135.23.215.34

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Happy editing! I dream of horses If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. @ 04:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Notice

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding the Balkans, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate heads up but don't usually people start off with a hello , suggestion, alternative wording rather than what comes off as immediate threat? If you feel I've argued something incorrectly or I've made some sort of gaff please feel free to let me know exactly what so I might take steps to to defend my position (or defend yours if you have a point).

As it stands, I sincerely believe this article comes off as extreme prejudice against Greeks. The point of the article clearly isn't to talk about place names (supposedly the topic of article) but to attempt to narrate Greek as some sort of cult out to eradicate non-Greeks. If someone wants to talk about someone else's identity that way they better be applying the same set of deconstructive ideological rules to their own country. I can't see why the request is unfair. All I'm looking for is consistency between articles and nations.

Greek placenames

Thank you for your note on my Talk page.

First, some comments on form:

• Normally discussions about article contents belong on the page's Talk page, not on individual editors' pages.
• If you intend to be a regular contributor to WP, I recommend you sign up as a named user.
• Please sign your contributions to Talk pages, both your own and others'.
• People who edit just one article or closely related articles are considered Wikipedia:Single-purpose accounts, which you should read about.
• You should familiarize yourself with WP's notions of WP:NPOV and other basic policies before making major changes to articles.
• You should familiarize yourself with specific policies related to your areas of interest, notably WP:ARBMAC.

Now, some comments on substance:

• I absolutely agree that the history of placenames in other countries is just as interesting as that in Greece. As you point out, this has happened across the region. You will note that individual articles on places in Turkey and elsewhere typically include non-Turkish names (Greek, Armenian, Arab, Kurdish, etc.), and it would certainly be interesting to discuss that phenomenon in one place if we can find reliable sources discussing it.
• I agree that some of the wording in the article had a one-sided political agenda. The solution to this in WP terms is to improve those passages, not to wholesale delete things you don't like. I have started with one passage.
• You are confusing the "organic" changes of names with the legal changes. To take your example of Skopje, the Roman name Scupi evolved over time in different languages into Σκόπια, Скопие, Скопље, Shkup, اسكوب, Üsküb, Uskup, Uskub, etc., all of them basically phonetic variants. This is a natural phenomenon when words are borrowed from one language into another, just as in Greek we say Βοστώνη and Ζυρίχη (presumably influenced by spelling as well as phonetics), not Μπόστον and Τσούριχ (which would be closer to, though not identical, to the native forms).
• In the Greek case, there were of course organic linguistic variants for the names of various places in all the languages. The interesting phenomenon that the article points out is that in many cases, not only were pre-existing Greek names made into the only legal name of the place, but beyond that, new names were invented, or ancient names recycled even though these names were either never used locally, or hadn't been used for centuries.
• As for some Slav Macedonians claiming that they are descendants of the ancient Macedonians, that is probably true in the strictly biological sense, just as Greeks probably have ancestors who were pre-Greek (Pelasgian, if you like), and Turks have ancestors who were Greek, Hittite, Italians have ancestors who were Greek, Etruscan, Celtic, etc. As a general rule, population "movements" involve both movements of genes and movements of culture, and the genetic makeup of peasant populations typically does not change radically over the centuries. As for making modern political claims based on this, that is of course ridiculous. The modern Slav Macedonians are not culturally or linguistically "descendants of Alexander the Great", and are culturally and linguistically largely Slavic. I believe the relevant Wikipedia articles make this quite clear. I am not sure what the relevance of all this is to name changes in Greece.
• Have you read Loring Danforth? His book is very carefully divided into chapters, each of which presents different perspectives. He is an anthropologist whose intent is to describe, not to prescribe. So I would not characterize him as a "supporter of Skopje" (by which you presumably mean of the Republic of Macedonia).
• Finally, you are confusing all the above with the question of the name of the modern Macedonians, again irrelevant to the toponym article.

I look forward to your becoming a constructive contributor to WP. --Macrakis (talk) 16:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way, there are articles on other name changes, which discuss not just the fact of the change, but also the politics around it. General article: Geographical renaming; specific articles: Renaming of cities in India, List of placename renaming in South Africa, List of placename renaming in Zimbabwe, 1938 renaming of East Prussian placenames, Geographical name changes in Turkey. The Turkish case has some interesting parallels to the Greek one, with Enver Paşa saying: "It has been decided that provinces, districts, towns, villages, mountains, and rivers, which are named in languages belonging to non-Muslim nations such as Armenian, Greek or Bulgarian, will be renamed into Turkish." --Macrakis (talk) 20:01, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, and none of those place name articles get into quack racial theories. Toponym articles also don't get into long rants about alleged human rights violations in an era when human rights groups didn't exist,. I recall it was the era that Africans were still picking cotton for their "American" slave owners (unlike say in Greece). This was shortly after European imperialists were still trying to narrate themselves into an "imagined community" of alleged "American people". I'm sure native Americans agreed to hand over their already inhabited lands and change hundreds of thousands of place names. I look forward to those that agree with Greek related toponym article creating a similarly phrased American toponym article -- but I suspect it won't happen.

On another note, as I said I wouldn't last long here (see above). I'm mostly a lurker but I've been on Wikipedia since nearly the beginning (long before you arrived here). I'm well acquainted with admins and users here.

Holding no punches, certain Wiki editors appear to be trying to ethnically erase Greeks vis-a-vis narrating us out of ethnic existence -- while simultaneously supporting blatantly obvious Slavs living in ancient Paeonia as they turn into "ancient Macedonians" (see section on FPAS below). The absurdity of claiming Slavs hostile to Hellenism are now founders of the Hellenistic period... defies all reason. It's clearly prejudice.

Over the years I've observed many Greeks that foolishly pander to Skopje's foreign apologists. I know Skopje's foreign apologists aren't objective because all historical narratives aside, they aren't applying the same sort of deconstructive principles they claim to to believe to their own identities. They keep flip-flopping ideologically (including ironically ancient Macedonians themselves who are being robbed of their indisputable self-determination as Greeks). What they are trying to do is bury their mistake of calling Skopians "Macedonians". Pandered to them in the hopes of peer acceptance won't work People that attempt to narrate your family out of ethnic existence aren't your friends..135.23.215.34 (talk) 05:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Logging complaint about admin Future Perfect at Sunrise

Was just blocked by Future Perfect at Sunrise. Gosh. So surprised. FPAS has no history of blocking Greeks that provide arguments and sourced evidence that contradict his views. He has a long history of objectivity.

"Future Perfect at Sunrise is strongly admonished for displaying a long pattern of incivil, rude, offensive, and insulting behavior towards other editors and failure to address the community's concerns in this regard. Because of this Future Perfect at Sunrise is subject to an editing restriction for one year, and is desysopped for three months as a consequence of poor user conduct and misuse of administrative tools." (buried somewhere in Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard history under title Request for arbitration: Macedonia 2).

FPAS claim for blocking me is violation of WP:BLP. This is particularly curious charge considering the edit I made was factually accurate and the poster doing reverts was the actual person the section was criticizing. Also curious, this block came just after I warned user Macrakis that FPAS abuses his admin status to block Greeks that don't agree with him. I seem to recall Wiki admin rules about conflict of interest and all that. At minimum FPAS should have passed on his dirty work of blocking me from contributing to articles by getting another admin to block me for him.

Wikipedia is a globally important source of information. Admin FPAS acts as if Greek related articles are his personal property and thus taints the articles. This is why I've been intermittently keeping track of FPAS's behavior. Most current regulars here have no idea that on more than one occasion FPAS resorted to racist negative stereotypes of Greeks.

Someone objective with deep knowledge of Greek history that did a long term statistical analysis of FPAS Greek related posts would easily spot his biases due to the large sample size. Unfortunately it's far less evident to someone that hasn't. It's very difficult to describe why FPAS's behavior is appalling to someone that doesn't have both detailed knowledge of the Balkans and detailed long term knowledge of Future's behavior on Wikipedia. FPS takes subtle steps to obfuscate his complete lack of objectivity towards Greeks. This is especially true when it comes to Macedonia name dispute. He seems to have some sort of vesting interest given his one-sided positions and obsession with the material. The only good "Greek" to FPAS seems to be one that parrots his opinion that Greeks are not "real" Greeks -- while simultaneously FPAS bizarrely attempts to narrate obvious Slav living in ancient Paeonia, -- hostile towards anything authentically Greek -- into founders of the Hellenistic period!

Typically FPAS manipulates Greek articles indirectly by working to block any Greek posters that repeatedly inject material (including academically sourced) that he doesn't agree with or using an unsuspecting friendly admin to do it for him.

Now that the former Yugoslavians have suddenly decided they aren't even Slavs but founders of the Hellenistic period, ethnic engineer FPAS new tact focuses on manipulatively selectively using authors that see nations as "imagined communities" when it comes to Greeks (including ancient Macedonian one's who indisputably *self-identified* as Greeks). FPAS, of course, then does an ideological flip-flop when it comes to the former Yugoslavians -- who are now apparently descendents of ancient Macedonians. He buries "minor" factual information like this from reaching the eyes of readers on Macedonia related articles.

"This (US) government considers talk of Macedonian "nation", Macedonian "Fatherland", or Macedonia "national consciousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece" - US State Department Dec, 1944 (Foreign Relations Vol. VIII Washington D.C. Circular Airgram - 868.014/26)

Regardless how I am viewed surely any article could survive a change of baton to another less morally suspect admin. Were it up to me, FPAS would be permanently banned from Wikipedia for not only abusing his admin status to game Greek related articles -- but for effectively colluding in subtle attempt to narrate Greeks out of existence. However, given the subtlety of his behavior, that this is an IP based edit, that FPAS is well established here (back channel discussions clearly going on), and that many who decided to call former Yugoslavians "ethnic" Macedonians today try to whitewash Skopje's recent identity quick change from Slavs into "ancient Macedonians" (i.e. patronizing bigots, also see Milgram experiment) -- there is currently little hope of taking this to arbitration and winning. I already know any complaints by Greeks against FPAS will be wisked away as Greek "nationalists".

Therefore I probably won't take this to arbitration but I will document FPAS continues to abuse his admin powers long past the time he was admonished by other admins during Macedonia 2 arbitration fiasco. I may refer back to this page in the future if I can gather enough evidence to take to arbitration (or use screenshots of it if FPAS has found someone to delete it). Since every single article I make an edit to on Wikipedia FPAS has "coincidentally" showed up -- and "coincidentally" has taken a position opposite to me -- FPAS is clearly stalking me on Wikipedia. Thus there is no point continuing with this IP. I will be forced to use a proxy to do good faith edits. I freely admit this in advance to show my sincerity. I suspect I am not the only Greek in this position. See you soon FPAS.135.23.215.34 (talk) 04:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Bogus block

I probably won't take this to arbitration for above mentioned reasons but still want to document FPAS block was simply an excuse. Here is the contentious edit where someone claiming to be Spyros Sofos kept editing out unflattering passages critical of himself.

The passages could have been phrased better but the points they made were factually accurate. Sofos repeatedly falsely attempted to imply that only "rightwing extremists" strongly oppose him when it is a stone cold fact Greeks all over the political spectrum that oppose him. For one, Sofos is a long time supporter of former Yugoslavians. Sofos calls them "Macedonians" and "Republic of Macedonia".(see Sofos twitter blog). Other than tiny minority of similar motivated individuals virtually the entire Greek population opposes "Greeks" like Sofos (seeing his behavior as effectively collusion with foreign nationalists threatening Greece -- also see Greek civil war). This is easily verifiable by examining the position of all major Greek political parties stance on Macedonia naming dispute or even public polling on the matter. Sofos claims to be a "researcher" on his Wiki page (which he uses like a resume) He's an extremely poor one if he doesn't know this.

Sofos is a far leftist against nationalism. He belongs to an ideological school of thought that deconstructs nations into "imagined communities". (presumably why he slanders every Greek that disagrees with him as a "far right extremist"). Being against extreme nationalism is admirable. And although there are counter arguments against the "imagined community" view of nations that Sofos fails to grasp, there is certainly an argument to be made about deconstructing nations in this manner. However, if someone takes that view they better be applying their alleged principles consistently by deconstructing other nationalities as well if they wish to be taken seriously -- rather than resorting to single sided rants against one's own country to "prove" to foreign nationalists how one is against nationalism. In practice Sofos obsesses over every other group's self-determination save one... Greeks. (which is precisely why any foreign nationalist that has a bone to pick with Greeks give disproportionate attention to "Greeks" like Sofos)

Although he confusingly uses the appellate "Greek" to describe himself Sofos doesn't see himself as a "real" Greek (i.e. as in Greeks see themselves related to ancient Greeks thus name "Greek" as opposed to say "Chinese"). Sofos is Greek equivalent of Shlomo Sands in Israel[1]. The context of Sofos so-called "Greek" is different than vast majority of Greeks.

What he tries to do is muddle two different Greek identities as being one and the same as his own. Their not. What Sofos is attempting to do is redefine identity of Greeks but he does not have this right. He can only choose to redefine his own identity. He is inappropriately co-opting the appellate "Greek" to lump Greeks into effectively his own non-Greek identity. Although Sofos claims to support the human right to self-determination, in practice he doesn't actually respect the self-determination of Greeks that see their identity in different fashion.

What Sofos also fails to understand is through logical necessity his attempt to imply he is "ethnic" Greek is a contradiction of his own stated views. If nationalities are all just "imagined communities" the logical implication is there is no such thing as an ethnic Greek.. nor ethnic "German" nor "jew"... nor Spanish.. etc. Ergo - how can comrade Sofos claim to be ethnic Greek? He's narrated himself right out of any ethnic designation. Using his impurity approach to identities, any classification whatsover could be argued as "imagined" -- including human! Sofos wants to eat his ideological cake and have us all it eat too. He's being called out for it.

Sofos unprofessional attempt to imply only rightwing extremists are hostile towards him is verifiable false. Sofos antiGreek stances is the primary reason FPAS took his side despite the shameless self-promotion. FPAS block was pure BS. Unfortunately I don't know how to make this clear in a compact coherent way. Unless someone has closely following FPAS and is intimately familiar with Greek history I'll be slandered as a tinfoil hat "nationalist"

Unconstructive

Dear 135.23.215.34,

I wrote to you

I look forward to your becoming a constructive contributor to WP.

You responded:

Even if I had the time I wouldn't survive a week here. I won't buckle to the current rules on Macedonia naming nor will would I back down calling out any foreign nationalist that supports them as bigots.

Since you are explicitly pledging to violate WP conventions and policies (WP:NCMAC, WP:NPA), a block seems appropriate, and I won't waste any more effort refuting your arguments. --Macrakis (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Calling out prejudice is not "Unconstructive"

Dear Macrikis,

I only pledge to violate any policy that is unjust. I love Wikipedia but don’t confuse it with some sort of moral and intellectual panacea. The spirit of knowledge is not about just following existing rules and taking the safe route of group consensus or even authority. It’s about making sure what we say is true. FPAS and you seem to have forgotten this as you reference so-and-so regulation like apparatchik and entirely forgo discussion on the validity of my point.

As I said, I wouldn’t last long. I knew this not because of the reasons you post hoc argue to justify FPAS inappropriate block. I knew it wouldn't take long for FPAS to trump up some charge to block me -- like he does every Greek that calls out his prejudicial behavior or disagrees with him on Macedonia name issue. The only "Greeks" he keeps around are ones foolish enough to believe he’s objective. Useful to manipulate and hide behind. “See I'm not a bigot. Even a Greek agrees with me!"....from someone that has for years obsessively tried to narrate Greeks out of their very identity... as he simultaneously supports Slavs living in ancient Paeonia as they turn into founders of the Hellenistic period -- that hate anything Hellenic. I've observed even noting this obvious contradiction is beyond the ethical capacity of Skopjians and their apologists. They are too busy trying to hide their mistake of calling obvious Slavs "ethnic" Macedonians to acknowledge the possibility they may have made an error in moral judgment. Sure is easy to bury a mistake when we have several billion people who made the same mistake standing behind us. Much harder to stand up for principle against those several billion people.

When FPAS was desysopped for a period for repeatedly ranting against Greeks (including ethnic slur negative stereotypes), did you think it was because he was not a bigot? Or do you think FPAS has turned a new leaf? So why did FPAS just take side of Skopian supporter Spyros Sofos when Sofos was manipulatively implying only “right wing extremists” are hostile towards him? You think FPAS downplaying Skopian’s recent identity quick change into founders of the Hellenistic period is because he’s objective? There is a bridge currently for sale in renamed former native Indian territory.

You say you "won't waste any effort to refute". So why did you "waste effort" to reply at all? And why did you delay replying until after FPAS blocked me? The answer seems to be to antagonize me and score points with bigot FPAS. Trying to put on a little theater to impress him with your alleged objectivity at my expense eh? Mission accomplished. I’m sure he’ll read this and then you can both later gloat about the “nationalist” he just unfairly blocked -- rather than say address my *verifiable* point that Sofos was, quite unethically, massaging the facts on his own Wiki page to improve his public image.

I had my doubts about you given your parroting of flip-flopping US foreign policy on name issue but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I was nothing but polite to you. You returned that with rudeness and green lit a clearly inappropriate block. Rest assured I no longer have trust in you. I'd even consider you treasonous but that wouldn’t be fair. You would first have to have a Greek identity. To borrow words from the Greek toponym article that you had few qualms with, you're obviously well on your way to being indoctrinated into the "ideology" of American nationalism. Some of your ancestors and relatives probably deeply suffered due to the "Macedonia" word games of Skopjians. The Skopjians murdered Greeks during Balkan wars (when they still called themselves ethnic Bulgarians). They murdered Greeks during IMROs collusion in Axis in occupation of Greece during WW2. They murdered Greeks during Greek civil war. You know. Back when your government in America not only used to claim no such ethnic group as "Macedonian" exists but graciously provided Greeks weapons to kill those that claimed to be “Ethnic Macedonian”. (apparently the US must be morally complicit in attempted genocide of "ethnic Macedonians")

Your ancestors (i.e presumably not Pocahontas, Thomas Jefferson or from Kenya) would be so proud of you supporting Skopjans today. You are a brave hero. Just like Leonidas standing up to antihellenic hoards although hopelessly outnumbered. A champion of human rights and beacon of reason. You are certainly not an unprincipled bandwagon jumper trying too hard to fit in. Now read me the regulations I just broke.

"We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great." - Descendent of ancient Macedonians and founder of the Hellenistic period, Skopian Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka to US diplomats, Washington DC, Jan 22 1999 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.75.211.252 (talk) 08:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

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