Talk:Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia/Archive 10

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Edit warring by User:IE linguist

Just because User:IE linguist thinks he is right does not constitute a WP:CONSENSUS. Without consensus his addition to this article is unacceptable. He hasn't even tried to compromise, he's spent his entire time trying to claim that I have falsified evidence. He has done nothing whatsoever to promote consensus. --Taivo (talk) 18:35, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:Vandalism is the malicious removal of encyclopedic content, or the changing of such content beyond all recognition, without any regard to our core content policies of neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), verifiability and no original research, is a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia.

Your intruding edit-warring on removing Bulgarian from the article violates WP:NPOV and WP:Consensus and as such this vandalism is reverted. Also see Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". IE linguist (talk) 18:52, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Your view of what WP:CONSENSUS constitutes is false as is your view of WP:NPOV. You don't understand the meaning of WP:BRD. You are violating it in a big way. --Taivo (talk) 18:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Ethnicities in Notable Persons Section

It was decided here that ethnicities should not be included in the Notable Persons section of the article. --Taivo (talk) 22:59, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist: These are not ethnicities, so the decision above is irrelevant to this problem. The term "Bulgarian politician" does not mean ethnic Bulgarian, but member of a Bulgarian political party in Bulgaria and part of the Bulgarian political system - we have ethic Turks, ethic Romani people, ethnic Jews, ethnic Armenians and a lot more which are Bulgarian politicians. If you are still not convinced, please let me know what ethnicity does every "American politician" have? American? Blagoy Shklifov is a Bulgarian dialectologist and phonologist, because he is a dialectologist and phonologist from Bulgaria, studied and lectured in Bulgaria, wrote a bunch of books on Bulgarian dialectology. Georgi Traykov is a Bulgarian politician, Head of State of Bulgaria (1964 - 1971), what other politician could he be? French? Please, take your time and try to see beyond your obsession of ethic people and POVs. --StanProg (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it is completely relevant if you read it. The issue of what a "Bulgarian politician" is is ambiguous at best--is he a politician in Bulgaria or is he a politician in Greece who claims to be Bulgarian. That's the whole point of the decision that was reached--that calling someone "Bulgarian" might be different things for different people. You aren't the first editor to try to push this and it's always been rejected as too ambiguous. Calling someone "Bulgarian" can mean an ethnic self-identification, it can mean citizenship in Bulgaria, it can mean someone who has a Bulgarian parent, it can mean someone who has a Bulgarian name, etc. It is 1) ambiguous, and therefore meaningless; 2) subject to pushing a particular POV, which has always been problematic in this article; 3) unverifiable; and 4) against existing consensus. This consensus isn't about any other article but this one. Because of the difficulties of POV pushing in the Balkans, the argument, "But we do X in other places" is irrelevant. --Taivo (talk) 05:04, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

"Bulgarian politician" means "a politician from/in Bulgaria". If he was an ethic Bulgarian who is politician in Greece, we would have been described as "Greek politician" (in general) or "Bulgarian politician from/in Greece" (if he was a member of a Bulgarian party in Greece - and there's no such party). These are basic principles when describing a politicians. Let's look at Blagoy Shklifov. He is self-identified Bulgarian, with Bulgarian name, with Bulgarian parents, a Bulgarian citizen, which worked, lived and died in Bulgaria and wrote several books on a Bulgarian dialectology of Greek Macedonia. His last work is subtitled as "Notes about the suffering of the Bulgarians in Aegean Macedonia in the twentieth century". In the "consensus link" it says "This is not advisable", not forbidden, so it's up to the editors to find the best solution for every case. --StanProg (talk) 15:36, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

You're just clasping at straws if you think that "Bulgarian politician" is unambiguous. It is totally ambiguous and can be used to push a pro-Bulgarian POV. And you're trying to edit more than just politicians. There simply is no objective control here over 1) who you claim to be "Bulgarian", 2) what evidence you use to prove "Bulgarian", 3) how reliable and non-POV the sources are that you use to demonstrate "Bulgarian", 4) whether or not the individual ever claimed to be "Bulgarian", 5) what the individual meant by "Bulgarian" if they even claimed to be such in some source (citizenship, residency, ethnicity, employment, etc.), 6) whether or not the individual was pushing a pro-Bulgarian POV rather than assessing who they were objectively, etc. There simply is no control. And you should heed that "This is not advisable". There are multiple reasons this is not advisable and I have named many of them. The best solution in this case? I've proven that the best solution is to leave the labels out (as it often is in the Balkans). --Taivo (talk) 15:59, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

There will be certainly a change, because the current list is ridiculous. This is just overprotection from something that is in the leading text the articles of these persons and specified clearly with the categorization of the articles. I did not push any POV, I just copied the descriptions from the leading texts of the articles, which I did not wrote. Maybe for now the best way is to think of a way to write precisely that they are related to Bulgaria, Greece, United States, Canada, etc, because this is a fact that does not have ethic context. --StanProg (talk) 17:58, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

The way you have written "Prime Minister of Bulgaria" is acceptable because it is not ambiguous or subject to broader interpretation. It is precise. But most of these names cannot be so unambiguously classified. The terms "Bulgarian" and "Macedonian" should be avoided. --Taivo (talk) 18:30, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Where did I wrote "Prime Minister of Bulgaria"? I wrote "Bulgarian politician". All Prime Ministers of Bulgaria are Bulgarian politicians, not French, not Spanish, not even Greek. --StanProg (talk) 19:29, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

"Anton Yugov, member of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1956 - 1962)". Or didn't you write that? That's an acceptable form because it's completely unambiguous. --Taivo (talk) 02:27, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"Bulgarian politician", however, is ambiguous because it could imply a politician elsewhere who is Bulgarian or ethnically Bulgarian. Canada has Ukrainian politicians who are Ukrainian by descent and sometimes even by language. In the US there is a new Somali-American Congresswoman. Some references to her are just as being "Somali". It happens more often than you want to believe. "Bulgarian politician" is not unambiguous. --Taivo (talk) 02:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

This article is already contested. Having those additional qualifiers for people will cause more editing warring and headaches. Its current form is neutral.Resnjari (talk) 02:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist: No, I added "member of the Bulgarian Communist Party". "Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1956 - 1962)" was already there. --StanProg (talk) 04:23, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Resnjari: I'm not qualifying them differently, than they are in the articles about them in both leading text and the categories. As you can see, my next edit is avoiding the "ambiguous" (according to Taivo) term "Bulgarian politician" for person that was a member of the Bulgarian communist party and Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Also, as you can see in my block log, I haven't been blocked so far for anything, including edit-warring, which is not the case with you both. If someone will get into edit-warring that would be most probably not me. --StanProg (talk) 04:23, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@StanProg:, its disappointing that you would go down that route. You have no consensus for your edits and are now from appearances accusing me of edit warring in this article. Please retract your comment about me.Resnjari (talk) 04:27, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Resnjari: According to which principle of Wikipedia for every single edit there must be a consensus before it is made and did you ask for consensus before you do an edit? --StanProg (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@StanProg:, if its contested then it goes into that area. These articles on Macedonia have been magnets for so many years for disruption and POV. Please, consideration needs to be taken into account. What your asking could opens the door for editors to start editing over what 'identity' so and so person was and some of those individuals changed their views on that over time. You know this article has complexities. Diligence should be exercised.Resnjari (talk) 14:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Resnjari: Again, according to which principle of Wikipedia for every single edit there must be a consensus before it is made and did you ask for consensus before you do an edit? Also, regarding your last comment how do I understand if an "edit" is contested before I do it? Do you always revert edits that you contest and do you think I should do the same? --StanProg (talk) 15:30, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Your initial edit got reverted. When that happens its off to discussion,, well that what is suggested by wiki. The wiki advice is WP:BRD (Bold, revert, discuss). Otherwise we end up with mess upon mess especially for an article like this.Resnjari (talk) 15:36, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@StanProg:, according to no principle. Taivo acknowledged forgetting or misunderstanding the 3RR, a policy of Wikipedia. You do not need to ask for consensus an ignorant of the policies user. BRD is an optional method. What Taivo implies by the BRD here is a Wikipedia:BRD misuse. Which is to let him edit-war under the pretext of BRD. StanProg, you don't need to victimize and humiliate yourself by discussing with a user, who is personally attacking you. Taivo is a misunderstanding editor, that you may ingore. He can't edit-war anymore. In an empathetic stance with StanProg, I call everybody to refrain from involving Taivo in anymore discussions with StanProg. Because Taivo is personally attacking StanProg multiple times on the user talk page. IE linguist (talk) 08:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Additions relating to Macedonian and Bulgarian languages

IE linguist, StanProg, TaivoLinguist, the recent additions need to be discussed. Please everyone refrain from personal attacks or other. A large chunk of the additions do not directly relate to the article itself. From my part what i am willing to support as additions to the article as of now are:

• the bit on early Slavonic Salonica dialect and it being the basis of influence on other Slavic languages via Church Slavonic.(it would need to be trimmed, no need for too much info about other languages i.e Russian, as article is about Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia.
• the bit about nasal vows (not sure if we need the extra bits about comparisons with Polish?)
• Have the bit about Bulgarian dialectologists.
• I would also have the bit from Macedonian linguists Božidar Vidoeski and Blaže Koneski.

For the wider article:

• The bit about Boukouvalas and Tsioulkas maybe in the body of the article in a sentence or two (as they were promoting pseudo science to Greek audiences in the early 20th century in trying to down play the Slavic nature of the spoken language in the region. But definitely not a whole paragraph on it in the language section as its wp:undue and POV.

What should not be in the article:

• Serbian dialectology bit, the source itself states it was done for nationalist reasons.(there are other wiki pages for that like Serbian nationalism.) Because the reach of modern Serbia never went into the region, its not even applicable to the article.

Other additions more discussion is needed but some slight rewording to make them not be POVish may be ok.Resnjari (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not part of this discussion, so don't involve me, unless you need my opinion or help. I just reverted a possible vandalism of an editor blocked 3 times for edit-warring. --StanProg (talk) 03:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

ok, StanProg, no problem. Best.Resnjari (talk) 03:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

To others who want to participate feel free.Resnjari (talk) 03:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Resnjari, your proposal is acceptable. I still hesitate whether there are additions that do not relate to the article itself, because I carefully wrote the section. This article is about a linguistic minority, so I added all this stuff with the various classifications. If it was about an ethnic minority, the language should also be classified, although the articles about ethnic groups give less weight, because, normally, separate articles for their languages exist. Here we don't have a wider article about the Slavic dialects of Greece. It could have been created, but not yet, so the only thing I could do is to try putting a section to add well.

I don't have problem with your intension to remove Serbian dialectology. But I made sure to represent anything in a light as the source does. The source Ioannidou discredits Belic as the only exception, who classified the dialects of Greek Macedonia as Serbian. The source showed the publications of the Greek teachers in a bad light, but who represent popular views in Greece, so I agree with you, that they are relevant. I added the claim with the nasal phonetic features, because the claim involves a classification, not the nasal vowels. The described features of Kostur dialect have been one of the five points of the thesis of the Lechitic-Bulgarian-Macedonian genetic relationship, introduced by Benyo Conev and held later by other Slavists: Popowska-Taborska, Samuil Bernstein and Schuster-Sewc. IE linguist (talk) 04:39, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

IE linguist you should have done your edits piecemeal and explained each one of them in the edit summary instead of ramming a whole section into the article. You are aware that this article has been highly contested in the past and is covered by WP:MOSMAC. At least half the section went into other things and deflected from what it should be focusing on.Resnjari (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec) This isn't an article about language, it's an article about an ethnic group of northern Greece that is defined by speaking a Slavic language. So 90% of the text that User:IE linguist wanted to add is too detailed for this article. User:Resnjari is on the right track to limit the additions, but I think that his suggestion is still too long. For example, the nasal vowel discussion is not really needed here. It would be appropriate in an article on South Slavic languages in general or East South Slavic languages in particular, but the focus of this article isn't the detailed historical linguistics of the Macedonian-Bulgarian speech community. Also the absence of any of the broader linguistic sources that don't label any of these Greek Macedonian dialects as Bulgarian is glaring. The language section should be one or two paragraphs at most; should state that a majority of linguists place most, if not all, of these dialects within the boundaries of the Macedonian language; and should mention that the easternmost dialects are transitional and placed in Bulgarian by some linguists. But the essay that User:IE linguist wanted to add is too detailed. --Taivo (talk) 05:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

TaivoLinguist, I agree its not about language, but a specific community. Thing is there are these redirects to this page Slavic dialects of Greece, Slavic languages of Macedonia (Greece), Slavic idiom (Greece), Slavic languages of northern Greece, Dopia, Slavic languages in Macedonia (Greece) etc. So something will have to be noted about the issue of language in the article and also the language element is a component for this community. Language is the last community signifier that differentiates them from their Greek surroundings, hence the name of article. Around half of IE linguist's additions are relevant done with some better wording on a few bits. The rest are not and they go into things about Serb issues or the Russians and of course a whole paragraph about two early 20th century Greek authors which is wp:undue. With a cut of the section that IE linguist wanted to place (removing the irrelevant data) it should give the article a 2 paragraph section on language. I think to that it would be good to add the table proposal i had about where the language is spoken based on the EU study.Resnjari (talk) 05:29, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Resnjari is right. Taivo is slightly biased and pro-Macedonian, while IE linguist and StanProg maintain pro-Bulgarian views to a certain degree. The language section should claim that many linguists place those dialects within the boundaries of the Macedonian language, but the easternmost dialects are transitional and are described as Bulgarian linguistic area by some linguists, corresponding to those in north. i.e. in Pirin Macedonia, described by many linguists as Bulgarian.Jingiby (talk) 06:25, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

ok then, i readd to the article roughly half of @IE linguist's edits and then we collectively fix some of the wording so its not POVish sounding. Thoughts everyone?Resnjari (talk) 06:36, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I might suggest placing the text (without the references perhaps) here before adding it to the article. That might save some time in the long run as we could all comment without too much fuss in the actual article. --Taivo (talk) 06:57, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good. ok then i'll set it up in here in a new section and ping everyone involved (its up them after if they want to partake in the discussion).Resnjari (talk)Resnjari (talk) 08:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jingiby: Can you please point which one of my edits regarding the problem was pro-Bulgarian? You are the third one accusing me of something, without any evidence. --StanProg (talk) 14:14, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

"Pro-Bulgarian views to a certain degree" is the exact phrase. We all the 3 are Bulgarians. I am also pro-Bulgarian to a certain degree, maybe. This is inevitably, I think. Regards. Jingiby (talk) 16:02, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jingiby: I do not have a pro-Bulgarian views, I have a pro-Wikimedian ones. Returning a huge chunk of well-sourced content removed by an editor that just does not agree with it partially is a technical thing, not pro-Bulgarian one. As one of the most active administrators in the Bulgarian wikipedia, I'm accused of "anti-Bulgarian views" on a weekly basis, so I hope you can understand my frustration when being marked as pro-Bulgarian. Being neutral is not "popular" for both sides of any discussion. --StanProg (talk) 18:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@StanProg:, you were perpetuating the Bulgarian side of an edit war--nothing more, nothing less. User:Jingiby is quite right. I could quibble as well at being marked as "Pro-Macedonian", but since the Bulgarians (and Greeks in other Macedonian contexts) usually always outnumber any actual Macedonians, my neutrality is always interpreted as "pro-Macedonian" since I don't always agree with the pro-Bulgarian or pro-Greek POV. I don't take offense, neither should you. If you're going to edit on the English Wikipedia, then you need to adapt to being labelled "pro-Bulgarian". --Taivo (talk) 20:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist: What "Bulgarian side"? I do not see sides in this. I also do not see what is the "pro-Bulgarian" in that text. I can only assume that you call everything that you do not agree with - "pro-Bulgarian". I see an editor that wrote a well sourced content, most probably spend a lot of time working on it and a guy that just because he does not agrees completely with all the information in it, reverts the whole contribution. No sides there, just a disruptive behaviour. I also saw problems in the contribution, but I did not removed the whole contribution just because I do not agree completely with it. To summarize: You see sides, I see disruptive behaviour. --StanProg (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Please, let stop this kind of monologues and discus Resnjari's proposal. Thank you in advance and my excuse if somebody was insulted from my comment above. To me, after being Bulgarian, to be pro-Bulgarian to some extend, is something normal. Regards. Jingiby (talk) 07:54, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The stance of Taivo is definetely pro-Macedonian, but there is no evidence that I maintain a pro-Bulgarian stance or that I am Bulgarian. Taivo has falsificated/misunderstood a bunch of sources in the sections above to remove any other classification than Macedonian. What I offered was an NPOV sourced representation. Not pro-Bulgarian, to any extent . IE linguist (talk) 08:31, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Protection?

Does this article need to be put under full protection, due to the edit warring? Thanks for any responses. EdJohnston (talk) 20:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I would say it's a borderline call. It's been untouched for 12 hours and the main editors involved in yesterday's brouhaha are now talking (above). If you decide to err on the side of caution, a short one should be sufficient. --Taivo (talk) 20:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: As far as I can see, there is a discussion above which hopefully will enable the community find an agreement. However, a short protection, say two days. would not be bad. Ktrimi991 (talk) 20:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I've fully protected the article following a request at ANEW and given that there is a more recent continuation of the edit war. FYI ping to EdJohnston. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:55, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

That was a good move. Thanks for your stewardship -- I've been watching this one and agree that intervention was necessary. Hopefully both sides can acknowledge there is some legitimacy in each others points, and come to a reasonable consensus. --Calthinus (talk) 18:07, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Callanecc, you did not follow my request at ANEW correctly. I have reported a user for violation of the three revert rule, I did not report a page for protection. Yet, the result of my report is a change to the status of the page. Why the report on the violation was dismissed? The user I reported is now calling names to StanProg [on the user talk page], which the latter user considers offensive. IE linguist (talk) 08:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

You made a request a ANEW, yes. However, it is completely up to administrator action what if any action should be taken in response to a request. In this situation I determined that a number of editors would need to be blocked to prevent the edit war so it would be better to protect the page to force discussion to occur instead. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:52, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm in agreement toward the decision taken by administrators. Hopefully the discussion in the previous thread will result in making the article better. Best.Resnjari (talk) 11:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Language section

The continuum of Macedonian and Bulgarian is spoken today in the prefectures of Florina and Pella, and to a lesser extent in Kastoria, Imathia, Kilkis, Thessaloniki, Serres and Drama.

According to Riki van Boeschoten, the Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are divided into three main dialects(Eastern, Central and Western), of which the Eastern dialect is used in the areas of Serres and Drama, and is closest to Bulgarian, the Western dialect is used in Florina and Kastoria, and is closest to Macedonian, the Central dialect is used in the area between Edessa and Salonica and is an intermediate between Macedonian and Bulgarian. Trudgill classifies certain peripheral dialects in the far east of Greek Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian language area and the rest as Macedonian dialects. Victor Friedman considers those Macedonian dialects, particularly those spoken as west as Kilkis, to be transitional to the neighbouring South Slavic language.

Macedonian dialectologists Božidar Vidoeski and Blaže Koneski consider the eastern Macedonian dialects to be transitional to Bulgarian, including the Maleševo-Pirin dialect.

Bulgarian dialectologists claim all dialects and do not recognize the Macedonian. They divide Bulgarian dialects mainly into Eastern and Western by the Yat border (dyado, byal/dedo, bel "grandpa, white"(m., sg.)) stretching from Salonica to the meeting point of Iskar and Danube, except for the isolated phenomena of the Korcha dialect as an of Eastern Bulgarian Rup dialects in the western fringes.

A series of ethnological and pseudo-linguistic works were published by three Greek teachers, notably Boukouvalas and Tsioulkas, whose publications demonstrate common ideological and methodological similarities, all the three published etymological lists tracing every single Slavic word to Ancient Greek with fictional correlations and they were ignorant of the dialects they wrote about, and the Slavic languages entirely. Among them, Boukouvalas promoted an enormous influence of the Greek language on a Bulgarian idiom and a discussion about their probable Greek descent. Tsioulkas followed him by publishing a large and illogical book, where he "proved" through an "etymological" approach, that these idioms are a pure Ancient Greek dialect. A publication of the third teacher followed, Giorgos Georgiades, who presented the language as a mixture of Greek, Turkish and other loanwords, but was incapable of deifining the dialects as either Greek or Slav.

Serbian dialectology usually doesn't extend the Serbian dialects to Greek Macedonia, but an unconventional classification has been maken by Aleksandar Belić, a convinced Serbian nationalist, who regarded the dialects as Serbian. In his classification he distinguished three categories of dialects in Greek Macedonia: a Serbo-Macedonian dialect, a Bulgaro-Macedonian teritorry where Serbian is spoken and a Non-Slavic territory.

The nasal vowels are absent in all Slavic dialects except for the dialects of Macedonian in Greece and the Lechitic dialects (Polabian, Slovincian, Polish and Kashubian). This, along with the preservation of the paroxitonic in the Kostur dialect and Polish, is part of a series of isoglosses shared with the Lechitic dialects, which led to the thesis of a genetic relationship between Proto-Bulgarian and Proto-Macedonian with Proto-Polish and Proto-Kashubian.

The Old Church Slavonic language, the earliest recorded Slavic language, was based on the Salonica dialects. Church Slavonic, long-used as a state language further north in East and West Slavic states and as the only one in Wallachia and Moldavia until the 18th century, influenced other Slavic languages on all levels, including morphonology and vocabulary. 70% of Church Slavonic words are common to all Slavic languages, the influence of Church Slavonic is especially pronounced in Russian, which today consists of mixed native and Church Slavonic vocabulary, analogically to the Romance and Germanic vocabulary of English, but in Russian the Church Slavonisms are not perceived as foreign due to their Slavic roots. The Russian linguist Zhuravlev argues that the Church Slavonic language is the "passkey" to the Russian nation's language, history, spiritual culture, whole life and ethos, estimating that "55% of Russian - words, syntactic features, and so on goes back in one way or another to Slavonic".

References

I've struck out the parts which are not relevant to the article (as per previous thread) to section at hand and or to the wider article itself. I'm pinging those editors (IE linguist, StanProg, TaivoLinguist, Jingiby who have placed comments in the last 24 hours on the talkpage. If you wish to participate, your more than welcome and so is anyone else as well.Resnjari (talk) 08:32, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Well to get the ball rolling, the language section would be easier for a reader to read if it started off chronologically. The Salonica bit about early Slavonic would go well to be the first part to the section. Thoughts ?Resnjari (talk) 14:54, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

This section sounds too much like an academic paper as written and needs to be written more like an encyclopedia for non-academic readers, who don't expect to read a lot of "he said, she said" with names cited in the text. I propose that the section should begin (with appropriate refs):

• "The Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are part of the dialect continuum between Standard Macedonian and Standard Bulgarian. Most linguists consider the majority of these dialects to be Macedonian, while the far eastern dialect of Serres-Drama is Bulgarian."

This will make the primary linguistic information for the vast majority of readers more quickly accessible so they can move on. The section can then proceed to more arcane topics. With all due respect, User:Resnjari, a strictly chronological ordering isn't always useful in an encyclopedia. We should order these articles more like newspapers--with the information that the majority of readers seek first and then details following. The details following that first paragraph can be ordered chronologically, but that first paragraph is key. --Taivo (talk) 15:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Don't know about others but that works too. I'm ok with it.Resnjari (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

That whole paragraph about the nasal vowels is not appropriate in this article. It belongs in an article on Proto-Slavic, not here. This article is about the contemporary people of Greek Macedonia who happen to speak South Slavic dialects, not about the language itself. --Taivo (talk) 15:56, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I was 50/50 about that as as it refers to things about Polish as well. Although i see where your coming from. I mean if there is going be any bits about language comparisons obviously space should be awarded to Macedonian and Bulgarian primarily.Resnjari (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Mentioning the relationship between Old Church Slavonic and the Greek Macedonian dialects is good, since many readers will know about Old Church Slavonic and be interested in its connection to these dialects, but all that stuff about cognate percentages, etc. ia irrelevant to this article and should be in the article on Old Church Slavonic. Again, this article isn't about the arcane details of nasalized vowels in South Slavic or Old Church Slavonic, it's an article about a group of people. --Taivo (talk) 15:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts were in that direction. Cutting that percentage stuff would do. Just a one sentence mention about influences on other languages. A reader can chase up more info on other articles via links/sources.Resnjari (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Finally, the paragraphs about the division of the Greek Macedonian dialects are appropriate, but IMHO too complex at present. They can be cut in half and still convey the primary information that the Slavic language spoken in Greek Macedonia isn't monolithic. I'm not sure that the details (and the proponents' names) are appropriate in the text. A detailed summary would be better. Also, the only topographic names in the paragraph should be from the Greek side of the border. Anything about dialect divisions that focuses on Bulgarian territory is irrelevant to this article, which is strictly about people on the Greek side of the border. Something like "The far eastern dialect of the Serres-Drama region is also spoken in neighboring Bulgaria" is good, but "The far eastern dialect of the Serres-Drama region is also spoken in X, Y, and Z east of the ABC River", where X, Y, Z, and ABC are all in Bulgaria, is bad. --Taivo (talk) 16:06, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree on the topographic stuff and wording the dialectal divisions. Only regions that come close or are neighbours have relevance due to historical contact and language area as opposed to far off ones. Agree in giving primacy to those as well.Resnjari (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Post-finally, I agree with all of User:Resnjari's strikeouts. --Taivo (talk) 16:13, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Hopefully others will comment. Best.Resnjari (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I have committed a lot to my work, and be more relaxing, and busy these days. @Resnjari, I can finally see an objective proposal. You proposed the first suspended row to be trimmed or moved to another section. Is it an existing section or a new one? @Taivo, I agree for your proposed introducing sentence. It is NPOV. These are my general advices to the editors of the section:

1) The length. If the section I added seems too detailed to anyone, the proportion, dedicated to the dialects in this article seems short to me. Which I think are the main priority of this article. In the main aspect this is an article about something linguistic, whether it is called a group, speakers or a minority. They belong to various ethnic groups, with the language as the collective link. A similar community is the Torlakian dialect, which is spoken by various ethnic groups. I think anyone should not be discouraged to spare so much space for writing about the dialects here. I would even suggest that each dialect is described in a separate new section in this article, along with the main phonetic features mentioned? If the claims are sourced to reliable sources and are about the Slavic dialects in Greek Macedonia, I won’t see anything unnecessary in any additions. Along with the shortening, I would advise everybody to find more sources and expand the section, because I am the only one, adding to this section right now. I think this is the main article. Not only because the “Slavic dialects of Greece” redirects to this article, but because this article is about speakers of several dialects, more than 5, and should describe each one of them separately. I would like to see a table with some features of all dialects in this article.

2) The number of paragraphs. My stand is, that in each paragraph I added, there is a linguistic classification, relevant to the Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia, including the one, which Taivo described as a "paragraph about nasal vowels". They are susceptible to be reworded, moved or rearranged. IE linguist (talk) 00:40, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

User:IE linguist, I think you might misunderstand the point of this article. It's not about "Slavic dialects", but "Slavic speakers". It'a an article about the people, not about the language or linguistics. So the people have to be the primary focus here and not the minute details of the language. This article is not comparable to Torlakian dialect because that is an article about a "dialect" and not "speakers". If you think there should be an article that details the dialects of the Macedonian-Bulgarian dialect continuum that are spoken in Greek Macedonia, then create it. That would be the most appropriate place for the detailed linguistic description of the dialects that you are envisioning. But to load this article up with detailed linguistics is not appropriate for an article about "speakers". That's why I advocate more summarizing and less detail in this section. --Taivo (talk) 02:02, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to propose the following as a starting point for simplification of the section (with appropriate references added later):

• The Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are part of the dialect continuum between Standard Macedonian and Standard Bulgarian. Most linguists consider the majority of these dialects to be Macedonian, while the far eastern dialect of Serres-Drama is Bulgarian. As with all dialect continua, drawing strict divisions between the varieties is difficult. Within the Macedonian portion, a western dialect and central dialect are often recognized. The Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are distinctive among the South Slavic languages because they preserve the Old Church Slavonic nasalized vowels, which have been lost in the rest of South Slavic. Old Church Slavonic was, itself, a Greek Macedonian speech form from Salonika.

I think that this captures what a reader who comes to this page will expect about language without getting into too much detail. Again, some of the detail might be interesting for linguists, but this article isn't about the language, but about the speakers. IE linguist, if you'd like to create an article "Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia", I can help if you're not sure how to start. I've created a few in my time. --Taivo (talk) 17:23, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

TaivoLinguist, apologies i missed this important bit due to having to deal with the comments of others on this page. Anyway your proposal sounds good. What do others think ? Its a go ?Resnjari (talk) 12:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@Resnjari: I will ask for the 2nd time to not ping me on the topics in which discussion I'm not participating. Regarding this issue I reverted a possible vandalism i.e. removal of huge content with reasons that are against the Wikipedia principles. My revert was not related to the content, but to the violation of an important Wikipedia principle. If you open a topic about your destructive behaviour, you can ping me. I would also like to thank Taivo and Resnjari for they stopped vandalizing and engaging in an edit wars, and for starting a constructive discussion, even under the threat to be blocked. The next good step will be to start allowing other editors to contribute to the article without their explicit approval via pre-edit consensus. Have a productive discussion. --StanProg (talk) 14:28, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

You became a willing participant in the edit warring so stop with the crocodile tears and your holier-than-thou justifications for your own misbehavior. The rest of us have moved on without you. --Taivo (talk) 16:45, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@StanProg. I won’t ping you in future. The last ping was a courtesy call out of respect as a fellow editor as you did participate in the previous talkpage discussions. It’s disappointing the words you use like "threat" and make unfounded claims toward me but i am not surprised.Resnjari (talk) 10:44, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Slavic dialects in Greece redirects here, i.e. there was such article, but the whole info was displaced here. Check its former content, please. Jingiby (talk) 08:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Taivo, you are drawing each discussion in into a quarrel. I read your proposal above. It is a synthesis containing WP:PN. It is simple: this article should represent all different classifications of the Slavic dialects in Greek Macedonia, sourced to reliable sources without synthesis. There is no any indication of how long the information on the dialects should be in this article, but it is indefinite and dependent on how all reliable sources are represented correctly. There is a consensus to merge the article Slavic dialects of Greece with this one and the main article redirects here. If Taivo wants to move any information about them into the deleted article, he should start a discussion to restore it.IE linguist (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

• User:IE linguist, an accusation of "Patent Nonsense" is rather strong considering that my proposed wording contains a summary of every single one of your paragraphs. "All different classifications" (detailed) is appropriate for a language article, but not really here. An expansion of the classification sentence somewhat might be warranted, however, if there are notable differences between them. A laundry list of every single historical classification, however, I think is too much. That seems to be your primary objection to my proposed revision. --Taivo (talk) 10:45, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• User:Jingiby, thank you for the link to the prior article at "Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia". It took some looking, but I found two different AfD discussions. I found this discussion from 2008 to keep the article, but it wasn't moved until 2011. I managed to find this discussion from 2011 (when the articles were merged). It's really a weak deletion decision if you ask my opinion. The discussion in 2008 ended in a strong "Keep", but the discussion from 2011 was mixed at best (Jingiby you were one of the voices against merging). The main argument then was that the content should be split between Macedonian language and Bulgarian language. I know that I'm a strong proponent of WP:CONSENSUS (that's why we're having a problem here in the first place), but when that consensus doesn't seem to have been properly reached, especially when the Keep consensus was so strong previously, seems to be odd. But let's assume that the consensus in 2011 should stand for now. --Taivo (talk) 10:32, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

IE linguist, i'm not against such content being in the article. If anything its long overdue. But have a look at your additions. Half are not applicable to the topic as they steer off into other topics. This can get done. Work toward a wording that can be incorporated into the article. We are not far from that. On previous articles about the language matter etc, votes were for keep and then delete etc. After those AfD discussions this is the situation that is and its time to get something in order about a language section. Everybody enough of the trivial blather. What parts are in, what parts are out, what parts are to be trimmed or shortened. Those that want to start placing proposals for sentences up, do so.Resnjari (talk) 10:44, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I've just noticed that there are already a plethora of detailed articles on Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects, such as Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect, Maleševo-Pirin dialect, Samokov dialect, Southwestern Bulgarian dialects, and many more. Another article on dialects of Greek Macedonia would be too much on second thought. --Taivo (talk) 11:07, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

We just have a small simplified section on language. Its important because of the nature of the community's main identity marker being language that distinguishes it from its Greek surroundings. Those articles on the dialects can be in the language section as a See also. Like this a reader can get the full context and then explore further if they so wish.Resnjari (talk) 11:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that the ramifications of my thinking through this are that I'm still convinced that the linguistic details should not be here, but that there should be links to dialect articles (where there are linguistic details). I'm happy with the summary that I've written although User:IE linguist might be correct to include a bit more on the classification. --Taivo (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I know where your coming from but from another perspective not having anything will result in this kind of situation in future (previous separate article/s of this community's spoken language were deleted). Something to the point will address the matter and give this article a sense of stability moving forward. Best.Resnjari (talk) 11:33, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I suggest the table from the deleted article to be added to this article, probably to a "Dialects" section. The table is backed by a relaible source. The proposal of Resnjari, on top, is acceptable. Although I do not agree, that half of the content from the section I have written is not applicable. In the original version the entire section is straight on the subject-matter. IE linguist (talk) 16:52, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

That is a good table, I agree, but it is too much detail for this article, which is not about language, but people. Does that table already occur in any of the dozen articles on the dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian? It's just too much for this non-linguistic article, IMHO. --Taivo (talk) 17:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

No, the table does not occur in any article. It is not too much to move it from a merged article, which redirects here. Back the length limitations with policies please. IE linguist (talk) 17:09, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec)Actually, I think that it is, since, as I have stated many times, this is not a linguistic article. There is a lot of information there that should be in an article, just not this one. Does this table already occur in any other article on Macedonian/Bulgarian dialects? If so, then we can just link here. I'm also going to start an RfC (below) about whether or not to recreate the "Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia" article. That is actually the perfect place for that table, not here. But since you and I disagree on this, and we are but 2/3 editors, we need more input. This is the heart of our previous discussion--that you want this to be a linguistic article and I point out that it's not and shouldn't be. --Taivo (talk) 17:18, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

It's not about length, it's about topic. The topic of this article is not language or linguistics, it's an ethnic group. Language description and linguistics is just a minor and peripheral issue in terms of describing the history and ethnography of this group of people. --Taivo (talk) 17:18, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding the topic of the article. It is about a linguistic minority, not an ethnic minority. It consists of multiple ethnic groups and I have given the example with the Torlakian dialect above. And you misunderstood me, I have never claimed, that I want this to be a linguistic article.IE linguist (talk) 17:27, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I do understand you, that this ethnic group is defined by a common language (treating the dialect continuum as a whole), but that doesn't mean that it's appropriate to describe that language in detail linguistically. And I disagree that it's comparable to Torlakian dialect which is an article about a specific language variety and not about people (the people are mentioned but only peripherally, in one short paragraph, "Ethnography"). This is the exact opposite: it's an article about people who are defined by using a language, and only peripherally about the details of the language. And you can, indeed, treat the speakers of these dialects of Greek Macedonia as one group because they share a common history through their interaction with the Greek government. I've started an RfC (below) to get comments from a wider group of editors since it doesn't seem that you and I will agree on this. It takes about 24 hours for the RfC to be listed in the appropriate list, so some patience will be needed. --Taivo (talk) 17:33, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

This minority is not an ethnic group, but multiple ethnic groups. IE linguist (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Though i agree with the proposal for a separate article i still think a small language section should exist in this article (with a link to the larger article), with the bit that Taivo summerised above + my proposal about a table that shows how many settlements exists per administrative unit as this article is about the people. So like this it offers a reader some info and chance too explore further in the article on dialects. Like this everyone gets something and no one loses out. Thoughts?Resnjari (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

You are making things out of nothing. Now we are getting long and complicated discussions for simple classifications. I won't particiapte in a disucssion for resuming an article, as it doesn't matters to me where the text would be. I would rather exclude the table from this article than slowing down the discussion so much, and leave only the classifications in this article. IE linguist (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wait which table are you referring to. The one i proposed or the one you were referring too. Mine is about the people, and where they are located. (i outlined it above).Resnjari (talk) 17:59, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The one I referred to from the deleted article. Would you link your table again? IE linguist (talk) 18:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

There are not "multiple ethnic groups" unless you are defining ethnic group to mean the inhabitants of a single village. Ethnicity is much broader than "dialect". There is one West South Slavic ethnicity involved here. Greeks are not involved because they speak Greek and not Macedonian/Bulgarian. Unless you're talking about microethnicities, then there is only one people who speak a Slavic variety in Greek Macedonia. --Taivo (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

If the comment's directed to me, no not ethnic groups, just people who speak Slavonic in Greek Macedonia. Its data from the Euromosaic report [3] (this link works, goes direct to the report). I wanted to make a table from the data with ten bullet points.Resnjari (talk) 18:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

There is no one West South Slavic ethnicity involved here. IE linguist (talk) 18:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

My apologies, User:Resnjari for being unclear that my comment was directed at User:IE linguist. So whether you treat these people as one ethnic group (as I do) or as multiple ethnic groups (as the two of you do), it's still about people and the history of a people, not about the linguistic details of the language varieties they speak. The language section as I've proposed above (with a modest expansion of the classification sentences), is enough so that readers who aren't interested in linguistics can learn about these people. The great detail that IE linguist wants (along with all his references) would then be perfectly appropriate for a new article that focuses entirely on linguistics. Just because this group of people is defined by the language they speak doesn't mean that this article has to be a linguistic article. It's still an ethnographic/historical article and should stay that way. If we define a group of people by their eye and hair color, that doesn't mean that a detailed discussion of the genetics and chemistry behind eye color and hair color is appropriate for an article about them. The same is true of linguistics in this article. These people are defined by the fact that they speak a Slavic language. But a discussion of the inner workings of Slavic languages isn't appropriate. --Taivo (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2018 (UTC)