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A Modest Proposal

Folowing Jenhawk777's excellent work in boosting Theodosius I to GA status, I'd like to ask them to lead a rewrite of article A, Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. And for the rest of us to stand by to make any constructive comments that we can, based in each case on quoted diffs and/or proposed text, with brief, specific, and constructive, comment, and without any snark or accusations.

I suspect that if the rewrite is done with due and holistic use of all modern viewpoints (in this field, these would include at least any authority within living memory), especially, we may come to a consensus version that makes at least several of the other articles in the list redundant. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:08, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable. Once discussion is centred on the actual text of a specific article, I hope that things will proceed more constructively. In terms of the other articles: nobody above seemed to disagree with the merger of E into Saint Ambrose. A decision on whether B, D, and F should be merged into A or revamped as more detailed discussions of matters covered more briefly in A - it'd probably be best to wait until A was revised before making decisions on those on their talk pages. I think everyone agreed that C and G could be valid articles but would benefit from re-writing. Does anyone object to any of that? Furius (talk) 13:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Currently, A's content fits better under G's title than its own (overall decline rather than specific focus on persecutions), so in the longer term both should probably be merged or renamed. It's important to note that, when the articles in question were split from their common source in 2011, the editor arbitrarily separated the content into a period of so-called 'relative tolerance' (F) a period of supposedly increased repression (B), and a period defined by nothing other than its starting and ending dates, 395 and 476 (C). The latter includes the Western Empire but the creator still called it 'early Byzantine', apparently for no reason other than nothing else came to his mind and he needed to move on quickly. This division and periodization comes off as arbitrary and finds little support in modern sources (unsurprisingly most these articles' content is original research), and there's no reason to detach 'early Byzantine' from 'late Roman' in the subject of paganism, since pagans were not a significant entity in Byzantine history. Avilich (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I mean, A is still mostly about various anti-pagan laws and policies (i.e. it's basically about "religious policy"), whereas G should be a larger concept. A is divided into sections 324-337, 337-361 (= D), 361-64 (= F), 364-395 (= F & B, with large sub-section on Theodosius = B), 395-onwards (= C), so it isn't obvious that those various articles can't be used for containing some of the detail currently in A (which is well on its way to being very long). This is why I think it would be good to see A reach a final form (which I understand it to be close to) before making a conclusion on these sub-articles. I'd really like there to be an article on paganism and opposition to paganism throughout Byzantine history. Granted that there were few Byzantine pagans, pagan thought nevertheless cast a huge shadow (e.g. the papers in M. Salamon Paganism in the Later Roman Empire and in Byzantium (1991) run through to the 15th C AD), but I'm not equipped to write an article on the topic and am not going to push it on the Byzantinists, if they think it shouldn't exist. Furius (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

A can be split, I don't have any objection to that. I just think it needs to be done from scratch, and that, while a decision or progress aren't made, we shouldn't leave dubious information lying around for other people to read and believe. I already made a case that B is of little to no value, and Jenhawk wholly agrees with me. Although Jenhawk has expressed capability to rewrite B, Jenhawk also thinks they have already added what's there to know in both article A and in GA Theodosius I, and that a 3rd article on such a specific and limited topic would basically triplicate what information is already there. Avilich (talk) 23:25, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're aware, @Richard Keatinge: article A, Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, has already been extensively rewritten by Jenhawk777. They have done so at great effort over the past year; almost all of the last 3,000+ edits are by Jenhawk777 (which amounts to thousands of characters of text); check the revision history. I'd be very interested to know exactly how do you feel the current article falls short of "due and holistic use of all modern viewpoints (in this field, these would include at least any authority within living memory), especially on the vexed question of how far the religious shift of the period was due to threats, violence, and reward, or alternatively to motives that modern sensibilities might find more legitimate." It just so happens that I agree with you. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge I don't really understand what you are asking, since A is already a GA. You want Jenhawk777 to rewrite it and move it to featured article candidate? If the article has to be rewritten, then it means it is not good enough for GA, and should be demoted. T8612 (talk) 18:01, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@T8612: no, Theodosius I is a GA, article A isn't. Avilich (talk) 18:05, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, you're right. The discussion is hard to follow. T8612 (talk) 18:09, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

T8612 The discussion is hard to follow isn't it? So much of it has gotten off track. And besides, I have to keep checking what the letters stand for. :-)

I am happy to finish work on A Richard Keatinge and will be especially happy to have other input. It's too easy for one set of eyes to miss things. Collaboration always produces a better product. As Global Cerebral Ischemia says, I have already done some extensive rewriting there, though I have not reviewed all the sources and content that was in the article before I started working on it, I just reviewed as I went along and then I got sidetracked into other articles. It is not what I would call polished yet. GCI found three things that needed fixing in it, which was good, and those are now fixed, but a thorough peer review would be even better. Are you up for it?

Furius I find all your comments very helpful. Thank you.Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

OK, that's really helpful. I'm off to Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire and further discussion may be more appropriate on that talk page. But I do hope that we will achieve an article that will achieve consensus as incorporating the best of, and making redundant, most of the other articles on our list. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:54, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge Awesome. Action! I love it. I play well with others - generally - so as far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as a sentence that cannot be rewritten. Anything you see a need for, I am likely to accept and agree. I believe in the good faith and commitment to a quality encyclopedia on the part of everyone here. We have persevered through the difficult part. (I knew we would because everyone here genuinely cares.) The rest is fun and easy by comparison. We will turn out an article of the highest quality. I'm so excited! Help from people like you! It's great, truly great. Thank you! See you there! Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:03, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

"Anti-paganism policy"/persecution articles

Partly at Jenhawk777's request, I'm opening a discussion here about what to do with the following articles:

• A: Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire
• B: Persecution of pagans under Theodosius I
• C: Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire
• D: Anti-paganism policy of Constantius II
• E: Anti-paganism influenced by Saint Ambrose
• F: Restoration and tolerance of Paganism from Julian until Valens
• G: Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism

It's safe to say that there are more articles about the subject than needed. A–F appear to have been split in 2011 from Religious persecution in the Roman Empire (and possibly from G as well). Excepting A (which is very good), these articles are replete with original research, inaccuracies, unsourced statements, outdated reference material, and primary sources taken out of context.

In my opinion, E and F should be deleted. Most of the scant info on E has already been dealt with by Jenhawk on other articles in a much better way than it's currently presented here, whereas the similarly brief F has very little of value. Both Jenhawk and I also think that B is not salvageable. I'll mention C here as well because it is almost 100% original research based on the Codex Theodosianus, and T8612 tried PRODding it in 2019 but P Aculeius rejected it.

Those four are the main focus of this current discussion. A is very well written and researched, D (seemingly) isn't bad either, and G may require a separate discussion. It may not be easy to see why any of these articles should be deleted rather than improved (WP:ATD), especially in the case of B, and so a solid bloc of support from this project might be needed before starting a formal AfD. Avilich (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I rest my case, C should definitely be deleted or at least merged with A. I think the other articles can stay, although some renaming could be done. T8612 (talk) 03:05, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I objected to the deletion of 'C' for the reasons given on that article's talk page. The fact that nobody followed through on fixing the article doesn't prove that it should have been deleted in the first place. Wikipedia policy is as clear as glass on this: there is no deadline for improving articles. If you don't like how an article reads, if you think it should have better sources, if you think some of it needs to be rewritten or cut out or merged into other articles, then do that—don't just set up blasting signs and start dynamiting them. Articles aren't unworthy of existence merely because they concern a niche topic or constitute a branch of a larger subject; if they would be better treated in the context of another article, then merge them. We shouldn't be deleting articles just because the editors finding fault with them don't have the time or patience to fix the problems. P Aculeius (talk) 03:17, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying it 'proves' anything, I tagged you because you are or were an interested party in this. I have already WP:BEFOREd those 4 articles I mentioned – B, C, E and F – and the evidence is that they are almost in their entirety conveyors of misleading information and original research, and what few of value they have is already found in A. Some of the periodizations employed here (e.g. 395–476) are totally arbitrary, borne out of the creator's need to split the original article. If I were to 'fix the problems' I would have to blank some of these articles, and that's not even an exaggeration. So no, I don't think they can be improved, I don't think they should have better sources, I don't think they can be merged elsewhere. Wikipedia shouldn't throw around misleading information for others to see and absorb, and 'no time limits' is not a good argument against this. Avilich (talk) 03:40, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I think all "anti-paganism" articles should be merged under the first article , while G should be kept as a separate article. I disagree with the claims raised about B, C, E, F; the articles are well-sourced (with primary and secondary sources), and the allegation of "misleading" information sounds more like an issue related to WP:FORUM-style partisanship than article guidelines. That doesn't mean I think any of those articles should remain separate (or even that their content not be mostly or entirely deleted; for example, where they duplicate information in other articles). Other than an image caption that was not corroborated by the cited source (I replaced the image), I didn't find any issues beyond duplicated content and redundancy related to the other articles in question. Again, I support merging some subset of B-F with the first article (deleting redundant content) while keeping G separate. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 12:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

B is terribly sourced. All the citations are ancient sources, or from Gibbon or non-academic authors, but those from Ramsay MacMullen. There are some big mistakes, including in the lede where it is written that Honorius was a Byzantine emperor. T8612 (talk) 13:53, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

@Global Cerebral Ischemia: B is irreconcilable with what is written at Theodosius I, which was raised to GA status just a couple days ago. B claims that Theodosius 'banned' paganism, instigated acts of vandalism against shrines throughout the empire, deprived the cults of funding, abolished (possibly) the Olympic Games, disbanded the Vestal Virgins, and was manipulated by Ambrose, and that there was a restoration of paganism by Eugenius. All of these claims are incorrect. Scholarship from the late 20th century until now has successfully challenged and revised these past notions. Even MacMullen is perhaps showing his age here. Avilich (talk) 14:37, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Respectfully, you're not talking like a neutral editor, and it seems to me that you're bordering on WP:SYNTH. Your own assessment of scholarly opinion on the matters at issue is irrelevant. As long as sources are properly cited, I have no problem; you're just as free to add your own as anyone else. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:00, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Editors are not required to be 'neutral' (a meaningless word that forces me to debate in your own arbitrary terms), only to follow reliable sources. I already directed you to an article which states the sources in full, and I challenge you to find an instance of synth. Avilich (talk) 16:06, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

(sigh)... Please see WP:NPOV. Neutrality is one of the core policies of Wikipedia. And there's no need to take such a hostile and argumentative tone. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 04:39, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Following reliable sources is wikipedia's core policy, and neutrality comes after that. Speaking of neutrality makes no sense if the information in question is unreliable, unverifiable, and (until proven otherwise) untruthful. You don't get to claim you're the neutral party if you a priori refuse to accept foreign conclusions. I'm still waiting for evidence that I'm pushing a POV. Avilich (talk) 13:21, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Avilich:, that is not correct. Please see WP:CCPOL regarding Wikipedia's core content policies. NPOV was Wikipedia's very first codified content policy, though "all policies are to be jointly interpreted...and they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another." Nevertheless, NPOV is considered Wikipedia's core policy: "The core policy of Wikipedia, NPOV, is meant to provide a framework whereby editors with diverse, often conflicting, even opposing points of view can collaborate on the creation of an encyclopedia. It does so through the principle that while it is often hard for people to agree as to what is the truth, it is much easier for people to agree as to what they and others believe to be the truth. Therefore, Wikipedia does not use "truth" as a criterion for inclusion. Instead, it aims to account for different, notable views of the truth. First codified in February 2001, the objective of the NPOV policy is to produce an unbiased encyclopedia." Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 01:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

You can waste your time arguing semantics (what 'truth' actually means in which context) and citing out-of-context guidelines all you like, I'm still waiting for evidence that I'm violating NPOV. A sum of my arguments and sources is readily available. Don't make me hear about your infinite wisdom in neutrality issues before acquainting yourself with them. Avilich (talk) 01:49, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Please tone down the hostility, it's getting exhausting. Given that NPOV is one of the three core policies, I don't believe it's ever "out-of-context." For the record, I agree with Richard Keatinge's idea that A would benefit from a rewrite, and that if it is "done with due and holistic use of all modern viewpoints (in this field, these would include at least any authority within living memory), especially on the vexed question of how far the religious shift of the period was due to threats, violence, and reward, or alternatively to motives that modern sensibilities might find more legitimate, we may come to a consensus version that makes at least several of the other articles in the list redundant." Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Has this discussion been notified to the talk pages of these articles? No. It should be. This project is falling into bad habits in this respect. Johnbod (talk) 03:36, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Have to agree. Deletions and mergers need to be handled on talkpages of the actual articles.★Trekker (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
    • Well, we started on B, and posted on its talkpage, because we found that [1] shows copyright violations from a blog on geneology. This one is also plagiarism from [2]] a blog called Helenicaworld. This one [3] is headbanging wine.com.cabernet and the next is headbanging wine.com.merlot which are also copied directly.
    • The remaining sources are primary sources, not reliable secondary sources, which are, of course, all subject to being labeled OR. That is the sum total of the reference work in B.
    • That means nearly all of the content of this article should be deleted immediately, and if I went and told Dianna, it would be. Instead I started rewriting it in my sandbox, trying to improve it with a total redo, but I was mostly taking stuff from other articles already written, so it was going to end up as a duplication of material already on WP. There was nothing to add that wasn't already elsewhere. This seemed like another argument for deletion.
    • B must be deleted or completely redone from top to bottom. Since it's a duplicate, deletion seems the most logical step.
    • These other articles can be discussed one by one as well. Run the copyvio detector on them. Results are disheartening. It isn't just B that has big problems.Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:37, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

This is why more experience might be warranted before nominating articles for deletion. The supposed copyright violations linked above are from two sources, not three: the first two both lead back to Hellenicaworld's biography of Theodosius, citing only one source in tiny print at the end: Wikipedia. Portions of text that appear to be copied in whole or in part from Hellenicaworld presumably look that way because they were copied from the article in question, or one of its predecessors from which the material in this article was split in the first place. And I'm fairly certain that the incompetent rambling in the wine blog was similarly lifted from Wikipedia. If I'm right, then these aren't copyright violations at all: they've been flagged as such because somebody else copied them from this article. And that's why we're calling the article unsalvageable? P Aculeius (talk) 23:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Jenhawk is likely the single Wikipedia editor with the most experience on the subject of this article. To use an example, lets see some of the claims article B makes: Theodosius banned paganism, deprived the cults of funding, abolished the Olympic Games and the the Vestal Virgins, and the usurper Eugenius unsuccessfully tried to restore paganism. The article Theodosius I, which Jenhawk has just now brought to GA status, goes to extensive lengths to explicitly deny each of these claims. Now, with this in mind, there are 4 possible courses of action: (1) remove all the obsolete information, essentially blanking the page; (2) replicate the content from elsewhere, essentially WP:CONTENTFORK; (3) delete the page; and (4) do nthing and wait for someone to come up with a better solution. I doesn't seem a good idea to leave articles with false information lying around. Once your prejudice against deleting bad or obsolete articles disappears, the solution becomes clear. If you're indeed correct and this is a case of WP:CITOGENESIS rather than copyvio, then it's even worse, because it proves Wikipedia can actively deceive with these sorts of articles. Avilich (talk) 00:43, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Let me see if I get this right: our article on Theodosius now takes sides in the debate about the emperor's role in suppressing paganism, a controversy that dates to the late fourth century, declaring that whatever certain handpicked sources say is correct, and that every scholar and historian who disagrees with the conclusions of those sources is wrong or outdated. The purpose of our article is to rehabilitate the much-maligned reputation of Theodosius, and show how he bore little responsibility for the inevitable disappearance of pagan religion in the face of Christianity. And now all that remains is to delete all of the material on Wikipedia that doesn't support those conclusions, on the grounds that it's wrong, misleading, obsolete, and confusing the entire world. Well, good thing that we're now the arbiters of truth. Guess we can get rid of those silly Wikipedia editing policies now. P Aculeius (talk) 02:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this condescending and distasteful rant was all about. The relevant section on Theodosius is well sourced and researched, was specifically singled out positively by the GA reviewer, and the references there are certainly not cherrypicked. Article B's sources (even after disregarding the primary ones) are considerably older & outdated, and reach several conclusions that the newer ones reject. For all I know, recent scholarship has indeed tended towards a less conflict-based view of that period's religious changes, and I don't see evidence that the articles which have already incorporated these new conclusions are biased. Bias concerns are of course legitimate, and you're not the first one to bring them up. Now, if you feel that there is a cabal of editors engaged in a sinister conspiracy to rewrite history with a pro-Christian lens, I'd absolutely love to see the evidence right here and now: that would be positive feedback for me since I had a hand in "handpicking" the sources in question. I'd also like to hear those so-called "so-called silly" Wikipedia policies you talk so much about but can't seem to concretely outline. Avilich (talk) 02:46, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry that my ranting wasn't to your taste. As for policies, I'm referring specifically to WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP; see also WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:VNT (not policies, but relevant). It may currently be fashionable to portray Theodosius as not hostile to paganism, but merely misunderstood; but that doesn't make the opinions of the scholars who think so right. It would be fallacious to suppose that the most recent opinions are necessarily the best, and there's no better way for scholars to get attention than by asserting that the whole body of scholarship that went before them is wrong. The leading pagans of Theodosius' time certainly felt that his policies were hostile toward their beliefs and traditions, so it's difficult to see how modern scholars can confidently pronounce them mistaken. But returning to Wikipedia policy, to the extent that there is disagreement among the scholars, or that opinions have changed over time, those differences of opinion should be discussed, without appearing to say, "the most recent authors are right, and older sources that disagreed with them are wrong." P Aculeius (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

P Aculeius I saw that the geneology sight - which came in at 88% likely that it was copied - was gone when I went back and checked it earlier today. I assume someone removed it. I posted about it on the talk page of the article over 24 hours ago. You're correct, there are now three sources, but there were originally four. It doesn't take any experience to read the copy-vio results.

I am quite familiar with backwards copy violations. I have had four on one article all by itself - one in a published journal - and two on another, one that lifted the article in its entirety. One of my own GAs was almost tanked by one until I could show with diffs that I had written the material before the copied material was published. It's sometimes easy to tell if they copy the reference numbers as well, but the detector has no way to tell which direction copying went, only that copying happened. If you can show that these are backwards violations, then of course I will be more than happy to remove the complaint.

As to taking sides in any debate, sorry, that's just amusing. Cool down and back up a bit here. What do we do on Wikipedia? We summarize the latest scholarship - and scholarship sometimes changes. Antiquity is one of those fields that has experienced a monumental paradigm shift - I understand it's sometimes unnerving to have everything turned upside down - (good thing we aren't writing on the crusades!) - but you are absolutely right: we don't pick what we agree with, we just summarize what the majority say. We do include references to past views, because what led scholarship to its current views is part of the scholarship, so you will find what Gibbon and Burckhardt and the others who followed in all my articles. But please, let's be honest and straightforward here: Peter Brown's first research was published in 1961. It spawned a whole field of study and a shift in the paradigm concerning Antiquity. That was 60 damn years ago! If that isn't what you're writing, then that's a problem. The current views are the dominant views of the history of this period right now in 2021; these views are supported by archaeological information not available to Gibbon, as well as a wealth of broader sources from multiple fields like language and art and anthropology and sociology that was just as unavailable to Gibbon and the earlier historians. Yes, the views on Antiquity have shifted. There are some scholars who continue to argue Gibbon's view, but they now qualify as the minority view; the vast majority of scholars no longer agree with Gibbon's assessment. This explains it in some detail: [4] You will see both sides of the debate are included while acknowledging what the majority view is and why.

If this is taking sides then every editor on Wikipedia must do so. We take the side of summarizing the most current and most reliable secondary sources.

I am sorry if saying this article needs deleting has offended you. I am, sincerely. When I was first on Wikipedia, I had that happen to me and it's kind of a shock, so I sympathize. If you wrote this or contributed heavily to it and want to save it, I am willing to help do that. But it must be well-sourced to current scholarship, which means most of its claims have been disproven by current scholarship. The claim of temple destruction for example, let me quote from [5]: The archaeological evidence for the violent destruction of temples around the Mediterranean is limited to a handful of sites. Archaeologist Luke Lavan says that, if one accepts all claims, even the most dubious ones, concerning destruction of pagan shrines and temples in Gaul, that only 2.4% of all the known temples were destroyed there by violence. In Africa, the city of Cyrene has good evidence of the burning of several temples; Asia Minor has produced one weak possibility; in Greece the only strong candidate may relate to a barbarian raid instead of Christians. Egypt has produced no archaeologically-confirmed temple destructions from this period except the Serapeum. In Italy there is one; Britain has the most with 2 out of 40 temples.

Trombley and MacMullen say part of what creates this discrepancy are details in the historical sources that are so often ambiguous or unclear. For example, Bayliss observes that the Roman historian

"Malalas claimed that Theodosius 'razed all the shrines of the Hellenes to the ground' after already stating that Constantine had done the same; he then stated that 'he (Constantine) made many other temples into churches'. He claimed that Theodosius I 'made the temple of Damascus a Christian church,' whereas the archaeological research of the site shows the church was positioned away from the temple, in the corner of the temenos. In another example, according to Procopius, Justinian’s general Narses tore down the temples of Philae. Archaeology has shown quite clearly that what occurred was a very minimalist structural conversion".

I am sorry for any bad feelings this has created. I only desire what is best for the encyclopedia. I will go with whatever the consensus is on rewrite or delete, but I do assert that something must be done to update these articles. I don't mean to sound as though I am flattering and wheedling, but it is a fact that Wikipedia's historians are gaining a reputation for their accuracy and devotion to detail. It is also a fact that these particular articles do not reflect that. All of you should want to do something to correct that whatever that might be. If you aren't willing to rewrite them, then they should probably be deleted. They can always be brought back.

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

P Aculeius I'm sorry I can't just look past the false claim that there was debate about the emperor's role in suppressing paganism, a controversy that dates to the late fourth century. There was no such debate in the fourth century. There was no controversy. The Christians anointed him with the oil of victory because he was the first orthodox emperor - not because he did anything particularly different from his predecessors. Just like the Christians rewrote the history concerning Constantine's baptism and the supposed victory over paganism that didn't actually occur until two centuries later. They wrote their biases, just as the pagans did. That is what canonized Theodosius as the "most pious" emperor and victor over paganism. It was the Christian propaganda of the time, and it was never debated. It has only been debated in our modern era.

Avilich's summation is brilliant and 100% on target. Now, with this in mind, there are 4 possible courses of action: (1) remove all the obsolete information, essentially blanking the page; (2) replicate the content from elsewhere, essentially WP:CONTENTFORK; (3) delete the page; and (4) do nthing and wait for someone to come up with a better solution. I doesn't seem a good idea to leave articles with false information lying around. Once your prejudice against deleting bad or obsolete articles disappears, the solution becomes clear. If you're indeed correct and this is a case of WP:CITOGENESIS rather than copyvio, then it's even worse, because it proves Wikipedia can actively deceive with these sorts of articles. He's just right. Let's do something about this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:15, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

So you're actually arguing that the pagans didn't feel persecuted, didn't find their rites prohibited, their temples closed, their priesthoods dissolved, their festivals banned, their symbols removed, defaced, or destroyed. They didn't send delegations to the emperor objecting to his decrees or asking that his policies be reversed. That they just imagined all of this happening around them out of some personal animus toward Theodosius having nothing to do with religion. And all the generations of scholars who believed them were simply duped, while today's crew finally sees the light. I really just don't know how to respond to that. P Aculeius (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

No. No one is arguing that. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:07, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

You can literally obtain dozens of post-1990 books and articles on the internet about the subject for free. Read one, just one, before writing stuff you don't know about. When I first heard about the subject I also thought that "it's difficult to see how modern scholars can confidently pronounce them mistaken", then I read a number of excerpts and articles which show that this is a more complicated subject than this minimalist and dismissive statement of yours lets go. Paganism declined for over 2 centuries, the intensity and mode of persecution and discrimination varied, open conflict was rare, and politics sometimes overtook religion in everyday considerations. Some emperors were formerly thought to be tolerant and now aren't (Constantine), others were thought to be persecutors and now aren't (Theodosius). Your assertions are basically OR, and you're in no position to demand neutrality from anyone. Avilich (talk) 04:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not the one demanding NPOV: that's a basic Wikipedia policy, and you can't get around it by repeatedly telling other people that they don't know what they're talking about, or that their opinions are wrong, or that they're original research (for which you have no evidence), or that they're "condescending", "prejudiced", "ranting", or "lying". In fact all I've done during this whole process—and before it, when I deprodded an article in the list above, for which I was criticized above—is ask that the proper procedures and policies be observed. You've been arguing that articles should be deleted because: 1) they contain copyright violations (apparently not the case); 2) their premises are mistaken (which appears to be a matter of scholarly debate, no matter how much you insist that the sources you follow are right and all others are wrong); 3) they're content forks of other articles (apparently not the case, since they aren't merely duplicative topics, but subtopics or related but not identical subjects). But in any case, the correct procedure is hardly ever to dynamite the articles in question. Wikipedia policy indicates that reasonable attempts should be made to fix problematic articles, and if necessary merge or split useful contents into other articles. Instead we're getting blanket condemnation of articles in their entirety, based largely on your point of view that the articles are simply mistaken about what is fundamentally a matter of scholarly opinion and debate, not empirical fact. Assertions that they contain no useful contents whatsoever. And that simply doesn't seem to be a reasonable position. P Aculeius (talk) 05:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

what is fundamentally a matter of scholarly opinion and debate, not empirical fact: Wikipedia takes as fact what "reliable, independent, secondary" sources say, and if you can't demonstrate that there's a 'debate' you shouldn't go around claiming that this is my own POV or a controversial issue. Afaik this isn't a particularly contested topic post-1990, and, if you don't agree with how the sources deal with the issue, then there's little you can do because, as you said, WP isn't about righting great wrongs. I don't care about copyvio, and B to G are potential or actual forks of A or of any other article which already deals with the subject. My personal conclusion was that 3 of these have potential for improvement or merging whereas the other 4 do not. This means 57%, which is sweeping enough but not a total blanket dismissal, especially when you consider that 2 of them are very short. So, I actually have suggested reasonable means to fix problematic articles. I came looking for anything that could pass as an alternative or confirmation of opinion, before possibly going on to make a more comprehensive case in each article's talk page and possibly taking them to AfD. Instead I found people accusing me of POV while (with no self-awareness whatsoever) promoting their own POV (w/o sources, thus OR), an unnecessarily condescending rant by someone who a priori dismisses anything that doesn't conform to his own notions, and a suspicious misattribution of edits (below) which could've been avoided by a simple question mark or by a visit to the article's edit history. Avilich (talk) 12:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

None of the arguments presented change the fact that these are content disputes, which as WP:ATD (cited by you at top) states, should almost never be resolved through deletion. The correct procedure is revision, splitting, or merger as warranted by reliable sources. And because this discussion is taking place here, rather than on the articles' talk pages, they all need to include notifications of this discussion on their talk pages, as another editor pointed out some time ago; yet two of the talk pages concerned still provide no indication that their very existence is under discussion. You began this discussion by suggesting that I was at fault for deprodding one of the articles; but that was precisely the right thing to do, since the article should never have been a candidate for PROD. The fact that you later proposed deleting it due to disagreement with what it said or the state of its sourcing or whether its content belongs in other articles doesn't change the fact that it's not a candidate for PROD and never should have been dealt with through that procedure; the fact that I or any other editor deprodded it was entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

I haven't been discussing individual sources because it's not particularly relevant either, no matter how many times you repeat it in order to claim that I'm ignorant of the topic. Even if everything you're saying about "post-1990 sources" being unanimous is true—and it seems improbable that all scholars treating this topic over the last thirty years are in complete agreement—if those sources contradict what scholars had been saying for centuries before that, then we have a genuine matter of scholarly opinion and debate. This isn't a forensic investigation, where you can examine fingerprints, hairs, or DNA and prove whether Theodosius or any other emperors persecuted pagans or were falsely accused. What constitutes persecution or suppression of religious belief or practice is very much a matter of opinion, and not subject to a majority vote of scholars from a particular span of time—which is itself an artificial limitation.

If you intend to argue that truth is determined by the prevailing scholarly consensus at any point in time, such as "post-1990", that implies that the truth has changed since 1990, since before that time scholarly opinion was not unanimous; and if tomorrow a scholarly article claims that there was an official policy of active persecution, then truth will have changed again. Surely historical truth isn't established this way! You simply cannot dismiss the point of view of scholarship before a certain date simply because scholarship after that date reaches a different conclusion, but that seems to be the gist of the main argument for deletion. But as I said before, deletion isn't the way to deal with a content dispute. You can certainly achieve all of your goals through the merger process, to the extent that it's warranted by the subject matter and the sources. What's objectionable is simply deleting everything without attempting to salvage any of the material for inclusion in other appropriate articles: saying that nothing in them has any value or could be incorporated into other articles, when what really seems to be the problem is that the articles approach the subject from a different point of view than the articles that you've been working on. P Aculeius (talk) 14:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Just took a look at A...I had naively assumed it would be the most solid of the articles listed here. Yikes! I appreciate your work @Jenhawk777:, but it's absolutely clear that much of the article consists of WP:SYNTH. It even includes unambiguous examples of MOS:WEASEL like "Even so, it can be reasonably claimed that from 312 until 375, paganism was relatively tolerated." Heck, the first sentence of the lead is pure OR "Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church." You've also written citations which are nothing but OR, e.g. "Pagans were still sufficiently numerous during the reign of Justinian for a law to be published, in 527 (Justinian Code 1.5.12), which barred pagans from office and confiscated their property." and "The modern Church takes a much less antagonistic stance to non-Abrahamic religions. See Dignitatis humanae and Nostra aetate" and "Julian's training in Christianity influenced his ideas concerning the revival and organisation of the old religion, shaping it into a more coherent body of doctrine, ritual and liturgy with a hierarchy under the supervision of the emperor.: "FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS", Karl Hoeber, Catholic Encyclopedia 1910, retrieved 13 May 2007.[3] Julian organised elaborate rituals and attempted to set forth a clarified philosophy of Neo-Platonism that might unite all pagans.(Ammianus Res Gestae 22.12)" While the other articles might be redundant, A is arguably the most problematic of them all. You've worked hard and it shows...but you've created a scholarly paper fueled by WP:OR, not a wikipedia article. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 04:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd caution against blatantly lying about the record of others. As I said, A (like the others) was split off from Religious persecution in the Roman Empire. The 'tolerance' and the Justinianic 527 law excerpts were added by the original creator in 2011, and the part about dating the start of the persecution to Constantine destroying some temples was added by user Cynwolfe immediately after. The part on Julian was copied in 2015 from somewhere else by user Laurel Lodged. Those SYNTH and OR problems are the same as in the other articles, so, if they are bad in A, you must agree that they are bad in B, C, D, E, F, and G also. I think B, C, E and F should be deleted precisely for this reason. These mistakes have been there long before Jenhawk even set eyes on that specific article, and Jenhawk is the reason that article isn't like the others. Avilich (talk) 05:02, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Avilich:Please don't accuse me of "blatantly lying," and @Jenhawk777:, while I'm glad we came to a civil understanding regarding the issues with the article, please don't characterize my edits as "pockmarks." Moving forward, let's keep it civil and assume good faith per WP:GOODFAITH, please. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 01:25, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Global Cerebral Ischemia You are mistaken and have pockmarked the article with unjustified tags. I have removed the tags from the lead as the claims in the lead do not require citations according to WP policy on when not to cite and because the claims are cited in the body of the text.

You will have to prove your claim of synth with examples.

If you don't like the weasel wording of the summary statement in the lead, then by all means, let's rewrite it so it satisfies you. I am happy to cooperate.

You say the first sentence of the lead is pure OR "Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church." You are wrong. It is found on page 3 of The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth- To-Sixth-Century Syrian Churches written by Emma Loosley, published by Brill in 2012, it's isbn is 9789004231825.

You say You've also written citations which are nothing but OR, e.g. ... No I didn't. Whenever you see a quote as a reference - as there are in references 125 and 126 which you quote above - it is not mine. I did not write them. I left them as an act of good faith in the integrity of the original authors. I never put quotes as or in references. If these qualify as OR, then let's remove them, but don't falsely accuse me of writing them.

Once again, Avilich is correct. These mistakes were in this article long before me and typify the kind of thing we are saying needs deleting.Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:53, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

PS. Global Cerebral Ischemia As additional proof, I wasn't on WP in 2007 when that reference was retrieved 13 May 2007 If you check you will find my first edit was 16:32, 22 July 2017 It wasn't me. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

P Aculeius No one has claimed persecution didn't happen, but current scholarship shows it was not as severe as previously thought. That's all. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:30, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Jenhawk777 for a useful comment that may lead us towards a consensus. Indeed, persecution / temple destruction was not so gross as has been suggested by both ancient and modern sources, and that point needs to be made. However, this isn't the same as saying that Theodosius or others were upholders of modern ideals of freedom of religion or of speech. They weren't; even Julian's freedom to Christians was a tactic to allow them to wrangle themselves to political ineffectiveness. We don't need to apologize for people who don't entirely meet standards they never dreamed of. And I do find a flavour of apologetics in some areas of these articles. I would prefer to work for overall NPOV, in the overarching context of a mass religious shift, strongly encouraged by rewards and by menacing language from the imperial administration, and by sporadic violence. Richard Keatinge (talk) 07:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello Richard Keatinge Where does anyone say or imply that Theodosius was an upholder of modern ideas of religious freedom? I don't think that's in anything I wrote. Please point out places of apologetics, and I will remove them. Or they can possibly be rephrased to sound more neutral. I do prefer a NPOV and have tried to represent that while also fairly summarizing the current scholarly consensus as accurately and fairly as I possibly can. Current scholarship does ameliorate some previous claims concerning Christianity's anti-paganism, but that is hardly my fault or my bias. If I have failed, then I will fix it. Just tell me where and why. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:04, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

The belief that Late Antiquity witnessed the death of paganism and the triumph of monotheism, as a succession of Christian emperors from Constantine to Theodosius II played out their God-given role of abolishing paganism, is not actual history but is, instead, a "representation" of the history of the age created by "a brilliant generation of Christian writers, polemicists and preachers in the last decade of this period".

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:27, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

E should clearly be deleted or merged into St Ambrose; it's a stub and the topic is clearly central to the main Ambrose article so shouldn't be separate. P. Aculeius, it does sound like you are calling for undue weight to be given to minority scholarly opinions... but it's hard to say, because in the walls of text that you have written, you have not so far cited a single scholarly source at all... Furius (talk) 14:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Because I'm not calling for any particular weight to be given to any particular opinions—only that if scholarly opinion held one thing before 1990, or before 1960, or any other arbitrary cut-off point, and the most recent scholarly opinion holds something else, then you cannot simply ignore or dismiss the previous opinions as wrong, outdated, or irrelevant based solely on that date, or the mere assumption that whatever is the most recent opinion is right and that all other opinions are wrong. And as this is a debate about opinon, we shouldn't be treating it as if there's an absolute and determinable answer to whether Theodosius, his court, contemporaries, predecessors, or successors should be viewed as persecutors or not. Surely it can't surprise anybody that opinions about historical events change over time, without the fundamental facts underlying those opinions having changed.

As for walls of text—I'm simply trying to address the things that have been said about me by pointing out that all I've ever asked for is for the proper procedures to be followed, i.e. not simply blanking articles without attempting to salvage anything from them, largely due to the opinion that the premises in those articles are outdated and wrong—and therefore without merit. If scholarly opinion about a subject has changed, that is itself important, and should not simply be swept under the rug. I'm not advocating a particular opinion so much as asking that the editors involved follow Wikipedia guidelines, which the discussion so far leads me to doubt. P Aculeius (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Wikipedia always preferred to represent the most recent scholarly consensus, per wp:AGEMATTERS. If the consensus changes again we can always update the articles. I think you're confused between Wikipedia policy, which is to present what reliable sources say, and trying to find historical truth, which is not in our purview.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

If you look at that guideline, it says: "older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed." As it goes on to point out, this is often the case with things such as science or politics—but not so much with history. I doubt that much new information has been brought to light about Theodosius or the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. And determining whether a scholarly consensus exists is rather fraught when you're dealing with a relatively small number of scholars treating the subject at any point in time. What we have is different scholars at various times evaluating the same evidence and reaching different opinions as to whether pagans were actively persecuted, by whom, and to what extent. The problem is that it seems the editors in question want to present whatever the most recent opinions are as empirical fact, and completely disregard differing opinions because they're older. I'm not really arguing about which scholars' opinions I prefer—as hard as it is for me to believe that the principals didn't actively attempt to suppress paganism to any significant degree—I'm just saying that if recent scholarship contradicts previously-held opinions, you can't simply ignore those previous opinions or declare the current ones correct and the former ones incorrect—that's not our place as Wikipedians, but it seems to be the direction in which the editors proposing to delete the articles in question are going. P Aculeius (talk) 16:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, A and G are basically essential articles and deserve to stay; E is unnecessary and should be merged into Saint Ambrose. C might have a legitimate reason to exist if it's improved into a comprehensive article about persecution in the early Byzantine period, but right now, as Avilich said, it leans very heavily on the Codex Theodosianus; besides, it abruptly ends at 476, hence missing out on things like Justinian's shutdown of the university of Athens. Still, I would argue for its existence, as the topic itself is notable and hence there is scope for improvement into a decent article. For the rest, I have no opinion. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 16:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I made a brief but sourced case for the deletion of B here Talk:Persecution of pagans under Theodosius I#A case for deletion. The point outlined in the 2nd bullet is of key relevance to all articles from A to G. All sources I know are there, and everybody is free to judge whether Aculeius' view on how sources on history should be treated holds merit. Avilich (talk) 17:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I think you make a convincing case there that the article needs to be fundamentally re-written; I'm not convinced it is a case for deletion. Actually, the range of sources that you're able to present there are pretty convincing evidence that there ought to be a wiki article on the topic. Even if it were totally fictional, Theodosius' persecution of the pagans is probably notable as a historical construct.

I wonder whether Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire might become something like Paganism in the Byzantine empire. The restriction to "policies" and "early" both seem strange to me (or do we already have an article on paganism in the empire generally)

Note that there is also Christianity and paganism (which from its title sounds like it should cover much more than it does). Furius (talk) 20:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Paganism in the Byzantine Empire (capitalizing "Empire" in this instance) sounds like a very suitable title for the reasons you suggest. P Aculeius (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

And now we're back to the beginning... Theodosius's persecution as a possible historical construct is already dealt with in some detail in Theodosius I and in persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire (Christian triumphalism, orthodox fabrications, etc.). Rewriting B in its entirety would result in duplication (or triplication) of said content, and there's something inherently awkward about writing an article whose entire aim is to deny something. In the end there's no functional difference between rewriting and deleting, except that the former requires leaving the current version up for others to consume, until someone decides to do something about it.

I have no objection to a Paganism in the Byzantine Empire, but whoever wishes to write it might want to start from scratch. The current "anti-paganism policies" is basically a fork of all CTh laws from the period 395–476 with the OR conclusion that, because there are so many of them, a lot of countryside pagans were obstinate in their refusal to convert. The citations are overwhelmingly to primary sources, and there's no verifiable information of value in there. Avilich (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• @P Aculeius: Let's address these one at a time.

• 1. I doubt that much new information has been brought to light about Theodosius or the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. You may doubt but you'd be wrong to do so. I already said this once, directly above here, but I will say it again. Archaeology of the last 30 years has boomed with discoveries not available to Gibbon and Burckhardt. The Greek scholar Maijestina Kahlos writes that an increase in both the variety and abundance of sources not previously available is what has brought about a reinterpretation of the religion of this era. That's on page 2 of her book Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450, OUP, 9780190067250. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, OUP, 2015, page xv, explains that previously undervalued similarities in language, society, religion, and the arts indicate paganism slowly declined. Michelle R. Salzman writes "Although the debate on the death of paganism continues, scholars by and large concur that the once dominant notion of overt pagan-Christian religious conflict cannot fully explain the texts and artifacts, or the social religious and political realities of Late Antique Rome." That's from Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, Cambridge, page 2. There is indeed new information not previously evaluated by earlier historians.

• 2. What we have is different scholars at various times evaluating the same evidence and reaching different opinions as to whether pagans were actively persecuted, by whom, and to what extent.. No, we don't. They have not evaluated the same material, and their views of whatever they evaluate are what we write - no matter what you call them. That's a red herring.

• 3. The problem is that it seems the editors in question want to present whatever the most recent opinions are as empirical fact, and completely disregard differing opinions because they're older. This is just disingenuous. My initial answer to you contained statements about including older scholarship. I always do. To say otherwise is just wrong. I never make claims of empirical fact about history. That would be nonsense. That's a straw man.

• 4. as hard as it is for me to believe that the principals didn't actively attempt to suppress paganism to any significant degree This will be the third or fourth time now - I've lost track - that I have said no one says that. The claim by these scholars is that it was less, not non-existent. This is a false dichotomy.

• 5. I'm just saying that if recent scholarship contradicts previously-held opinions, you can't simply ignore those previous opinions or declare the current ones correct and the former ones incorrect—that's not our place as Wikipedians, We are in complete agreement on that one. That's what I do. Always. This is another straw man.

These responses are repetitions of things already said. They were not justified complaints the first time and repeating them does not provide new or valid reasons for not deleting these articles. Next time, you write that the editors in question want something, I expect it to be a copy pasted quote of where I said what you refer to. Otherwise it appears stuff is simply being made up and attributed falsely. We don't deal in empirical fact, but we should at least try for accuracy. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Just when I thought everything that I needed to say had been said... the fact that the introductions to two scholarly sources allude to "previously unavailable" sources—which in order to fulfill this description meaningfully, would largely have to be important and authoritative Greek and Roman writings that nobody knew about or had read before 1990, a true rarity in Classics—in order to state that a simplistic view of pagan-Christian conflict doesn't fully explain the decline of paganism, doesn't amount to the premises of this discussion. Namely, that the majority of articles in the list given at top are so fundamentally flawed due to the age of the sources and the conclusions of their authors that they should simply be deleted outright, rather than improved or merged into other articles.

At its core this argument has always been about whether the conclusions of earlier scholars as presented in the articles under discussion would be preserved and incorporated into whatever articles remain at the end of the editing process, or whether they would simply be deleted with the excuse that they've been superseded by newer writing and have no further relevance. I'm willing to take you at your word that that isn't your intention, but article deletion is not the process by which this is supposed to be done—merger is. It may well be that many passages will be redundant as the articles are being merged, or that statements need to be refactored or adjusted based on additional sources: nobody said that merging articles involved copying and pasting the complete and unaltered contents of one article into another.

The only things I have been objecting to all along are the blanket assertion that there is nothing worth saving in some of these articles—and the explanation for there being nothing deserving of preservation due to the age or conclusions of the sources cited. Those, and I suppose the erroneous assumption that passages were plagiarized from external sites, when in fact it appears that the passages originated on Wikipedia and were copied by those sites. Deletion is not the way to deal with any of the problems cited: merger is. And I hope that this will be the last time I have to explain that. P Aculeius (talk) 02:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I have already made my case in the talk page. Just go ahead and say what you think is salvageable, what you think should me merged. Otherwise your argument continues lacking in foundation and your WP:BLUDGEONING will convince no one. Avilich (talk) 03:45, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Richard Keatinge I posted a quote above and I wondered if you think it has an air of apologetics. I must admit that I had that exact thought for much of what is currently being written - except as far as I know - none of these people are Christian, and they don't write apologetics. They are just scholars going where the evidence takes them. Thoughts? Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• As most of you probably know, Global Cerebral Ischemia reported me to Admin for reverting his edits to article A. In his complaint, he listed all accusations contained above in his discussion of that article. Admin has dismissed the complaint. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

The complaint was dismissed because you did not in fact violate WP:3RR, as I had sincerely believed. My criticisms have consistently been focused on the content of the article (and what I believe to be material that goes against guidelines), I have never said that any of your content was added in bad faith, though you and Avilich have consistently attacked me individually and with hostility. Going forward, please do not summarily revert my edits. Going forward, let's work to make sure that future disagreements about article content are discussed in accord with the assumption of good faith per WP:GOODFAITH. If I point out that I believe specific material in the article is an example of WP:SYNTH or WP:OR or MOS:WEASEL or any other guideline, please do not assume that my doing so is based on bad faith or a concern with anything other than that the content of the article is in accord with guidelines. Editors are free to point out when they believe that article content is an example of a violation of policy, and this should never be taken as a personal attack. I encourage you and @Avilich: to review WP:TALKNO. Also Jenhawk777, I ask that for the sake of clarity, please format your future comments to standard Talk Page guidelines per WP:BOTTOMPOST. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 01:48, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Global Cerebral Ischemia Please provide a copy paste of any hostility or personal attack I have made on you. I will want to make that right and apologize. I am a participant in the NPA group. If I have failed in that I genuinely want to know where and how I did that. Please, please post that here.

Yes no 3rr was part of why they dismissed it but it was not the only reason they gave was it?

I have never said that any of your content was added in bad faith Please copy paste where I said you did. I don't thinkI ever said that.

If you don't copy-paste examples I will assume it's because you can't and will simply dismiss this.

Going forward, let's work to make sure that future disagreements about article content are discussed in accord with the assumption of good faith per WP:GOODFAITH. I believe that is what I requested on the article's talk page. I think that is what I always do. I could be mistaken but I think you dismissed it on that same page. Well, whatever, I agree. I do. I never revert someone else's edit w/o going to the talk page. I will revert tags when their problems are fixed.

You found two instances of old OR, and no actual synth, and the two have now been removed. I ask that you tag places inside the article where you continue to find these problems. There's nothing personal in that - it's to you because you are the one making the claim, that's all.

I haven't put article A, [Persecution of pagans in late Roman Empire] through the mill of prepping it for a review. That means I worked on it but did not recheck every reference that predates me. As far as I am concerned, this is about improving the article and nothing more. You found some things that I wasn't looking for and that's a good thing. I'm glad of it.

That said, I do need more than generalizations like you've created a scholarly paper fueled by WP:OR, not a wikipedia article. for your 'concerns' to be of any actual help with improving the article. Surely you can see that. It isn't about you personally, but dealing with broad generalizations is like trying to nail down jello. If you find synth say where. If you find OR say where - or fix it yourself as I suggested earlier. When I fix it, acknowledge that and remove the tag accordingly. That's all there is as far as I am concerned. I have not taken any of this personally. I have however, taken it seriously, and acted to fix the problem. As an act of good faith, I request the same.

IMHO, it is past time to stop talking about who has offended who and get on with discussing these articles. Does anyone claim they represent WP in a good way? That they are well done? Well resourced? Anything redeeming? Perhaps we should approach this as two questions: first, are articles on these topics needed and noteworthy (which articles are duplicates)? If the answer is yes, they are needed because... then the second question is, are these those articles? Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:52, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777:, the relevant quote regarding the edit warring dispute (only because you ask): "This is a report based on one revert and the report was made 3 minutes after the OP posted on the article talk page, not allowing time for any dispute resolution first. Should be closed as premature." I believe that this is getting tangential to the discussion, and per WP:FAF, I think moving forward is best. Nevertheless, because and only because you specifically requested it and said you "genuinely want to know": You referred to my good faith edits as "pockmarks," saying that I had "pockmarked the article." That is hostile, personal, and implies that my edits were not made on good faith. In your edits of the article in question, you referred to my edits as "uncalled for" (which implies that they were made in bad faith), stating "removing last uncalled for tag from lead" and "removing uncalled for tag" under the mistaken belief that citations should not appear in the lead. When I mention "individual attacks and hostility," I was mostly referring to @Avilich:. Again, here are the relevant quotes so you can understand why I feel this characterization is justified:"Editors are not required to be 'neutral' (a meaningless word that forces me to debate in your own arbitrary terms)" (this is in reference to a WP policy, one of the three core policies and the first one to be codified), and regarding my mistaken assumption that you had written the citations in question, implying that I am "blatantly lying about the record of others." These are both unambiguous assumptions of bad faith. Also, can you please format your replies to WP:BOTTOMPOST? Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• First you say you disagree with the claims raised about B, C, E, F; the articles are well-sourced (with primary and secondary sources), and the allegation of "misleading" information sounds more like an issue related to WP:FORUM-style partisanship than article guidelines and not long afterwards you're scavenging for WP:SYNTH or WP:OR or MOS:WEASEL in A. Which is it? B and C are obviously ten times as bad as A in that regard (they sprung from a common source), so if you have no qualms about removing the cruft from the latter you shouldn't have any about the former either. Avilich (talk) 03:05, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I've been pretty consistent so far: I believe that B, C, E, and F are well-sourced and well-written; I also believe that they are mostly redundant and should largely be merged with A. I already gave clear, unambiguous examples of WP:SYNTH and MOS:WEASEL in A, and those examples have now been properly removed, as they should have been. I'm just as free to identify problems with any article as you are, so what exactly is the issue? Also, can you please format your replies to WP:BOTTOMPOST? Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

"what exactly is the issue?" With regards to B, this is the third time I'm linking to this. C is obviously pure 100% original research (see citations), and F is too short, has original research and is based on false premises (see below discussion). Avilich (talk) 17:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC) (fixed indentation) Avilich (talk) 18:09, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree that the smaller articles are well-sourced. To take F as an example, the citations are:

• Pope Benedict XVI (2006) Deus Caritas Est (not a scholarly source for Julian's religious policy!)
• A History of the Church, Philip Hughes, Sheed & Ward, rev ed 1949, vol I chapter 6 (a scholarly work, but pretty old and a general one, rather than something specifically on Julian).
• "Julian the Apostate and His Plan to Rebuild the Jerusalem Temple", Jeffrey Brodd, Biblical Archaeology Society, Bible Review, October 1995. (fine)
• "FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS", Karl Hoeber, Catholic Encyclopedia 1910, retrieved 13 May 2007. (a tertiary source being used to support a side point in a footnote)
• R. Kirsch, God against the Gods, Viking Compass, 2004. (a generalist non-fiction book, not something specifically on Julian)
• H.A. Drake, "Lambs into Lions", Past & Present p.33 (Fine)
• Hans Kung, "The Catholic Church", Ch3 The Imperial Catholic Church", p45, 2001, Weidenfiled & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-64638-9 (Like Hughes et al and Kirsch, a scholarly work, but a very general one)
• Grindle, Gilbert. The Destruction of Paganism in the Roman Empire. (1892) (Very old)
• And several primary sources, which are mostly not being used in accordance with WP:PRIMARY (e.g. the Theodosian code is cited directly as evidence that "severe laws were once again passed prohibiting private divination" - "severe" is interpretation of the source, which we're not meant to do. The last section is almost pure synthesis of primary source material.
• By contrast, recent works on Julian and his religious policies are absent - e.g. Murdoch, Adrian. The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World, 2005; Baker-Brian, Nicholas; Tougher, Shaun. (2012). Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate.; Smith, Rowland. Julian's gods: religion and philosophy in the thought and action of Julian the Apostate, London, 1995; Wiemer, Hans-Ulrich & Stefan Rebenich, eds. (2020). A Companion to Julian the Apostate

There are articles out there with worse sourcing than this, but this is a long way from good. Furius (talk) 00:50, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Whether a source is specifically about Julian or "very general" or whatever is irrelevant so long as it meets WP:RS; tertiary sources are also fine. The sources you've listed are almost entirely secondary sources, and they all seem perfectly appropriate to me. The one issue I see is the use of the word "severe," which I concede is MOS:WEASEL and should be removed. The absence per se of newer sources might mean that the article could better conform to modern scholarship perspectives per WP:NPOV, but that's a separate issue IMO; I'm not arguing about whether or not the article should be improved because I don't think it should remain a separate article at all; IMO, it should be merged with A (which already cites plenty of modern scholarship). Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 02:48, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

These sources are all outdated and the information demonstrably obsolete in comparison to A, there's nothing to merge. Avilich (talk) 14:02, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Global Cerebral Ischemia I don't agree that's the only relevant quote, but I do agree about moving on.

I don't agree that the word "pockmarked" is hostile or even automatically negative. People speak of the moon as pockmarked and there is no negative association. It's a description of how things are spread about, that's all. Interpreting it as some kind of accusation makes me wonder what kind it would be? How bad is it to have something spread all over? I can't imagine anyone would automatically assume it's bad, but at any rate, it refers to the edits, not you personally.

You say pockmarked and uncalled for imply that I meant your edits were in bad faith, but that's the thing about interpreting implications - it's so easy to get them wrong. In fact, I did not think or ever intend to communicate or ever make any such assumption of bad faith on your part, so attributing that to me does not come from me. It's entirely yours. It is so easy to misunderstand typed phrasing on WP, that it's wisest not to infer, not to assume, or imagine or attempt to interpret possible implications. I can't be held responsible for what goes on in your head, when you interpret and infer. I can and should only be held responsible for what I actually say.

Your next reference is to something I didn't write. Once again, you have accused me of something I didn't do, but what the hell, let's let bygones be bygones as they say. Let's see if we can't actually get some work done on these articles. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:01, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777:"Once again, you have accused me of something I didn't do" (sigh), I specifically said I was referring to Avilich, please check again. I thought that this was unambiguous, but I guess not. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 12:14, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

My humblest apologies. It was late, I skimmed, my mistake, I'm sorry. But why put something about someone else in a message to me? Avilich and I have worked on a couple of articles together and work well together, but I am not his keeper. He is independent of me in every way. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:07, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-paganism influenced by Saint Ambrose

A discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-paganism influenced by Saint Ambrose. Those who commented on the last one might want to give their input here. Avilich (talk) 16:00, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Location hypotheses of Atlantis

Just a heads up that this article exists and could probably use some attention. Botterweg14 (talk) 01:46, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about "Pluto (mythology)" and "Hades"

An editor recently opened an RfC to discuss merging "Hades" with "Pluto (mythology)", on the grounds that they represent the same mythological personage. Before the RfC was removed this morning, with the suggestion of initiating a merger discussion (technical distinction, not reaching the core issue), some of the participants objected, naturally, that "'Pluto' is the Roman equivalent of 'Hades', not the same deity." But looking over our article, "Pluto (mythology)", nearly all of the material appears to be Greek, with very little that is distinctively Roman.

Now, I haven't worked on our mythological articles much, so I'm not sure of the extent to which other articles on Greek and Roman gods overlap. But I could certainly see a strong case for merging much of the content of "Pluto (mythology)" into "Hades", leaving what appears to be a rather small amount of distinctly Roman material, potentially requiring considerable work to work back into a decent article (without just reduplicating the Greek material). Or, if as the lead seems to state, "Pluto" is a concept in Greek mythology as well as Roman (I was only aware of a nymph by the name in Greek mythology), perhaps the article could be split into Greek and Roman mythology articles—and even if the Greek material is ultimately incorporated into "Hades", this might be used as an intermediate step.

I really think that this is a discussion that should take place at "Pluto (mythology)" rather than here or at "Hades", where it currently is. But more importantly, it needs input from members of this project, especially members who have more experience with our mythological articles. I fully agree that "Hades" and "Pluto" need to have separate articles for the Greek and Roman deities, but clearly the existing article on "Pluto" contains a great deal of material that seems to belong elsewhere than in an article about a distinctly Roman god. P Aculeius (talk) 13:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Greek Πλούτων (Pluton), was definitely an alternate name for Hades, see for example Sophocles' Antigone 1200. Paul August ☎ 13:34, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Merge or repurpose Sallustius (Neoplatonist)

A small discussion on the fate of this article has been opened in its talk page. Any inputs there are appreciated. Avilich (talk) 14:37, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

The 10 most-viewed, worst-quality articles according to this Wikiproject

• 363 Si vis pacem, para bellum 31,116 1,003 Stub Low
• 906 Veritas 12,457 401 Stub Low
• 939 Pythagoras (freedman) 12,016 387 Stub Low
• 803 Agora 14,264 460 Stub Mid
• 58 Cronus 110,390 3,560 Start High
• 115 Icarus 75,067 2,421 Start High
• 134 Hephaestus 65,528 2,113 Start High
• 187 Trojan Horse 50,584 1,631 Start High
• 199 Hestia 47,868 1,544 Start High
• 250 Agamemnon 40,989 1,322 Start High

Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Popular pages--Coin945 (talk) 06:53, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Textual history

Hi folks, I have a suggestion to run by you all. Given the nature of classical studies from our vantage point thousand of years in the future, we are by necessity working only with those texts which have survived. In many cases (such as the Attic dramas) it is painfully clear that some texts were lost and others were preserved only by the sheer luck of being included in a single extant manuscript or codex, while in other cases there are multiple conflicting versions/witnesses. In short: the story of a text's preservation is often noteworthy, and I suggest we make it a regular (if brief) feature of articles about ancient texts. Most serious editions of classical texts begin with an editorial introduction explaining the relevant textual history; can Wikipedia do the same?

For example, The Libation Bearers and The Suppliants (Aeschylus) could mention that they were preserved only in the 11th-century codex "M" (BML Plut.32.9) [6] [7]. If we can have a dedicated article for every single New Testament manuscript, surely we can cover at least the most important pagan MSS?

I'm not sure if this would be best implemented as a line in an infobox, or a common subsection in the structure of articles about literary works, but I'd welcome your thoughts. -φθόγγος 15:15, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed that this information should appear in all articles. My inclination would be that it ought to be grouped with the information on early modern and modern editions and come (perhaps) right before a section on the reception of the text. I also agree that many non-Christian manuscripts have been written about enough that they would be viable wiki articles in their own right. They don't have articles at the moment because no editor has written them, not because there is consensus that they shouldn't exist, in my opinion. Furius (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

In most cases, I think this information is probably too complicated for an infobox? Furius (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion at Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD

I noticed that no one involved in this project seems to be aware of a renaming discussion taking place at Talk:Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD#Requested move 8 June 2021. Since Pompeii is fairly important, I think we should at least have been informed.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Agrae at Redirects for discussion

I have nominated Agrae for discussion here. I think it could use some input from members of this project. Lennart97 (talk) 10:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion at Punics

Your input on the move request would be highly appreciated. Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 23:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

AfD: Gaius Servilius Casca

Just a quick notice that Gaius Servilius Casca has been nominated for deletion after having just been prodded and deprodded within the last day. One of the participants in the discussion suggested that we might want to take a closer look. As far as I can tell, there seems to be some scholarly disagreement about whether "Casca", one of Caesar's assassins, was the brother of Publius Servilius Casca, or somebody else, perhaps from another gens; some older literature seems to identify him as Gaius, the brother; our article, however, called him "Titiedius Casca", for which there was no clear explanation ("Titiedius" appears to be a gentilicium). The nominator has raised issues of original research and citogenesis. If you're interested, please weigh in at the discussion above! P Aculeius (talk) 11:53, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

There's a gens of this name, and it also seems to be an alternative rendition of 'Titidius'. Nothing connecting it with Casca, however. Avilich (talk) 15:33, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Punic Wars source boilerplate text

At some point someone has added an essentially identical bit of boiler plate text early in many of the articles related to the Punic wars.

The main source for almost every aspect of the First Punic War[note 1] is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage.[3][4] His works include a now lost manual on military tactics,[5] but he is best known for his The Histories, written sometime after 167 BC, or about a century after the Battle of the Bagradas River.[4][6] Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view.[7][8]

Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybius's account of the First Punic War is based on several, now-lost, Greek and Latin sources.[9] Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible personally interviewed participants in the events he wrote about.[10][11] Only the first book of the forty comprising The Histories deals with the First Punic War.[12] The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the battle in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybius's account.[12][13][14] He was on the staff of Scipio Aemilianus when Scipio led a Roman army during the Third Punic War on a campaign through many of the locations which featured in the events of 256–255 BC.[15] The modern historian Andrew Curry considers that "Polybius turns out to [be] fairly reliable";[16] while the classicist Dexter Hoyos describes him as "a remarkably well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian".[17] Other, later, histories of the war exist, but in fragmentary or summary form,[3][18] and they usually cover military operations on land in more detail than those at sea.[19] Modern historians usually also take into account the later histories of Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius, although the classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states that "Polybius' account is usually to be preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts."[11][note 2] Other sources include inscriptions, coins, archaeological evidence and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias.[21]

This same text with minor changes appears again and again in articles on the Punic wars and immediately after the lede each time. Is it worth spinning off to it's own page on sources for the Punic wars? It's tiresome to have to read or skim over the same potted text again and again in so many articles across the three Wars. If it is included does it need to follow the lede each time - a discussion of the value of Polybius as a source is not the most significant info in these articles, and doesn't need to be so prominent.

I'm sure there are others, but a quick google result shows how often this same material is repeated in articles.

[8]

Pipsally (talk) 08:21, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what's best here, but it is a matter of balancing the irritation of reading the same text against the fact that many readers are only going to be reading one of the relevant articles. There is enough material for a stand-alone article on Sources for the Punic Wars and there are chapters in Dexter Hoyos' Companion to the Punic Wars that would provide an excellent basis for such an article. The Polybius article could also be improved to carry some of the weight. But even if there were a spin-off, I'd expect some sort of note on sources in the First Punic War, Second Punic War, Third Punic War, and Punic Wars articles. But the text shouldn't be identical - the source situation for each of the wars is different after all. /indecisive_comment Furius (talk) 13:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Pipsally, I believe this is Gog the Mild's work. I also queried it with him at one point, believing that notes on sources if used should be tailored directly to the article it's in. (t · c) buidhe 00:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)