Talk:Golden Verses

Move?

I think the verses belong on wikisource.hacky (talk) 20:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras (Rowe/Firth translation, modernized)

Please provide the source of the modernized translation, at the moment it requires a membership to access it. In the meantime I will replace it with a version Translated by A. E. A. from Collectanea Hermetica Edited By W. Wynn Westcott Volume V ark:/13960/t6wx34r7v so at least you can access the text on archive.org. Note that Firth (1904:1-8) is not a reference one can find.

Possible Copyright Violation for "The Golden Verses of Pythagoras (Rowe/Firth translation, modernized)" (moved from user talk page)

Please provide the full reference to source of the modernized translation, at the moment it requires a membership to access it. It might breach copyright. Darylprasad (talk) 03:13, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The full reference has not been provided, since the Rowe/Firth version is not the original version but a modernized version. Please take your own advice and "talk" before reverting.

The reason you gave was that " Rowe is probably more reliable than Westcott as a translator, given the latter's explicit allegiances to certain philosophical schools"

By this reasoning, you should delete all Christian edits that have allegiances to Christian theological schools. Similarly with other theologies.

And by the way, Wescott did not translate it. It was translated by someone with the initials A.E.A. Wescott was an editor of the volume the Verse was published in. So your reasoning is incorrect on all accounts.

The reason I edited it in the first place was the doubt I had about a potential copyright breach for the the modernized translation as no reference was given for that, and is still lacking. Usually, modernized versions are copyrighted by somebody. The Rowe/Firth translation currently on Wikipedia is a modernized version of the Rowe/Firth translation of the Golden Verses. The version I replaced it with is not under copyright. The reference provided for the modernized Rowe/Firth version does not state who translated the modernized version.

PS. Both Rowe and Firth have "explicit allegiances to certain philosophical schools." But we do not know about the translator of the modernized version because it is not given. Darylprasad (talk) 03:13, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Darylprasad! First of all, you may have gotten the wrong impression from our interaction yesterday: you don't need to propose a change on the talk page. Instead, if you think you can improve an article, be bold and do it. Another editor who sees that change and believes it to actually make the article worse, is likewise encouraged to be bold and revert the change. It's only then that we don't expect you to re-revert, but rather to start a discussion on the talk page. This is called 'the bold, revert, discuss cycle (BRD). So in this case, I boldly reverted your bold changes, and now you've come to the talk page. Perfect!

The main reason why I reverted your changes, which you've not actually addressed, is that they added a large number of wholly outdated sources to the page. As it is, the article discusses the dating of the Golden Verses on the basis of Thom 1994, Schibli 2002, and Joost-Gaugier 2007. Among these recent scholars, various datings are being considered, but Thom's 300 BCE dating is taken by all scholars to be the earliest dating with some credibility. Redfield 1917's 5th century BCE dating, which you added to the article as the most prominently mentioned dating, has long since been rejected. Generally, while the article could do with some more sourcing, adding a large number of pre-1940 sources really is not helpful.

As for the translation, I reverted that too because it was published by William Wynn Westcott, who was both a member of the Theosophical Society and a co-founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Both these organizations are very well-known for their creative reinterpretations of pseudo-Pythagorean and Neoplatonic ideas. I'm not at all saying that Nicholas Rowe's is a scholarly and dispassionate translation (ideally, we would give Thom 1994's translation, but that's obviously not possible for copyright reasons), but Rowe seems to have had less definite leanings towards specific philosophical schools with revisionist tendencies. That was my reasoning. However, I did not notice that we were actually not giving Rowe's translation, but a 'reworking' of it by Firth and published by the Theosophical Publishing House. That's just as bad as Westcott, possibly even worse, so I won't object if you reintroduce Westcott's translation.

In any case, Firth's translation was published in 1904 (for other editions, see here and so is safely in the public domain. For the English Wikipedia, everything published before 1926 generally is. It would be nice of you if in the future you would do some research about this before you go throwing around accusations of copyright violations. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:36, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Apaugasma

You said: "The main reason why I reverted your changes, which you've not actually addressed, is that they added a large number of wholly outdated sources to the page."

Wikipedia policy on outdated sources is the following:

"However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, controversial within the relevant field, or largely ignored by the mainstream academic discourse because of lack of citations. Try to cite current scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent."

It doesn't say that you should delete them because they are outdated. It just says that some sources may be outdated. That's it. Like a "reader beware". No mention of deletion. So you cannot use Wikipedia policy to justify your deletions. Please revert them.

If you do not revert them we will have to go to the Admin board again because we will get into an edit war again and I don't want that.

Where did you get the idea that you can delete the source and associated sentences just because the source is outdated?

It certainly is not Wikipedia policy.

So please revert them.

I am trying to ask you nicely without having to go to the Amin board.

You can see CLEARLY from the wording of the policy that you can't just delete them.

Your main reason for deletion was the outdated nature of the source. Again, that is not a Wikipedia policy.

So again, please revert them.

Regards

Daryl

Darylprasad (talk) 05:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

You quoted it: try to cite current scholarly consensus when available. That is part of our policy on reliable sourcing. There are a lot of recent sources available in this case (the article already cites quite a few of these), and as I've pointed out, the current scholarly consensus is very different from the old one present in the sources you cited. That renders these old sources unreliable.

If you want to update the article, I advise you to read the sources already cited in the article, especially Thom 1995, who is considered the foremost expert on the topic today.

If you don't agree, do not go to the Administrator's Noticeboard for Incidents (ANI) with this. That noticeboard is for egregious and urgent conduct issues only. Disagreeing over the content of an article (a content dispute) is a normal part of the editing process, not a conduct issue. There are several ways to deal with this: see WP:DR.

Another helpful piece of advice: please perceive when it is time to drop the stick. There may be better ways to improve the encyclopedia than to pursue this issue. In any case, I will spend no more time on this. If you really want to take up yet other editors' time, I'd suggest asking for a third opinion. However, please also consider leaving us all in peace a bit. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Apaugasma

OK

Regards

Daryl

Darylprasad (talk) 10:48, 23 October 2021 (UTC)