User talk:Roy1991

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[edit] Where are you Roy?

The custom is to build a nice user page on the user page. Then this page is for the discussion. Whatever is left here you get a message notification on. You sign comments with four tilde's, which automatically puts in your user name.

Something is fishy here Roy. You ask me a question and you leave no identity. There is absolutely nothing here at all. For an interested editor that is peculiar.

You must have gone pretty far back in the history to have dug me out. I can't even remember what I said or what kind of condition I left my refs in. Right now I'm working on other stuff. Eventually I will get back to the Germanics. If you want me to take you seriously and not just tag you as a chain-puller, put in a user page, tell me what your interest is. The world is full of chain-pullers you know. Nothing is more futile and vain than dealing with them. Around and around you go.

When I finish an article I leave it for a while until I'm ready to go back. That saves me from getting jerked around. As far as I'm concerned, a chimpanzee can critique it. I did my job. Often when I go back the article looks nothing like the way I left it. Eventually articles attract the attention of more serious-minded editors and they fix and improve it. Unless I have a reason to go back I am not going back right now. I am trained in the subject matter and I don't mind discussions with you if you are sincere. If you aren't, I don't have time to argue or play games.

So, stick in a user page, let me know what your interest is, and we can go from there.

If you happen to be new to Wikipedia welcome aboard. We're supposed to welcome newcomers. Watch this, I just entered four tilde's:Dave 01:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vangiones etc

Thanks buddy. That was a mature answer. Let's see if you can keep that up.

Welcome again to the English Wikipedia.

I took a quick look at the article and though academically sound it does lack a references section and the notes are in parentheses in the text. Maybe it is time to go over it. When I did it I was less indoctrinated in the ways of Wikipedia. What they want are references, references, references. Things that might seem obvious to you or to me are not so to the general public and the public wants to know about the integrity of the stuff they are reading. The references idea also has been evolving on Wikipedia. New formats have been made available. Before we go any further I think you should look at a Wikipedia star article in your subject of interest: Campaign history of the Roman military. You have no idea how terrible that article used to be. I used it as an example of bad articles. After much sweat, toils and tears of the main author, who is also interested in your topic (and is an atheist too), it is now an example of a good article, but more importantly, it has nearly the latest formats. Take a look also at Charles II.

If your interest is whetted there is a lot to do on Rome here. Always remember your words are getting more distribution than the articles of scholars, but not ostensibly under your name. That is the price paid for publicity. Whatever you say here can't be taken back even the stuff in these discussions. So speak here as you would in public, thoughtfully, one hopes. The main policies are the references and the neutral point of view. If you lose your temper never let on that you have done so. The more you lose it the more you provoke attacks. There is a hierarchy here of a number of levels. They function mainly as the Wikipolice catching perpetrators of all sorts and blocking them from Wikipedia. Sometimes they are not fair. Sometimes the other editors are not fair. You have to live with it.

The Vangiones. I used mainly the ancient authors in writing that article and also some standard reference works. I'm going over the article supplying the missing references as best I can, but it will be a while. Meanwhile I do not know how much classical research you are accustomed to doing. Tacitus as I recall figured heavily in my research. By the way, you needn't suffer very much from lack of classical books because most of the classical authors are on the Internet. But a good book or two on the topic is always useful. Scholarly articles are on the Internet now also. You have to pay for most but many have the first page free, and some are entirely free, and some are previewed on Google books, which gives you much of the book for free.

Try also Smith and Perseus although the Perseus servers are furiously slow. Try also Google, Google Scholar and Google Books. I got no doubt you will soon turn up ample material on those two cities.

Meanwhile I have to revisit the article and supply the deficits. You can use me but not for a while. Soon, soon.

You don;t have to keep all this stuff on your discussion page. You can archive it or delete it, but it will always be in the history, unless they lose a disk.Dave 17:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on the colonia

Bonjour Roy. I think you must already have been clued in to this and set me up. I notice it comes up in certain blogs on the Internet. Anyway thanks for tipping me off. I got my information from Hazlett's Gazeteer and also Orbis Latinus. I should have known though when neither one of them cited any ancient sources that something was wrong. I checked the unabridged Latin dictionary and they just gave up: there are so many Augusta's that they didn't want to list them all. But all the dictionaries I have tell the same story: they mention a theoretical augusta Vangionum which would mean the Augustan colony of the Vangiones, but no one says at all there is any mention of such a colony in the ancient sources. I searched all the ancient sources I could find. No trace. I searched the inscriptions even. No deal. So I formulated the conclusion that I put in the article. It seems unlikely that such an important city was NOT a colonia and the printed word may very well have reflected a tradition known at Worms. Our only other alternative is to qvetch about those awful Worms liars as many do. I don't like that one because Orbis Latinus is actually a source albeit a late one. Well that is all the time I have for now. The article could use more footnotes and references. Later. If you turn up anything -anything at all - coins, inscriptions, obscure authors - do put it in the article, will you?Dave 15:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)