internet site in the world, where a relatively high percent of the Unfaithful are familiar with Emperor Julian compared to the Masses, you will also discover that "Julian the Apostate" is not the common usage. It would appear that the only user group where "Julian the Apostate" was the most common usage was Dead Church Fathers which should not be a factor here, at least until the Resurrection.
I'll be mailing you a bill Spin. Now what's your address again?
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I did a google search.
Julian the apostate appears to be more common.-- Patton t/ c 19:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Wiki only uses reputable secondary sources, but try this google search:
Now let's get really interesting and search Wikipedia:
"Julian the Apostate" is far the minority position of Wiki editors! Yet on the page dedicated to him we have an obviously non-consensus title. -- spin control 21:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
If these points are correct then not one argument in favor of maintaining the POV reference "Julian the Apostate" for the title of the article regarding the emperor Julian is valid.
The reason for wanting to change the name of the article is because its current title contains negative bias, long borne by Julian's memory. For those who are not aware of the bias contained in the reference, I cited a scholar writing 100 years ago who described "the so-called 'Apostasy' of Julian" as "a reproachful epithet, which no fair-minded Christian should have applied to him". (Thomas Hodgkin, Untitled Review of Julian the Apostate by Gaetano Negri; Duchess Litta-Visconti-Arese, The Classical Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1907), pp. 88-90.) The response to this has been the tacit acceptance of the charge of bias and then it is claimed that those who want to do away with the bias have a bias of their own.
I'm sure a reader can see that calling the article "Flavius Claudius Julianus" contains no bias whatsoever. But why call it such a long name when we know him as Julian? A disambiguation page called "Julian" already exists. One could arrive at the current page through using
Can you think of an evidence-based reason why we should maintain the "reproachful epithet"? -- spin control 05:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
In the most recent survey to move this article, here are comments regarding "Julian the Apostate" by those who opposed the move:
(Information in brackets supplied by me, so check for reliability!)
Nearly all of these opponents to the move were basing their opinions on the false premise that "Julian the Apostate" is "the most commonly used name". -- spin control 23:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a sign of the times. Searching JSTOR for hits on our emperor since the year 2000 in 31 classics journals using these criteria:
(To clarify this last search, Julian is a common enough name so we need to limit it, so this search looks for Julian only in the context of one or more of four names associated with the emperor, then we remove results regarding "Julian the Apostate".)
The results per decade are:
1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | |
JtA | 51 | 78 | 52 | 61 | 13 |
Jul | 138 | 195 | 239 | 262 | 85 |
Over the last 50 years, "Julian" has been the preferred reference to our emperor. And from 2000 till JSTOR articles cut out, published scholars have preferred using "Julian" over seven times more than "Julian the Apostate". Modern scholarship is certainly not in favor of the "reproachful epithet". --
spin
control
21:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Is it desirable to have a source which is included in its entirety in a footnote, also listed in the references section? Or is this a undesirable cluttering of the end portions of the article? carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 06:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
That was the wrong answer for the questioner, who was seeking to justify post hoc his desire to control my editing by changing and reverting it wherever he deemed he could.
I wanted to make sure W.C. Wright's translations of Julian's writings -- the principal reference to Julian's writings -- were in the references, but because I cited him in a footnote, Carl.bunderson moved the bibliographical data into the footnote and Wright was removed from the reference list. It didn't matter what my opinion was, he had to remove the citation at all costs. I eventually removed the citation of Wright in the footnote and cited Robert Browning's book instead to see if Carl.bunderson would remove that book from the references list.
On the subject of footnotes, there are a lot of problems. For example:
Any clarification of these would be appreciated.
There are probably other errors as well, but some improvement and consistency needs to be brought to the footnotes. -- spin control 13:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
W.C. Wright's translation appears in the Loeb Classical Library. This and any other translations should be noted in a "translations" section; critical editions of the Greek text (surely there are some?) should be noted in a "works" section. The current "writings" section doesn't have good bibliographic information, but rather links to webpages. What's more, it runs the risk of giving the uninformed reader the idea that Julian wrote in English! --Akhilleus ( talk) 13:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
This unsourced pious legend was inappropriately included in the main body of the article in the Restoration section. Not finding any better place to put it, I've removed it from the text and placed it in a box near where it was originally located in the hope that a better solution might present itself. -- spin control 15:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I've made a lot of changes to the article and will stop now for a while to give opportunity for criticism. So far, I've mainly tried to clarify the chronological order of material and footnote some of it, though a lot more needs to be done. So much of the material is unsourced. -- spin control 03:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just performed another piece of radical surgery on the article, grouping the religious issues involving Julian in a separate section from his life, allowing a simpler presentation of his life. -- spin control 03:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I've found that David S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, is an extremely hostile secondary source regarding Julian. I have been using him as one source of facts, but trying to be neutral regarding what seems to me overt dislike for Julian. I've been using him and the CAH to cut through Ammianus Marcellinus material. I'm also waiting on copies of Bowersock and Athanassiadi. -- spin control 17:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Undid new section for Julian's campaign against the Alamanni, as it only occupied half the first paragraph of two, the rest of which would be inappropriate for a section dealing with the Alamanni. One would need more material on them to justify such a section. And I think then the rest of the material would need to be separated from it by another section name. To create the separate section one would have to give body to it. Otherwise it remains only part of Julian's Gallic administration. -- spin control 17:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
The current order of the Gaul section is natural. Changing it so that a section title can be given to the Germanic victories merely confuses the material. As it is the material regarding his victories embodies Julian's taking control first of the military issues then of administrative issues (which begin two years after his arrival in Gaul). -- spin control 02:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone confirm the name "Auchenia Bassa" as the mother of Basilina? This name came from a web page [1]. Thanks. -- spin control 21:04, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that the article still needs the ugly "Cleanup" banner at the top. Granted, there are still a few Manual of Style issues which need to be addressed. However, the article is solid "B" class work and isn't so messy as to warrant the banner. (Heck, with a little work this article could meet GA criteria.)
Are there any objections to removing the "Cleanup" banner? Majoreditor ( talk) 18:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just added a feature that hides both footnotes and sources. It looks good, but I don't know how editors will receive the change, so I await criticism here. Thanks. -- spin control 01:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Sadly it highlights the footnote but doesn't take you to it. I've removed the "collapsed" option from the footnotes, leaving it possible to hide them if you want. The footnotes behave normally when uncollapsed. -- spin control 05:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
This section has undergone a severe overhaul and may contain various new imperfections. Pointers appreciated. -- spin control 02:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Just moved the section Death as a subsection into the Persian campaign section. Death still needs work. -- spin control 03:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
I've turned Julian's works into a table for people to complain about. -- spin control 18:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent)These insults are charming, but you seem to not understand the basic point: Julian's works should be described in prose, not a table. Or do you think it would be an improvement to start the "Life" section with a timeline? --Akhilleus ( talk) 15:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Bude | Date | Work | Wright |
XII | early 363 [1] | Misopogon, Or, Beard-Hater | – |
Written as a satire on himself, while attacking the people of Antioch for their shortcomings. It is a light-hearted account of his clash with the inhabitants of Antioch after he was mocked for his beard and generally scruffy appearance for an emperor. | |||
X | Dec. 362 [2] | The Caesars | – |
Satire describing a competition between Roman emperors as to who was the best. It involves Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, and also interestingly Alexander the Great. This was a satiric attack upon the recent Constantine, whose worth, both as a Christian and as the leader of the Roman Empire, Julian severely questions. | |||
The idea that a reader of Athanassiadi would check this article to chase down references is silly. Athanassiadi herself explains that she refers to the Budé; there's a snippet view available on Google Books, and it reads: "References to Julian's works are not preceded by the name of their author. The orations are numbered according to the Budé edition..." I would think that everyone who reads Athanassiadi's book has access to a college/university library with the Budé Julian, which is widely held according to Worldcat. If our hypothetical reader only has access to Wright, all s/he has to do is notice that Athanassiadi refers to titles such as Misopogon and Hymn to the Mother of the Gods in her text, and use this wonderful invention known as a table of contents to locate where the particular work is in Wright's text. But this is a bit beside the point, since, as I said, if Wright's and the Budé's numbers are going to be included in the article, they should be in a separate section about the critical editions of Julian's text. (A concordance between different editions is well-suited for a table, too.) --Akhilleus ( talk) 15:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
References
I have doubts about this name, given as the father of Basilina, mother of Julian. I can't find a source for it.
In an old German book (Johannes Geffcken, Kaiser Julianus, 1914) I read that Basilina was the daughter of a praetorian prefect and consul for the year 325, Caeionius Julianus Camenius (also found here). In another old source, Smith's Biographical Dictionary, the name is given as (Amnius) Anicius Julianus.
How does Late Roman Prosopography treat Basilina's father? -- spin control 16:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
PLRE pp.148, 478-479 has Julius Julianus (PPO 315-324, cos. after 325) as the father of Basilina and maternal grandfather of Julian. The entry (pp.473-474) on Amnius Anicius Julianus (cos. 322; PVR 326-329) mentions no familial link to the emperor. Nor does the entry (p.476) on M. Ceionius Julianus Kamenius (PVR 333). Catiline63 ( talk) 04:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Just to muddy the waters further, Bagnall Cameron Schwartz & Worp (Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, Atlanta, Georgia 1987, ISBN 1-55540-099X), note that a Julianus is consul in 325, replacing the previous consul of that year, Valerius Proculus. But this man is called 'Ionius Julianus'; in their critical appendix on the Fasti of 325 the authors note that the statement in PLRE that the name is recorded as Julius Julianus is simply untrue; there has been a lot of controversy about this man's name with different suggested emendations of which Julius is only one (Ionius may be correct, or a corruption of Caeionius), and there is, in fact, no reason to assume he is the PPO of 315-324. Cenedi ( talk) 09:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
in it's own Article, The Battle of Samarra took place on 26 June 363 and Apostate "died a few hours later". Also in this Article here the Battle is dated to 26 June 363. The Article say in the same section, that Apostate was wounded for 3 days: "On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the emperor died during the night". So the date of his Dead is false or the date of the Battle - please forgive my bad english, maybe this bad english also causes a misunderstanding from facts in the Article (if so, just forget my question with a short comment) -- Hartmann Schedel ( talk) 09:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I noticed the conflict after having read the article cited in the bibliography and used it as the source. I decided to leave it, based on the detailed medical analysis. I am on vacation at the moment and am away from sources. -- spin control 17:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
A quick check of the medical analysis article indicates that the authors used Philostorgius's version, which supplies relevant medical details and procedures unavailable to Marcellinus, so the article follows Philostorgius over Marcellinus. The issue should probably been noted in the main article. -- spin control 14:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Wondering how Julian escaped being "done in" By the Christian majoriey of hid time Were there any attempts on his life? GThanks! (Eve,Sn,Sept.26,200921stCent Dated by DFr, Edson Andre' Johnson D.D.ULC for my records) Edsonbrasil ( talk) 03:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 |
I guess I don't know much about classical paganism and never really wondered if they have an authoritative scripture– authoritative in the sense of the Bible for Christians in that it defines the religion and is the basis for opinions on doctrine and practice. And the Illiad page doesn't mention it.
Was the Illiad really considered by many at the time to be divinely inspired? To be scripture? If so, it deserves a reference.
I know it's a little thing. But it's an off-hand remark that seems to have some big implications. 64.61.220.89 ( talk) 01:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Greg
The result of the proposal was no consensus. 199.125.109.126 ( talk) 02:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Julian the Apostate →
Flavius Claudius Julianus — His name is not Mr. Apostate, Apostate is an extreme and offensive POV, its factual accuracy is disputed, Jewish writers call him 'Julian the Hellene', as per
WP:PBUH honourifics etc. violate wikipedia's neutrality policy, as per
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) name stylings should not be used, as per
Wikipedia:Naming conflict wikipedians should not seek to determine who is "right" or "wrong" nor to attempt to impose a particular name for POV reasons, and where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications —
Clinkophonist (
talk)
00:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's naming conventions.I'm going to note this request at the Classical Greece and Rome Wikiproject. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
"Apostate is an extreme and offensive POV" to whom? Julian and his co-religionists? Should unsupported POV arguments trump 1500 years of usage and override WP:UCN? I would be more offended by Charles the Bald or James the Fat myself. — AjaxSmack 16:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Obviously this will sound biased (and maybe it is) but perhaps this should be decided on merit rather than concensus? And perhaps the arguments brought by User talk:Doktorspin have the most merit? Just a thought to whichever admin deals with this request. Druworos ( talk) 19:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Some google results:
Search | Hits |
---|---|
"Lyndon B Johnson" | 1,210,000 |
"Lyndon Baines Johnson" | 1,410,000 |
"Lyndon Johnson" | 1,300,000 |
"LBJ" | 2,550,000 |
Hmm, should we lobby to change the name of the Wiki article presently called "Lyndon B. Johnson" to "LBJ"?
Search | Hits |
---|---|
"Ted Kaczynski" | 148,000 |
"Theodore Kaczynski" | 148,000 |
"Unabomber" | 567,000 |
But strangely "(The) Unabomber" redirects to Theodore Kaczynski. Surely it should be the other way around, shouldn't it? People have been arguing that we have to be dictated to by mere popularity. -- spin control 22:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I would like it if someone tells me the next time someone tries to move the page. I have twice tried to get it moved and failed. Thegreyanomaly ( talk) 06:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
So that people can know what the situation is in scholarly literature, here are all the articles referring to the emperor Julian in the title in the first 50 hits on the name "Julian" at JStor, searching classics:
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You'll notice that "Julian the Apostate" is not frequent. -- spin control 02:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Septentrionalis has twice mentioned G.W. Bowersock's popular work "Julian the Apostate". It should be noted that a search of Google scholar produces three works by Bowersock referring to Julian:
It's notable that none of them refer to Julian as "Julian the Apostate".
It's very strange that the survey was closed after barely six days. -- spin control 02:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"it has been appropriately displayed that "the Apostate" is not at all common usage in scholarly research." This is false, and the searches above don't demonstrate anything other than the fact that a JSTOR search for "Julian" in classics journals turns up a number of results. If one searches JSTOR for Julian the Apostate, a fairly large number of articles come up. --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The statistical distribution at JSTOR is dominated by lack of reference to the misnomer "Apostate" in the title (the dominant term is simply "Julian" or "Emperor Julian"), and the mention of the misnomer "Apostate" in the body of the articles. WIKI editors might think about emulating JSTOR editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.109.98 ( talk) 00:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
To show that Julian the Apostate has a poor showing on JSTOR it provides a total of 510 hits from 31 classics journals, while a search for (((Julian) AND (Constantius)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) provides 642 hits, which is obviously far fewer than the total number of articles about Julian on JSTOR, but I wanted to guarantee that no-one couldn't deny the figures so I did a conservative search. (((Julian) AND (Ammianus)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) provides 759 hits. (((Julian) AND (Constantinople)) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) gets 741. Get the picture? There are actually 2847 references to "Julian" on JSTOR from ((((Julian) NOT (Julian the Apostate)) NOT (Julian dates)) NOT (Julian calendar)). Remove scholars whose names are Julian and basically the rest are our emperor.
31 peer reviewed scholarly journals in the area of classics on JSTOR and you would like to believe that JSTOR is not a good representation of what you call reputable secondary sources.
Your accusation of falseness, Akhilleus, is simply baseless. You are spreading disinformation. Please be more careful in the future. -- spin control 01:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Here I go, spreading baseless disinformation. Ok, so a JSTOR search for "Julian" NOT "Julian the Apostate" NOT "Julian dates" NOT "Julian calendar", limited to journals in classical studies, gets 2847 results. I'm going to guess that Dr. Spin hasn't read through all the results. Here's results 101-112 that I got when I did the same search, enclosed in a collapsible box so it doesn't take up too much room. (Please note the results were renumbered when I used JSTOR's export function.)
Extended content
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Sorry for the awful formatting. Anyway, aside from #10, none of these has anything obvious to do with our emperor. #9 and #11 have clearly popped up because one of the authors' names includes "Julian"; I doubt these citations contain anything about our emperor in the full text.
So, to sum up, some of these results are about our emperor, but several are merely citations and not good examples of English usage; one result pertains the the Julian calendar, one to the emperor Augustus, 4 results give writing or photo credits to someone whose first name is Julian; one result tells us about a "Julian the Sophist" who was a near-contemporary of the emperor. That's just results 101-112, but it doesn't give me any confidence that the search results mentioned in this thread provide good evidence of how the emperor is referred to in JSTOR articles (let alone the wider world). It does make me think that some of the people who are complaining about "POV in the title" don't understand how ambiguous "Julian" can be, since in English, it's not just a proper name, but an adjective derived from the name of the most prominent Roman gens in all history... --Akhilleus ( talk) 05:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
You'll note I specifically said earlier: "Remove scholars whose names are Julian and basically the rest are our emperor." Regarding Julian as an adjective, I omitted to say that as only four search parameters were available, I didn't include the Julian basilica in the figures I gave. There were 190 articles on the basilica from my calculation (I did it indirectly), so that doesn't ultimately have an effect on the minority status of "Julian the Apostate".
You obviously accept that "Julian the Apostate" is the minor representation of the emperor, ie the reference gets fewer hits than any of the combinations featuring Constantius, Constantinople and Ammianus. If not yet, do the search yourself and be satisfied. All you are doing now is nitpicking, as the position you seem to be defending is already clearly lost. In fact I took quite a sample of the latter part of the 2847 hits and there were substantial numbers referring specifically to the emperor. You are just shaping the information to lessen the lost cause effect. Further, if you look at the reviews containing "Julian the Apostate" as the book title, 9 of the first 13 reviews never used the reference themselves. One even described "the so-called 'Apostasy' of Julian" as "a reproachful epithet, which no fair-minded Christian should have applied to him". You are obviously championing a minority form in the reputable secondary source materials. It's time you bit the bullet and stopped beating your dead horse. :-) -- spin control 06:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I see the following Pros and Cons of changing the title to Julian's name:
Pro
1) Legal name should be the default position
2) Legal name is the most objective. No chance of confusion over what was the legal name.
3) The cruncher as the Brits say. "Julian the Apostate" is clearly POV as this is a Christian creation. A primary purpose of Wiki is to avoid POV. As Spin has demonstrated references to Julian are influenced by POV. Hoffman I believe has the current book on Julian and it's titled Julian's Against the Galileans. Hoffman is not Christian (surprise). Our own ultimately limited survey here also reveals POV influence in title as Carl is Christian and I have faith Spin is not.
Con
1) Existing title has precedent at Wiki
There appears to be no existing policy here. Sometimes titles are based on common usage and sometimes they are not. See Dizzy Dean. Who has ever heard of his real name (a better question though is whether he should be in the HOF and an even better question is why Greenburg was not elected o the All-Star game when he set an all-time record for RBIs at the All-Star break)? On the other hand, see "Ivan". Who would know who "Ivan" is? In between see Henry VIII of England.
2) The purpose of Wiki is information for the masses which supports using the most common reference. The average person has never heard of Julian but the most common scholarly reference is "Julian the Apostate".
Conclusion = Support change to Julian's name.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Alas, the problem here is that there is a potential conflict with Wiki rules Wikipedia:Naming conventions that says:
"General conventions
Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications. "Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications."
Emphasis mine. This appears to supersede the Common Name rules. So, do we eliminate the Common Name rules here or use both as guides rather than rules?
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 22:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Nickname "A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing."
Emphasis mine. I believe you are running out of words who's definition you can challenge.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 23:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
When the man's name was Flavius Claudius Julianus, it's a non-sequitur to talk about "Julian the Wise". This is more post hoc rationalization. There are guidelines on Wiki for article names. People have attempted to be extremely zealous over the use of them for Julian. This zealousness is usually a sign of manipulation rather than NPOV. As they are guidelines, there are numerous examples of them not applying to article titles.
Do I have to find more examples of where the guidelines are not adhered to? (Like Rangoon, Saigon, Caractacus or Scooter Libby.) Surely if you would accept Julian as the article title, by analogy you should also accept Flavius Claudius Julianus, just as Wiki accepts Publius Septimius Geta instead of Geta. The maintenance of the POV title of the article is totally against Wiki procedure, despite the fact that Wiki provides ways forward. Julian is obviously preferable, but then one needs to disambiguate, as seen in the case of Geta. Instead, we've had people shamelessly saying that "the Apostate" is not derogatory. We've had others claiming that it must be a part of Julian's name because that what he was called, though no-one ever called him that to his face. Septentrionalis has not a single functional argument for maintaining the POV title. His reference to Bowersock seems unaware that in Bowersock's literary output he didn't usually refer to Julian as "Julian the Apostate" (which was probably the book editor's choice). I've shown above that scholarship doesn't generally refer to Julian that way. I've also shown that most common name, while a guideline, is not a necessary criterion for Wiki. There are no arguments for the maintenance of the POV title. -- spin control 19:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, it has been appropriately displayed that "the Apostate" is not at all common usage in scholarly research. Furthermore, Google demonstrates that it is only marginally (if at all) more common in general usage. The most common usage in scholarly research is Julian, this also being almost as common (if not more so) as "Julian the Apostate" in general English usage. Thus, the title should be Julian. In fact, since the common names of emperors own wiki articles, as per the guidelines, it is the other articles that should be disambiguated. However, it would perhaps be appropriate to add a proper NPOV disambiguation to the title, such as Flavius Claudius Julianus, Julian II, Julian (Roman Emperor, 360-363), or any other preferred method of disambiguation. Might I point out that Queen Mary I is disambiguated in the title of her article as Mary I of England and not Bloody Mary, though this is in fact common usage. The epithet "the Apostate" should of course be mentioned in the opening sentence of the article, as it already appropriately is, and wherever else in the body of the article it is deemed appropriate. It should *not* however be the title of the article. Druworos ( talk) 17:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The Plaintiff will attempt to prove the following:
The Article name Julian the Apostate is a violation of Wikipedia POV rules and should be moved.
Main assertions of Plaintiffs's argument:
1) Subject's given name was Flavius Claudius Julianus. "Julian the Apostate" was a POV Nickname used by Church Fathers to refer to FCJ (Flavius Claudius Julianus).
2) The Wikipedia article for Nicknames Nickname explicitly states that a nickname is a Descriptive Name:
"A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing."
Emphasis mine.
3) The Wikipedia article for Proper Names Proper name states that a proper name does not tell us anything about the subject:
""A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ii. 5.), "but not of telling anything about it"."
Emphasis mine. Therefore "Julian the Apostate" is not a proper name.
4) Wikipedia rules for naming articles states Wikipedia:Naming conventions
"Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded."
Emphasis mine.
Plaintiff confesses strong precedent that Wikipedia rules specific to naming Roman Emperors support The Common Usage rule as decisive Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ancient Romans):
"The "most common" rule always trumps, so for instance we use Livy instead of Titus Livius, and Germanicus instead of Germanicus Julius Caesar. In addition, the usual names of emperors "own" those articles, even for the less-well-known ones, so we have Titus, Claudius, and Nero as articles on individuals, even though these are generic names shared by many other Romans; but Tacitus is the historian, not the Emperor.
The essence of the convention is to use the shortest unambiguous name as the title of the article, and to add a dated biographical detail, such as the date of a consulship, if the full name is shared by several. If a reliable birth year is not available (which is usually the case), the biographical detail should be the first time in the highest office recorded for the individual."
But plaintiff notes that as Bill Murray said in the classic Holy Ghost Busters it is actually more of a guideline than a Zul, er, rule:
"This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception."
Plaintiff respectfully requests the exception here based on:
1 - The extreme POV of using the descriptive "the Apostate".
"Many religious groups and even some states punish apostates. The concept of apostasy is used to enforce group cohesion and utilize fear to suppress the free will of the individual. Apostates may be shunned by the members of their former religious group[1] or worse. This may be the official policy of the religious group or may happen spontaneously. A church may in certain circumstances respond to apostasy by excommunicating the apostate, while some Abrahamic scriptures (Judaism: Deuteronomy 13:6-10) and Islam: al-Bukhari, Diyat, bab 6) demand the death penalty for apostates."
In the words of Bush the Elder, "It's bad, it's bad." Note that under the list of alleged Christian apostates Julian is the sole person with the Nickname.
"the Apostate" is further POV as misleading as per Hoffman's Julian's Against the Galileans starting at page 49, "III The Religion of Julian", the Pagan sources (including Julian) seem to indicate that Julian was already Pagan as a child while it is the Christian sources that claim Julian was a devout Christian before he became Emperor.
Wikipedia Naming Conventions Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) specifically allows an exception to the Common Naming guideline if the common name is misleading:
"Do not overdo it
In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative. For example a "common" name for a tsunami is "tidal wave" (this term being less often used for the tides-related tidal bore). For this reason, the Tidal wave page is a disambiguation page, with links to the two other pages, and not a page giving details about either tsunami or tidal bore."
This is than followed by another exception to the Wikipedia Naming Conventions Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) for offensive names:
"Also, some terms are in common usage but are regarded as offensive (Mormon Church, for example). In those cases use widely known alternatives (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). When in doubt, check a mainstream reference work. A term can only be considered offensive if a verifiable, authoritative source can be quoted as citing it as such."
Wikipedia itself defines Apostasy as an offensive term.
Both of these exceptions apply and note that in the cited article these are the two exceptions specifically identified by Wikipedia.
2 - Spin's demonstration that "Julian the Apostate" is not the most common usage.
Wikipedia Naming Conventions for people Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) gives the following guidance:
"Nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens
The most used name to refer to a person is generally the one that Wikipedia will choose as page name, even if this sounds awkward for those seeing the name the first time: Alfred the Great is the name most used in literature to refer to this person. Changing the name to Alfred-not-so-Great-after-all or whatever would be more POV than using the name that is most commonly used. It is best to remember that Wikipedia does not make reality: Wikipedians note down what is the closest to facts they can find, in this case that the name "Alfred the Great" is most often used to refer to a certain person."
Note the extreme example here of changing the descriptive to the opposite ("the Great" to "not so Great"). The logic is there that changing/removing a POV name is a POV process itself. But the example fails to quantify, which is more POV and potentially, which is much more? Guidance at Wikipedia normally brings the POV discussion into Naming Conflicts because POV is one of the 3 pillars of Wikipedia and it is therefore clear that all Wikipedia subjects, including Article Naming, are subject to the POV issue. Wikipedia in general communicates that Naming Conventions for people are exempt from the POV issue. Plaintiff could argue based on the above that this is a rule that should be modified. There is no need for Plaintiff to do so here as Wikipedia already provides for exceptions to the general Naming Convention guidelines.
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:30, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
5) Per Wikipedia definitions:
1 - "Julian the Apostate" is a descriptive names.
2 - "Julian the Apostate" is not a proper name.
Therefore, the use of "Julian the Apostate" is a POV name which violates Wikipedia naming policy. Quit, quote, pro (move).
6) The heart of the Plaintiff complaint is the POV issue. As a majority of English speakers are Christian, a designation of "Apostate" would be one of, if not the most, negative descriptions a person could have. If there is a conflict of Wikipedia rules here the extreme specific POV here combined with Wikipedia's general fanaticism to avoid POV should take priority.
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
""Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. The other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because the policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these policies are based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Core content policy pages may only be edited to improve the application and explanation of the principles."
Emphasis mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoeWallack ( talk • contribs) 20:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
7) Pm Anderson Sues that the relevant paragraph above:
""Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded."
Has an implication that "descriptive names" as used in this paragraph does not apply to persons.
This assertion is too weak to discredit the Plaintiff argument above for the following reasons:
1) There is nothing within the paragraph itself to support the assertion.
2) The reference to the Naming Conflicts article deals with naming conflicts (surprise) and not POV which is the issue at hand.
3) The Defense has not provided any reason why the intent of the paragraph would be to allow POV for naming persons. Logically, POV should be more applicable to persons than things.
4) Plaintiff argument contains clear, simple and explicit classification of "Julian the Apostate" as a Nickname which is a descriptive name. In contrast, any Defense based on the paragraph is unclear, complex and implied and is therefore superseded by Plaintiff argument.
That being said "Julian the Apostate" fails the common usage test anyway. Spin has already provided evidence that "Julian the Apostate" is not the most common scholarly reference. On the non-scholarly side, if you do a search of "Julian" at IIDB, the most popular Skeptical Internet site in the world, where a relatively high percent of the Unfaithful are familiar with Emperor Julian compared to the Masses, you will also discover that "Julian the Apostate" is not the common usage. It would appear that the only user group where "Julian the Apostate" was the most common usage was Dead Church Fathers which should not be a factor here, at least until the Resurrection.
I'll be mailing you a bill Spin. Now what's your address again?
-- JoeWallack ( talk) 15:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I did a google search.
Julian the apostate appears to be more common.-- Patton t/ c 19:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Wiki only uses reputable secondary sources, but try this google search:
Now let's get really interesting and search Wikipedia:
"Julian the Apostate" is far the minority position of Wiki editors! Yet on the page dedicated to him we have an obviously non-consensus title. -- spin control 21:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
If these points are correct then not one argument in favor of maintaining the POV reference "Julian the Apostate" for the title of the article regarding the emperor Julian is valid.
The reason for wanting to change the name of the article is because its current title contains negative bias, long borne by Julian's memory. For those who are not aware of the bias contained in the reference, I cited a scholar writing 100 years ago who described "the so-called 'Apostasy' of Julian" as "a reproachful epithet, which no fair-minded Christian should have applied to him". (Thomas Hodgkin, Untitled Review of Julian the Apostate by Gaetano Negri; Duchess Litta-Visconti-Arese, The Classical Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1907), pp. 88-90.) The response to this has been the tacit acceptance of the charge of bias and then it is claimed that those who want to do away with the bias have a bias of their own.
I'm sure a reader can see that calling the article "Flavius Claudius Julianus" contains no bias whatsoever. But why call it such a long name when we know him as Julian? A disambiguation page called "Julian" already exists. One could arrive at the current page through using
Can you think of an evidence-based reason why we should maintain the "reproachful epithet"? -- spin control 05:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
In the most recent survey to move this article, here are comments regarding "Julian the Apostate" by those who opposed the move:
(Information in brackets supplied by me, so check for reliability!)
Nearly all of these opponents to the move were basing their opinions on the false premise that "Julian the Apostate" is "the most commonly used name". -- spin control 23:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a sign of the times. Searching JSTOR for hits on our emperor since the year 2000 in 31 classics journals using these criteria:
(To clarify this last search, Julian is a common enough name so we need to limit it, so this search looks for Julian only in the context of one or more of four names associated with the emperor, then we remove results regarding "Julian the Apostate".)
The results per decade are:
1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | |
JtA | 51 | 78 | 52 | 61 | 13 |
Jul | 138 | 195 | 239 | 262 | 85 |
Over the last 50 years, "Julian" has been the preferred reference to our emperor. And from 2000 till JSTOR articles cut out, published scholars have preferred using "Julian" over seven times more than "Julian the Apostate". Modern scholarship is certainly not in favor of the "reproachful epithet". --
spin
control
21:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Is it desirable to have a source which is included in its entirety in a footnote, also listed in the references section? Or is this a undesirable cluttering of the end portions of the article? carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 06:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
That was the wrong answer for the questioner, who was seeking to justify post hoc his desire to control my editing by changing and reverting it wherever he deemed he could.
I wanted to make sure W.C. Wright's translations of Julian's writings -- the principal reference to Julian's writings -- were in the references, but because I cited him in a footnote, Carl.bunderson moved the bibliographical data into the footnote and Wright was removed from the reference list. It didn't matter what my opinion was, he had to remove the citation at all costs. I eventually removed the citation of Wright in the footnote and cited Robert Browning's book instead to see if Carl.bunderson would remove that book from the references list.
On the subject of footnotes, there are a lot of problems. For example:
Any clarification of these would be appreciated.
There are probably other errors as well, but some improvement and consistency needs to be brought to the footnotes. -- spin control 13:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
W.C. Wright's translation appears in the Loeb Classical Library. This and any other translations should be noted in a "translations" section; critical editions of the Greek text (surely there are some?) should be noted in a "works" section. The current "writings" section doesn't have good bibliographic information, but rather links to webpages. What's more, it runs the risk of giving the uninformed reader the idea that Julian wrote in English! --Akhilleus ( talk) 13:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
This unsourced pious legend was inappropriately included in the main body of the article in the Restoration section. Not finding any better place to put it, I've removed it from the text and placed it in a box near where it was originally located in the hope that a better solution might present itself. -- spin control 15:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I've made a lot of changes to the article and will stop now for a while to give opportunity for criticism. So far, I've mainly tried to clarify the chronological order of material and footnote some of it, though a lot more needs to be done. So much of the material is unsourced. -- spin control 03:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just performed another piece of radical surgery on the article, grouping the religious issues involving Julian in a separate section from his life, allowing a simpler presentation of his life. -- spin control 03:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I've found that David S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, is an extremely hostile secondary source regarding Julian. I have been using him as one source of facts, but trying to be neutral regarding what seems to me overt dislike for Julian. I've been using him and the CAH to cut through Ammianus Marcellinus material. I'm also waiting on copies of Bowersock and Athanassiadi. -- spin control 17:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Undid new section for Julian's campaign against the Alamanni, as it only occupied half the first paragraph of two, the rest of which would be inappropriate for a section dealing with the Alamanni. One would need more material on them to justify such a section. And I think then the rest of the material would need to be separated from it by another section name. To create the separate section one would have to give body to it. Otherwise it remains only part of Julian's Gallic administration. -- spin control 17:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
The current order of the Gaul section is natural. Changing it so that a section title can be given to the Germanic victories merely confuses the material. As it is the material regarding his victories embodies Julian's taking control first of the military issues then of administrative issues (which begin two years after his arrival in Gaul). -- spin control 02:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone confirm the name "Auchenia Bassa" as the mother of Basilina? This name came from a web page [1]. Thanks. -- spin control 21:04, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that the article still needs the ugly "Cleanup" banner at the top. Granted, there are still a few Manual of Style issues which need to be addressed. However, the article is solid "B" class work and isn't so messy as to warrant the banner. (Heck, with a little work this article could meet GA criteria.)
Are there any objections to removing the "Cleanup" banner? Majoreditor ( talk) 18:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just added a feature that hides both footnotes and sources. It looks good, but I don't know how editors will receive the change, so I await criticism here. Thanks. -- spin control 01:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Sadly it highlights the footnote but doesn't take you to it. I've removed the "collapsed" option from the footnotes, leaving it possible to hide them if you want. The footnotes behave normally when uncollapsed. -- spin control 05:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
This section has undergone a severe overhaul and may contain various new imperfections. Pointers appreciated. -- spin control 02:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Just moved the section Death as a subsection into the Persian campaign section. Death still needs work. -- spin control 03:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
I've turned Julian's works into a table for people to complain about. -- spin control 18:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent)These insults are charming, but you seem to not understand the basic point: Julian's works should be described in prose, not a table. Or do you think it would be an improvement to start the "Life" section with a timeline? --Akhilleus ( talk) 15:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Bude | Date | Work | Wright |
XII | early 363 [1] | Misopogon, Or, Beard-Hater | – |
Written as a satire on himself, while attacking the people of Antioch for their shortcomings. It is a light-hearted account of his clash with the inhabitants of Antioch after he was mocked for his beard and generally scruffy appearance for an emperor. | |||
X | Dec. 362 [2] | The Caesars | – |
Satire describing a competition between Roman emperors as to who was the best. It involves Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, and also interestingly Alexander the Great. This was a satiric attack upon the recent Constantine, whose worth, both as a Christian and as the leader of the Roman Empire, Julian severely questions. | |||
The idea that a reader of Athanassiadi would check this article to chase down references is silly. Athanassiadi herself explains that she refers to the Budé; there's a snippet view available on Google Books, and it reads: "References to Julian's works are not preceded by the name of their author. The orations are numbered according to the Budé edition..." I would think that everyone who reads Athanassiadi's book has access to a college/university library with the Budé Julian, which is widely held according to Worldcat. If our hypothetical reader only has access to Wright, all s/he has to do is notice that Athanassiadi refers to titles such as Misopogon and Hymn to the Mother of the Gods in her text, and use this wonderful invention known as a table of contents to locate where the particular work is in Wright's text. But this is a bit beside the point, since, as I said, if Wright's and the Budé's numbers are going to be included in the article, they should be in a separate section about the critical editions of Julian's text. (A concordance between different editions is well-suited for a table, too.) --Akhilleus ( talk) 15:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
References
I have doubts about this name, given as the father of Basilina, mother of Julian. I can't find a source for it.
In an old German book (Johannes Geffcken, Kaiser Julianus, 1914) I read that Basilina was the daughter of a praetorian prefect and consul for the year 325, Caeionius Julianus Camenius (also found here). In another old source, Smith's Biographical Dictionary, the name is given as (Amnius) Anicius Julianus.
How does Late Roman Prosopography treat Basilina's father? -- spin control 16:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
PLRE pp.148, 478-479 has Julius Julianus (PPO 315-324, cos. after 325) as the father of Basilina and maternal grandfather of Julian. The entry (pp.473-474) on Amnius Anicius Julianus (cos. 322; PVR 326-329) mentions no familial link to the emperor. Nor does the entry (p.476) on M. Ceionius Julianus Kamenius (PVR 333). Catiline63 ( talk) 04:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Just to muddy the waters further, Bagnall Cameron Schwartz & Worp (Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, Atlanta, Georgia 1987, ISBN 1-55540-099X), note that a Julianus is consul in 325, replacing the previous consul of that year, Valerius Proculus. But this man is called 'Ionius Julianus'; in their critical appendix on the Fasti of 325 the authors note that the statement in PLRE that the name is recorded as Julius Julianus is simply untrue; there has been a lot of controversy about this man's name with different suggested emendations of which Julius is only one (Ionius may be correct, or a corruption of Caeionius), and there is, in fact, no reason to assume he is the PPO of 315-324. Cenedi ( talk) 09:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
in it's own Article, The Battle of Samarra took place on 26 June 363 and Apostate "died a few hours later". Also in this Article here the Battle is dated to 26 June 363. The Article say in the same section, that Apostate was wounded for 3 days: "On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the emperor died during the night". So the date of his Dead is false or the date of the Battle - please forgive my bad english, maybe this bad english also causes a misunderstanding from facts in the Article (if so, just forget my question with a short comment) -- Hartmann Schedel ( talk) 09:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I noticed the conflict after having read the article cited in the bibliography and used it as the source. I decided to leave it, based on the detailed medical analysis. I am on vacation at the moment and am away from sources. -- spin control 17:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
A quick check of the medical analysis article indicates that the authors used Philostorgius's version, which supplies relevant medical details and procedures unavailable to Marcellinus, so the article follows Philostorgius over Marcellinus. The issue should probably been noted in the main article. -- spin control 14:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Wondering how Julian escaped being "done in" By the Christian majoriey of hid time Were there any attempts on his life? GThanks! (Eve,Sn,Sept.26,200921stCent Dated by DFr, Edson Andre' Johnson D.D.ULC for my records) Edsonbrasil ( talk) 03:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)