Talk:Chaldean Diocese of Amid

Tomb of Chaldean metropolitan Shlemun Bar Sra

I remember studying the inscription on the tomb of Shelmun Bar Sra (d.1929) in the church of Mar Pethion when I was in Diyarbakir 20 years ago, but I don't have a photograph of it. Are there any Chaldean or Syrian Catholic Wikipedia editors living in Diyarbakir who could upload a photo of the inscription?

Djwilms (talk) 04:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Assyrian Edit Wars

Dear Cuchullain, I have just discovered that the article Amid (Chaldean Diocese), which I wrote a couple of months ago, has recently been vandalised in the usual way by Assyrian nationalists, who have replaced well-established terms such as 'Nestorian', 'Chaldean' and 'Syriac' with their absurd politically-correct equivalents 'Assyrian', 'Chaldo-Assyrian' (that's a new one on me) and 'neo-Aramaic'. It's not so much the sheer mindless inanity of these edits that I object to as their tendency to spoil my own limpid, well-considered prose. In particular, I find the use of the term 'Assyrian Church of the East' as an adjective (doubtless replacing my earlier 'Nestorian') deeply offensive. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this sort of knee-jerk editing? Is there any way of booby-trapping the word 'Nestorian' on Wikipedia, so that a mild (or even severe) electric shock is administered to any frothing Assyrian nationalist who attempts to change it? Ah, how I long for the authoritative grace of the old Encyclopedia Britannica, whose articles were written by scholars who knew their subject and wrote stylish English. William Wright's magisterial 1887 article Syriac Literature can still be read with profit and delight today, but I doubt if he would ever have finished it if he had constantly been forced to fend off Assyrian spoilers deleting 'Syriac' and replacing it with 'neo-Aramaic'.

Beneath the humour, I am making a serious point. How can Wikipedia stop these dispiriting and time-wasting guerilla attacks?

Djwilms (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)