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Talk:Anglo-Saxons

So many myths
Only perhaps 10,000 to 25,000 Angles and Saxons crossed over during the centuries of migration. These migrants settled in among the millions of people who were already there, ruling over parts of the island until the eleventh century Norman invasion.

The Anglo-Saxon cultural influence declined with the 1066 conquest by Normandy, today a region of France. The new Norman rulers transformed England and ejected the old Anglo-Saxon elite, many of whom fled the country entirely. And so the Anglo-Saxon era ended, four or five centuries of rule that ended a thousand years ago and did not appear to make a lasting or substantial impact on British genes.

At their height, the Anglo-Saxons made up less than 1% of the British population. It may have left a cultural heritage, but no genetic heritage to speak of. 89.253.73.146 (talk) 20:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

 * To quote Queen Bess: I have the body of a week and feeble Western European; but I have the brains and expertise of a historian and linguist, and one specialised in this period, too, and think foul scorn that anyone should write "at their height, the Anglo-Saxons made up less than 1% of the British population" and think it holds water in any sort of way. Where did you read that? And 10-25,000 settlers over centuries? We simply do not have any sort of reliable source to estimate absolute numbers, so let's do away with flinging those about. What we can tell from our few written sources and from archaeology should make us wary of minimalist migration scenarios.
 * Funnily enough, this minimalist position you've endorsed is the one that dominated most of the later 20th century, as a sort of pendulum counter swing to the "völkisch" and "racial" obsession of earlier research which had stressed a direct correlation between archaeological culture and genetic descent. In other words: "People travelled! (I'm a filthy little fascist at heart.)" - "No, pots travelled! (I'm an enlightened pot-loving Hippie.)"
 * Over the past ten, fifteen years or so we've experienced a more nuanced levelling out of these extreme models, mainly thanks to the relatively hard evidence of Y and mtDNA research originally, and palaeogenetics more recently. Palaeogenetics regarding Anglo-Saxon migration is still very much in its infancy. Even with the facts we can hope for from that field in future, the blur of which genetic markers we identify as "Anglo-Saxon" enough to qualify will remain significant. There are a few hints that we can see, however: At the present state of error, research does not seem to agree with your position especially well, with Northern England showing up at about 3/4 "Continental North Sea" ancestry (mumbled: whatever that means) after the Migration Period. You can look up that recent study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2. So, off of that high horse, and down into the research rabbit hole with you. It's great fun! We all float down here. Trigaranus (talk) 09:23, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I was going to reply, but Trigaranus put it better than I ever could. Saying less than one percent of the British Population was Anglo Saxon is a curious position to take, disavowed by all modern research, and a position that only really exists as a VERY unscientific way to try to refute any connotations of people taking pride in Anglo Saxon ancestry (because admittedly, a lot of racist groups do use its imagery, but that absolutely doesn't make it OK to lie and pretend they had minimal impact).
 * As was said, off the high horse. There is a LOT of Anglo-Saxon DNA in the English. I honestly do not know where you deign to get those figures anon. Alooulla (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes clearly arguing against the weakest and most extreme types of statements won't help us much. I think that no one seriously doubts there was one or more movements of people from the other side of the north sea. The devil is in the detail. Some of the first Saxons probably came as Roman recruits for example, very early. Their language, and something of their culture, might have been established quite early within the Roman military. That barbarians ran the military and kept (and modified) their barbarian style to their position is known from other countries. But other groups apparently came to England later, if we believe the few medieval sources. None of these things disagree with each other. The genetics confirms things in a rough way only for now. People came from northern Europe. Extreme positions which claim that there was a genocide, or that there were hardly any immigrants, are both pretty unpopular but that does not mean we have a clear vision of what happened yet.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "Arguing against the weakest and most extreme types of statements won't help us much".
 * What Alooulla is arguing against is not an "extreme" position, but was considered mainstream less than a decade ago. It was only in retrospect, and with hard genetic evidence, that the field realized that they had fallen into a political ideology, sometimes explicitly stated, to downplay or deny the existence of an AS people.
 * From a synopsis: "Historian Wolf Liebeschuetz and archaeologist Sebastian Brather, to pick on just two, have both firmly insisted that archaeology must not, and cannot, be used to trace migrations or identify different ethnic groups in prehistory." DenverCoder19 (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

"Two medieval scholars tackle the misuse of a phrase that was rarely used by its supposed namesakes"
One of the authors is Mary Rambaran-Olm, the other looks like someone as notable. So this is a reliable source for anyone interested. Doug Weller talk 08:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Related discussions
 * Talk:Anglo-Saxons/Archive 5 in 2020
 * Talk:Anglo-Saxons/Archive 6 in 2021. TSventon (talk) 08:49, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure there's a very stringent argument to be had there: "ethnic" naming conventions are and always have been nothing more than that, and our modern ones very rarely reflect historic usage. If you had asked a Greek scholar of the Early Middle Ages, he would have divided all northern peoples into Scythians and Galatians, regardless of their ethnic affiliations, and would have called himself a Roman, even if he spoke not a shred of Latin. There is nothing to suggest that there ever was an idea of "Celts" in the heads of the historic Celts, nor one of "Germans" in the minds of the historic Germanic peoples. So no surprise there. Not even the modern Germans in the sense of Germany had a concept to describe themselves, and the association of the term "Teutonic" with the HRE (and its conflation with thuidisc) was originally negative propaganda by the popes during the time of their rivalry with the emperors. So it's absolutely no skin off anyone's rosy nose that nowadays we have both a historic and a modern convention for using Anglo-Saxon in a more or less blurry sense. Anglo-Saxons back in the day: people who spoke Old English. Anglo-Saxons around now: white-ish "English" and "American" people (give or take) who speak Modern English. It's not scientific taxonomy but conventional usage. Trigaranus (talk) 11:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It's the "conventional usage" as a racialist concept that's being pushed back against. That's the main motivator for these and other scholars to shift to using other terminology.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done ) 11:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * A purely American issue; I notice no solution is offered. Resist American cultural imperialism! Johnbod (talk) 14:14, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree there is not much we can do with it here. The way the article presents it, this is not one issue at all but several different ones anyway:
 * Should we avoid using a term for an historic cultural group, because it is sometimes seen as a race? This question implies that when we refer to the whole Old English speaking culture we can better call them English, ignoring the other term Saxon, and potentially confusing them with the later English. I suppose anyone interested in avoiding misconceptions about cultures being continuous races, might also need to consider whether this is a good solution. In any case I think that the term Anglo-Saxon is not particularly common as a racial concept in modern contexts. I think Winston Churchill is the main inspiration for recent use and despite what the authors make out he was connecting the term to a common cultural tradition, and he was doing it in order to inspire an alliance during a war. So when people use the term these days they tend to be referring to things like "legal traditions".
 * Should we avoid modern terms for historical peoples if they were not widely used by the historical people involved? I think the main reason to be concerned about such cases would be because of some other factor, for example a question about whether the ancient people involved actually existed as a cultural group that anyone at the time would have recognized. That's not a problem here, but see the next point.
 * The article seems to imply that the term is also bad because it represses understanding of the different nations who had their own names for themselves. It sounds like they dispute whether there should be a generic term at all, but then in other places they seem to accept that there should be. Apart from being an unclear point, I think it also doesn't make much sense. I think the simple idea of the English having been several clearly defined peoples who transferred over from different homelands is questionable, whereas it is very clear that there was an overall group. The only term we can connect easily to a homeland on the continent is "English". We don't really know the origin of the term Saxon. The idea that the Saxons appear on Ptolemy's map is widespread but experts can't really agree about it. And this implies that the term initially came into a use in coastal France and England, apparently meaning something like viking. The term did not start being used for North Germans until much later. There was no Frisian kingdom in England, and no Mercian kingdom on the continent.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the biggest issue is that it's not yet a scholarly consensus, although things might be moving to that point. It's also the term most entrenched among the populous. Wikipedia still uses "Genghis Khan" even though most scholars now use the more accurate Anglicization "Chinggis Khan".--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done ) 11:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest the trend is going in the other direction in this case. I'd also say that beyond the consensus problem another problem here is just working out what the point being made is when you try to boil it down to its essence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * generally used in a racist context per the linked article is quite a Ameri-centric perspective, as discussed before. That statement wouldn't be true for (at least) the UK. The whole thing is reminiscent of the Byzantine Empire nomenclature obsession of some. It's just a useful short-hand for something. DeCausa (talk) 11:56, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem for me that for me the term Anglo-Saxon, in England is not elitist, it tends to be disparaging. For example if someone swears they would apologise for using "the Anglo-Saxon ". In 1066 England was conquered by the Normans, if you read Kevin Cahill's book "Who Owns Britain"  you will see that a large percentage of land in England is still owned by people who's ancestors came over with William the Conqueror. They would be insulted if you accused them of being Anglo-Saxon!! The top private schools and universities were set up by people who's ancestry were largely from Norman or Plantagenet backgrounds. We still have a higher house of Parliament full of aristocrats. Check out our hereditary peers, you will see that the majority of them have Norman/ French names hidden behind their titles eg: Duke of Norfolk. That is not to say that Anglo-Saxons have not moved in the upper circles of society. There is a whole range of different terms for such folk. Example, "he made it to the top even though he was a commoner" (ie: Anglo-Saxon). "He is no blue blood!" in other words not an aristocrat (ie:Anglo-Saxon). In the last hundred years or so progress has been made. You don't have to be a major land owner or male to vote for example. So I am not sure the "Genghis Khan" / "Chinggis Khan" analogy is a good one. Outside England the Anglo-Saxon term has a bit of an elitist ring to it however in England the attitude is somewhat different. I think that most people in multi-ethnic England would not identify with being Anglo-Saxon these days. It is just regarded as a reference to people who settled these islands in medieval times (How many and for what reason is a much more interesting discussion). As long as Wikipedia includes a nomenclature in their articles, clarifying the term, I see no reason to change the terminology. Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:01, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I think you considerably overstating the case there. Much-diluted Norman bloodlines may own a lot of grouse moors, but only a lucky few, like Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster (whose ancestor snapped up a commoner heiress to a farm that is now Mayfair and Belgravia) have really valuable urban land. On being "insulted if you accused them of being Anglo-Saxon", I remember a hilarious tv episode (probably Who Do You Think You Are? (British TV series)) with the late Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers, who treasured the idea of being properly Anglo-Saxon, based on an 11th-century female ancestor. They wheeled on a historian who told him very bluntly that her name was as Norman as they come (rather implying he ought to go around wearing a beret with onions around his neck). He was visibly discomforted.  I suspect this is a more typical attitude. Johnbod (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Johnbod Thanks for that!! I was making a general point. I think that DNA testing has unraveled a lot of misconceptions. The Normans tended to intermarry with the Anglo-Saxon women anyway, and I think that over the centuries it wasn't just the men of the house that were sleeping with servants etc! I didn't include the Scandinavian settlement in large parts of Northern England either. My point was that the use of Anglo-Saxon is much more nuanced in England then the US. I guess where it works is where it belongs, namely as a term of convenience for all the Germanic tribes who arrived in England after Rome(possibly some during) and before the Norman Conquest. BTW - We used to get a Breton onion seller round regularly here on his bike. They seem to have disappeared. Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, in the UK "Anglo-Saxon" in a contemporary context used to mainly mean "four-letter words", but I think this is less common now. Our charming onion seller, straight out of Central Casting, stopped in the late 1960s I think. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Wilfridselsey I think you make a small-seeming jump of logic that is also apparently in the article when you say "all the Germanic tribes who arrived in England". I'd say that a quite early stage pretty much everyone in the rolling hills and flat country of SE England was "Anglo Saxon", no matter what their ancestry (Frisian, Italian, French, Welsh etc). Once again I'd like to point out that the old idea of identifiable tribes from different parts of Europe, who continued to see themselves as distinct in England, is not really based upon much. The only clear case of a name which had staying power was the one which also became generic, the Angles. (I think the evidence is against the term Saxon originally referring to a small Germanic people.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:20, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Andrew Lancaster I also said that Anglo-Saxon is a "term of convenience" for all the tribes. I don't believe it to be particularly representative or accurate. But we at least know or think we know what it means when use it in the Medieval England context. You say that the name Angles has staying power however in the Welsh language and Scottish Gaelic they call the English "Saxons" ( Saesneg/ Sassenach). Anyway I thought this discussion was more about the historic term Anglo Saxon vs. modern (mis)use? Wilfridselsey (talk) 16:50, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, but as I said, I don't think that we can be confident that "Saxon" was originally a term for a "Germanic tribe who arrived in England". Angle and Frisian were, but there was no part of England which was seen as a Frisian kingdom.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Andrew Lancaster There is a body of evidence that suggest that the Jutes came from Frisia, whether they were Frisian or originated in Jutland and travelled via Frisia, is a point of debate. The Jutes set up several kingdoms in SE England. Also, Saxon was a loan word from Latin and the annals were written in Latin, so it is understandable how its use leaked into English. As far as I know the earliest use was by George (bishop of Ostia and Amiens) in 786, when after a visit to England he wrote a report to the pope describing his trip to Angul Saxnia. Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you should double check that body of evidence. The question here is whether there is any strong academic consensus about these things. There isn't. There is was a much later claim that Kent was settled first by Jutes, but modern historians treat that with caution and in any case there is no evidence that people there saw themselves as Jutes. The etymology of Saxon is uncertain and they were first definitely mentioned as raiders in the 4th century. The term Angles was given for later settlers on different coasts, and it clearly does imply a connection to a specific region.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:20, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that you are out of date, there has been a lot of recent scholarship on this. They have linked the archaeology of Frisia with the so called Jutish areas in England, but not to Jutland. Have a look at these books "The Land of the English Kin. Studies in Wessex and Anglo-Saxon England in Honour of Professor Barbara Yorke (2020) - this is open source, "The Archaeology of Kent to AD 600 (2007)", "The Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Southern Britain AD 450-650 (2014)" or this paper "Saxons in the Meon Valley: A Place-Name Survey (2014)".Wilfridselsey (talk) 11:32, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you are changing subject, or maybe you've forgotten what my original remark was. I pointed out that there is very little evidence for there having been multiple Germanic tribes who arrived in England and continued to be seen as members of those specific continental "arrived" groups, and distinct from other Old English speakers. Archaeology can only give vague hints about such things. Anyway, I certainly don't see anything justifying your implied claim that there is an academic consensus for the existence of a Frisian kingdom in England. No one denies that there was movement of people and material goods though, and that is not what I was talking about.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes we have moved off subject but I was just addressing your point about no Frisian kingdoms? Anyway, we can agree on one thing there is very little consensus when talking about Anglo-Saxon history. I did not mean that the Jutes were Frisian I said there is a growing body of evidence to support a link. In other words there is evidence to support the hypothesis. Not that it is a fact.Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem. Sometimes worth having a side discussion to see where we all are. (I think so anyway.) If you are interested in reports of Frisians I suppose you know about the strange report of Procopius. Sorry to Mr Sunak but I don't think anyone has ever succeeded in closing the English channel. There were Bretons and Saxons on both sides of the Romanised channel for a long times, but further north there is no doubt of contact with Frisians, Angles and Jutes (and later Flemings). My point was that the Angles are a little special in the sense that we can connect a specific sub-group in England with a specific sub-group in Europe.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Folks, this entire discussion frankly boggles my continental European mind. I'm a historian (and Anglicist) specialised in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and I've yet to meet a scholar who took any form of umbrage at the term "Anglo-Saxons" in historical contexts. Historians constantly use terms of convenience and convention. As do humans in general: A large part of the "English" are more Saxon than Anglish, most of the "French" are decidedly un-Frankish, and the "Russians" tend no longer to arrive in Eastern Europe in Scandinavian boats. Hell, even my own country's name is silly (I'm Swiss, but I'm definitely not "from Schwyz" -- that place is a shitshow.).
 * When readers *not* from the US see the term "Anglo-Saxons", they will -- provided they have some interest in history -- immediately think of stuff like Beowulf, King Arthur's wars, Alfred and his burnt cookies, guys unironically named Offa offing people, and a rather odd type of Phrygian hat. Jokes aside: if you're not American, "Anglo-Saxon" is a conventional name for a historical cultural complex. It has the benefit of having been used by contemporary scholars (Paul the Deacon) and even as a self-descriptive ethnonym in a king's titles (Aethelstan)! So what if people with idiotic mindsets also use it? The notion that we should give up its use because modern-day doofuses eat at the same lexical buffet as everyone else is, frankly or frenchly, daft. Trigaranus (talk) 18:09, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Trigaranus, I'm a bit late seeing this; please let me note that--well, if you'd like to meet a scholar who took any form of umbrage etc., here I am. Pleased to meet you. Surely you are familiar with the organization formerly known as ISAS, now called ISSEME; this is five years old already., I'm surprised this rather important name change wasn't discussed here at all, only mentioned. And yes, Trigaranus, this A-S shit hit the fan just as I was making the next-to-final copy edits on a book I was editing, with Brill, and my co-editor and I acted on it. So please don't think that this is not an important matter to many of us in the field. I think that in a few years someone in our business (my business) will look at this discussion and laugh. Drmies (talk) 21:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, as you say, it's been 5 years, & I see no signs at all of UK usage shifting. I suspect UK academics see this as something their American colleagues have to do, but they don't. The case of "Celtic" is perhaps similar - academics all understandably dislike the term for a whole range of reasons, but recognise that it has an unshakeable grip on public awareness, as well as a political dimension, and are not attempting to dislodge it. British Museum books and display texts over recent decades show this pretty clearly. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to note, as an American, when I hear "Anglo-Saxon" I also think of Beowulf, Arthur, Alfred, and Sutton Hoo. But I'm a history buff. 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done ) 13:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The whole, 'Let's look for words that people might find offensive and insist that they are not used' approach is futile; because the people who want to use words in an offensive way will just convert the new replacements into being offensive. Urselius (talk) 11:03, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Urselius, your characterization of the (justified) move to shift the name of the field to an a. more appropriate and b. less racially charged one is silly and insulting. No one was "looking for words". Drmies (talk) 21:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Drmies For a sub-continent sized country the USA is incredibly insular and parochial. Your reply is "silly and insulting". There is nothing racially charged about the term 'Anglo-Saxon' outside the USA, so for US citizens to impose their local concerns on international scholarship is unforgivable. I am old enough to remember when the term 'coloured' was polite usage and 'black' was insulting, when used as descriptors of people, so I think that my comment on the mutability of the offensive use of words was entirely accurate. Urselius (talk) 21:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * , what a remarkably shortsighted set of comments. I'm surprised you didn't pull the old "woke leftist" on me. In short, "There is nothing racially charged about the term 'Anglo-Saxon' outside the USA" is just totally wrong (but then, this field is not your specialty, is it--it is mine), and whether it was US citizens who proposed these name changes is pretty immaterial. Who the hell knows, maybe there were Canadians among them. You could look at ISSEME's program for their 2025 conference in Dusseldorf, which as you may know is in Germany. The present conversation could fall under the second bullet point, but this is already old news. Oh, I don't know if you think that I am a US citizen: I am not. Drmies (talk) 22:12, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Drmies I happen to be clinically myopic, but I can recognise bullshit when I see or smell it. From your 'woke' comment you seem to be under the misapprehension that I am some flavour of Right Winger. Nothing could be further from the truth, I am a Socialist and Trades Unionist, I have been on many a picket line in the wind and snow, and, indeed, been on anti-racism marches. I even possess a small bust of Lenin, which sits next to my small bust of Charles Darwin. As a Socialist, I resent this expression of American imperialism. You being, or not being, American is irrelevant, the whole 'Anglo-Saxon' is a racist term farrago had its origins in the US and it is solely a reflection of US mores and society. Outside of the USA 'Anglo-Saxon' does not possess any racist or elitist, or 'you can't join this golf club', connotations. In the UK 'Anglo-Saxon' has quite the opposite meaning, with connotations of things that are basic, of the common people, down to earth, even boorish. I suspect that American sentiment has strong-armed some academic opinion outside of the US, but it has also engendered fierce opposition in the same circles. The sensibilities of people from a country that relatively recently officially considered the Portuguese and Spanish people from Spain to be of different races should rightly be ignored with some contempt. BTW I have drunk altbier in Düsseldorf. Urselius (talk) 22:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I also resent your condescending tone. I have an interest in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval history dating back many decades, I have an extensive library of books on these periods. A cursory look at my editing history will confirm my expertise. I am also not a professional historian of the Napoleonic era, but that did not prevent me getting 6 articles on Napoleonic topics published, one of which won an international prize, the judges for which were professional Napoleonic scholars. I have also provided technical expertise for an ancient DNA project, so have some professional knowledge that is quite applicable. Urselius (talk) 09:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I suggest we focus on this group of articles. I don't see how any of this leads to any practical proposal we can use. Historians and other academics, American or non-American are welcome to express concerns about confusions caused by current word usage, but that does not mean they have given us a new term to use in the period which is relevant here. I see no concrete move proposal above? I presume we can't just switch to "English". That would surely be worse. (There is hardly any term for topics like this which can not be used in a controversial way.) "Anglo-Saxon" still seems to be the only clear available term, and it is still a commonly used term for academics studying this period. I can of course see that we should write our articles about this period using clear explanations about the terminology, good disambiguations etc. Honestly I think that can cover most potential confusions? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * An American student recently, without discussion, tried to convert an article (I forget which) to use "Old English" instead of AS - I suppose that could work, if it were generally accepted, but I've never seen it elsewhere. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I may have to chime in by opening with the compulsory listing of my leftist credentials (can supply pictures of my party donations, of my alienation from the fruits of my labour, or of guilloutines for extra credit). With that out of the way: What annoys me almost the most about this is how in PC language cosmetics, people always fiddle around with the signifiant, as if the undesirable notions weren't attached to the signifié. And it's as if some scholars (and Brill) were now shifting around to argue that "Anglo-Saxon" only had one signifié, with no acknowledgement of the fact that it took quite a while to get to the 19th century from the 9th.
 * From where I stand, this is just becoming ever more pointless. We're literally engaging in a nontroversy, regardless of the editorial virtue signalling done by publishing houses like Brill. We're having a debate about an established name with fairly clear semantics for the mediaeval period. The term is useful for the first millennium because it contrasts with "Roman", "Celtic", "British", "Scandinavian", and to some much lesser degree even the later "English". As historians, we use it for the people who established the heptarchy, not for those who did Cape Cod. It frankly doesn't matter in the least whether in the modern day it touches on modern-day sensibilities due to modern-day post-colonial issues or some bullshit pseudo-ethnic narrative trumpeted about by the KKK.
 * There is a fairly simple comparison to be made to illustrate what lies at the heart of the issue:
 * Let's take a geographically adjacent example. There is unquestionably a tremendous amount of modern-day controversy as to who should be regarded as "Celtic" these days and by what standards. There is clearly a good helping of strident anti-English and post-colonial political sentiments thrown into the bargain. (I'm neither English nor "Celtic", whatever that means today, so again, this is no skin off my rosy nose.) In the case of "Celts", there was entirely no usage of the term whasoever by any populations in the British Isles, so the term is even less of an endonym for anyone in Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages. If I remember correctly, it was only ever first applied to Insular Celts in the 16th century. But nevertheless, there is (a) absolutely no doubt that the Celtic-speaking peoples of Ireland and Great Britain were Celts by conventional usage of the term (with increasing consensus even regarding the Picts), and (b) absolutely no impetus to retcon an established linguistic and cultural label due to modern-day touchiness or misplaced political correctness.
 * If we're behing honest, we can probably agree that there is no inherent difference between the two examples -- except for this: "Celtic" even today still describes an "underdog" cultural complex that had long suffered from English colonialism, while "Anglo-Saxon" in modern times is connected to 19th and 20th century English colonialism, imperialism, and racism. This is the whole extent of the difference. It allows for displays of public pride in "Celtic" culture, and casts the mark of jingo on any pride in "Anglo-Saxon" culture. This difference in the prestige of modern-day "Celtic" vs. "Anglo-Saxon" identities has absolutely nothing to do with what Nad Froich mac Cuirc or Coel Hen did or did not do back in the day; nothing to do with what Ælfric or Leofgifu were up to in the Anglo-Saxon period. But everything to do with what Charles Parnell didn't but Nathan Bedford Forrest or Cecil Rhodes did do (i.e. oppress people). Thanks to this, in a weird projection of these modern virtues and vices into the past, the term "Celtic" is still deemed acceptable usage for Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, but "Anglo-Saxon" is supposed to be taboo for the same period -- because some readers today might "be offended" by it? Although these terms describe different entities separated by more than a millennium? I'm sorry, but what does one have to do with the other besides the name? Names can mean two things. I'm literally holding a mouse, and you know which kind. This type of defensive rebranding is pandering to those with the least capacity for contrast and the least interest in context. And in that, it is only marginally less of a non sequitur than accusing a professor of Sinology of racism for teaching his students to say "nèi ge" because it sounds like the N-word. But acting as if "the A-S word" was anywhere on a par with a justifiedly suppressed racist slur, and therefore needed to be retired from usage due to the pain and suffering it allegedly causes poor widows and orphans, is peak performative actionism. Trigaranus (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

"Anglo-Saxons aren’t real"
In other news, "Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students" according to a Telegraph article (archived copy here). TSventon (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Clearly a bit twisted in that story but reading between the lines it seems to be about the Anglo-Saxon race idea (not their existence as such) and that idea does exist, and did get a bit of a boost in the early days of genetic studies, when there were claims that genetics could prove that there had been Apartheid and genocide. These things were much discussed among American genealogists for example. But as more data came in things settled down.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, reading between the lines is necessary. It is interesting, but not surprising, that Cambridge is trying to "address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity". There is some criticism of the article at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142k7ed/anglosaxons_arent_real_is_this_true/ . TSventon (talk) 08:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxons (slur)
In case anyone is interested, there is a new article at Anglo-Saxons (slur), with a background section sourced to current affairs sources. TSventon (talk) 13:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Critical review of a book in further reading
One of the "further reading" suggestions: Haywood, John (1999), Dark Age Naval Power: Frankish & Anglo-Saxon Seafaring Activity (revised ed.), Frithgarth: Anglo-Saxon Books, ISBN 1-898281-43-2 has been criticised in this review. The reviewer challenges some of the conclusions made by Hayward about the superior nautical activity discussed in the book. I suggest that this means this source should be used with caution, as it is clear that contrary opinions exist on many points made by Hayward. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * John Haywood (British historian) is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a former university lecturer, which makes him a reliable source under Wikipedia rules, but he has published so many books on so many different subjects that I would be doubtful of citing him as an authority. However, many books we cite by experts are criticised by other experts, so I do not think we can mark out one book as to be used with caution on the basis of a review.

 * BTW the further reading section is a mess which combines sources and books not cited. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:55, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I would encourage you to read the review cited, as it gives reasoned arguments as to why his opinions are questioned. The criticisms, if accepted, are quite damning. Looking at WP:HISTRW, I am reminded that the guidance is that we need to bear in mind whether an academic consensus exists on any view put forward. This review is strong evidence that, at a minimum, Hayward's ideas are challenged by those working in the field. Further study might reveal any support or other criticism. The original post was just a case of an initial alert. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:57, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Similar arguments apply to other books, and if I cited it a source in the article then I would also need to cite the criticism. As the book is not a source, I suggest that you add the review to Further reading. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:44, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

 * If the book is dubious, why not just remove it? I can only read one page of the review so I don't know how critical the following pages are. The essay Further reading includes reliability as a criterion for inclusion in the section. Wikipedia further reading lists are crowd sourced so they should always be used with caution. TSventon (talk) 13:11, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I think the whole "further reading" section just needs to go. It's completely arbitrary and this is not some niche topic. If it's relevant, it'll be cited in the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes that should indeed be the eventual aim. The only short term practical concern I have is that several parts of this article need trimming and focusing, and so some of these sources could become handy. I suggest we work through it bit by bit. In any case if we do major deletions then we should perhaps consider posting potentially recyclable deleted material here (or at least links to the deletion edits).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:30, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed, that is a reasonable approach. :bloodofox: (talk) 12:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Should we re-name this article to e.g. Anglo-Saxon culture and society
Having noticed that this article gets a lot of hit-and-run edits I've been looking at it more and already making some more systematic changes. However it is awkward. I notice that editors can't help themselves from making this into the "B" version of History of Anglo-Saxon England. It seems remarks about culture and history are pasted together haphazardly in almost any section, so that as a reader I am constantly struggling to see the connections between sentences in the same paragraph. The HAT note says the article is about culture and society. Could we focus ourselves better by making that the article title? What the article needs is a lot of trimming and rebuilding with a real structure based around something which is not already covered in another article. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:39, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

 * I agree. It is notable that this article gets nearly 3000 hits a day compared with 800 for the history article. This is probably partly because people searching for the history will search on the term Anglo-Saxon rather than the term history. The currect title is contradicted by the hatnote about its scope, and as you say much of it duplicates the history article. I think Anglo-Saxons should be a disambig listing the articles in the field. Working on the history article is on my to do list, although I have not got very far. It would be good if you can work on the culture and society. has considerable expertise on the culture. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Yes good disambiguation, from a reader's point of view, is another reason to re-name. I was thinking more from the point of view of getting us, the editors, focused. I think the other article is closer to what people expect as a main article. By the way, both articles can be improved. This thread is not meant to be about specific issues, but I just get the impression we could do with a bit of a "mission statement" so to speak.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:24, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping, Dudley. I certainly agree the history is far too long for here- indeed it seems longer than History of Anglo-Saxon England. It should be drastically shortened, probably with bits taken elsewhere, including history. I don't like the idea of a disam page or rename to Anglo-Saxon culture and society, both sure ways to greatly reduce views imo. Of course whether it would reduce reading of the sections below the lead is a difficult question. Johnbod (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I do not think that it makes sense for the Anglo-Saxons article to be on one aspect of them, and it would be good to have a separate article on Anglo-Saxon culture and society. I think that the question is whether Anglo-Saxons should be a summary article pointing to the separate articles for detailed information, or whether it should be a disambig page. Is anyone prepared to undertake the work to create a summary article? Dudley Miles (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You're being rather contradictory here; which "one aspect of them" do you think the article is currently about? We have many long articles on specific aspects of "culture and society", mostly treated as "mains" here, & I can't see any point in "a separate article on Anglo-Saxon culture and society" as a sub-summary of them. If the history is shortened (to say a quarter of its current length), and perhaps moved lower down, I think we are left with a reasonably balanced overall article, though with (I think) next to nothing on the economy and demographics, which don't seem to have any specific articles, except on the coinage. Johnbod (talk) 21:10, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * My comment was about the hatnote, which says that this article is about Anglo-Saxon culture and society. I was arguing that an article with the title Anglo-Saxons should not be about one specific aspect. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, but it certainly isn't now, so the hatnote should be adjusted. Johnbod (talk) 00:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If the article is not about the culture and society then what is it about? We need to have some clarity on this because we don't just need to shorten but also focus IMHO. Personally I don't see the problem with this article being about something like culture and society?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm very clear! To repeat myself, why would we need a sub-main article when each aspect has a decent article of its own? What other culture takes this approach on WP? If this was to be Anglo-Saxon culture and society, then almost all the history bits - say 90% of the current stuff - should go. Instead, this should be, as was always intended, the main general article on the AS, with a summary of all the various aspects, including the history. I strongly oppose not having a main article - what other culture takes this approach? It is a sure way to reduce views by quite a lot. By the way, the original version of the hatnote was introduced here in 2020 (during discussions very similar -both in subject and cast- to this one - see archive 5). Maybe we should remove it and work the same links into the lead?  Johnbod (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2024 (UT
 * The problem is that it now seems like we never had a clear consensus about what this article here is for, and the article is not working out well. I think the article split is having an impact on editing quality. Maybe you have a clear idea, but please help us see it? What is this article about, and what should not be in it? You mention other culture articles by which I think you mean the ones about modern populations like "Belgians", but these are not generally about historical peoples. The main articles for historical peoples typically focus on history, and so the split here is unusual. (We have three articles which look like main articles.) Without looking I guess the main article about the ancient Persians is not going to exclude discussion of their historical politics? For topics like this their history, with politics, migrations etc, is normally a much better known topic than other cultural aspects like architecture or folklore.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The article should be about the Anglo-Saxons, in all aspects. People (including you and me) have been complaining for several years that there is too much history here (more than in the actual History article apparently). You are completely wrong to guess that I meant modern population articles, and to think that I want to "exclude discussion of their historical politics" when I've clearly said I want to greatly reduce it several times. It is true that many other big historic articles have too large overlaps with their "history" articles, for example Byzantine Empire and Sasanian Empire - Achaemenid Empire perhaps less so. If they get near FAC, this overlap will generally be considerably reduced.  I think your "The main articles for historical peoples typically focus on history, and so the split here is unusual" is totally untrue - all such articles have separate "History of ..." articles. What is "unusual", and wrong, is that here the history section in the main article is longer than the "History of..." article.  Partly I think this because people over the years keep adding to the wrong article. What are we supposed to make of "For topics like this their history, with politics, migrations etc, is normally a much better known topic than other cultural aspects like architecture or folklore"? I'm now mystified as to what you think the article should be like - please explain. Johnbod (talk) 21:25, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I don't see myself as having a proposal right now, and certainly not any kind of disagreement. I want to understand what agreed framework we can use, and if I had a vision of that I seem to have lost it. I am finding it difficult to visualize what the three articles should contain and not contain but I am open to different approaches. I understand your description in "theory" but find it difficult to put this split into practice with this particular topic. As you say though, people have apparently been adding to the "wrong" articles, which in other words means that it probably isn't just me struggling with this. Parts of the articles have a very jumbled up feeling as if we have collected notes but not yet worked out how to use them. Could you give examples of other groups of articles which we can look at for inspiration? One thing at least which seems clear is that I may at least keep trying to trim the history section of this article. Concerning the hatnote, do you have any proposal about how to adjust it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Certainly keep trimming the history, which I thought we all agreed was too long. Much of it seems of decent quality, & could probably be moved/merged to the History of article. As I've said above, it should certainly be shorter than the supposed "main" History of article - I think perhaps 50% to 25% of its current length. I take it the 3rd article you mean is the "Settlement" one. I personally don't have a problem with that being the main article for the earliest period, or mainly focussing on historians' debates, though this is an unusual arrangement perhaps. It's not that we have a lot of facts to go on. Lots of long, popular, articles get bitty over the years, & de-jumbling is just a case of slogging through & rewriting, or removing to the History of article.  I think the hatnote should probably just be removed, except for a link to the disam page. I think we all agree it doesn't accurately represent the article as it is now, & really as it ever was.  Johnbod (talk) 03:28, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've added the useful { {section size} } template to the three big articles - see bottom of the stuff at the top here, which I think makes talking about their respective sizes and internal balances easier. Actually the History sections here and the "History of.." articles are about the same size, and the Settlement one twice as long as the History of.... Johnbod (talk) 03:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * OK for me for now at least. For now I intend to focus on the settlement period, on all 3 articles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:15, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For the big parallel parts of the two articles which I am NOT currently working on, I have set up a drafting page which might help others pick, choose, and meld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/Anglo-Saxon_drafting --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Adjusting hatnote and lead
In the light of the discussion just above, I'd propose changes as follows:
 * NOW

The Anglo-Saxons, the English or Saxons of Britain, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England, which is named after them, and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the dominant cultural groups in Britain during the 5th century. Although the details of early settlement and political development are not clear, a new English cultural identity developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the pre-existing Romano-British culture. Over time, most of the people of what is now southern, central, northern and eastern England came to identify as Anglo-Saxon and speak Old English.
 * PROPOSED

The Anglo-Saxons, the English or Saxons of Britain, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England, which is named after them, and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the dominant cultural groups in Britain during the 5th century. Although the details of their early settlement and political development are not clear, a new English cultural identity developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the pre-existing Romano-British culture. Over time, most of the people of what is now southern, central, northern and eastern England came to identify as Anglo-Saxon and speak Old English.
 * Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Perfectly fine in my book. Trigaranus (talk) 15:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

 * I don't have a problem with it if we look at only this article in isolation, but how should readers and editors understand the difference between this and the History article? For example, how would we understand the difference between an article about the History of the Roman Republic (an entity which ended a long time ago, and is "historical") and an article about the Roman Republic (which must also be about the history of that same entity)? Sorry if I am being thick here, but I have been struggling to see the difference and I was thinking the hatnote should be more specific, and not less. I am not saying your solution is wrong, but only that I don't yet get it very well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:51, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should add a few remarks to try to give more food for thought:
 * I think I know what the theoretical suggested answer is . I think the idea is that both of the articles will be about historical events, but the main one will be less focussed upon them, and also contain broader discussions about things like culture and society. That is the basis of how I've been trying to work, but at least until now it has led to a very substantial overlap. We have more or less got parallel articles, and I get the impression that ongoing edits have not been heading the articles into two different directions. So part of what I am wondering here is whether this distinction is going to become clearer to readers and editors if we make this change.
 * Perhaps another question to ask is whether we should keep the History article as it is, or perhaps respecify its aims a bit.
 * OTOH, perhaps the overlap is simply caused by a lack of systematic attention as opposed to edits about specific bits and pieces. Maybe things will head in the right directions once the articles (especially the history sections) are given a bit of a push, to make them more appropriately distinct. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:30, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Let's keep it simple - review both history versions, with a view to shortening one and lengthening the other, sometimes by simple transfer. I made some comments on the Viking raid bits of your useful draft page (on talk). Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not clear what other editors think, but I am happy with the article briefly covering each aspect of the Anglo-Saxons with a 'main' for more details. I think there is room for a culture article similar to Culture of ancient Rome and Culture of ancient Illyria. There do not seem to be separate articles on society so far as I can see and the case is less clear. With regard to Johnbod's proposal, I think the hatnote needs to say that the disambig covers specific aspects as well as other uses. On the last sentence "Over time, most of the people of what is now southern, central, northern and eastern England came to identify as Anglo-Saxon and speak Old English.", I think it would be better to say England apart from the south-west and north-west (the latter then part of Strathclyde). Dudley Miles (talk) 08:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I must admit I was completely unaware of Culture of ancient Rome, which seems a neglected and little-read article - for some reason its views fell off a cliff about 5 years ago. The 4 or 5 sentences on ancient Roman art are frankly pathetic - the section at Ancient Rome is a good deal longer & better, and that in Roman Empire better still. I'd be loath to take that as a model.  They have a different overlap & confusion issue, with various "main" articles: Ancient Rome, Roman Empire and Roman Republic, not to mention other articles like Late antiquity & so on. I think (with policy behind me, I think) that the old hatnote was just much too long, & would prefer to keep it very short and sweet. There is an added link to the history article a line or two in. Your last point, on the geography, relates to text I did not change, & probably should be taken separately - personally I think it would be nice to work in "Anglo-Saxon Scotland" if we can, & if we are trying to explain why people speak English. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * So far as I know you are the only person qualified to write and article on Anglo-Saxon culture so if you disagree with the idea it will not happen. I agree on keeping the hatnote simple. I would delete 'About Anglo-Saxon England' as too restrictive and just have a hatnote . Dudley Miles (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * yes I am happy to keep working on the principle of shortening/lengthening the history sections, which is what got me worried. Perhaps everything will then look clear (and perhaps I am just looking at it from the point of view of that task). I am not opposed to a shorter hatnote. That might help make it clear that this is the main article, with other articles supporting it. We probably should eventually make more use of "main article" and "see also" template on the sections.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've made a slightly different edit based on what you and Johnbod have written. I think the note needs to mention that we are talking about a medieval people (in order not to have any confusion with certain modern concepts).
 * I am fine with the medieval part, but I think the hatnote should make clear that the disambig does not only deal with different uses, but also aspects of the article's use. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think this says a bit more than we actually need, but am fine with it. Cartainly an improvement. I'll add the new links in the text from my proposal "... Although the details of their early settlement and political development are not clear..." Johnbod (talk) 23:41, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

deleted section
I did a bold edit and deleted a small section which was called Development of an Anglo-Saxon society. It mixes up information found in better discussions in other sections. Aspects of it seem wrong or misleading, such as the emphasis upon Irish and Scottish Christianity, the implication that the Tribal Hideage is from the 6th century, and so on. Perhaps some of this material should be used elsewhere but I did not see any obvious way to do that. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:07, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I happened to be reading it just as you deleted it (!) and noticing that it's sourcing was quite ropey...lack of page numbers, Bede and a Channel 4 documentary. DeCausa (talk) 13:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 4690 bytes - not so small. Where do you find the stuff on farms "in better discussions in other sections"? Johnbod (talk) 13:18, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point. I did not look closely for that particular bit, but now that you mention it the sourcing is better on that little paragraph. The other question in that case is where it should go. This article has sections Settlements and working life, Women, children and slaves, etc, down below. This section here was in a chronological sequence which seemed to imply it was specifically about the 6th century.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you want to have a go recovering that? I'll hold off a bit.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks - had a go, but plse adjust as you like. Shouldn't we have links for some terms? Johnbod (talk) 22:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure which ones you are looking at, but linking is a good idea for terms people aren't familiar with.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Anglo-Saxons


text:
User:Denni/User talk:Denni/2004 February Archive

MY PERSONAL SANDBOX
 Invited Guests Only  Please do not poop in the sand.

User:Dwindrim/Testaroonies!!!

HELLO, VISITOR
Please click here to post a new message.

I added you to the list of Advocates at Association of Members' Advocates. --Michael Snow 01:06, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In case your interested (you seem to be) I am deeply in favour of animal rights, am a believer in the souls of animals (and reincarnation, for that matter). I simply oppose the intellectual dishonesty/doublespeak of political correctness. I do find political correctness a laughing matter, in any and everyplace it rears its facist head. Such anti-intellectualism certainly has no place here. Sam Spade 23:58, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The ink isn't even dry on Celtiberians! I've been sweating it out for the past hour. Thanks! Wetman 05:01, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message and welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed you added drug addiction to VfD. You may want to reconsider this listing as I have now redirected the article to addiction. Angela. 02:20, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

FROM OTHER TALK PAGES
..from Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion

I believe you have identified the crux of the issue, Angela, when you say that this is a discussion about pages to be discussed pending possible deletion. A quick acronymity brings us to P2BDPPD, which is not only short 'n' snappy, but trendy too, and even if it does bear some resemblance to a Bronx cheer, that may remind us all not to take this too seriously.

Okay, I'll be good now. I see a couple of ways of dealing with this. One is to recognise that what Wiki is really doing here is putting an article on trial, with sysops acting as jury. The rest of us know we will be allowed our two cents worth, euro or othewise, for either the prosecution or the defense, but we also know we know we have no vote. And while people might not be willing to get up from in front of their computers to visit "Proposed Suggestions for Possible Deletion, Maybe," they'd be in like a dirty shirt for "Pages on Trial." (And PoT might be a secret draw for some...)

Alternatively, Wiki already has a polling mechanism in place, and no one seriously expects their input to be anything more than, well, input. As the page header says, "Polls are not the same as voting, so the results are not necessarily binding (this is especially true when the result is not a supermajority - at least 75%). However polls are often useful in the process of consensus finding when regular discussion is no longer able to make clear what the opinions of users are." Therefore, the sysops may still conduct their business without feeling "voting pressure."

Hope this helps. Denni 04:44, 2004 Feb 17 (UTC)

THE DARK SIDE OF WIKI
..from Talk:Drug addiction

from vfd end of VfD discussion --- continuing discussion here, (redirect or not)
 * Drug addiction - content manually merged with Addiction Denni 23:36, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)
 * Redirected. Angela. 02:20, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep as separate article. Anthony DiPierro 02:52, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Preferably separate article, if not then redirect. Saul Taylor 03:53, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm retracting the request for VfD. Thanks for the redirect, Angela. Denni 06:02, 2004 Feb 16 (UTC)
 * Redirect, should be sufficiently covered in Addiction --Dittaeva 10:45, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Anthony wrote in his edit comment:

 * This is a large page on a separate topic: much more than just a redirect

How is drug addiction separate from addiction? It appears to me that it is a subset thereof and that it would therefore be entirely appropriate to redirect to the addiction article, where the material in this one is already covered. In any case, for a multitude of reasons, massive redundancy like in the current arrangement is unacceptable.—Eloquence 06:15, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * Not all the material from this page is contained in the current addiction page. Anthony DiPierro

 * Then why don't you move over the material which you think is missing?—Eloquence

 * Because there's enough here for a separate article. Why don't you delete the material you feel is redundant? Anthony DiPierro 00:51, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * If you could help me understand why this is an issue for you, Anthony, I might have some ideas and suggestions as to where to take this from here. As I look at drug addiction right now, it seems to me to be dead in the water under that title. I also see that there are already lengthy articles on prohibition and the War on drugs. In all seriousness, what is there left that would constitute more than a stub? Denni 17:47, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

 * Are you saying it is only a stub now? What are the parts you want to remove? Anthony DiPierro 17:52, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * If you reread what I've said, you'll note that I did not say it was currently a stub. I said it would be a stub if the content already addressed in addiction were removed. I'm not suggesting anything be removed. I believe that drug addiction is properly a subset of a discussion of addiction in general, and hence a page related to drug addiction ought to be directed to addiction unless there is good reason not to. From my perspective, the only thing currently in the drug addiction article that is not in the addiction article is a discussion of the neurochemical processes involved in addiction. If you wish to tackle that, feel free. If not, I have information relating to how different classes of addictive substances affect brain chemistry. In either case, I would far rather be working on that than spending my time barking up a tree here. Denni 20:01, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

 * I took the duplicate content out of addiction.  Problem solved. Anthony DiPierro 20:18, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Sorry, Anthony - problem =not= solved. First, you did more than remove duplicate content. You also removed content unique to the article on addiction. Second, despite my rather lengthy response to your concerns as stated above, you have refused to engage in anything remotely resembling debate. Third, while the list of contributors to this discussion is admittedly limited, you remain the only party who insists that drug addiction needs to be treated as an article separate from addiction. Fourth, there has been altogether too much bad behavior here as far as revert wars goes, and I will not be a party to it. I had hoped that this could have been discussed over a cup of eCoffee, but that appears to be not the case, so I will take my case elsewhere. Denni 21:59, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

When I merged the two, I attempted to carry over as much of value as possible. I did not include the section on the War on Drugs because it seems to be a peculiarly American obsession, and the Classes of Drugs is maintained both with a link to the DEA site and with a regularly updated (and searchable) list at www.streetdrugs.com. I also have difficulty with both the tentative tone ("appears to", "perceived") of the first two paragraphs, and the characterization of addiction as a 'habit,' which it most emphatically is not. In all, it was simply easier to merge the two articles than to correct drug addiction (and be left with two articles which essentially covered the same ground). Denni 06:41, 2004 Feb 16 (UTC)

--Drug addiction should be kept as a page separate from addiction--

 * Drug addiction is a huge topic worthy of its own article.
 * There are 945,000 google hits for the term "drug addiction."
 * There are 35 articles which link directly to drug addiction, and 3 redirects, with 38 additional pages linking through those redirects.
 * The article is several screens long and is much more than just a stub.
 * There is a lot of room for improvement and additions to this article, which is far from dead in the water.
 * The rule of thumb for combining pages is for pages which have remained less than 1K for several months (see Page size). This page is currently 2.5K.
 * Any issues of redundancy with addiction can be resolved by removing that redudancy from addiction.
 * The article does not substantially duplicate material in prohibition.
 * The war on drugs section has been reduced to a single sentence.

Please add any counterpoints to a separate section. This list is subject to modification.

--Drug addiction is addiction--
 * There are five million Google hits for "addiction"
 * A redirect page never stopped anyone from getting where they wanted to go
 * The article would be much shorter if it didn't have over fourty drugs listed, each on its own line, essentially duplicating what is on the both external links. Most of the 35 links to this article are from those pages.
 * Of course there is room for improvement in this article. There is room in any article.
 * If the rule of thumb is that small pages be combined, then logic dictates that specific pages be grouped into more general ones. One does not place an article on dogs into a page on Dalmations in order to promote efficient use of space.
 * Same - any issue of redundency in articles on 'dogs' and 'Dalmations' can be resolved by removing the redundency from 'dogs'? You think?
 * "The article does not substantially duplicate material in prohibition." This is a good thing, considering that drug addiction and prohibition have a whole lot of not much in common.
 * "The war on drugs section has been reduced to a single sentence." Acceptable. Given that this is an article on addiction, not on regulation or treatment or any other issue not directly related to use, this ought to be added as a "see also," but I can live with it.

..submitted to Angela..

Want to avoid revert war

Hi Angela -

I'd appreciate it if you could stop by Talk:Drug addiction and do a quick read of the conversation (if that description applies) between Anthony DiPierro and myself. The addiction page contains no reference to drug addictions at all now except for a link to drug addiction, and a valuable external link is gone. I hope you can appreciate my dismay. I'd like your perspective as a neutral party - if I'm out of line, I certainly want to know.

I have no wish to take on a revert war. It is not good for the blood pressure, it is not fair to other sysops, and it is a thorough waste of time when I could be working on other articles. I'm here to learn, to teach, to have fun - not to play childish games.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Denni 22:10, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

 * I'm not ignoring the above request. I'm just not online for very long today. I will have a look when I'm back tomorrow if it is still unresolved by then. Angela. 23:44, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

--(in the meantime...)--

--Drug Addiction--

Let me know when you're done your major edits to drug addiction. I thought you were done but apparently you weren't. Also, your merge was quite inadequate, I assume you're addressing that. Anthony DiPierro 21:40, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

..My response..

--Drug addiction--

I'd like to say I'm finished revising, but as we both know, an editor's work is never done.

"Also, your merge was quite inadequate," Thanks, Anthony - that's very helpful criticism. My merging skills will improve with time. I hope your social skills do too. Denni

--drug abuse--

What's "depite" mean? Why did you revert all my edits? Anthony DiPierro 22:09, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

..My response..

--Depite--

Shorthand for 'despite.' Used when one is trying to get something done hastily, feeling that someone else is working to undercut them.

I didn't revert anything. All changes were typed in by hand with no reference to previous contents.

Denni

--drug addiction--

I'll ask again, then. Let me know when you're done so I can fix your spelling and grammar without being reverted. Anthony DiPierro 22:31, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

..My response..

--Drug addiction--

I'm finished for now. If you can find grammatical errors, more power to you. I removed the sentence on the war on drugs in haste; please see my comments on the talk page.

I feel quite silly that we have to squabble about a worthwhile article. Whether it is a stand-alone or part of a broader article on addiction is secondary to whether it is informative, well-written, and capable of assisting someone who is looking for timely, accurate information. I'm prepared to leave this issue alone for a while if you are.

Denni 22:55, 2004 Feb 19 (UTC)

--Angela's response--

 * Am I right to assume that your last comment "Agreed. I'm happy with the article as it stands now, and have no problem with removing the request to redirect." means the dispute is over? If not, let me know if you still need me to help with anything. Angela. 07:00, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

---

''Am I right to assume that your last comment "Agreed. I'm happy with the article as it stands now, and have no problem with removing the request to redirect." means the dispute is over? If not, let me know if you still need me to help with anything. Angela. 07:00, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)''

 * Thanks for getting back, Angela. I can only speak from my perspective. If M. DiPierro insists that there be a separate article on drug addiction, and it is well-written and comprehensive, then let's make sure it is. I therefore took the time to add some value to the article, in such a way that including it as a section in addiction would have unbalanced that article and required it to be rewritten. I am satisfied that the drug addiction article now has some value beyond repeating what was on the addiction page. Not having heard from AP, I cannnot say if he wishes to continue the dispute or not. If he does, he will have to find a mirror to do so.

Thanks also for your offer of help - you just did. I've been wondering how to create archive pages, and wanting to set up a clipping section. I went to your useful stuff section - question answered.

Just one question: in reading through one of the special pages, I noted a user who had found himself in trouble for, it appeared, changing/deleting information on his own userpage. Did I misinterpret, or are there really guidlines (beyond the obvious) for userpages?

''Angela is a 26 year old sysop from England who avoids Wikistress by doing Wikipedia maintenance tasks. She has been accused of being a wikipediholic, a deletionist, a vandal, a problem user and a Perl script!''

 * I just looked at 10000. You ARE the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll! I therefore accuse you of being a Hun and a Visigoth, so now you can call your set complete :)

--- ''Just one question: in reading through one of the special pages, I noted a user who had found himself in trouble for, it appeared, changing/deleting information on his own userpage. Did I misinterpret, or are there really guidlines (beyond the obvious) for userpages?''

That is always a really hard question. There are no agreed guidelines really, apart from the one that says Wikipedia is not a personal homepage. As long as you aren't using your user page, or subpages of it, for things that really ought to be on a separate website, you should be ok. As an example User:Sterlingda/Free Energy is not acceptable, and pages like this will be deleted eventually. I'm guessing the case you read about was User:BuddhaInside. The issue there was that he refused to listen to complaints about the way he kept blanking his pages. It was like he was doing it to prove some point and continued to do it relentlessly. More recently, there was the case of User:Mr Natural Health, who raised concerns about editing his own user pages when people were posting complaints there and they felt others should be able to see those. For user who generally behave well though, people don't mind too much what they do with their user and talk page. user page, and its talk page, might give you some more information, but the page isn't very well developed yet as there is no policy as such. Angela. 01:33, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

Per your request, I've made some edits at Totalitarian democracy, hope you'll accept them a friendly, if not, get hold of me. I'm not familiar with the book that you say first put forward the term, so I might go astray. I'm coming into the article as a pretty pure "editor", not an originator of factual research. I do think the article as it stands is (very) POV. I've put a detailed critique in the talk page. Hope you'll find it useful. No need for you to answer me point by point, unless you disagree. If you agree, just get in there and edit the article! -- Jmabel 06:43, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup
Hi, I'm not completely sure what you are referring to, but there has always been a policy, or guideline at least, that comments on Cleanup should be very short. Generally they are not signed either, and they are never meant to include timestamps, so if someone is editing those out, then that is probably explained at Cleanup process. If that's not what you meant, let me know. Angela. 08:12, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)

Concerning your images
I see that you license your images like this: "©2004 DWindrim Permission granted for non-commercial use providing credit given"

This is incompatible with the GNUFL, and as such the images can't be used by Wikipedia. Could you please replace it with something like: "©2004 DWindrim licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" See Fair use and Copyrights for more info.

I would consider it a great loss if you choose not to license them under GNUFDL as I find some of them quite useful to the articles.

Also the new Atmospheric circulation (and the old one too) image is black on my screen, the NO TEXT version is not. --Dittaeva 13:15, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you for following my advice about GFDL despite your concerns.--Dittaeva 11:59, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Very good comment
I just wanted to say that I read your comment on the AMA membership list and your frank statement really does make me feel that starting the Association was a good thing. The expression of your spirit of cooperation that is needed here and underscoring the need to try and prevent people from running away from this project (as I almost did recently) is admirable. As everything here is structured it is hard to make a voluntary association work that isn't tied into editing pages, but I think there is a real need for conciliation and communication between editors who have differing points of view about content or about how Wikipedia should operate. Hopefully the AMA can assist that process of growth and help prevent Wikipedia from getting to bogged down in bureaucratic structure and rule based entitlements. If you ever need any help as an advocate, don't hesitate to contact me. Yours, [[User:Alex756|— Alex756 talk]]

I think you might have left a message on my talk page that was meant to go elsewhere?? Angela. 21:53, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

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


text:
Death: At Death's Door

Death: At Death's Door is a comic penned and inked in manga-style, by Jill Thompson, author of the Little Endless. It seems to take a more child-friendly and humorous approach, through the eyes of one of the more popular of the Endless characters, Death, to the storyline Season of Mists.

Plot
The story begins with brief profiles of each of the Endless, a reference to manga where brief character bios (in statistic form) are often displayed in the margins, and then segues right into Destiny's council. At the family meeting, Desire taunts Morpheus about Nada, the former lover he banished to Hell 10,000 years past. Shortly afterward, Death gives him a sound scolding and Dream feels convinced he must go to Lucifer and recover Nada.

Expecting a battle, Dream arrives just as Lucifer is closing down Hell. Upon leaving, Lucifer hands the key to Morpheus.

The evicted dead gravitate towards Death's realm, unexpectedly swamping her in the mistaken belief that they will then be admitted to Heaven. Shortly afterward, Delirium appears, followed by Despair. They soon realize the problem and Death resolves to gather all the damned in one place until Morpheus finds an appropriate solution to Hell's closing, endowing her sisters with two ankhs to help her accomplish the mission.

Meanwhile, in Dream, various deities such as Bast, Odin, and others arrive to contest who will take over ownership of Hell; the events of Season of Mists are told here in a greatly abbreviated version.

Behind schedule on collecting the recently deceased, Death runs out to do her duty, leaving Delirium in charge. She returns to find a raucous party with her little sister serving "Horse Doovers" ([ [sic]], hors d'oeuvres) of unusual variety, such as pencils on crackers or green mouse and telephone ice cream. A subplot involves Edgar Allan Poe, one of the deceased staying in Death's home, who apparently has a crush on Despair, his muse. As Death leaves again, the party is rudely interrupted by demons from Hell, also without a home, who intend to cause chaos. Upon her return, Death prepares to battle the demons, only to have them disappear as Dream finishes his negotiations in Hell, reclaims Nada and hands off the Key to the angels, Remiel and Duma.

title: Death: At Death's Door


text:
Christl Haas

Christl Haas (19 September 1943 – 8 July 2001) was an Austrian Alpine skier. She competed at the 1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics and won a gold and a bronze medal, respectively.

Biography
Haas grew up in Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel, known for its alpine skiing courses. At the World Cup she won four downhill competitions in total. At the Alpine skiing World Championship 1962 in Chamonix, France, she won gold in the downhill competition.

Haas became a national hero as a twenty-year-old Olympic champion in the downhill event at the first Innsbruck Winter Olympics. She became an instant superstar in her homeland as she won the gold medal in her home nation. Haas followed up her success at Innsbruck with a bronze medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.

After retiring from competitions Haas became a ski instructor and opened a sporting goods store in Sankt Johann. As an Austrian gold medalist, Haas was selected with luger Josef Feistmantl to light the Olympic torch for the opening of the 1976 Winter Olympics on 4 February 1976. In 2001, she had a heart attack while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at Antalya, Turkey and died as a result.

title: Christl Haas


text:
Adore (album)

Adore is the fourth studio album by the American alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins, released on June 2, 1998, by Virgin Records. After the multi-platinum success of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and a subsequent world tour, Adore was considered "one of the most anticipated albums of 1998" by MTV. Recording the album proved to be a challenge as the band members struggled with lingering interpersonal problems, musical uncertainty in the wake of three increasingly successful rock albums, and the departure of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Frontman Billy Corgan would later characterize Adore as made by "a band falling apart". Corgan was also going through a divorce and the death of his mother while recording the album.

The result was a much more subdued and electronica-tinged sound that Greg Kot of Rolling Stone magazine called "a complete break with the past". The album divided the Smashing Pumpkins fan base and was not as commercially successful as their previous two albums. However, similar to the band's other releases across the decade, the album was critically acclaimed, becoming the third straight Pumpkins album to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance and has retrospectively gained a cult following. A remastered and expanded version of the album was released on CD and vinyl in September 2014 as a part of the band's project to reissue their back catalogue from 1991 to 2000. This is their only album to be recorded as trio and their first album not to feature an official drummer.

Background
The Smashing Pumpkins had cemented their place as a cultural force with 1995's multi-platinum Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Feeling the limitations of their guitar-driven hard rock sound, the band had started to branch out during the making of Mellon Collie, and, after the chart-topping success of the electronic-leaning "1979", the band zeroed in on electronica. As the sprawling and massively successful Infinite Sadness tour wound down, Billy Corgan found himself facing many difficult issues, including musical burnout, the absence of his "best friend and musical soul mate in the band" Jimmy Chamberlin, the end of his marriage, and the death of his mother to cancer.

During this period, the band released two new singles on movie soundtracks—"Eye" and "The End Is the Beginning Is the End". Both songs incorporated electronic elements, yet retained the hard rock elements of the band's previous material; one reviewer called the two singles "balls-out, full-energy chargers" and wrote off the Pumpkins' previous remarks that the upcoming album would "rock" less. However, the new album material Corgan was writing consisted mainly of simple acoustic songs. Corgan, James Iha, D'arcy Wretzky, and Matt Walker spent a few days in the studio in February 1997 laying down demos mostly as live takes, and the band hoped to quickly record an entire album in such a manner. Corgan, hoping to maintain the band's progressive rock-inspired experimentation, soon had second thoughts about this approach and began envisioning a hybrid of folk rock and electronica that was at once "ancient" and "futuristic".

Recording
The Smashing Pumpkins started demoing in February 1997 and recorded 30 songs for the album which, at one point, looked set to be a double album. The band subsequently cut the number of tracks on the album to 14.

After playing several festival dates in summer 1997, the band began working at a variety of Chicago studios with producer Brad Wood—with whom Corgan previously had worked in the early 1990s. While Mellon Collie had mostly been recorded with the full participation of all the band members, the band dynamics during the new sessions soon muddled as Corgan, uninspired by his bandmates, worked mostly alone. Wood, too, was leaving Corgan unsatisfied, so, after six weeks in Chicago, the band—minus Wood and Matt Walker—relocated to Los Angeles and started work at Sunset Sound, with Corgan now the de facto producer. The band rented a house and hoped living communally would foster good relations and a happier recording environment. According to Corgan, Iha refused to live in the house and rarely visited. The recording sessions continued to be slow-moving and heavily technical. In the absence of a drummer, the band used a drum machine as it had in its earliest incarnation. The band also enlisted Joey Waronker, of Beck's band, and Matt Cameron, of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, for a few songs each. Bon Harris of Nitzer Ebb contributed electronic sequencing and sounds to eight album tracks, with the band giving him mostly free rein.

At the behest of the band's management, Rick Rubin was brought in to produce one song, "Let Me Give the World to You", but the song was left off the album, later to be re-recorded for Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music. With around thirty songs recorded, Corgan began to see an end and enlisted Mellon Collie co-producer Flood to help finish the recording, pull the album together, and mix the songs.

Art direction for the album is credited to Frank Olinsky, Billy Corgan, and Corgan's then-girlfriend and frequent collaborator Yelena Yemchuk. The artwork for the album and its singles consisted almost entirely of black-and-white photographs shot by Yemchuk, many of which featured model Amy Wesson.

Music
Corgan was deliberately setting out to widen his band's sound and message, explaining that he was not "talking to teenagers anymore. I'm talking to everyone now. It's a wider dialogue. I'm talking to people who are older than me and younger than me, and our generation as well." He said much of the record was "an attempt to go back to what's important at a musical core and build it outward". He would later reflect that he was "stuck on the idea that [he] needed to prove [he] was an artist, which is the death knell of any artist".

The music on Adore has been categorized by reviewers as electronic rock, gothic rock, art rock, synth-pop, and industrial rock. Distorted guitars and live drums, the previous hallmarks of the Pumpkins sound, took a back seat in a sonic palette that included much more synthesizers, drum programming, acoustic guitar, and piano. At least five songs on the album are driven chiefly by piano.

"Tear" was written for the Lost Highway soundtrack but was rejected by David Lynch in favor of "Eye". "Pug" was originally recorded as a "minor key blues death march" with drums by Matt Cameron, while the album version uses drum programming. The only song on the album to feature Cameron, "For Martha", is a tribute to Corgan's mother that was primarily recorded as one live take.

Apart from being the first album without Jimmy Chamberlin, Adore was the first album to not include writing contributions from James Iha, who was concurrently working on his solo album Let It Come Down. However, he did contribute the track "Summer" to the "Perfect" single.

Promotion and release
The lead-up to Adore was marked by conflicting statements as to the album's sound—Corgan initially said the band was heading in the direction of the heavy-metal-guitar-and-electronic music-driven "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" in summer 1997. while the band's management reported the album would be all acoustic. In early 1998, Corgan called the sound "arcane night music", elaborating, "The people that say it's acoustic will be wrong. The people that say it's electronic will be wrong. The people that say it's a Pumpkins record will be wrong. I will try to make something that is indescribable". Further complicating the situation was the record label's initial insistence to use the Rick Rubin-produced, upbeat, poppy song "Let Me Give the World to You" as the album's lead single, something Corgan strongly objected to, fearing it would give listeners the wrong first impression of the album. Corgan had to drop the song off the track list altogether to avoid using it as a single.

Adore was released on June 2, 1998, in most of the world, the same day the video for first single "Ava Adore" premiered. The album booklet and music video showcased the band's new gothic look. The second single, "Perfect", was also accompanied by a music video, which debuted on August 16.

Touring
After the release of Adore, the band embarked on a scaled-back 14-show world tour entitled An Evening with the Smashing Pumpkins to support Adore. Abroad, the Pumpkins played at what had been called an "eclectic mix of interesting venues", among them the rooftop of a FNAC record store in Paris, France, in the botanic gardens of Brussels, Belgium, at the Cannes Film Festival, and at an International Shipping Harbor in Sydney, Australia. In the United States, the Pumpkins donated 100% of their ticket profits to local charities (yet one stop on the tour, Minneapolis, was a free concert and underestimated the attendance of the show). In the end, the Pumpkins, with the help of their fans, raised over $2.8 million in this manner.

The lineup was the most expansive yet, including former John Mellencamp and Melissa Etheridge drummer Kenny Aronoff, percussionists Dan Morris and Stephen Hodges, and David Bowie pianist Mike Garson. Violinist Lisa Germano was also set to appear, but did not ultimately appear in the touring lineup. The set was mainly Adore material, with only a handful of reworked Mellon Collie songs and no songs from prior to 1995, eliminating many of their radio hits and fan favorites, with the exception of some shows performed in South American countries like Brazil and Chile, where they played for the first time, so they included old hits like "Today" and "Disarm".

In retrospect, Corgan regretted the decision to hire the two percussionists to play alongside Aronoff, instead of having the drummer play along with loops from the album. "That drove Kenny up the wall because Kenny has perfect time and one guy played on top and the other behind. I remember Kenny saying, 'I feel like I'm tripping on LSD' because he kept hearing things that were not in time, and it drove him crazy," said Corgan in the Adore reissue liner notes. Performing with Garson was also challenging because, according to Corgan, "he made a decision 40 years ago that he would live in the intuitive flow of what he was feeling, so he literally cannot play the same thing twice. So we'd have gigs where he'd have that same magic as on Aladdin Sane and the next night he'd come and play the extreme opposite style—like honkytonk. I really respect Mike, but to play with him was always challenging; precisely because he is such a supreme musician."

Reception
Critical reception to Adore was generally positive. Greg Kot of Rolling Stone magazine regarded Adore as "the most intimate album the Pumpkins have ever made and also the prettiest, a parade of swooning melodies and gentle, unfolding nocturnes". Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork described the album as "the Pumpkins' best offering since Siamese Dream". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described Adore as "a hushed, elegiac album that sounds curiously out of time". Adore was considered one of "an inspiring range of 25 classic alternative American albums" by The Guardian. The lyrics received particular praise from critics—Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times, who in 1993 had criticized Corgan's lyrics as "too often sound[ing] like sophomoric poetry", said Corgan "took a big leap forward as a lyricist" starting with Adore. Schreiber, who criticized Mellon Collie as "lyrical rock-bottom", called Adore's lyrics "poetic", particularly singling out "To Sheila". Greg Kot emphasized the "oblique, private longings, and weighty, sometimes awkward conceits" in the lyrics, while David Browne of Entertainment Weekly called them "unsettled and unsettling". The contributions of Wretzky and Iha also received praise, with Kot noting that "Iha's quirky guitar accents and Wretzky's unflashy resolve [...] give Adore a warmth and camaraderie no other Pumpkins album can match."

Despite this, public reception to Adore was lukewarm. Adore entered the Billboard 200 at number two with 174,000 units of the album sold in its first week, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) five weeks later, but the album soon departed the charts, leaving Adore far short of the sales figures of its predecessors. Two additional promotional singles, "Crestfallen" and "To Sheila", were released to radio stations but failed to gain traction and were never released as commercial singles. As of May 2005, Adore has sold 1.1 million units in the US and at least three times as many copies worldwide.

Corgan blamed himself for the record's reception with the public, saying he "made the mistake of telling people it was a techno record" and that if he "would have told everyone Adore was the Pumpkins' acoustic album we would have never had the problems that we had". Corgan wrote on the band's website that the album's title was "misunderstood" and "a joke that no one ever got", explaining that Adore was meant as a play on "A Door", meaning the album would offer a new entrance to the band's career. In 2005, Corgan would call the making of the album "one of the most painful experiences of my life".

2014 CD/DVD reissue
As part of Virgin/Universal Music's reissue campaign, a special edition of the album was released on September 23, 2014. The release consists of the original album remastered and 91 bonus tracks of previously unreleased material, demos and alternate versions of Adore-era songs. It was released in five formats: the physical box set containing all 107 tracks, the digital deluxe edition containing 74 of the bonus tracks, as well as single disc CD and double-LP versions containing only the stereo remaster of the album. The digital version of the reissue was released on October 3, 2014.

The actual Adore album was remastered by Bob Ludwig. The entire set includes session outtakes and a mono version of the album, with Corgan saying the new mixes contain "elements from the original sessions that were stored digitally, but never used; such as some of the work done by Bon Harris".

The package also includes a DVD consisting of footage of the band's show from August 4, 1998, at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Smashing Pumpkins

 * Billy Corgan – vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, piano, keyboards, production, mixing, art direction and design
 * James Iha – lead and rhythm guitar, vocals
 * D'arcy Wretzky – bass guitar, rhythm guitar (uncredited)

Additional musicians

 * Matt Walker – drums on "To Sheila", "Ava Adore", "Daphne Descends", "Tear", "The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete", "Annie-Dog", and "Behold! The Night Mare"
 * Matt Cameron – drums on "For Martha"
 * Joey Waronker – drums on "Perfect", additional drums on "Once Upon a Time" and "Pug"
 * Dennis Flemion – additional vocals in "To Sheila" and "Behold! The Night Mare"
 * Jimmy Flemion – additional vocals in "To Sheila" and "Behold! The Night Mare"
 * Bon Harris – additional programming on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 13; additional vocals in "For Martha"
 * Brad Wood – additional production and engineering on tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 13, and 15, additional vocals in "Behold! The Night Mare", organ in "Blank Page"

Technical

 * Robbie Adams – engineering, mixing
 * Chris Brickley – recording assistant
 * Flood – additional production, mixing
 * Eric Greedy – mix assistant
 * Steve Johnson – recording assistant
 * Ron Lowe – recording assistant
 * Jay Nicholas – mix assistant
 * Frank Olinsky – art direction and design
 * Neil Perry – engineer, mixing
 * Matt Prock – recording assistant
 * Chris Shepard – engineer
 * Jamie Siegel – mix assistant
 * Bjorn Thorsrud – digital editing, engineering
 * Ed Tinley – recording assistant
 * Andy Van Dette – digital editing and compilation
 * Jeff Vereb – recording assistant
 * Howie Weinberg – mastering
 * Howard C. Willing – engineering, mix assistant
 * John Wydrycs – mix assistant
 * Yelena Yemchuk – photography, art direction and design

title: Adore (album)


text: Wikipedia talk:Tutorial (historical)

title: Wikipedia talk:Tutorial (historical)