Talk:Fulda witch trials

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I have just been reverted with the edit summary "revert vandalism and re-introducing information which was removed. List of the pople involved are not pointless Please refrain from doing this again, we will not have an edit-war". Skipping over the personal attack (even if you disagree, my edits were clearly not vandalism) and the hipocrisy of condemning an edit-war while edit-warring, let's look at the differences:

1. I removed details about the Prince-abbot's biography which belong into an article of their own. Especially out of place are POV-terms like "stern" or "fanatic", especially without sourcing.
2. "purging the city form everything he deemed as improper" is nothing but hyperbole.
3. I have corrected all the strange occurence of "prince-bishop" - this immediately should settle matters which version is better.
4. Julius Echter, an actual prince-bishop who displaced Dernbach as adminstrator, did not "issue a law of freedom of religion" but rather guaranteed tolerance to his allies. "Freedom of religion" is an anachronism in the 16th century. As is vague terms like "religious liberalism". Memo: Julius Echter was not a liberal!
5. If the article (in the intro) already gives figures (250), there is no need for any emotive "Hundreds of people".
6. "witch trials of the diocese of Fulda can be described as a part of the counter-reformation" - anything can be described as X but does it make sense, is it reliably sourced and is it NPOV. Given that the term "counter-reformation" is a bit contentious already, should a very broad movement of reform be condensed to witch hunting?
7. The old version's one cited source, a Swedish book on the Thirty Years War. That's not good enough!
8. Finally, the "List of the pople involved", which is supposedly "not pointless". Well, I think a list looking like this is:

* 1603: Merga Bien, the most well-known victim. 
* June 1604: Nine women burned alive. 
* August 1604 : Nine women burned alive. 
* September 1604 : Eleven women burned alive. 
* September 1604 : Twelve women burned alive. 
* October 1604 : Ten women burned alive. 
* December 1604 : Eight women burned alive. 
* May 1605 : Thirteen women burned alive. 
* June 1605 : Twelve women burned alive. 
* July 1605 : Twelve women burned alive. 
* August 1605 : Twelve women burned alive. 
* October 1605 : Ten women burned alive.
* November 1605: Eleven women burned alive.
* March 1606: Seven women burned alive.

Apart from the first item, which I fully retained in the article, all this gives is figures (all of them unsourced!) how many were burned in which month. What's a reader to make of this. No, this is not "the pople involved" (name, vocation, age, sex, etc.) but mere numbers.

Therefore, I stand by my edits and will restore them immediately. Str1977 ^(talk) 07:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, but you speak in a very aggressive tone, do you not? That is not acceptable. Please control your temperament. It is also quite rude to point out that I spelled the word "people" wrong in he edit history. You see, the fact that you are pointing out, over and over again in your text above, that I spelled the word "People" wrong in the edit history, gives the impression that you are pointing this out simply the make me seem non-serious, don't you think? Surely, you as well as I realise that this was simply a spelling mistake, made in error and noting more, and I am sure that you did not intend to be as immature, rude and small-minded as that the use of such a master suppression technique make you seem. To point this out, gives the impression that you are engaging in some sort of cheap tactic to make me seem less serious than you are, because let's be honest, it is a master suppression technique. That is an insult. Do you think it is correct behaviour to use master suppression techniques against other contributors? For that, if for nothing else, I should expect an apology.

I do not appreciate being involved with an aggressive person who favours master suppression techniques in the contact with other contributors, but I will address your concerns once for politeness sake. I called your edits vandalism because you removed great blocks of text and information without any reason given other than that the "list" was irrelevant. This made it seem as though you were removing valid text while making it seem as if though you were only removing the list. You should have stated a reason (as you do now) here, before removing the text, and not removing the text and just state that you are removing the list. In short, I removed your edit because you removed large blocks of text, while pretending that you were only removing the list, which seemed highly suspicious and strange, and because you continued with this after warning. In view of that, let's go through your concerns:

1. I removed details about the Prince-abbot's biography which belong into an article of their own. Especially out of place are POV-terms like "stern" or "fanatic", especially without sourcing.

As the witch trial was conducted by the prince bishop, information about him is relevant. You would be correct, however, to phrase it more neutrally. You are correct that these things should be referenced. As far as I can remember, I wrote this article based on the information from the article of the prince bishop in German language wikipedia. At the time, I was unsure how to cite this.

1. "purging the city form everything he deemed as improper" is nothing but hyperbole.

This was also from the same reference. If it was unclear, it could be rephrased rather than removed.

1. I have corrected all the strange occurence of "prince-bishop" - this immediately should settle matters which version is better.

Very good then.

1. Julius Echter, an actual prince-bishop who displaced Dernbach as adminstrator, did not "issue a law of freedom of religion" but rather guaranteed tolerance to his allies. "Freedom of religion" is an anachronism in the 16th century. As is vague terms like "religious liberalism". Memo: Julius Echter was not a liberal!

Well, please clarify that instead of removing relevant context in the background of the events leading to the witch trial instead of removing the whole background because it could be phrased better.

1. If the article (in the intro) already gives figures (250), there is no need for any emotive "Hundreds of people".

I have no problems with that. However, you are breaking the wikipedia rule of "expecting good intentions" from contributors by taking for granted that this was phrased for emotional reasons.

1. "witch trials of the diocese of Fulda can be described as a part of the counter-reformation" - anything can be described as X but does it make sense, is it reliably sourced and is it NPOV. Given that the term "counter-reformation" is a bit contentious already, should a very broad movement of reform be condensed to witch hunting?

Well, since the prince bishop in his article on German language Wikipedia, on which this article was created, is stated to have conducted the witch trial because of his wish tu purge the city of protestants because of his strong catholic beliefs, and by that make the city completely catholic gain after protestants had been tolerated, I suppose that is relevant for describing it as a part of a scheme to make the area catholic again after a period of protestantism, which was indeed the goal of the counter reformation and is worth to be pointed out - it could be phrased better, but there is not reason to hide or censure that fact.

1. The old version's one cited source, a Swedish book on the Thirty Years War. That's not good enough!

The article was founded on the German language wikipedia article of the prince bishop in question. I created it from that source before I knew how to cite it. It is true that the references from that source should be placed here to reference the previous information now removed.

1. Finally, the "List of the pople involved", which is supposedly "not pointless".

That list was also from the German language wikipedia article of the prince bishop in question. I think it is of interest to know how many people were executed, in which time period, when and how, though it deserves to be developed with names.

To summarise this matter, Str1977: I do not object to your actions as much as the manner in which they were conducted. I created the article a long time ago based on information from the German language Wikipedia article about the prince Bishop who conducted the witch trial. Because of this, it was unreferenced, as at the time I did not know how to reference it. It was further more in need of re-phrasing to make it more neutrally written. I am glad that you noticed this. I had long thought to deal with the matter myself. However, you removed large blocks of text, while at the same time only stating that you were removing a "pointless list". The list does not deserve the word pointless, I think, but the fact that you were removing large bits of information while only stating that you were removing a list alerted my attention as it gave the impression of being censorship performed in a way which would make it go undetected. Therefore, I considered it vandalism and reverted it.

This, apparently, made you very provoked. I misspelled the word "People" in the edit history of this article. Apparently, you thought this spelling error immensely important, and you have quoted it several times in your text here on the discussion page which gives a clear impression of Master suppression technique. Now: a contributor, or indeed a person, who makes use of master suppression techniques is not the kind of people I would like to have anything to do with what so ever. That was rude and uncalled for. I will refrain from further involvement in this. A person who uses Master suppression techniques is hardly a person with whom one could except good communication with. I could say that "I expect an apology", but I do not, all do I believe I should have one. Thank you. Have a good day. --Aciram (talk) 13:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aciram, I am skipping over all your complaints about me being aggressive. I didn't highlight your typo (no big deal) but simply quoted you. If anyone was aggressive it was you who accused me of "vandalism". Yes, I removed great blocks of text but that doesn't make my edits vandalism, especially if the text was substandard.

1.-2. However, I grant you that I was mistaken for a while that Dernbach already had an article. I rectified that now. But POVy and hyperbolic language cannot be justified, not even by pointing to a source. Certainly not when the source is another WP article that shouldn't have such language to begin with. (How can one rephrase - rather than remove - something that is unclear. It was empty in its unclearness.

3. Good that we don't have to argue about the "prince-bishop" - I don't think you found this in the German article.

4. I did clarify so there's no need to tell to do it. However, that the previous wordings were out of place remains true.

5. I did not speak of anyone's intentions (which a) I cannot know for certain and b) I cannot tell who would have such intentions: you, your source, another editor etc.) but about how such wordings do work. And IMHO "hundreds of people" borders on misprepresentation if the actual number is 250.

6. The German article does not say that and it wasn't right to do so. Witch hunts and Counterreformation are not the same thing - witch hunts could be used against Protestantism (see Charles Boromeo) but usually they were not. Counterreformation should not be equalised with persecution anyway - as the previous text and, alas, the previous German text implied - this would violate the requirement both for accuracy and for NPOV (the latter, alas, is not always met in the German WP). Dernbach started with the counterformation early in his (1st) reign, while witch hunts only occured late, in his "2nd" reign. In the Fulda case, Protestants were not targeted any more than Catholics. And without detailed research into this, we should desist from pontificating on the reasons in article. If I may speculate, I think that after his long illegal exile Dernbach had worked himself into paranoia that saw enemies everywhere, helped by advisors like Nuss.

7. "The article was founded on the German language wikipedia article of the prince bishop in question." - even worse, but rectified now.

8. You cannot cite "also from the German language wikipedia article" to every item of criticism. Please note that I do not fault you for introducing it only for such material being included into articles at all. No, it is not of "interest" to have a list how many people were burned in this or that month (hardly time-periods - we are speaking of only three years anyway). And while giving names (but more so other information) might be interesting, it would be out of place in such an article. Such a list would have to give detailed information about 250 people. This however would fit into a book on the subject but not into this article. If a book with such a list exists, we could cite deductions from that list (e.g. percentages on how many women etc.) but we cannot include such a list nor can we create such a list ourselves (WP:NOR).

To sum up: I do not doubt your good intentions and do not fault you from translating a badly written German article. My aim has always been directed towards the quality of the article. I stand by all my statements and did not merely talk about a "pointless list"

I did not suppress you and I did not attack you - you are right that I felt provoked by your accusation of "vandalism" (even though your explanation doesn't fit the proper definition of vandalism either). I don't think I need to apologize for anything but if you felt suppressed I am indeed sorry as that was not my intention. Str1977 ^(talk) 07:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]