Template talk:Mesopotamian myth (demons)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Purpose of the Myth Box
PURPOSE: This Myth Box is to introduce briefly the fundamental topics of Mesopotamian mythology with a short description of each. It is to make it easy to navigate around the various relevant topics. These topics are grouped together in the Myth Box.
[edit] Analysis
Recently, about half the names in this Myth Box were erased without valid rationale. The names linked to existing articles on Mesopotamian mythology. This Myth Box was created to repair that erasure, which occurred in Template:Mesopotamian myth (monsters). The following has been taken verbatim from Template talk:Meso myth as it applies here as well.
To be understood, technical words need descriptions. The descriptions of the names in the original Myth Box have been erased. This analysis discusses that erasure.
I am the original creator of this Myth Box and the only one who has made any substantive edits. One user has an ongoing dispute with a third party, and apparently that dispute has spilled over here. The resultant edits have blanked more than half of this template, leaving mostly empty space that wastes bandwidth on each article that uses it. Moreover, the edits left dangling conjunctions showing that the edits were made carelessly and without due consideration.
Wikipedia's Myth Project has devised several standards and models of which this series was a particular beautiful example as originally designed. One of the standards of the Myth Project is to have a list of links to articles pertinent to mythology. A mere list of gods with mostly empty space and dangling conjunctions serves no purpose and wastes space.
As originally designed, each description was linked to an article important to Mesopotamian mythology.
A template on Mesopotamian mythology is incomplete without a link to Mesopotamian astrology.
For example, Ishtar is paired with the article on Babylonian astrology, which is the historical origin of modern Western astrology. Planets were named after Mesopotamian gods. Ishtar was the planet Venus. This last pairing is interesting since it is also important to the field of comparative mythology comparing gods of the Near East with those of the Roman Empire.
A template on Mesopotamian mythology is incomplete without a link to Zecharia Sitchin's popular ancient astronaut theory.
Mesopotamian mythology has also appeared in popular literature such as the series by Zecharia Sitchin. Sitchin's science fiction series about the Mesopotamian gods purported that they were actually ancient astronauts. This has inspired a number of fictional and semi-fictional works, including popular films and TV series such as Stargate. Now I think his theory was science fiction and it it is extremely popular. The movie and TV series have generated millions of dollars and has attracted millions of viewers for decades. This shows how Mesopotamian mythology is relevant today.
These are just two examples of what was lost when half the Myth Box was blanked out. All descriptions were erased.
Others were:
- Utnapisthtim and the world flood: The world flood myth is what makes Utnapishtim important. He is the template for Noah's ark.
- Tammuz and new life: "New life" is what the epic of Tammuz about; he returns from the dead!
- Zu, the lion-eagle: Zu is interesting because of his bizarre shape: half lion, half eagle!
- Kingu, mankind's blood: Mankind was created out of Kingu's blood. This is a common theme in creation myths!
- Gilgamesh and the Cedar Forest: The hero Gilgamesh almost obtains immortality by travelling to the world of the gods: the Cedar Forest!
- Enlil and the 7 who decree fate: Mesopotamian mythology is based on these 7 gods!!!
- Resheph and plague and war: Resheph is the demon of plague and war. Another user User:Oliver Lineham agreed, and put in the latest link.
- Enkidu and Namtar had brief descriptions of what they are.
- Marduk and Babylon: Marduk is the high god and patron of Babylon, that's why this god is important!
How can a reader figure out what these Mesopotamian names are without a description?!!!
This Myth Box Series, as originally designed, matches exactly the beautiful Greek Myth series. Both break down the mythology into smaller pieces so as not to waste space and bandwidth with a needlessly long template. This makes for easy navigation and helps the reader understand the whole mythology by grouping it into topics.
This Myth Box is the introduction to the series. The main topics are introduced, and links to gods and concepts are displayed to attract interest.
The altered version does not seem to follow any particular criteria at all. It is half empty space without links to any topical articles whatsoever and with dangling conjunctions.
Without descriptions this Myth Box is useless.
- C. dentata 
22:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Yet more nonsense
How many freaking copies of this template have you made now, and why is it that you can;t make a single one that isn;t full of HUGE factual errors? Humbaba and Tiamat were not "GOOD" spirits at all, they were two of the most blatant examples of evil monsters in the freaking mythology, and that's just the most incredible error that is obvous even at a slight glance. The person making these infoboxes and shoving them everywhere has no clue whatsoever about the topic and keeps adding nonsense to them and reverting them when they are fixed. It's getting damn[ tedious to have to do this over and over just because some kid with no knowledge about the topics keeps insisting on having his way. DreamGuy 00:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
- It is nowhere clear that Tiamat is pure evil: the gods descend from her!
- It is inadvisable to make quick assumptions. Perhaps one might regard her as neutral. It any case, it would be rather easy to fix (rather than blanking it out or leaving extraneous 'ands' as you did a few dozen times). And yet if Tiamat is evil, then so is the universe and all the gods and all men. She is "Ummu-Hubur who formed all things."
- Humbaba of course is good. He guards the realm of the gods: the Cedar Forrest. This is why Enlil was enraged that Gilgamesh might slay him!
- By the way, you indicated more than a dozen times that Asakku were synonymous with demons, and several times changed the correct heading "Demons and monsters" to "Asakku." Not all demons are evil spirits! Of course, even some of the Mesopotamian monsters are good and important guardians. You also replaced a category Demons with a nonexistent "Demons|Asakku" thereby further confusing the two. (To prevent anyone else from making the same mistake, I have updated the heading to "Spirits and monsters.")
- Sadly, these are major factual errors.
