User talk:Dan Koehl/viking

Hello Dan, my name is Niel and I've been reading a few of the viking-related discussion pages where you have commonly voiced your opinion. I think much of the cause of your debates with users like dab is that the two of you have different ideas of exactly what a viking is. It seems to me that you see a "viking" strictly as a raider or pirate, generally of Scandinavian origin (though you've made the point that they weren't generally Swedes). When dab says that "vikings" are all Scandanavians during the "viking age", he does not mean to imply that all Scandanavians are raiding pirates. The way that dab, and indeed many Americans (I can't speak for the British) think of Vikings is more of a broad definition. Their definition of "Viking" is closer to "any Scandanavians during the 'Viking Age'", aknowledging that not all of these "Vikings", nor even necessarily most of them engaged in raiding activities. I would like to go in to more depth about this, but from looking at your earlier discussions with dab and the others, it looks like there is little progress made when each person makes too many points at a time, so I would like to see what you think of these differing ideas of the word "viking" before I go on. --CallmeNiel 23:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)