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Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg; on the north by Newtown Creek and the neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens; and on the west by the East River. The neighborhood has a large Polish immigrant and Polish-American community, containing many Polish restaurants, markets, and businesses, and it is often referred to as Little Poland.

Originally farmland—many of the farm owners' family names, such as Meserole (Messerole) and Calyer, are current street names—the residential core of Greenpoint was built on parcels divided during the Industrial Revolution and late 19th century, with rope factories and lumber yards lining the East River to the west, while the northeastern section along the Newtown Creek through East Williamsburg became an industrial maritime area.

Greenpoint has long held a reputation of being a working class and immigrant neighborhood, and it initially attracted families and workers with its abundance of factory jobs, heavy industry and manufacturing, shipbuilding, and longshoreman or dock work. Since the early 2000s, a building boom in the neighborhood has made the neighborhood increasingly a center of nightlife and gentrification, and a 2005 rezoning enabled the construction of high density residential buildings on the East River waterfront. There have also been efforts to reclaim the rezoned East River waterfront for recreational use and also to extend a continuous promenade into the Newtown Creek area.

Greenpoint is part of Brooklyn Community District 1, and its primary ZIP Code is 11222. It is patrolled by the 94th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.

Early colonization and agricultural era
At the time of European settlement in New York, Greenpoint was inhabited by the Keskachauge (Keshaechqueren) Indians, a sub-tribe of the Lenape. Contemporary accounts describe the area as remarkably verdant and beautiful, with Jack pine and oak forest, meadows, fresh water creeks and briny marshes. Water fowl and fish were abundant. European settlers originally used the "Greenpoint" name to refer to a small bluff of land jutting into the East River at what is now the westernmost end of Freeman Street, but eventually it came to describe the whole peninsula.

In 1638, the Dutch West India Company negotiated the right to settle Brooklyn from the Lenape. The first recorded European settler of what is now Greenpoint was Dirck Volckertsen (Batavianized from Holgerssøn), a Norwegian immigrant who in 1645 built a $1 1/2$-story farmhouse there with the help of two Dutch carpenters. It was built in the contemporary Dutch style just west of what is now the intersection of Calyer Street and Franklin Street. There he planted orchards and raised crops, sheep and cattle. He was called Dirck de Noorman by the Dutch colonists of the region, Noorman being the Dutch word for "Norseman" or "Northman". The creek that ran by his farmhouse became known as Norman Kill (Creek); it ran into a large salt marsh and was later filled in.

Volckertsen received title to the land after prevailing in court one year earlier over a Jan De Pree, who had a rival claim. He initially commuted to his farm by boat and may not have moved into the house full time until after 1655, when the small nearby settlement of Boswyck was established, on the charter of which Volckertsen was listed along with 22 other families. Volckertsen's wife, Christine Vigne, was a Walloon. Volckertsen had had periodic conflicts with the Keshaechqueren, who killed two of his sons-in-law and tortured a third in separate incidents throughout the 1650s. Starting in the early 1650s, he began selling and leasing his property to Dutch colonists, among them Jacob Haie (Hay) in 1653, who built a home in northern Greenpoint that was burned down by Indians two years later. Jan Meserole established a farm in 1663; his farmhouse at what is now 723 Manhattan Avenue stood until 1919 and last served as a Young Women's Hebrew Association.

The Hay property and other holdings came into the possession of Pieter Praa, a captain in the local militia, who established a farm near present-day Freeman Street and McGuinness Boulevard, and went on to own most of Greenpoint. Volckertsen died in about 1678 and his grandsons sold the remainder of the homestead to Pieter Praa when their father died in 1718; the name of Norman Avenue remains as testimony to Volckertsen's legacy. Praa had no male heirs when he died in 1740, but the farming families of his various daughters formed the core of Greenpoint for the next hundred years or so. By the time of the American Revolutionary War, Greenpoint's population was entirely five related families:
 * Abraham Meserole, a grandson of Pieter Praa, and his family lived on the banks of the East River between the present-day India and Java Streets;
 * Jacob Meserole (brother of Abraham) and his family farmed the entire south end of Greenpoint and built a house between present day Manhattan Avenue and Lorimer Street near Norman Avenue;
 * Jacob Bennett, son-in-law of Pieter Praa, and his family farmed the land in the northern portion of Greenpoint and built their house near present-day Clay Street roughly between present day Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street;
 * Jonathan Provoost, son-in-law of Pieter Praa, and his family farmed the eastern portion of Greenpoint, and lived in the house built by Praa;
 * Jacobus Calyer, a grandson-in-law of Pieter Praa, and his family farmed the western portion of Greenpoint, and lived in the house built by Volckertsen.

The British Army had an encampment in Greenpoint during the American Revolution, which caused considerable hardship for the families; Abraham Meserole's son was imprisoned on suspicion of revolutionary sympathies.

Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the farms were quite isolated from the rest of Brooklyn, connected only to one another by farm lanes and to the rest of Bushwick Township by a single road, Wood Point Road (now Bushwick Avenue). The families used long boats to travel to Manhattan to sell their farm produce. Little historical information exists about this period of Greenpoint's history other than the personal papers and recorded oral history of these five families.

19th-century industrialization

Greenpoint first began to change significantly when entrepreneur Neziah Bliss married into the Meserole family in the early 1830s after purchasing land from them. He eventually bought out most of the land in Greenpoint. In 1834 he had the area surveyed, and in 1839 opened a public turnpike along what is now Franklin Street. He established regular ferry service to Manhattan around 1850. All of these initiatives contributed to the rapid and radical transformation of Greenpoint, which was annexed to the City of Brooklyn in 1855.

In the years that followed Greenpoint established itself as a manufacturing district. Its largest industries were shipbuilding, porcelain and pottery, and glassworks, but the area had other industrial concerns such as brass and iron foundries; breweries; drug plants; book, furniture, box, and boiler makers; sugar refineries; and machine shops. Germans and Irish arrived in the mid-19th century and large numbers of Poles began arriving before the turn of the century. The homes built for the merchants and the buildings erected for their workers sprang up along streets that lead down to the waterfront. Today, this area is on the National Register of Historic Places as the Greenpoint Historic District.

Greenpoint's East River waterfront holds the maritime history of the community. The buildings that formerly manufactured the ropes for the shipbuilding industry are still there. Long a site of shipbuilding, the neighborhood's dockyards were used to build the USS Monitor, the Union Army's first ironclad fighting ship built during the American Civil War. It was launched on Bushwick Creek. The Monitor, together with seven other ironclads, was built at the Continental Ironworks in Greenpoint. In 1866, the largest wooden ship ever built up to that time, The Great Republic, was built along Newtown Creek. Glass-making was also a large industry in Greenpoint, and by the 1880s the neighborhood housed 18 of the 20 glass makers in the city of Brooklyn, as well as all of the porcelain and pottery manufacturers in the city.

Charles Pratt's Astral Oil Works also opened on the Greenpoint waterfront in the 1860s. Pratt sold his interest to John D. Rockefeller's recently formed Standard Oil Trust in 1874. By 1875 Greenpoint had some 50 refineries. The Astral Apartments were built as housing for workers at Astral Oil in 1886.

An American manufacturer of porcelain wares who operated between 1862 and 1922, the Union Porcelain Works, had their factory located at 300 Eckford Street in Greenpoint. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report the company was "one of the most famous in the country, both for its innovative approach to the manufacture of porcelain and for the quality of its products which was highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic" and was "a major force in shaping an American stylistic tradition for ceramics and porcelain".

20th and 21st centuries

The petroleum industry continued to expand, despite the occasional catastrophe. On September 13, 1919, the Standard Oil refinery caught fire and soon spread flaming liquids into neighboring oil works and Newtown Creek.

In 1933 Greenpoint gained access to the New York City Subway, with the opening of the IND Crosstown Line (currently serving the ), running under Manhattan Avenue from Nassau Avenue to Queens. In 1937 the line was extended to Downtown Brooklyn, providing direct access from Greenpoint to points south.

The manufacturing industry of Greenpoint declined after World War II. Eberhard Faber's pencil factory, once the largest manufacturer of lead pencils in the United States, operated on West Street from 1872 until 1956. The company's former buildings were designated a historic district by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2007.

The Greenpoint Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Environmental difficulties and litigation
Greenpoint community residents and activists have periodically banded together, sometimes with the aid of their local representatives, to fight highly polluting facilities and practices in the neighborhood. Such organization led the city to close the huge Greenpoint incinerator in 1994, which was out of compliance with all city, state and federal regulations. In the late 1980s, after an increasing series of highly odorous releases from the Sewage Treatment Plant which served a good portion of Lower Manhattan, a local group formed calling itself GASP (Greenpointers Against Smell Pollution) that compelled the city to control the outflows and to plan a vastly expanded facility that took 20 years to build. The mid-1980s saw a great increase in the number of trucks driving through the neighborhood with municipal waste, often toxic waste, to be held at "transfer stations".

During the 1950 Greenpoint oil spill, at the time the largest oil spill in United States history, 17 to 30 e6gal of oil spilled into Newtown Creek. Oil is believed to have been seeping into the groundwater since then. Groundwater in this area is not used as drinking water, as all of New York City's drinking water presently comes from upstate reservoirs. However, local activists have been campaigning ever since to clean up the spill. On October 20, 2005, residents near the oil recovery operation, which is located in the predominantly commercial/industrial eastern section of Greenpoint near the East Williamsburg Industrial Park, filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron Corporation in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, alleging they have suffered adverse health consequences. ExxonMobil, which has been slowly removing oil from its former facilities in the area, have denied liability for the oil leaking into Newtown Creek and suggested fault lies instead with Chevron. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Newtown Creek/Greenpoint Oil Spill Study Brooklyn, New York" states that vapor concentrations in "some commercial establishments" were found "above the Upper Explosive Limit"; i.e. there was so much vapor that no explosion could ignite. The same EPA study said, "A review of the data collected by the NYSDEC shows that, in general, chemicals were detected at all locations in each home, but not in a pattern that would typically represent a vapor intrusion phenomenon."

2005 rezoning

On May 11, 2005, New York City's Department of City Planning approved a rezoning of 175 blocks in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. According to the project's Environmental Impact Statement, the rezoning was expected to bring approximately 16,700 new residents to the neighborhood by 2013 in 7,300 new units of housing. 250000 sqft of new retail space are projected, along with a corresponding loss of just over 1000000 sqft of existing industrial capacity. The rezoning also includes a 28 acre waterfront park. Included in its requirements are provisions for a promenade along the East River, built piecemeal by the developers of existing waterfront lots. An inclusionary housing plan was included in the resolution and provides height bonuses along the waterfront and in Northside Williamsburg for developers providing apartments at rates considered affordable for low-income households (below 80% of the area's median income); on the waterfront, these bonuses could allow for up to seven-story height increases.

The rezoning was a dramatic change in scale to a previously low-slung, industrial neighborhood. The proposed changes were the subject of much debate, including a letter written by activist Jane Jacobs to mayor Michael Bloomberg criticizing the proposed development.

"The community's plan does not cheat the future by neglecting to provide provisions for schools, daycare, recreational outdoor sports, and pleasant facilities for those things. The community's plan does not promote new housing at the expense of both existing housing and imaginative and economical new shelter that residents can afford. The community's plan does not violate the existing scale of the community, nor does it insult the visual and economic advantages of neighborhoods that are precisely of the kind that demonstrably attract artists and other live-work craftsmen... [but] the proposal put before you by city staff is an ambush containing all those destructive consequences."

Other organizations, including the city government and various advocacy groups such as the Manhattan Institute, argued that residential construction in underused manufacturing zones is essential to meet growing housing demand. Rezoning promised double-digit percentage growth in the number of housing units, leading these groups to claim that it would help to alleviate the city's housing shortage and possibly slow rent increases. Critics argued that the existing community's character would be changed as existing residents were forced to move, and, further, that public transportation and public safety infrastructure would be unable to accommodate the projected 40,000 new residents.

A boom in construction followed the rezoning, leading to complaints from neighborhood residents and their elected representatives. The zoning plan was modified on March 2, 2006, to include anti-harassment provisions for tenants and add height limits in portions of upland Williamsburg. Neighborhood organizations made differing opinions known: the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Association for Parks and Planning expressed approval of the proposal (with reservations), but many neighborhood residents and members of Community Board 1 continue to voice their objections. One of the largest developments to be built after the rezoning was Greenpoint Landing, which includes ten residential towers containing 5,500 units, a public elementary and middle school, and 4 acres of parkland. Greenpoint Landing began construction in 2015 and is expected to be completed before 2027. By spring 2017, one building had opened.

Demographics
Greenpoint's population was largely working class and multi-generational; it was common to find three generations of family members living in the community. The neighborhood is sometimes referred to as "Little Poland" due to its large population of Polish immigrants and Polish-Americans, reportedly the second largest concentration in the United States after Chicago. Although Polish immigrants and people of Polish descent are present in force, there is a significant Latino population living mostly north of Greenpoint Avenue, and Greenpoint has a significant number of South Asian and North African residents.

Based on data from the 2010 United States census, the population of Greenpoint was 34,719, a decrease of 3,102 (8.2%) from the 37,821 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 809.13 acres, the neighborhood had a population density of 42.9 PD/acre.

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 76.9% (26,691) White and 14.7% (5,099) Hispanic or Latino. Other ethnicities include 1.2% (433) African American, 0.1% (48) Native American, 4.9% (1,689) Asian, 0.0% (10) Pacific Islander, 0.5% (161) from other races, and 1.7% (588) from two or more races.

The entirety of Community Board 1, which comprises Greenpoint and Williamsburg, had 199,190 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 81.1 years. This is about the same as the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are middle-aged adults and youth: 23% are between the ages of 0 and 17, 41% between 25 and 44, and 17% between 45 and 64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 10% and 9% respectively.

As of 2016, the median household income in Community Board 1 was $76,608. In 2018, an estimated 17% of Greenpoint and Williamsburg residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City. Less than one in fifteen residents (6%) were unemployed, compared to 9% in the rest of both Brooklyn and New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 48% in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, higher than the citywide and boroughwide rates of 52% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation,, Greenpoint and Williamsburg are considered to be gentrifying.

As according to the 2020 census data from New York City Department of City Planning, there were between 20,000 and 29,999 White residents and between 5,000 and 9,999 Hispanic residents, meanwhile each the Asian and Black populations were each under 5000 residents.

Political representation
Politically, Greenpoint is in New York's 7th congressional district. It is in the New York State Senate's 18th and 59th districts, the New York State Assembly's 50th districts,  and the New York City Council's 33rd district.

Police and crime
Greenpoint is patrolled by the 94th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 100 Meserole Avenue. The 94th Precinct ranked 50th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. , with a non-fatal assault rate of 34 per 100,000 people, Greenpoint and Williamsburg's rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 305 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole.

The 94th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 72.9% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported one murder, six rapes, 63 robberies, 115 felony assaults, 141 burglaries, 535 grand larcenies, and 62 grand larcenies auto in 2018.

Fire safety
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) operates two fire stations in Greenpoint. Engine Company 238/Ladder Company 106 is located at 205 Greenpoint Avenue and serves most of the neighborhood. The southern part of Greenpoint is served by Engine Company 229/Ladder Company 146, located at 75 Richardson Street.

Health
, preterm births and births to teenage mothers are less common in Greenpoint and Williamsburg than in other places citywide. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, there were 54 preterm births per 1,000 live births (the lowest in the city, compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 16.0 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). Greenpoint and Williamsburg has a relatively low population of residents who are uninsured, or who receive healthcare through Medicaid. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 7%, which is lower than the citywide rate of 12%.

The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Greenpoint and Williamsburg is 0.0096 mg/m3, higher than the citywide and boroughwide averages. Seventeen percent of Greenpoint and Williamsburg residents are smokers, which is slightly higher than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, 23% of residents are obese, 11% are diabetic, and 25% have high blood pressure—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 23% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.

Ninety-one percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is greater than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 79% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", more than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, there are 25 bodegas.

There are medical clinics in the Greenpoint area, though no hospitals are located in the neighborhood. The nearest large hospitals are Woodhull Medical Center in Bedford–Stuyvesant and Mount Sinai Queens in Astoria, Queens.

Post office and ZIP Code
Greenpoint is covered by ZIP Code 11222. The United States Postal Service operates the Greenpoint Station post office at 66 Meserole Avenue.

Education
Greenpoint and Williamsburg generally has a higher ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city. Half of the population (50%) has a college education or higher, 17% have less than a high school education and 33% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 40% of Brooklynites and 38% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Greenpoint and Williamsburg students excelling in reading and math has been increasing, with reading achievement rising from 35 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2011, and math achievement rising from 29 percent to 50 percent within the same time period.

Greenpoint and Williamsburg's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is slightly higher than the rest of New York City. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, 21% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, compared to the citywide average of 20% of students. Additionally, 77% of high school students in Greenpoint and Williamsburg graduate on time, higher than the citywide average of 75% of students.

Schools
Greenpoint contains the following public elementary schools which serve grades PK-5:
 * PS 31 Samuel F Dupont
 * PS 34 Oliver H Perry
 * PS 110 The Monitor

The following public middle school serves grades 6–8:
 * John Ericsson Middle School 126

The following public high schools serve grades 9–12:
 * Automotive High School
 * Frances Perkins Academy

Library
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL)'s Greenpoint branch is located at 107 Norman Avenue near Leonard Street. The site originally housed a Carnegie library that opened in 1906, but it was replaced in the 1970s. The library closed in mid-2017 for a two-year renovation, which would necessitate the replacement of the existing building with a new facility called the Greenpoint Library & Environmental Education Center. The renovation of the Greenpoint branch was originally supposed to be completed in late 2018, but was delayed because of safety violations during construction.

Transportation
Greenpoint is served by the Greenpoint Avenue and Nassau Avenue stations on the IND Crosstown Line of the New York City Subway. It is served by the New York City Bus routes.

In June 2011, NY Waterway started service to points along the East River. On May 1, 2017, that route became part of the NYC Ferry's East River route, which runs between Pier 11/Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District and the East 34th Street Ferry Landing in Murray Hill, Manhattan, with five intermediate stops in Brooklyn and Queens. Greenpoint is served by the East River Ferry's India Street stop, which is temporarily closed.

There are plans to build the Brooklyn–Queens Connector (BQX), a light rail system that would run along the waterfront from Red Hook through Greenpoint to Astoria in Queens. However, the system is projected to cost $2.7 billion, and the projected opening has been delayed until at least 2029.

Street grid
When Neziah Bliss created Greenpoint, he named the east–west streets in alphabetical order from north to south. Originally, these streets were simply given lettered names such as "A Street" and "B Street", but in the mid-19th century, the streets were given longer names. This system persists today with a few exceptions: Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java, Kent, Greenpoint (Avenue), Milton, Noble, Oak, Calyer, and Quay Streets. Greenpoint Avenue was formerly named Lincoln Street. There would have been a street starting with the letter "P" between Oak and Quay Streets, but it was named Calyer Street early in Greenpoint's history, after the patriarch of a nearby family.

Parks
Parks include McCarren Park (formerly known as Greenpoint Park), the neighborhood's largest green space, and the smaller McGolrick Park (formerly known as Winthrop Park), which contains both the landmarked Shelter Pavilion (1910) and an allegorical monument to the ironclad ship USS Monitor (1938). On the East River, WNYC Transmitter Park opened in 2012 on the site of a former radio transmission antenna. A small playground called "Right Angle Park" is located at Commercial, Dupont, and Franklin Streets, so named because the park is located on a city block that is shaped like a right triangle.

Architectural and historic landmarks
The Greenpoint Historic District is roughly bounded by Kent, Calyer, Noble, and Franklin Streets, Clifford Place, Lorimer Street and Manhattan Avenue.

Of architectural interest in Greenpoint are: the Episcopal Church of the Ascension (1853), the oldest church in Greenpoint on Kent Street; the Astral Apartments (1885) on Franklin Street; the Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church (1875) on Manhattan Avenue; the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory on Greenpoint Avenue at Franklin Street; the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (1921) on North 12th Street; PS 34, the Oliver H. Perry School (1867) on Norman Avenue (the oldest continuously operating public school building in New York City); the Capital One (formerly Green Point) Savings Bank (1908); the Saint Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church (1896) on Humboldt Street, which serves as a Catholic shrine for the Polish community;  and the synagogue building of Congregation Ahavas Israel (1903) on Noble Street (the sanctuary, with stained glass windows and a Torah ark with turn of the century wood carvings, is currently open only during services on Saturday mornings).

A commercial building called Keramos Hall, on Manhattan Avenue, was restored and won a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy in 2013. The conservancy wrote: "Picturesque features had been hidden under asbestos shingles for decades, but when owners discovered a vintage photograph, they began putting funds aside for this work. Now, the revelation of the Stick Style façade, Italianate roof tower, and Swiss Chalet brackets stops passersby in their tracks." The Kickstarter headquarters, located in Greenpoint, is housed in the former Eberhart Faber Pencil Factory on Kent Street, which was renovated in 2013–2014. The restoration received a Moses Preservation Award as well as a MASterworks Award from the Municipal Art Society.

St. Cecilia's Roman Catholic Church and School, on Monitor Street between Richardson and Herbert Streets, has served the community since 1871. The school, which dates to 1906, was closed in June 2008. The current church building dates to 1891.

Notable people
Notable individuals who were born in or lived in Greenpoint include:
 * Awkwafina (born 1988), rapper and actress.
 * Pat Benatar (born 1953), pop singer
 * Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847–1919), painter
 * Margaret Wise Brown (1910–1952), children's book author who wrote Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny
 * Bull Dempsey (born 1988), professional wrestler
 * Joseph Di Prisco (born 1950), poet, novelist, memoirist, book reviewer and teacher.
 * John Franzese (1917–2020), mobster.
 * Jack Houghteling, novelist.
 * Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941.
 * John Mulvany (c. 1839 – 1906), artist best known for his paintings of the American West.
 * Mickey Rooney (1920–2014), actor
 * Mae West (1893–1980), actress.

In popular culture
Greenpoint is a popular filming location for New York TV and film productions due to its varied architecture, waterfront access, mixed zoning and relatively low street traffic, and because it is also the primary home of two of New York's film and TV stage companies, Broadway Stages, and CineMagic Studios. Several TV shows house their permanent soundstages in the neighborhood's industrial area between Greenpoint Avenue and Norman Avenue east of McGuinness Boulevard.

Television
 * The HBO show How to Make It in America has a character who lives in Greenpoint: Ben Epstein.
 * The HBO series Girls
 * MTV's I Just Want My Pants Back
 * The animated series Lucas Brothers Moving Company.
 * The main boardwalk set for Boardwalk Empire – a show about Atlantic City, New Jersey – was built on the Greenpoint waterfront, until it was exploded as part of the plotline in season three of the series.
 * Rescue Me was filmed in a warehouse in Greenpoint and on the neighborhood's streets.
 * The Black Donnellys was also filmed in a warehouse in Greenpoint and on the neighborhood's streets.
 * Lipstick Jungle was also filmed in a warehouse in Greenpoint and on the neighborhood's streets.
 * Third Watch
 * Person of Interest
 * Fringe
 * Ray Donovan
 * Stella
 * Life on Mars
 * Lie to Me
 * The Good Wife
 * Blue Bloods, which has a studio on Greenpoint Avenue
 * Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
 * Homeland
 * The Punisher
 * Daredevil
 * Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Films
 * The park scene in Going In Style, the original with George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg, was filmed in McGolrick Park in Greenpoint.
 * Donnie Brasco, based in part on Greenpoint native Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano
 * The Sitter
 * Anger Management
 * The Departed
 * Sleepers
 * Dead Presidents
 * All Is Bright
 * Romeo Is Bleeding
 * In the Mix
 * Street Trash
 * The Siege
 * On the Waterfront: An early cultural reference to Greenpoint is found in the first minutes of the film, in which a minor gangster, after holding back money from Johnny Friendly, is told to "go back to Greenpoint."
 * The Meyerowitz Stories

Music videos
 * The scene of Jay-Z playing basketball against LeBron James in "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" was filmed here.
 * Jedi Mind Tricks's "Heavy Metal Kings"
 * The Roots's "Clones"

Other
 * The lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos, lived for a time in Greenpoint, and the neighborhood is mentioned in the song "Eleanor Put Your Boots On".
 * Greenpoint hosts New York City's Nuit Blanche festival. The first two festivals were held along the neighborhood's waterfront in 2010 and 2011, and it was held in a Greenpoint event space in 2012.
 * The book series The Mortal Instruments has a main character named Magnus Bane who resides there.
 * The neighborhood is the location of a memoir by Tommy Carbone.

title: Greenpoint, Brooklyn


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Talk:Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

Yikes!
Folks -- forgive my intrusion, but as just another reader checking this article, I must say: referring to Joseph Smith as "the Prophet" throughout makes it a difficult and frustrating read for somebody who is less, well, sympathetic to the subject matter. Setting my own feelings aside, I think that the article reads better and makes a better impression if it's presented from a more neutral viewpoint. I would say the same thing on a page that referred to Mohammad as "the Prophet", or Jesus as "the Messiah" all the time -- I am sure there are many examples! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.245.208 (talk) 04:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Name change
This should be moved to Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Any thoughts? B 00:23, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

 * Fine by me. Go ahead and make the change. Visorstuff 01:40, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * 20 years later, I oppose this change. "Joseph Smith Translation" is a description used by a specific sect of Mormonism. My understanding is that Smith called it the "Inspired Version". If that is correct, that should probably be the title of the article.Rscragun (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:18, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

 * Joseph Smith himself referred to it as a translation, and it was referred to as a translation in the Doctrine and Covenants. Epachamo (talk) 13:54, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Twice-translated parts
Moved from the article:
 * There are two sections of the work that Smith dictated twice at different times in his life: one in the Book of Genesis and another in the Gospel of Matthew. These duplicate manuscripts contain many of the same revisions to the King James Version, with some substantive additions or changes in one but not in the other.

 * I once read a BYU Studies article comparing these two manuscripts, but I can't find the reference to it (--COGDEN)

 * This is a weird statement and does not read well - it makes it sound like he gave them word for word on two different occasions. There were in fact many sections of the bible that he translated more than once. The first sixteen psalms were translated a number of times, but the second sixteen were compeltely untouched (as were a section later in the Psalms). The bulk of the psalms were done mainly once or twice. Isaiah, John, Revelations and Paul's letters also received a good deal of attention on multiple occasions. The process was still incomplete at the time of his death, he was still making edits and changes and translations at that time. Please clarify as I have no idea where you are going here. This is another one of my areas of primary research, so I'm curious to your point. Have you ever read "A Plainer Translation" may be a good place to start for background --Visorstuff. -->

 * That's what happened, apparently, in this case. The BYU Studies article I'm talking about (and I'm looking for it--I think I copied it once, but I can't find the copy) examined two recently-available manuscripts that Smith apparently dictated word-for-word, where he went over the same passages and dictated two different versions. I think this is important to include here because it shows (and this is what the BYU article concluded) that Smith's work was not a precise restoration of the "lost" text of an earlier document, but an enhancement to the Bible that included explanations and elaborations, depending upon what he felt inspired to say at the time he was "translating".COGDEN 18:23, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Let me rephrase my question. How it is currently worded leads the reader to believe that Joseph Smith dictacted the exact same words for two passages on two seperate occasions. If this is the point you are trying to make, then it should read that Smith was able to give an exact word for word translation of the same text, without any changes of two passages. However, I don't think that that is the point you are trying to make. I think you are trying to say that Smith occasionally re-translated the same passage with different results on at least two occasions.

As far as "recently-available" the entire mss is complete in the COFC archives, and is viewable by CD since 1997-8ish (which to me is not recent). Robert Millet and a graduate student, who also lectured about it at BYU at the same time helped with the OCR conversion for the CD.

The entire manuscripts is described to the most miniscule detail in Robert Matthew's book - which is more about the translation process, the documents and manuscripts and the Bible used than the text itself. By "Bible," I mean that Smith bought a large family-type bible and made edits in the columns until manuscript pages were needed. Most of the minor changes were done directly in the bible, much like you'd mark your scriptures, so there is some controversy as to whether the changes are his random thoughts while marking or actual translation edits. I am aware of multiple passages that ended up with different results, and he even made comments that he felt like he needed to find a way to convey the author's meanings better as some wrote dualistically. That was one reason for pinning comments on top of other comments on top of second manuscripts of the same passage edited in his bible. Remember he spent nearly four years preparing the translation for publication and never felt that it was done. It definitely was a work in progress.

I agree that translation in our current vocabulary is not an descriptive word of what he did. I would rather call it an inspired rendition, inspired editing, inspired study, or restoration of the original intent. A number of years ago, Richard G. Scott suggested that we write in our scriptures the thoughts and impressions we have, as study is a source of revelation for us. That is what the translation is - except to the prophet of this dispensation, the revelations contained in his study set the doctrinal foundations we teach today. In this context, there is no wonder that there are differences in his translations of the same passage. If you think any of this information has merit for the article, feel free to add. I just didn't want to confuse the reader with all this additional (which I consider relevant but periphrial) information. -Visorstuff 20:01, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * I see what you're saying. I was under the impression that the article I read regarded some new finds, but obviously Robert Matthew is the big authority on the JST, and he would probably cover it in his book. I've given up looking for the article--maybe it wasn't in BYU Studies, but in some other journal (I read it last fall) and I'm not going to be near BYU any time soon, so I'm just going to revise what's there and state something generic. If it still doesn't sound right, you can go ahead and change or delete it.COGDEN 01:03, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Greek Delete
User:Benefros stated that he couldn't find evidence for Smith studying greek - may want to do a more thourough search next time, but thanks for the edit anyway - keeps us honest. Here are a few sources:

 * Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (commenting about greek word renderings), pages 300,309,372...
 * Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol 1, "Bible Scholarship"; Vol 2, "Kirtland, Ohio"; Vol 3, "Scripture" (this one states he studied, hebrew greek and german (german most likely to understand Luther's changes to the text that is used today). See below for excerpt on Kirtland.
 * Answers to Gospel questions, vol 2, p 86
 * Anti-mormons including the Tanners also agree.
 * Amatuer Mormon apologists also point to it. http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/bible/

Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol.2, KIRTLAND, OHIO
 * As a result of this and other divine commands, Joseph Smith in 1833 invited about twenty elders to attend a School of the Prophets. Following the initial sessions of that school, Church leaders and members established a school of the elders, a grammar school, and various private schools, in which adults and youth studied theology, philosophy, government, literature, history, geography, English grammar, penmanship, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1836 more than one hundred Latter-day Saints commenced studying Hebrew. Women attended and taught school in Kirtland, and studied various subjects with their husbands.

Incidentally, has anyone got a hold of the new JST manuscript compliation book? Interesting to see the blots, the marks, the pins and the edits. Very interesting...-Visorstuff 17:26, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If anything, they would be "Ex-Mormons."--Zach Collier (talk) 06:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "Anti-Mormons?" What do you mean?  Is that a universal term, or is it a label placed on them by one side of a debate?

 * Though the previous comment was listed long ago, it's worth mentioning that Anti-Mormonism is/was a self-attributed title. It can have a broad or general scope, but it's exactly that: anti (against) Mormonism. An Ex-Mormon would be one who was previously Mormon. One can be either, both, or neither. ~Araignee (talk • contribs)  03:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Translation?
Since Joseph Smith did not know the source languages of the Bible (see above), this is clearly not a translation. In this case, it may be best to classify the JST as a revision.--ndansmith 03:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, and this is clearly explained in the second paragraph of the article. --Blainster 03:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * But the section headings still refer to it as a translation. Also, the article is listed as an English translation of the Bible.--ndansmith 22:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Although it is clarified, Splanxna, you may want to read the definition of translated (from dictionary.com)

This has not been clearly stated in the article, and all attempts to edit corrections differentiating Smith's "method" have been deleted.

1. To render in another language. 2.
 * 1. To put into simpler terms; explain or interpret.
 * 2. To express in different words; paraphrase.

3.
 * 1. To change from one form, function, or state to another; convert or transform: translate ideas into reality.
 * 2. To express in another medium.

4. To transfer from one place or condition to another. 5. To forward or retransmit (a telegraphic message). 6.
 * 1. Ecclesiastical. To transfer (a bishop) to another see.
 * 2. To convey to heaven without death.

7. Physics. To subject (a body) to translation. 8. Biology. To subject (messenger RNA) to translation. 9. Archaic. To enrapture.

v. intr. 1.
 * 1. To make a translation.
 * 2. To work as a translator.

2. To admit of translation. 3. To be changed or transformed in effect. Often used with into or to: "Today's low inflation and steady growth in household income translate into more purchasing power" (Thomas G. Exter).

By this definition, translation is an appropriate term. In 1830, the term mean more than just conveying ideas from one language to another. -Visorstuff 16:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Joseph Smith did not convey ideas from one language to another. English was the only language involved if I have my facts straight.  Also, I think that adding information would necessarily disqualify a revision from being called a translation. Besides, the definition of the word in 1830 is irrelvenat, we are classifying it today. Furthermore, the various definitions of "translation" listed in the dictionary reflect usage, not a technical definition (which is what we need).

 * Just to be clear, I think that the title of the article "Joseph Smith Translation" is acceptable since it is the name of the document, but there needs to be more some more clarification in the article. For instace, as Blainster pointed out, this is addressed in the second paragraph - but the heading of the second section still reads "Process of Translation" and the third section is "Content of the translation."  This article is also listed as an "English translation of the Bible." Perhaps the terms "revision" and "version" should be used instead. --ndansmith 02:22, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It is relevant what the term meant in 1830, as that became the name of the document. Smith fully considered himself a "translator" one who "put into simpler terms; explain or interpret. To express in different words...express in another medium...to retransmit. Yes it is it not the common connotation of today, but the term is quite accurate, even from today's definition. If the New World translation gets to be an english translation, I see no reason that the JST shouldn't be a translation. Both add in text and have changes. Translation as a term is accurate. Just not translation from one language to another. -Visorstuff 22:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I know this is an old discussion, but great care and many scholars were used in the translation of the KJV, and many modern translations such as the NIV, the reformation movement churches were highly concerned with authenticity of the scripture and adherence to it. It is a very biased POV to state that this should be considered a translation. Much like the movies Kingdom of Heaven or Braveheart, they can best be described as loosely inspired by or historical fiction, and not translation.

Weasel words
This article, like many others on this subject, uses far too many weasel words and phrases. I offer you an example from the "content" section: "The majority of corrections are minor clarifying statements and language modernization."

"Corrections?" Who says they're corrections? Some may say they are, some may say they aren't. Furthermore, what are they correcting?

What about "clarifying statements?" Was what was written before unclear?

Modernization... was what was written before archaic?

Please avoid this kind of biased language or weaselly language. Andaleandale (talk) 21:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. For starters, the word "clarifications" needs to be removed.

Second, under Criticism it says- "to restore meaning and never claimed to be a linguistic translation" Restore meaning to the Bible? What? How can you restore meaning without being true to the original language that a text is written? That entire "counter argument" is poor and either should be heavily revised or completely removed. Please comment, otherwise after a few days I will remove that sentence entirely. --Zach Collier (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Content section lacks... content
The "content" section here is incoherent and lacks any kind of insight to the content of Smith's translation. The section is nothing but back and forth diatribe and gives no concrete examples of the differences between Smith's translation and other KJV translations. Thus, I delete this section. Someone write a content section that's actually about this text's content... not a section where a Mormon writes one inflammatory statement, and a Mormon hater comes right along using weasel words and flames right back. Andaleandale (talk) 07:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Even now the article is vague as to what changes were made. This shouldn't be that hard to give some examples. For now we have https://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv2kjv/genesis.htm Anonymous-232 (talk) 05:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Are The [citation needed]s really needed?
They seem like a pro-JST vandal's work... Personally, I think that, while the JST is inspired and accurate, the JST is not meant to replace or supplant, but rather support, the KJV. Granted, this is from an LDS point of view... (Whoops, forgot to login) Raekuul, bringer of Tropes (He does it without notability) 18:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually it was complete
Joseph Smith stopped working on the Bible's translation over a decade before his death. Its work lasted from June 1830 to July 1833. In the History of the Church, 1:368–69, it explains “We this day finished the translating of the Scriptures, for which we returned gratitude to our Heavenly Father,” and “having finished the translation of the Bible, a few hours since.” Thus, this article could use a significant revision. As far as I can tell it's only the LDS church who says the translation wasn't complete, and this is used to explain any apparent error or contradiction in this version of the Bible. Please use some critical thinking when writing articles. The LDS church has its own website to publish their official church history, this webpage isn't for that. 69.169.132.34 (talk) 13:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Use capital T for Translation
I've added a brief section on the meaning of the term "translation" in 1828, sourced from a dialogue between an Evangelical and LDS, which I presume is reliable. Generally if it refers to the book it should be T. If "translation" means "revision" then it should be "revision" to be NPOV, see wikt:translate and wikt:revise In ictu oculi (talk) 10:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section
I've removed this section for now. Criticism is welcome in this article, but the only argument in the section shouldn't exist, since it is a straw man argument; the statement that it is a faulty literal translation is true, but completely irrelevant when the translation not ever claimed to be literal (the revision process being extensively mentioned in the article). ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I've restored this section. It isn't for us to judge whether criticizing the very intention of "repairing" the Bible is valid or not. I've added context to this section to clarify that's the position of most other denominations and better explaining this specific sort of criticism. -- Beland (talk) 07:39, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Community of Christ vs. RLDS anachronism
To me the sentence In 1944, the CoC Church brought out a carefully prepared “new corrected edition.” is rather jarring. It was not called Community of Christ back then. Why not refer to it as RLDS from 1872 to 2001, and Community of Christ after 2001? What do others think? SJK (talk) 10:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Based on Manual of Style/Latter Day Saints, there is already a decided guideline to support exactly what you propose. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 20:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

McConkie quote
Regarding this revert...the perspective of the LDS church is pretty well represented by the rest of the article. This translation is by its founder and first prophet and this section explains the precise doctrinal position. The "a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth" does not really add any information to that. It comes across as the opinion of one super-hyped person. It's not balanced by the opinions of anyone who doesn't particularly like this translation, though it does not seem worthwhile to just quote someone dissing it without giving reasons, just as this quote hypes it without giving reasons. I think the easiest fix is just to drop the quote. Thoughts? -- Beland (talk) 02:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Ever since 2017 (and a little bit before) when it became clear that Adam Clarke was a significant source of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, there has been an effort to downplay the significance and esteem the translation played in the Church. I feel like the 'super-hyped' opinion is a valuable historical perspective that should be here, especially given the prominence of that individual within the LDS Church belief system. I think the best fix should be to remove the "perspective of the LDS church" from the rest of the article, and put it into the "LDS Church viewspoint" section.Epachamo (talk) 12:04, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

 * I think it is relevant. LDS use of the JST/IV has changed over time, and it is not sufficient for the article to only describe current LDS attitudes, which would be giving undue weight. While I agree that a quote from McConkie may not be the most thorough way to represent a history of support for the JST/IV, it seems better than having only the current official position of the CoJCoLDS.Rscragun (talk) 02:43, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Use of the word “murdered”
What is the purpose of the use of the word “murdered” in the first sentence? I am not questioning its truth—merely its relevance or value in this context. The article linked through that word is titled “Death of Joseph Smith” and not “Murder of Joseph Smith”, so why not say “died”? I am suspicious that this word choice may create undue sympathy for Smith in the reader, making his characterization of the JST/IV seem more believable. I will make the change to “died”, but I would welcome some discussion if others think the “murdered” description improves the article. Rscragun (talk) 03:18, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

 * I just looked at how this is treated in other articles. For example, Nauvoo, Illinois says “After Joseph Smith's death in 1844”. Rscragun (talk) 18:29, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Interpreter Journal is not a valid source in most cases
I have moved the section with scholarship by Jackson to the LDS Church views section. Except under very specific circumstances, the Interpreter Journal is not a reliable secondary source. It's stated purpose is "A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship." It is a great source for presenting the Latter-day Saint viewpoint, and should belong in that section. It is not a good source for presenting independent scholarship and is WP:UNDUE otherwise. Outside of the apologetic community, there is NO disagreement that Clarke was a source for the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Epachamo (talk) 12:15, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

 * This is totally false. It is “a peer-reviewed journal of The Interpreter Foundation, a nonprofit, independent, educational organization focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Non-print versions of our journal are available free of charge, with our goal to increase understanding of scripture.” Kent Jackson isn’t an apologist. He’s a scholar of the JST and has been for decades. And I added Kevin Barney, who is not doing apologetic work these days. Whoever you have as a source is full of crap that this is a conclusion only accepted by the apologetic community. I deliberately left the question open as the question is still in debate. Marspe1 (talk) 00:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

 * Jackson and Barney are fine scholars, and I've referenced Barney several times. When they publish in an apologetic source though, they are functioning in the role as an apologist. Epachamo (talk) 04:03, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * If you haven't verified whether this is just "an apologetic source" as your reply below seems to imply, then it's inappropriate to characterize their work in those journals as apologetic. And, again, they're not apologists. Both Jackson and Barney have been publishing scholarship on the JST for decades. Jackson _previously accepted_ the work of Wayment on this issue _and then_ published a rebuttal to it because he simply did not believe that Clarke had influence on the creation of the JST. Barney _has no problem_ with secondary source influence being present in the JST and he also simply disagrees that you can prove a connection to Clarke. Neither of those men have any faith stake in either conclusion (that Clarke was used or not used). Marspe1 (talk)

Please tell me what these other sources are outside of Wayment and Wilson Lemmon that agree that Clarke was used. Gotta be academic. Not Reddit and not podcasts. Marspe1 (talk) 02:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

 * Best thing to do is take it to the WP:RSN. I created a section on the Reliable_sources/Noticeboard for community input. It doesn't matter if it is peer reviewed. The peers asked to review it are selected from a narrow group of like-minded scholars. The purpose of the journal is increasing faith, which isn't inherently wrong, just not appropriate for Wikipedia without a specific caveat. Epachamo (talk) 03:59, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Along with publishing apologetics, Interpreter also publishes critical scholarship. If you really don't know this, then you're simply not familiar enough with the community. I also feel it's inappropriate to place mention of the Jackson rebuttal in the LDS Church view section because Jackson's views are not the Church's official views. They are Jackson's views. Also, why did you delete the Barney reference? And where are those references to those besides Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon who are neutral scholars that accept Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon's conclusions?

 * Ok, I saw that someone closed out the WP:RSN section pretty quickly before anyone could discuss it and reach a consensus, which is destructive and borderline vandalism. However, in reading Wikipedia policy, specifically, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, it is clear that the Interpreter is not allowed, even though it is peer reviewed. "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals." As long as it is not peer reviewed by the greater scientific community, then it doesn't belong on Wikipedia except to show a viewpoint with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wayment himself is Latter-day Saint, but it is acceptable to cite him because of where he published his research. If Jackson can do the same, then I don't have any objection. On the Barney deletion, I was wrong to delete that, it was unintentional, my apologies. Epachamo (talk) 04:40, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * By that logic, would BYU Studies be considered unreliable? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think BYU Studies should also be used with caution. For example this article would not be appropriate in a Wikipedia article about Jesus' Atonement, unless it was clear from the context that it was presenting viewpoints of the Latter-day Saint community. This particular article on the Danite constitution could probably be used in just about every case. Similarly, this article on Book of Mormon pronunciation from the Interpreter is a good reference. this article presenting ancient evidence of Book of Mormon origins from the Interpreter should not be used without caveat. That said, BYU Studies is on a completely different level from the Interpreter. You can find many articles from BYU Studies in JSTOR. I couldn't find a single article from the Interpreter in JSTOR. BYU Studies is recognized in rankings of different journals. The Interpreter doesn't even appear in any ranking I could find. The Interpreter Journal is just a step above an internet blog. Epachamo (talk) 06:24, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I couldn't find a way to quantify that difference. Thank you for teaching me some ways to examine reliability. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:26, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

1. Being on JSTOR is just a matter of whether your journal is part of their database on not. JSTOR is not an exhaustive repository of academic publications nor is it a database that lists all the best sources. There are plenty great publications that can't be found there. And I am 100% certain that Interpreter has never applied for inclusion there, since the purpose of JSTOR is to provide accessibility and visibility--two things Interpreter already has since they are, in effect, an open source journal that makes their papers freely available online. The back issues of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and the FARMS Review are on JSTOR. Does that mean you accept those are credible academic sources? Interpreter is a newer journal as well--getting its start in 2012. I'm not surprised that Scimago hasn't ranked it yet.

2. Interpreter articles have been cited in other publications published by university presses. If it is good enough for, say, Oxford (Terryl Givens has cited their stuff in some of his Oxford publications), then surely it is good enough for Wikipedia. Interpreter articles are even cited in the same book where Wayment and Wilson Lemmon published their full findings on the Adam Clarke connection: Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith's Translations in the Development of Mormon Christianity. See page 468 for example. Jackson is cited frequently in Wayment's and Wilson-Lemmon's study.

3. Jackson has been publishing in top venues for years on the JST. His views carry major weight regardless of the publication. His selection of Interpreter as a venue for publishing his findings may spell out at least some of the reputability that Interpreter holds. The credentials of those publishing can sometimes be less than preferred. I concede that. But Interpreter is still an excellent publication that has some of the top scholars of Mormonism publishing in it. You cannot glibly dismiss it as mere apologetics. Marspe1 (talk) 05:14, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

 * Being in JSTOR is not the end all be all, but it is still a valid data point. Scholars are at greater liberty to choose what they deem reliable. The citation on page 468 is a rather benign article. The Interpreter can be used as a source (and I've used it myself), but only with great caution. To illustrate why, let me try a different approach.
 * * Should the Washington Post be used as a source for its owner Jeff Bezos? In most cases the Washington Post is a fine source, but it is not independent enough from Jeff Bezos to be used in that context. Virtually every single author that publishes in the Interpreter gets their salary from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is not independent enough.
 * * Would the Interpreter ever publish an article that reached a conclusion that was not faith promoting? If I knew nothing else, but that Jackson had published his research in the Interpreter, I could have told you what his conclusion would have been. Wayment went to great lengths to publish his research where he did, for the very reason that he wanted the credibility that publishing where he did would bring.
 * * If Alex Jones were to publish something in the journal Nature, it could be used as a source. If Albert Einstein were to publish something in the National Enquirer, it should not be used as a reliable source. It doesn't matter how amazing I'm sure Jackson is.
 * * It doesn't matter what you or I personally think of the Interpreter whether it is scholarly or mere apologetics. Show me evidence that the broader scholarly community accepts it as a reliable independent source. Epachamo (talk) 10:41, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

 * It is only a valid point if the criteria to admit material to JSTOR is the quality or reputation of the journals/articles which, charitably, is a very dubious assumption. Marspe1 (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Half of the sources used in neutral contexts on this page are from BYU Press and the BYU Religious Studies Center. By your logic, we should get rid of use of those sources. Marspe1 (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is not even a faith-affirming conclusion for Jackson. This is a faith-neutral one. Again, he previously trusted Wayment's scholarship but then decided to respond given what he saw were the weaknesses in the theory. Both Jackson and Barney are open to secondary-source influence. Marspe1 (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Frankly, a comparison between Einstein/National Enquirer and Jackson/Interpreter is too juvenile to take seriously. Marspe1 (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If mattered to you above when you accused Jackson of acting in the role of an apologist by publishing in Interpreter. These contradictions in thought are revealing a lot about you. I don't need to fish for sources for you. You clearly have a copy of the Producing Ancient Scripture. Interpreter is cited in there. It's also cited in Pearl of Greatest Price, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins, and other books. Again, if it's cited by Oxford, then it's good enough for Wikipedia. It likely won't matter though since you're clearly acting as a seedy Wikipedia overlord trying hard to stretch community guidelines and push your preferred perspective. Marspe1 (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

 * JSTOR is a data point. Not an end all be all. Wikipedia directs people to JSTOR to look for sources. This is not just me.
 * No, if it is a neutral context, it is probably ok to use BYU Press or BYU Religious Studies Center. Not sure how many times I need to state this but I myself have used Interpreter as a resource. I do think there is too much reliance on these sources throughout the article though, and the banner at the top of the article is still valid.
 * My intent was to use an absurdly extreme example to illustrate my point. It was not to compare Jackson to Einstein or the National Enquirer to the Interpreter.
 * If you must know, I have spoken out against the Institute for Religious Research, which I see as the critical equivalent to the Interpreter foundation. If you want me to make a comparison, this is it. In the Pearl of Greatest Price, when it does quote the Interpreter, it prefaces it with "LDS Scholar states ...", which is exactly what I'm suggesting we do here. The "First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins" the entire book openly and explicitly from a Latter-day Saint context, which is also what I'm suggesting we do. Epachamo (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

 * I opened up a new discussion at . Hopefully we will get more input this time. Epachamo (talk) 07:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay Epachamo (Rachel Helps (BYU) you should read this as well), let's settle this. There's going to be no content settlement from the moderators. I apologize for my harsh tone sprinkled throughout my comments. It has simply been frustrating arguing what has seemed to be a simple point and one of little need for contention. But that doesn't excuse me from being a jerk here. Let's just summarize some uncontroversial points and see if they can put a clamp on our disagreement.

 * 1) Kent Jackson is a well-recognized, long-time, published scholar on the JST. He is as much of an expert on the topic as you can find. Certainly of the same caliber as Thomas Wayment.
 * 2) Thomas Wayment, Kent Jackson, Mark-Ashurst McGee, Kevin Barney, and even the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (since they approved the publication of Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon's material) all agree that this is a faith-neutral issue. It doesn't affect their view of the validity of the Church's truth claims.
 * 3) We both agree that Interpreter is a generally good journal at the very least when publishing on neutral issues. As you say (and which I apologize for not giving adequate enough credit earlier), you have used Interpreter on occasion in more neutral contexts.

Given just these three data points, it seems like a fairly uncontroversial thing to include mention of Kent Jackson's piece right next to mention of Wayment's work. If it's a faith-neutral issue to them (and, for what its worth, myself), then I think it's fair to say that this should be one for you. It seems fairly clear to me that you are suspicious of putting Interpreter next to Wayment's work because you believe that this is an issue that is not faith-neutral. But if it is faith-neutral for us, I think it should be for you. Let's go through each other point you've offered as a summary of the discussion so far. I do believe that each of these points are very weak.

 * 1) This is too close to a church salary to give too much weight: Again, half of the sources used in neutral contexts are from BYU. On top of this, Kent Jackson was close to three and a half years retired from BYU when he published his article with Interpreter. He retired in June 2017 and published his article with Interpreter in October 2020. In any case, not giving a well-credentialed and seminal figure in JST studies due weight simply because he's a BYU professor is a textbook genetic fallacy. It absolutely does not matter where he publishes. If Albert Einstein published something super important in the National Enquirer on physics, then I'd still read it and take it seriously.
 * 2) Jackson is acting as an apologist if publishing in Interpreter: Just untrue. He's a JST scholar and published as a JST scholar. He previously trusted Wayment's scholarship and then published his rebuttal. Again, its a faith-neutral issue. Interpreter does publish on issues of faith but it also publishes critical scholarship from very well-credentialed names in the field.
 * 3) Interpreter is not included in J-STOR: Again, the validity of this point depends entirely on the criteria for admitting content to their databases and we've established that quality and reputability are not those criteria. Interpreter is a newer journal and it may get its stay there at JSTOR and Scimago in the future.
 * 4) The point is better under the LDS Church View section: It just isn't. This isn't the Church's official view on the subject. Including stuff from Bruce R. McConkie is okay since that is a Church leader giving his view of the JST. But this is an issue among Latter-day Saint and other Mormon Studies scholars. It simply isn't appropriate to include this under that section.
 * 5) There is no one outside the apologetics community that disagrees that Clarke influenced the translation: We only have Wayment, Wilson-Lemmon, Barney, Jackson, and Ashurst-McGee on record here. You might (though, quite dubiously I'd add) be able to include Ronald Huggins since he's suggested a JST/Adam Clarke connection a while ago and would likely agree with Wayment and Wilson Lemmon. Thus we have Wayment, Wilson-Lemmon (though she doesn't have the credentials like the others do), and Huggins on one side and Barney and Jackson on another. Ashurst-McGee is a toss-up. He presented at the 2020 FAIR Conference about it but that conference took place before Jackson published his rebuttal. I don't remember what view Ashurst-McGee presented nor do I know how his view has been shaped up to this point. I'll consider emailing him. All this said, it's a pretty evenly divided issue among genuine scholars of the JST. I simply don't know what sort of tap you have on the community that gives you the impression that this is an issue only among "apologists." You need to either provide those sources or discard this point entirely.

I have decided to include mention of Jackson's religious affiliation in the body of the article as you suggested in your previous comment. I have also left out the mention of "substantive" at the beginning of that text unit to give undue weight to the rebuttal per suggestions from the new discussion page you opened up on Interpreter. Hopefully we can rest our disagreement here. I truly believe that this is an adequate and fair termination to our disputes. Marspe1 (talk) 06:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Question for administrator
Requesting Administrator help to resolve the ongoing edit war between myself Epachamo and Marspe1. I attempted to create a request for comment at Reliable_sources/Noticeboard, but this was rapidly archived before anyone really had a chance to comment. Request help on a way forward. Epachamo (talk) 13:19, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * See the various forms of dispute resolution. Generally, administrators do not resolve content disputes.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:33, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

On Trusting Wayment's Scholarship and Scholarly Consensus
Epachamo You are incorrect that I'm merely synthesizing what Jackson believed based on what he published. He himself said in his Interpreter article that he made the statement in the Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion "without doing the research myself but trusting the scholarship of Professor Wayment." Even so, I really don't understand why one can't merely infer that from what one has published. Could you explain this more?

On consensus, I'd also like to understand your point on this more and would appreciate documentation to support your position. Why can't we merely infer this from what has been published already? That's almost certainly what the audience will get from reading the article itself. Marspe1 (talk) 02:47pm, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

 * The reference used to support the statement that Jackson previously trusted the scholarship of Wayment is from "Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion" edited by Dennis L. Largey. It states, "In many other places,  made small changes to clarify or expand existing words, sometimes drawing ideas for those changes from a popular Bible commentary." That's it. It doesn't even mention the Clarke commentary or Wayment so we must infer it. Furthermore, this Deseret Book published work is by no means a scholarly work nor does it pretend to be. It was written to the audience of believing adherents, not scholars. It has NO place on Wikipedia in this context. As far as consensus, no consensus is implied in the article as it currently stands. Just state what Wayment propose, Jackson's criticisms and leave it there. No need to editorialize. Epachamo (talk) 14:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

 * >It doesn't even mention the Clarke commentary or Wayment so we must infer it.<

 * Again, incorrect. Jackson explicitly states in his Interpreter article that he made that statement with Wayment's work in mind. His exact words:
 * The online posting of the research conclusions, as part of the student grant Wilson-Lemmon received, was the first publication of their proposed Adam Clarke-Joseph Smith connection. Wayment subsequently discussed the research in online interviews in 2017 and 2019, and Wilson-Lemmon did as well in 2018 and 2020. Likely the first reference to the matter in an academic publication was my own mention of it in Dennis L. Largey, ed., Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion. In an article on the JST I noted that in making revisions in the Bible, the Prophet was “sometimes drawing ideas for those changes from a popular Bible commentary.” I made that statement without doing the research myself but trusting the scholarship of Professor Wayment.

 * >Furthermore, this Deseret Book published work is by no means a scholarly work nor does it pretend to be. It was written to the audience of believing adherents, not scholars.<
 * It does not need to be addressed to scholars to be scholarly. Though I'd question your interpretation of it as being addressed solely to adherents. It's an assemblage of the best scholarship on each of those topics written by scholars who happen to be members of the Church. Yes, it's sensitive to Latter-day Saint beliefs and that is their primary target market; but that doesn't mean it isn't scholarly nor that it isn't meant to be useful for other scholars. Furthermore, it's only being used in this publication in a discussion about Jackson's beliefs (who, by the way, calls PGPRC "an academic publication" in that quote above) about Wayment's conclusions and how they were spoken of in Interpreter: an academic publication. It's only being used to provide context for Jackson's publication of his rebuttal.

 * >As far as consensus, no consensus is implied in the article as it currently stands. Just state what Wayment propose, Jackson's criticisms and leave it there. No need to editorialize.<
 * Alright, fair enough. Having found this, I think you're right. Marspe1 (talk) 22:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

 * Regardless, the Deseret Book citation does not support the statement, nor is the statement necessary in this article, nor is it an independent source. The whole purpose of that statement is to instill doubt in the scholarship of Wayment. Epachamo (talk) 01:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

 * We could easily replace the citation from Deseret Book with the Interpreter source to make the statement directly supported. Define "necessity." What qualifies as "necessary" could disqualify much material from this and other articles on Wikipedia. Not sure what you mean by "independent" here. We've already talked about how many BYU sources are used in this article. The purpose of the statement is to explain the gaffe that Jackson made in merely assuming Wayment's conclusions were correct and writing in an academic publication that they were correct. It's not to throw shade at Wayment. I include it here to provide context to Jackson's response and correct the public record/consciousness. Read the Interpreter article and that quote in context. You can't honestly tell me that Jackson is just out to get Wayment. My lines do not violate the trust guidelines set forth by Wikipedia. It doesn't use any of the words they list and there's nothing that's meant to merely cast doubt on Wayment's credibility as a scholar. Marspe1 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

 * Jackson's correction of an obscure "public record" is not necessary in this article see WP:UNDUE. He also did not write it in an academic publication. Both the Interpreter Journal and and book Jackson wrote are unabashedly based on an inherently unfalsifiable foundation (see Falsifiability for details). Falsifiability is a key feature of any scholarly journal, and because the Interpreter and PGPRC lack this feature, they cannot be considered scholarly for the purposes of Wikipedia. Epachamo (talk) 15:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Jackson's remarks are in a publication sold through the largest and most popular literature retailer in the Church. It's hardly obscure and can be easily misinterpreted. You talk about necessity but then appeal to the due and undue weight portion of Wikipedia's editorial guidelines. This section I've written does not give undue weight to the viewpoint of Jackson. It merely corrects the public record/consciousness of this issue. If speaking of necessity, you will need to identify another criteria that allows us to determine necessary and not necessary. It's certainly useful for the purposes I've already described and doesn't violate any editorial guidelines. If you mean to say that Interpreter and PGPRC aren't academic because they're believers, then this is patently false. They're speaking of points that are falsifiable. Jackson's conclusions about Adam Clarke are falsifiable. Any of the articles that Interpreter writes contain falsifiable conclusions. The only thing that isn't falsifiable is the possibility of divine revelation being involved in Joseph Smith's scriptural productions. Sure, it's assumed that divine revelation was involved in Interpreter and PGPRC, but that doesn't mean that those publications aren't academic. Both Interpreter and PGPRC contain falsifiable information and can qualify as academic. Let's throw out all citations to BYU Studies and all other citations of anyone who assumes or uses language that suggests that divine revelation was involved in JS' scriptural productions in this article. If Wikipedia has to be so impudent as to exclude any publication by believers and only count secular scholarship as valid, then they'll have to wait for the secular Mormon Studies scholars to catch up and produce their own work. In the meantime, you get BYU Studies, Interpreter, and other scholarship by members of the Church. Please, let's rest our dispute. I honestly believe we've exhausted all possible points of contention and I honestly don't believe we've come to anything that is unfair for either "side" in this debate. Marspe1 (talk • contribs) 12:32, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

After further thought, I can see how someone, without the assumptions I'm under, might conclude that the correction casts doubt on Wayment and have removed the PGPRC discussion. Marspe1 (talk • contribs) 16:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Olympus (Lycia)

Olympus or Olympos (Ὄλυμπος, Ólympos; Olympus) was a city in ancient Lycia. It was situated in a river valley near the coast. Its ruins are located south of the modern town Çıralı in the Kumluca district of Antalya Province, southwestern Turkey. Together with the sites of the ancient cities Phaselis and Idyros it is part of the Olympos Beydaglari National Park. The perpetual gas fires at Yanartaş are found a few kilometers to the northwest of the site.

History
The exact date of the city's foundation is unknown. A wall and an inscription on a sarcophagus have been dated to the end of the 4th century BC, so Olympus must have been founded at the latest in the Hellenistic period. The city presumably taking its name from nearby Mount Olympus (Tahtalı Dağı, Timber Mountain), one of over twenty mountains with the name Olympus in the Classical world.

The city was a member of the Lycian League, but it is uncertain when it joined the League. It started minting Lycian League coins from the end of the second century BC, possibly the 130s. At this time Olympus was one of the six largest cities of the League, which possessed three votes each.

Around 100 BC, Olympus started issuing its own coins, separate from the League. At this point Cilician pirates under Zekenites had taken control of Olympus's Mediterranean possessions, which included Corycus, Phaselis and many other places in Pamphylia. His rule ended in 78 BC, when the Roman commander Publius Servilius Isauricus, accompanied by the young Julius Caesar, captured Olympus and its other territories after a victory at sea. At his defeat, Zekenites set fire to his own house in Olympus and perished. At the time of the Roman conquest, Olympus was described by Cicero as a rich and highly decorated city. Olympus then became part of the Roman Republic. The emperor Hadrian visited the city, after which it took the name of Hadrianopolis (Ἁδριανούπολις) for a period, in his honour.

Olympus is missing from the Stadiasmus Patarensis and the Stadiasmus Maris Magni. However, both include the already mentioned Corycus, which is described in ancient sources as a port of some significance. There is no evidence that Olympus was a maritime city prior to the 2nd century AD. On this basis Mustafa Adak has argued that Olympus was initially founded on Mount Olympus, which he identifies as Musa Dağı instead of Tahtalı Dağı. In his theory, the Romans destroyed Olympus, after which the population moved to Corycus, and the name of Corycus was changed to Olympus when Hadrian visited the city in 131 AD.

In the Middle Ages, Venetians, Genoese and Rhodians built two fortresses along the coast, but by the 15th century Olympus had been abandoned. Today the site attracts tourists, not only for the artifacts that can still be found (though fragmentary and widely scattered), but also for its scenic landscapes supporting wild grapevines, flowering oleander, bay trees, figs and pines.

Bishopric
Olympus became a Christian bishopric, a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Myra, the capital of the Roman province of Lycia. Its earliest recorded bishop was Saint Methodius of Olympus, whose service at the head of church in Olympus extended from the late 3rd century to his martyrdom in about 311. Aristocritus was at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Anatolius was a signatory of the joint letter that the bishops of Lycia sent in 458 to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian regarding the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. Ioannes took part in the synod convoked in 536 by Patriarch Menas of Constantinople. Pseudo-Epiphanius writes that the Metropolis of Myra had 36 cities and/or bishops under it, including Olympus.

No longer a residential bishopric, Olympus is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

Modern times
Olympus is now a popular tourist area. The ruins of the ancient city end in a valley that holds numerous pensions and guest houses. The valley is bound on the water side by Mount Omurga.

title: Olympus (Lycia)


text:
Talk:Oder/Archive 1

first section
I reverted the redirects as explained on the very top of the Talk:Odra page. That is, there is an official English name for the river. Apologies to Taw, WOjpob, SC, et. al., but it doesn't matter why English speakers call things by their German, rather than Slavic, names (except that English-speakers have traditionally had more to do with Germans, and they speak a Germanic language). It only matters for ease of use that they do. The article as it is now makes it clear that the duality of names is becoming more common, but it is doubtful that this is something that will be replaced entirely -- or at least not for several generations.

This is markedly different rom cases like Gdansk, where many know that I fought long and hard to keep the article from being Danzig. In that case, the official English language (or at least American English -- don't go there) is Gdansk -- because the city is presently located in Poland. The Oder or Odra is not. It runs through several countries. Context is important. JHK -- Makes sense. Space Cadet 15:34 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It does run through several countries, but none of these countries is Germany or otherwise German-speaking. It only runs a few tens of kilometers along Germany border. I don't think this explains using German name; it should be Czech or Polish name, as the river runs through these two countries. Rafal Rzepecki Sun Dec 7 20:45:39 CET 2003

Vote
Vote with, please place comments below. The vote options are alphabetically ordered.

 * Oder-Neisse: Daniel Quinlan, Adam Bishop, Zundark, Maximus Rex, Secretlondon, Mattworld, Morwen, Zocky
 * Odra-Nysa: Rafal Rzepecki
 * Undecided: Space Cadet

Nope, consensus is the method used by wikipedia last time I checked, not voting. It does seem that the consensus favours Oder-Neisse, because of it being the standard usage amongst english speakers. It just seems that one particular person won't abide by the consensus decision. --snoyes 19:49, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Voting has nothing to do with it. We can't vote on what English-speakers call the river. It's what it's called, period. Should the Warsaw page be at Warszawa? RickK 20:27, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Warsaw is an English name so this is a bad example here -- CC, 21:58, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Voting is a Good Thing. It's a way to find out where people stand on an issue, without having to read a lot of text. When a discussion comes down to what (merely) personal choices on something are, it's time to vote. Since it's only enforcable by consensus, it's not in breach of wikipedia spirit. It's more of an opinion poll really: How many people think that "Oder" is the most common English name for Odra. Zocky

The problem is that there seems to be no real english name for this river. There seems to be 1:1.5 ratio of Odra/Oder usage on internet now, the trend being in favor of Odra. I am against voting and for consensus. Matusz 20:37, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There is no English name for the rivers. Oder-Neisse are the German names. Odra-Nisa the Czech names, and Odra-Nysa the Polish names. Odra/Oder lies mostly in the Czech Rep. and Poland and is only a border river in Germany so the Polish-Czech name should be used in English, Neisse/Nisa/Nysa is a border river between Poland and Germany so there is no simple solution -- CC, 21:56, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think prevailing English usage should be our main guide. In this particular case, it seems clear that the term Oder-Neisse line is so well-known in English as to dominate any other usage. --Delirium 21:58, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

This discussion is not new. We had the same discussion in the beginning of this year, and ended up with a compromise (see Talk:Odra). Unfortunatley it did not last long, but probably it would be best, if people engaged here could consider returning to this. Most important statements from that page: This should be common sense, but obviously it is not accepted by all parties. -- Baldhur 00:31, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Acknowledge the _existence_ of alternate names.
 * Avoid any pronouncement that either alternative is the "right" one.

 * I read that, but there doesn't really seem to be any agreement or compromise accepted by a majority. Just some rejoicing that Odra was used by a few Polish users and some mild notes that Oder is, in fact, the name typically used in English.  Anyway, nobody is proposing we not note the Polish name or the German name.  The disagreement is whether we should not use the common English name on the English Wikipedia.  Nobody is disputing (or can reasonably dispute) that most English speakers use "Oder-Neisse".  Daniel Quinlan 02:48, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

 * Well, I referred to Taw's statements that I read in the recent changes: "This river is called Odra, not Oder" - "There is only one true name of this river, and it is Odra." I wonder, what he wants to achieve with such nonsense. -- Baldhur 11:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But what happened to this article? I remember it said the both Odra and Oder are used in English, that Oder is the German name, and Odra is the Polish/Czech name. Can we have this information back, regardless what is the name of the article? -- CC, 05:51, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I tried to keep it a bit less wordy than that, but I readded some of that information. Current intro (as of right now) reads:
 * The Oder or Odra River (German: Oder; Polish: Odra) flows...
 * Is that closer to an acceptable compromise? --Delirium 10:49, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

 * That sounds fine to me. If it is so overly important to some parties, then we should agree to state both names in every article where this river occurs. -- Baldhur 11:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * We should use the English name at the English Wikipedia. If foreign (Polish) names should be mentioned together with English names whenever the English name is the German, why not also mention German names whenever we mention a Polish name commonly used in English, e.g. "Szczecin or Stettin (Polish Szczecin, German Stettin)" ? -- Nico 12:01, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Nico, the difference is, that the Oder River is running through several countries, while that city is entirely in Poland. So in the river case we have two valid names today, while in the city case we have one name valid today and one name previously valid. I think, this is a notable difference. -- Baldhur 12:06, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I disagree, since we in English not necessarily use the local names, but the names with a tradition in English, and you may certainly argue that many or at least some English-speaking people still use Stettin when dealing with the present-day city, just like some English-speaking people use Odra. Nico 12:11, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't care what you native speakers use as names, as long as the info provided in the article is correct and without major omissions. But to give you something to think about: I know that warm feeling, when you revert someones changes and everybody seems to back you up. I used to do that myself. I didn't bother to stop and think, just why that person was making changes the way they did. All I was thinking about was that I am right so they cannot be. I am ashamed now. Matusz 11:11, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Try to guess just why is it called Oder by most of you?
 * Can you remember the circumstances under which the river became mostly a polish one?
 * Can you trace back the events that have led to our current political situation in Europe?

I can't believe this discussion is still going on. The whole thing is ridiculous. There's already Warsaw, Belgrade, Drave etc as examples of how this should be done. Oder just happens to be the name most commonly used in English. Nothing you can do about it. Please note that I'm from Slovenia, say Odra in my native language, and am generally inclined to support Slavic interests. But you people are overdoing it. The result of this all is that the article is now just a listing of some facts, most of them not really interesting. A typical reader won't care much about which voivodships the river runs through, but wil want to read on some history, which is now simply ignored (oh yeah, there's a non-descript link in see also). Also, it simply doesn't look like a wikipedia article. IMO, it should say:

Oder (Polish and Czech Odra) is a river in Europe.

And work on from there.

Zocky 14:25, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I fully agree with that. I would also write Odra (German Oder) is..., or if people like to call the river Honkyponky, I might do that as well. These tiring naming disputes are mainly for people, who have nothing else to say. Currently it is almost impossible to edit an article of this entire Western Polish region without upsetting anyone for tiny reasons. Noone was able to explain, why a name is so extremely important. Noone was able to explain, how a river can have an "original" or "true" name. Up to now I thought, that a river is not man-made and therefore can hardly have an original or true name. After one year of discussing the same issue without any progress perhaps someone should start writing about hydrology, tributaries, cities on its banks etc. etc. I would appreciate that. -- Baldhur 14:48, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I can do nothing but agree. But if both of you have written as much in the article as in discussion it would be much better. Matusz 16:09, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * You are probably right, Matusz. Thanks a lot for your improvements. -- Baldhur 17:07, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I tried wikifying and NPOVing it. There are still some issues left, though:
 * I removed length and drainage basin data for Poland. Add for all countries or none.
 * Are the names of tributaries the most commonly used ones in English?
 * The name of the bay: see below

Zocky 16:46, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Hi Zocky. I haven't checked all the tributaries. The Nysa Lozycka is the river known as Neisse, which is part of the Oder-Neisse or Odra-Nysa line. As for the bay: try a Google search for Szczecin Lagoon: 375 results. That is the name, we should use IMO. -- Baldhur 17:06, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The delete was accidental, of course. Sorry. Zocky 17:24, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that this article is finally moving forward. And yes, Szczecin lagoon seems to be the right name. Nice find. Zocky 18:20, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * "Szczecin Bay" is about as common as "Szczecin Lagoon" according to Google. You were searching for a misspelling, which is why you only got two hits. (By the way, both English-language atlases that I looked at list it as "Stettiner Haff", but Google only gets about 200 hits for this when restricted to English pages.) --Zundark 19:50, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Britannica has the "lagoon" variant (actually it has Szczecinski Lagoon, but that is less common than Szczecin Lagoon). In addition I think, that lagoon is a more appropriate translation of the word "Haff". I can't say anything about the Polish word "Zalew". How can it be translated? -- Baldhur 21:39, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Another thing: the list of cities and tributaries is much too long now - it's a couple of screens long. One thing that probably should be done, is to include major cities and tributaries in the text. Then we should either
 * delete the other links - I don't like the idea. It provides useful info, plus it's a nice wish list.

 * restructure the others into "navigation bars" (see below), but this has been frowned on by some as "ugly"
 * cities on Oder: Ostrava | Raciborz | Kedzierzyn-Kozle | Krapkowice | Opole | Brzeg | Olawa | Jelcz-Laskowice | Wroclaw | Brzeg Dolny | Scinawa | Szlichtyngowa...

Zocky 18:41, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * something else ?

 * For place names that refer to cities or regions entirely in Poland, the Polish names should be used. I would suggest to always add the German name in parentheses, but that is just my opinion and far from being policy. It would be desirable to have a policy here, since it is a very common contentious point. -- Baldhur 21:39, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anonymous user 82.82.129.186 wrote: ''Uznam? The name is Usedom in English (as in German). The island is located in Germany.'' You are mistaken. The island is not entirely located in Germany, it is partially German and partially Polish (see Usedom). Mentioning the Polish name should be okay and does not need to be deleted. -- Baldhur 21:47, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about this:

 * Establish the English name using the naming convention
 * Use the English name for the article title
 * Provide appropriate redirects from names in other languages
 * Provide names in other relevant languages in the opening of the article
 * After that, always use the English name unless superfluous or expressly inappropriate in the context.
 * In a relevant context (discussion of multi-linguality of a region, names themselves, etc) and if appropriate, also use clearly marked names in alternative languages.
 * If listing places or landmarks in officially multilingual territories, list all official names in a clear way
 * Otherwise, always use the English name and put alternative names in the articles on landmarks themselves

Or, to keep it short

 * Use English names, unless inappropriate
 * Use names in other languages only if appropriate

Rationale: Using alternative names for all places/persons/etc in an article (even if just at the first mention) is too cluttering. It stops the flow of text. Consider that some things have many names. Are we to give every name of Danube in all articles where it is mentioned? Short version with slashes (Oder/Odra, Uznam/Usedom) is not acceptable - it's nearly as cluttering and confusing - how is a reader to tell which name is in which language? And the whole thing is supposed to be in English, anyway.

Zocky 21:06, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Makes 100% sense to me. In fact, I thought that was already the policy, but then I also would argue that many of the edits on these articles are definitively going against both policy and common sense.  Daniel Quinlan 22:47, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

I think it is easy with the Danube having a exlusively English name, so nobody is offended by using this name. It is not the case with a river like Oder/Odra. The first name is German, and the second name is Polish/Czech. There's no an English name for the river so the English speakers have to use the native one: sound simple, but which is the native one. Poland nad Czech republic suffered hundreds of years of Germanising policies and using the German names for Czech/Polish cities or rivers is felt as an offensive practise. On the other hand the Germans feel that's nothing wrong with using the German name. There's no problem for rivers that lie entirely in one country, but what to do with the international rivers like Oder/Odra? I can see no simple solution. -- CC, 22:59, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

first archive ends here

title: Talk:Oder/Archive 1