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Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12→Archive 15

Iran's map color

Please read the discussion on US map color here. Basically, it says that red is not neutral for a map color. I suggest we change permanently Iran's map color from red to green (as it has always been). SSZ (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried to change that once but my edit was undone.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh its a country! I'm sorry I thought Iran was a giant lake of fire, what with the 'Death to the Zionist Entity' and all.--mitrebox (talk) 19:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Is it supposed to be ajoke or is this what you have learnt in your elementary school?--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Cities

The Major Cities section shouldn't contain a list of cities with information oon them. I'm going to rewrite it so it is the way it is supposed to be, i.e. in prose and mentioning about four or five cities not 8!Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

answer to inferno abt Russia and Kazakhstan

you said that Iran has no borders with Russia and Kazakhstan and that if we include them then we should also include other states (in the Souths). Dear friend, you should notice that the Caspian Sea in different than the Persian Gulf. Aside from the territorial waters Persian Gulf is an international body of water. Therefore Iran is separated by international waters from Oman and UAE. But Caspian see in not international waters. it is an internal sea (lake) and belongs to the litoral states. There is no agreement on the division of oil resources, but the internal sea character of it is not in doubt. Caspian sea is therefore can be seen as territory/condominium of the litoral states. Therefore Iran has borders with Kazakhstan and Russia but not with those Arab statelets you proposed.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The statement that "There is no agreement on the division of oil resources" is incorrect and absurd and testifies to an utter ignorance of the international law at best. Iran has an agreement with Soviet Union (1921 and 1940) that the resources of the Caspian Sea are to be divided equally between Iran and Soviet Union. When Soviet Union fell apart, Russian Federation publicly announced that all international agreements binding for Soviet Union would remain binding for the newly independent states (legally, this falls under the heading of "the principle of the succession of states"). This naturally includes the aforementioned agreement between Iran and Soviet Union concerning the resources of the Caspian Sea. The much trumpeted claim that resources of the Caspian Sea should be shared equally between all the nations bordering on the Caspian Sea is devoid of any legality — it is just an unfounded claim and worth nothing (similarly as regards the lie that "There is no agreement on the division of oil resources"). Legally, Iran has and maintains the right over 50% of the Caspian-Sea resources and all the other nations (i.e. members of the now defunct Soviet Union) bordering on the Caspian Sea should come together and decide on how to divide the remaining 50% between themselves; Iran has no role to play in this decision making. If it is true that Islamic Republic of Iran is now aiming at 20% share of the Caspian Sea resources (which I doubt), then there is no word to describe such act but betrayal of Iran's rights. It seems that the old Russian Imperialism in Iran is still alive and well! It is ironic that on the one hand Iranian authorities constantly issue anti-imperialistic slogans against "the West" but at the same time seem (as I indicated above, I doubt that Iran would rescind her above-mentioned treaty with the now defunct Soviet Union) intent on selling out to "the North", just as Iran did in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century (above all else, one should not forget the shameful Golestan and Turkamanchai treaties which were nothing but overt sell outs). Those interested, and not suffering from intellectual indolence, may deign to make an Internet search on the subject matter. See, for instance: [1]. --BF 23:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes this is what I say, while there was a contract diving 50- 50 % after the collapse they do notagree on this. Then Iran came with a formula of each 5 litoral get 20% but they want t give Iran only 11-13 % which is unacceptable. The best thing is 50% for Iran and 50% to Russia as an heir of the USSR, if Russia wants o give the litoral states their share, each get 12,5 % , but then I ask why nt divinding on 15 republics? Because the whole USSR and not only the litoral states got 50%.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
You did say "There is no agreement on the division of oil resources", which I maintain not to be true! People may say all sorts of things, but the fact is that the issue has to my best knowledge never been referred to any international court for arbitration. When last year President Putin was visiting Tehran, almost all newspapers where parroting the same misinformation (the same misinformation in your above text), which is sad. You cannot play into the hands of a host of illiterate journalists (excluding Simon Jenkins of The Guardian for whom I have the highest respect) who increasingly reproduce the texts handed down to them by the officials whose motivations can be anything but pure. It is clear that Russia and all her former republics want a bigger share of the resources, but this does not mean that what has absolutely no basis in the international law (the link I presented yesterday makes this abundantly clear) should be given credence on the Wikipedia pages. --BF 19:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
With reference to the above discussions, I should like to propose that the above facts (most clearly discussed in [2]) be brought up in the Wikipedia entry of Iran, lest the fiction of "There is no agreement on the division of oil resources" be made into reality before long. --BF 19:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
well u are right maybe the better formulation was that there is a pact/ contract but the former Soviet Union do not respect it. Unfortunately Iran is too "soft" towards them. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 19:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact is that if International Law counts for nothing, then Iran should also declare the Golestan and Turkamanchai treaties as void. To get an impression, you walk over the Aras River, and you will see places like these that Iran lost through these shameful treaties: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Recall that these treaties were made between two dynasties which no longer are in existence! And I am serious in saying that should Iran's 50% get reduced to 12%, then Iran should absolutely renege on these two treaties, or at least make them part of a grand re-negotiation of issues by which 50% should get reduced to 12%: if the situation on the ground has changed to the degree that 50% can get diminished to 12%, then nothing else should be held as inviolable. It should never be a one-way street, otherwise they should be open with the people and put boards on the borders and openly announce "For Sale". As for Iran being "too soft" on these issues, Iran, like any other country, consists of people and if the people in charge are soft it must be owing to the ignorance of the general population of Iran of some basic facts of their history. Insofar as I can recall, the history books from which I learnt history of Iran (ages ago), did only mention the names of the above two treaties; the contents of these treaties were never disclosed to us. If this is the level of knowledge that one may assume of the people of their history, then this so-called "softness" (which seems to me to be indicative of a softness of their collective mind) does not come as a surprise. Of course, Iran having pushed herself into her present position, Russia can dictate whatever she wishes and who can blame them for that? Iran was in this position a century ago, and like an abused individual seems not to be able to avoid falling back into the bosom her abuser time and time again. Kind regards, --BF 21:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Our problem is that today there are people in Iran and Persheeyans in the USA who feel more at ease with Arabs and Pakistanis than with the real Iranian world. Ask them abt Ganje and Teflis they will shut up, ask them abt Dubai and they will BS for hours--Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Babakexorramdin, I do not subscribe to the sentiments as expressed by you. Humans are humans, no matter what their origin, race, sex or religion. We are all members of the same family, namely the great family of humanity. We are all brothers and sisters and should see each other's diverse cultures and religions as asset and not as liability. As it happens, I have come to know people from all corners of the world and have not noticed any fundamental difference between any of them; through our differing cultures and backgrounds we naturally respond to things differently, but on the most fundamental level we are all the same beings, whether Persian, Arab, Jew, European, African, etc. Amongst the people that I have known have been three Arabs, and I count them amongst the most kind and courteous people I have ever known in my entire life (when I once told to one of them of the name of my late mother, his immediate reaction was "What a beautiful name! I shall give that name to my child if it turns out to be a girl"). Love for Iran and Iranian culture should not blind us to the richness of other cultures. With reference to Pakistanis, to whom you explicitly refer, two things deserve mentioning. The owner of the Kebab shop in my area is a man from Pakistan. From the first time that he met me until today, whenever he sees me he calls me "my brother" — and he started doing this on knowing that I was Iranian (I have never seen him calling any of his other customers as his brother or sister). Secondly, please find some photographs of Pakistan, and you will immediately notice that as an Iranian you are able to read all the things on the boards hanging in the streets (the same applies if you look at similar photographs from India). You may not be aware of it, but prior to the rise of the British Empire, Farsi was the official administrative language in India (and Pakistan was until some 60 years ago part of India); all official documents in India were written in Farsi and the aristocrats spoke Farsi at home. Did you know that the mother of the late Benazir (Bi-Nazir) Bhutto is an Iranian from Isfahan (to be explicit, from Nasr Abad — see the website of Mr Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, the former Deputy of President Khatami: [8])? She speaks fluently Farsi in pure Esfahani accent! Have you read the Persian poetry of Pakistan's national hero Mohammad Iqbal? (In Iran he is best known as Eqbal-e Lahuri, Eqbal from Lahore.) If not, please do that and you will notice that his poems rank amongst the finest of the Persian poems (when I was young, I knew several of them by heart). The point I raised above was aimed at bringing up the fact that as a nation we are generally uneducated in our own history. For instance, I am not aware of any Iranian newspapers ever making a point that Iran's attempt to raise 12% to 20% goes against the very fact that according to International Law Iran already owns 50% of the resources of the Caspian Sea. With kind regards, and above all, please never look down on other people! --BF 06:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Babakexorramdin, with reference to what you mention concerning Ganje, it seems that the people to whom you refer must be illiterates. Have they not read the works by Nezami-ye Ganjavi? Nezami comes from Ganje (Ganjavi literary means "from Ganje") and if some Iranians have never read Nezami-ye Ganjavi, I have no choice but call them utter illiterates. I have just checked it, and Nezami has already a Wikipedia entry: Nezami (coming from so-called Ganja). Kind regards, --BF 07:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Behnam, I have no intention to discriminate Arabs or Pakistani nor are we talking about the Kebab shoop in your neighborhood. We are talking about the geopolitical disorientation and as you said the illiteracy. I do not mean it in a literal sense though. Yes too many Iranians do not know what is the Iranian world. The anti-Iranianist lobby in the West and the Persheeyan/ persian TVs in Los Angeles are contributing to the propagation of disorientation. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Babakexorramdin, I apologise since I appear to have had misunderstood you. I am not living in the USA (so that "Persheeyan/persian TVs" are just black boxes to me), nor do I get my information about history from a TV station — although in the past I have seen some so-called history programs on some TV channels; they all look like opiates to me, as they take the information that covers at most half an A4 page and stretch it to a program lasting for one hour, enacting all the minor events in hazy images accompanied by some trashy background music (as though people had no imagination); have always wondered who would watch such trash, but apparently some do. It is perhaps time for someone with the right intellectual attitude to build a nice blog in which to discuss matters worth discussing, while managing to leave aside party-political issues which so much polarise Iranian community abroad; my personal experience is that in most of the blogs Iranians just exchange insults with one another, a pretty miserable state of affairs I must say. Incidentally, sometimes ago I put a message here: [9] which you might like to read and act upon. In the meantime I have also written to TehranAvenue, offering to write a comprehensive piece on the subject matter, but they have thus far failed to even acknowledge receipt of my letter (a very typical habit of Iranians). Kind regards, --BF 22:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Its good to know where is the source of this misery. One more thing to add is: There have been some attempts in order to prsenet the Iranian history and culture to the public, but unfoprtunately some Iranian political groups notably the monarchists tend to hijack them and contaminate them with nonsense. E.g. if someone writes down an article about the past achievement of Iranians in the Achamenid or Safavid etc... period then there are always empty-headed monarchists who steal that article and put in their website and claim: " You see monarchy is a good thing.". If you write about the Kurdish language, some Fars ethno-nationaliaist will write: " You see Kurds do not exist, they are just Sunni Fars/Persians". If you write osmething on the Turkic-speaking Iranians, then some Pan-Turkists/ (with their American and israeli supporters) will write: "Sumerians were Turks" and nonsense like this. Violation of Iranian culture and history is a widespread phenomenon and the anti-Iranianist lobby is strong, but there is no reason for keeping silent. the independent scholars should always do their best in order to resprent the Iranian Culture and History as it is.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Babakexorramdin, few short remarks. As you may know, the official policy of Wikipedia is that if you (or anybody else for that matter) feel that others should not be using your text, you should not write it for Wikipedia. It is therefore a given that when you write something for Wikipedia, you must assume that others will use your text in a manner that suits them best and you have nothing to complain about. If you wish to maintain your copyright on your written text, you should, for instance, create your own blog and type at the bottom of each page "Copyright"; this allows you to sue anybody who without your written permission uses or abuses your text. Therefore my suggestion would be that if you feel strongly about certain matters, you (possibly with the aid of some of your like-minded friends and colleagues) set up a weblog and copyright your material. As it stands, your complaints are and remain just expressions of your personal frustration; legally, you are nowhere. As for "the source of misery" to which you refer, it is a question which sociologists, anthropologist and historians are best placed to answer. Although I am neither, I have a theory for that; being an untested theory, it is however worth nothing. You can gain some insight into this issue by reading a report that CIA has written in 1977 about the Iranian society (this top secret report was made public in 2000), which is very insightful as to the way in which Iranians interact with one another. For details please consult the New York Times file: [10]. At present I do not recall whether the above-mentioned CIA file is included in this batch or not (I do however recall that I read that report around the same time as I was reading this batch). Finally, I propose that we close this discussion here, as the correspondence is becoming almost a book. Kind regards, --BF 22:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC).
who was talking abt wikipedia? read my message. I was talking abt Media in general (also radio tv) and hence weblog is of no use. It is not a legal issyue, it is an issue of attitude. And an advice to you: listen more to people before condemning them too easily.

Maybe I am a hitorian/sociologist/ anthropologist, maybe I am not. Does not matter. I know what I am saying.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 05:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Babakexorramdin, you are already showing the very symptoms about which you were/are complaining: you are being aggressive towards me, while at no point over the course of the past days have I been disrespectful towards you. Please read your text and realise what I mean ("read", "listen", etc. — you may not realise that I may be as old as your father, if not older). Furthermore, I do not believe that I "condemned" anybody; I only said that Iranians rather than talking to each other on blogs, exchange insults with each other (you yourself have already taken the first steps towards that goal). This is an observation that you can readily verify; I have seen exchanges which I have not felt able to read, so debased is the language that some of these compatriots use. To be frank with you, I absolutely do not understand why you have felt necessary to respond to my utterly respectful texts in the way that you did? (I told you earlier that the TV's that you mention are black boxes to me; as a matter of fact, I have come to see almost all of the traditional news media as utterly useless; the level of their analyses and commentary is substandard and appalling — I get almost all of my information about the world from blogs that I consider good and reliable.) As for what the media do, it is nothing new; manipulating information has been one of the first things that humans mastered and brought to perfection almost immediately after they became bipedal. Complaining about this phenomenon will change nothing, except that after complaining one may feel better. You can bring about change by countering the flow of dis- and mis-information. Send letters to newspapers (each newspaper has a readers' column), send e-mails to TVs (all TVs have a public-relations department), make appropriate programs and put them on YouTube, etc., if you feel that someone is spreading lies. Being disrespectful towards me will change nothing, not least because of the fact that never in my life have I been party to any conspiracy; have not sold my soul (at least not yet) to any group or organisation — am only a great believer in the primacy of human dignity. In the event that you may wonder, I deeply feel about all my compatriots, no matter what their beliefs or political preferences; also even talk of aggression against Iran sickens me to the core of my being. Somewhere I also referred to "(a very typical habit of Iranians)". For the record, it was I who wrote a letter to Majlis in Tehran asking them to donate an appropriate photograph of the building of Majlis to Wikipedia. Did they acknowledge receipt of my letter? No! (My e-mail system is capable of tracing the trajectory of my e-mails, and I know for certain that they have received my letter.) Did they donate a photograph? No! If you check the history of the photograph of Majlis, then you will realise that as late as two days ago I saved it, for the second time, from being deleted from Wikipedia. Compare the quality of the entry on Majlis of Iran with that of the American Congress. Do you see any difference? If yes, then that shows you how great is the distance that we Iranians must still go. You will realise that an appalling entry on Majlis only strengthens the hands of those who seek to portray Iranians as barbarians (as recently as a week ago, standing on the other side of the Persian Gulf, the American President juxtaposed Iran and Al-Qaeda, naming them as the greatest dangers that the world now faces!). I should say, rather than getting worked up about the petty "Persheeyan/persian TVs", make an effort and improve the quality of the Wikipedia entry on the Majlis. Wish you success. This is, incidentally, my last correspondence with you. --BF 08:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if I offended you, but to be honest I experienced the way you responded a bit disrespectful, trying to teach things and not listening. I appologize if you did not have such intentions. On the Majles (I wont write it down as Majles): I am not an expert on that issue, but If I can do something please telle me. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

IRI section

The Islamic republic section should have more information about more recent history. I shall add MAJOR events up to 10 years ago. Please do not add anything insignificant which is mentioned before e.g. new sanctions.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 13:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Milestone

The Iran page has reached a milestone in it's history. For the first time in years this article is now UNDER 100kb long. We shouldn't let our efforts go to waste and we should maintain it and even shorten it further.

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the article, either by adding text, or removing non-POV, too dettailed, irrelevant or incorrect and non-factual text.

I also suggest that we merge the Safavid,Af... section with the Pahlavi era section.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Saddam's reasons

Saddam's reasons for attacking Iran is described in great detail on this page, but they are not explained on the History of the Islamic Republic of Iran page. I thought that the main articles should be more detailed? I thought that sections with main articles are supposed to be more general?

I will transfer the text to the History of the Islamic Republic of Iran section. The reasons of Saddam's strike are not part of our history, rather the politics of Iraq.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 12:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


Geography pic

Which pic would you prefer in the Geography section?

200px

Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 14:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the latter; it seems more appropriate than a wildlife picture. Moreover, it shows snow and the mountains, which would help dispel myths that Iran is entirely desert. -Rosywounds (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought that too. Wildlife isn't even mentioned in the section. I have seen at least two FA articles which have satellite images (Japan & Canada)Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC

I think we have now addressed almost of Iran's problems(the article!;-)) and so I now nominate it for FA. I hope it is accepted.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC) Bold text

Safavis-pahlavi merge

I have tried several times to merge the Sfavid, Afshar, Zand and Qajar period with the Pahlavi section. It is obvious that these two periods of Iranian history are connected. In both sections colonial powers influenced Iran greatly. I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be merged. Both sections are relatively small. Also the other sections span over 1000,800 and 900 years and it seems odd if this section only has 400 years of Iran's history. If we merge these two sections it will span nearer to 500 years which makes it more balanced.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You can make a title like Monarchy in the modern period etc... or the Iranian Shia monarchy.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 05:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The Afsharids were not Shia. The current state of sections is fine.--Agha Nader (talk) 14:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Why you say this? Afsharids were Shiites. Nader Shah was a general in the Safavid army. He rescued Iran from the Afghans and Turks both Sunnis. I think the myth that nader Shah was not Shiite is coming forth from the fact that after beating the Afghans he took it easy on Sunnis and jews. He saw the late safavid religious intolerance as counter productive. Now adays there are members of Afshar tribe all over Iran, notably in Khorasan, Kerman and Azerbaijan, they are all Shiites.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Some general remarks

Dear All, I wish that the intention to nominate this entry for FA would have been announced publicly and clearly so that interested people would have had chance to comment on its contents and quality. Below I present some of my comments which as yet may be incorporated into the main text:

(1) Concerning "settlements dating back to 4000 BCE", I believe that the correct figure should be 5000 BCE. This is based on the fact that Avesta is already considered to be 7000 years old. See the book by Siāvash Avesta (Hasan Abbasi) "Ā'ín-e Avesta — Haft Hezar Sal Pishineh Tammadon". The third printing of this book is dated "7024 Ā'ryāí-e Mitrā'i". Personally, I do not know how reliable these dates are, however, 7000 years is in very good accord with the recent archaeological findings in Tangeh Bolaghi and Darreh Bolaghi. Consult for instance: 7000-Years-Old Mass Grave Discovered in Bolaghi Gorge, Life Goes Back to 10000 Years Ago in Bolaghi Gorge. That these cannot be Iranian propaganda is testified by the fact that the last-mentioned mass grave has been uncovered in collaboration with a group of German archaeologists. For details, please consult:
(2) The title "Supreme Leader" is a mistranslation; according to real experts, it must be "Supreme Jurisprudent"; "Supreme" for Velāyat and "Jurisprudent" for Faqih (recall Velāyat-e Faqih). In case of doubt, please ask about the details from Professor Juan Cole (University of Michigan). His blog Informed Comment is one of the best and most authoritative on matters related to Middle East in general and Iran in particular. The other person who may be consulted on this matter is Professor Farideh Farhi (Independent Scholar and an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at University of Hawai'i, Mānoa). In my opinion, she is one of the most qualified authorities on all matters Iranian. She regularly contributes to Informed Comment: Global Affairs. As an aside, you may ask her (as well as Professor Cole) to be kind enough and comment on the contents of the present Wikipedia entry on Iran and possibly suggest improvements.
(3) The punctuations in the present entry are not perfect. What does the comma following citation [9] do? Further, when a citation is given at the end of a sentence, it must follow the closing dot; as it stands, citation [4] is correctly placed, but citation [8] is not.

The above were my comments for the time being; I shall return if I have more to say. In the meantime you may ask that the reviewers put reviewing the entry on hold until further notice (i.e. until various shortcoming are corrected). With kind regards, --BF 22:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC).

Euphemism

Can I infer from this [11] that "urban settlement" is the new euphemism of civilization? --Pejman47 (talk) 20:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry too much. The statement has been reverted to state the obvious: the 6 thousand year 'continuity' of the civilization(s?) in Iran. 3rdAlcove (talk) 23:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Maps, Military section, Geography section, and recent edits

I counted at least 10 maps of Iran for the entire article. May be we can replace some with pictures? I also merged the military section with the paragraph about foreign relations as per other similar articles: See Japan (featured), USA and others.

I also moved the geography section up for same reason. See Iran on the French Wikipedia (featured).[12]

I remember that a while back someone re-organised the sections to the current form(i.e. Etymology, history,politics, geog, admin divisions etc.) and everyone thought it was a great edit. I don't think this change is the best change. But something could be done about the admin divisions and geography. Maybe a merge? Thank you for your enthusiasm and contribution. Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Contributions to Science

I wonder if it's vaild at all to discuss Iran's contribution to science and technology relying on the example of Persian scientists who live and work outsied Iran, and who are probablly all of them citizens of Western countries. I think since the article is on Iran, it should stick to what's inside Iran. If you want to discuss the work of these scientists, I think it should be in a section on "Iranian Immigrants in the West", or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.69.1.21 (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The history section is too big

We need to trim it further. We need to MOVE the rest to the main articles. I am not a "specialist" of the history section but I think we should give a clear mandate to those who are able in that field.

I think triming 30% of the section would be appropriate. NO INFORMATION WILL BE LOST (JUST MOVED TO THE MAIN SUB-ARTICLES).

Please state your approval or opposition below. Thanks.

  • APPROVE
  • OPPOSE Because Iran is one of the oldest countries of the world , then it's natural for it's history section to be so long .This debate was previously discussed here Vote on trimming the History Section.--Alborz Fallah (talk) 08:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: I remember this subject was discussed but I forgot there had been a vote already. Secondly, I would like to add that the recent history of Iran (1988 - 2007) has not been added yet. We should probably make some room for it also, if we want to have the article nominated for FA status. So far it was NOT included because it was attracting many trolls to Iran's page, mainly because of the news surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme (I am not sure I want to include this part as of yet for the same reason). Also people tend to report "news" and wikipedia is not for that (see WP:NOT). Nevertheless, at some point in the future, the history section will get (30%??) bigger than it is today because of it. 69.116.247.26 (talk) 10:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Look at the Turkey page. The Iranian article needs to have something different to other articles; a WOW factor. It needs something to set it apart. I think we should have a history section slightly larger than the Turkey one. The politics could also be shortened a little. As some of you might have noticed I started a major one-man effort to shorten it and beat it down to a reasonable size and the article was under 100KB. But instead of maintaining it's small size the information came flooding back into the article. As I have done many times before, I will show my full support to shorten the article.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 17:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment:Iran is not a special little snowflake.--mitrebox (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I think it does need further trimming, particularly the Iran-Iraq war section. Turkey and Japan both provide excellent models for countries with very ancient histories. As I had stated prior, many of these FA class country articles do not have a huge amount of headers; I think we are capable of slowly transitioning towards a merger of all the history sections. It would make the section much more fluid. -Rosywounds (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Oppose, for this article to be promoted to FA status there is no need for further trimming. But still there is some unsourced stuff in there with "awkward wording" that should be corrected.--Pejman47 (talk) 19:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment: No history section needs to be trimmed. History is a valuable part of the description of a country. To fully understand a country, you must know where the country came from and how it came to be in the present age. What is that saying, "You can't know where you are going until you know where you have been." Expansion and contraction, Turmoil and peace, all of these are a part of a country's history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryHawk (talk • contribs) 00:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Iran image crisis

I quickly counted the number of images in the article and we have 42!!!!! The turkey page only has 24.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-number of images on the iran(not featured) page!

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-number of Pakistan(featured) images

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-number of Turkey(featured) images

I will remove a few of them. I shall smite whoever stands in my way!(just kidding;-)) Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Comparing it with other articles without giving any independant reason is FALLACY. I even saw that you deleted the IsmaillI picture, why? Did you know what you were doing? If only one pictue from the Safavids and Qajars should be selected, there is no other choice than him. List the images that you deem redundant here and ask for comment. If no objection was received delete them in 24 hours notice. Cheers. --Pejman47 (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree here because generally more images is a good thing. Having more than enough is never a problem. Most articles have fewer images because people don't want to go through the hassle of copyright licenses and whatnot. This is an area where more is always better. -Rosywounds (talk) 19:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Images articles should avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other, as this happens in several paragraphs in the Iran article it might be a good idea to remove some pics. --Victor12 (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to discuss the deletion of these images. Ideally SOME BUT NOT ALL of these should be deleted:Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I have an alternative suggestion - why not put the images on a rotation template so that we don't need to remove any images? Green Giant (talk) 00:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Great idea; but I absolutely hate the Yakhchal/flower image and the mountain/grassland picture is misleading, so let's delete them anyway.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Another image question

Which image is better?

I would say the green one. We also defintly need the picture of Cyrus's cylinder. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I vote for the second one (on the right). I also suggest we replace Chogha Zanbil pic with either the Cylinder of Cyrus or with Cyrus'tomb (below):
Cyrus' tomb lies in the ruins of Pasargadae, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2006).
SSZ (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Choghazanbil belongs there. It is of a more ancient period of time.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Definitely the green one. In the text it describes how the empire stretched From the two rivers to the Aegean sea (I just edited the Aegean sea bit), but here it clearly crosses the Oxus river so it is wrong and we should replace it with the Right image.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes the Northern i.e. the Scythian borders of the Empire were ambiguous, In addition the Green one covers Greece better. We know that all Greek cities except Athenes and its allies paid tribute to the Achamenids. And btw Athenes was occupied too. It has a weakness that it does not fully cover the historical Macedonia which was an Achamenid dominium. It is ambogius on the Caucasus. I also beleive that the border was Iaxartes (syrdarya) and not Oxus. This is the Area to the north of which lived the Massagetes, while for example Khwarezmia (to the northe of Oxus) was settled by the sedentary Iranian tribes, were early Zoroastrianis and and were loyal to the empire. But in general the Green one is better--Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Origins of carpet weaving

They predate the Persians. Xenophon is a primary source, and you cannot use primary sources without violating Wikipedia policies on OR (since you are not a scholar and do not have the expertise to critique or analyze primary sources). Further, Xenophon wasn't alive when the first carpet ever was ever made, so its a weak example for this situation. Even more, the Greeks assumed all innovations by Easterners to be of Persian origin, since that was the ruling class. [13] History of carpet making is too obscure to be claimed by one group. The previous wording was so flowery I thought Mohammad Reza Pahlavi wrote it. -Rosywounds (talk) 01:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The oldest known known carpet of the world is Scythian origin. Then there is Baharistan carpet of Sassanids. I suggest this sentence from the above link you brought be modified and put in there: "There is no doubt, that even Iranians can’t claim to have produced the first hand-made carpets, but the evidences specially finding carpet named “Pazirik” proves the great role of Iranians in creating this valuable art.". We can say that "There is no consensus on the origin of the first hand-made carpet, but the disocvery of the “Pazirik” carpet proves the great role of Iranians in creating this valuable art". --alidoostzadeh (talk) 01:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with Iranian contributions to the art being mentioned. We can include that. I don't think we should definitively say that we KNOW that the Persians were the first to make them, though. The wording should also remain neutral if we wish to present it. -Rosywounds (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I agree we do not know who made the first one..So I included the neutral wording above. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 01:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)



Safavid/Pahlavi pics

Who thinks this[14] version of the safavid to IR history section is better than the current one? I do. There are two pictures of the safavid dynasty and two from the pahlavi era, but nothing else. But this one has one of the Qajar era too;which was one of the most important eras in modern iranian history. The picture of the Shah is a lot clearer too and it shows the Shah's close ties with the USA.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

First, please upload a colseup from the picture of Shah wih Nixon, in you proposed version they are far from the camera. After that I don't have any problem with that.
About the other picture, I disagree with you. But, I will have no objection if other users prefer yours. --Pejman47 (talk) 23:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
the map of Safavid empire is not correct: it should contain much more of Dagestan anbd Georgia. Also Marv and the whole Persian Gulf area, someone please correct the map and download a map again.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 05:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is that we need a picture which shows something or someone in Iran's history from the Qajar era and I think the Naser Al-Din picture is a good picture. Babakexorramdin pointed out that the Safavid map is wrong. Should we remove it or leave it until it is updated? Is it better to have incomplete information or none at all? I don't know.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC) >>>> good question. Generally no info is better than wrong info. But in this case you can let it be here, untill it is updated, rather rapidly. In this article, maps and puictures should be sharp and strong, because we do not have much space in the text. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 19:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)



Tourism

In the tourism subsection it said that 1.8% of employment is generated from tourism. I wondered if tourism is important enough to have it's own subsection, so I moved all of the text to the Economy of Iran article and put a few sentences in the economy lead.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 12:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC) >>>>> Just note that its not all about income but about the attraction of this country. Interesting would be to mentiond that despite its potential there is not much foreign tourist, due to the bad name the western Media has created for the country, and give a link to Anti Iranianism.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. I think I can do that.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

History subheadings

The Wikipedia's MOS it says that headings (and titles) should preferably be under ten words. One of the history titles violates this guideline and two other headings also contain a large number of words. All headings (except the Parthian and Sassanid empires) should be changed. I suggest we change the post Arab invasion to Iran under Islamic rule or Caliphate and Sultanate. The Safavid 'till revolution could be Early Modern Iran and the Pahlavi dynasty or Monarchist Modern Iran. I have no suggestions for the early history section.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC) >>> You can call that the early historic period or what I prefer the ancient and classical period.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the "Classical" bit. according to WP the Classical Antiquity is Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Half of this period would fall under the era of Sassanid and Parthian Empires. How about Rise of the Persian Empire? But this doesn't describe the section well, because it omits the Early history part. Should I change the others?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Avoid Persian empire (whatever that might mean) at any costs. Early history and the Iranian statehood, I would say. Median empire can be seen as the first Iranian state in this part of the Iranian world. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could call it by that part of world history, like stone age or bronze age or antiquity or whenever it is(obviously this is not my strong point, but I will look it up). According to my dictionary statehood means The status of being a recognised independent nation, which Iran still is. Maybe ...and early statehood?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked and it falls under the Bronze and Iron ages and early antiquity, but the antiquty period focuses more on Greece and Rome.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

We want to discuss from pre-antiquity untill early antiquity. I would say consilodation of Iranian statehod, would be a nice title.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what consilodation means. Maybe Inauguration of Iranian statehood, but I'm not sure it is the best word. If only we could shorten it, merge it with the next subsection (Parthia and Sassanids) and name it pre Islamic period or something!

I just had a thought! How about we merge the Median and Achaemenid pat with the Sassanid and Parthian section and call it Pre Islamic Statehood, and leave the Pre-median stuff in it's own subsection (Early History). I think this is a good idea because with the statehood of Iran a new era of Iranian history started. I think it is also important that if we do this that we don't add any text to the section.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Consolidation means becoming solid, beginning to get a form. But I agree with you the second solution is better. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the English lesson;-)! I'll now edit the history section. What do you think about the other headings?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

1- Early ancient history 2- Pre-Islamic Iranian ststehood (or unity) 3- Early islamic period 4- Islamic era Iranian unity (or Early modern era; From Safavids to Pahlevi) 5- Islamic republic. This was my suggestions, --Babakexorramdin (talk) 20:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Relating to the Safavid until IR, it could be early modern era, but I think the Pahlavi era is more recent than early modern. But I can't think of anything better. pre-Islamic statehood is good enough and no Iranian is necessary. The rest is good.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 23:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Its ok, then its good to include Elamite and Lulubian, manna etc... civilization as a prelude to the pre-SIslamic statehood. In the Early history then come the more remote history. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Could Elamite and Lulubian, manna really be considered Iranian ststes who ruled Iran? As it said in the history section "The medians are credited with uniting Iran" or something along those lines. Also, is there enough information about previous eras of iranian history? The sections should stay as they are until we shorten the PISH subsection. Then we might add some text but not before. I thought of a name for the Safavid section. Late monarchist era, or end of monarchism(although I think this might be more related to the Revolution)Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 13:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Elamites were not Iranianspeaking, About the Manna, Lulubian, Kashubian- Caspian etc... we dont know enough, but many say they were no Iranian speakers. Any how they, especially Elamites have influened the tradition of the upcoming empires especially the Achamenids who relied heavily on the elamite tradition. But they were not united and they do not deserve the label empire.

As for the Islamic era, use the early Islamic era, or medieval times. Then use as islamic era Iranian empires. What I opt for is> a section from the Safavid untill end of Qajar and call it the early modern period, and then from Pahlavi till now we call it the later modern period or just modern era Iran. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, I also thought of the latter, but I dismissed it due to doubts on their similarities and also people's opinion. I think that the Pahlavi era is similar equally to the IR and the Qajar dynasty. It was similar as it was in the same political world as the IR is now (e.g. American supremacy) but it was also greatly influenced and corrupted by western powers, like the Qajars were. I think to make things simpler we should put it with the IR section. With this move the Safavid Qajar section would have very little text and we should keep it that way! Many have talked about the History section's massive size. If we do this change we must keep the sections which loose text short and shorten the sections which have become larger. With this and a few reference and grammatical changes we could achieve the FA. I disagree with the initial suggestion about the Post islamic thing. Iran is still n Islamic country. I'm not sure if all of that part is medieval, but if it does I'm for it.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the Middle Ages page and this period of Iranian history starts 200years after the beginning of the Middle Ages and ends around the same time. I think this is a good heading, but I have to make one final suggestion. How about Islamic Golden Age and Mongol invasion. I like the first bit because Islam was very very important in Iran's history and culture of that time (even now!). But with the mongol Invasion bit it makes the heading a bit long and it doesn't include Tamerlane (Teymoure Lang). Could you think of any way that we could use the phrase Islamic Golden Age in the heading?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 14:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I wouldnt call it Golden age. Iranian Golden age is the Safavid 17th century--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say it was Iran's golden age, but The Islamic Golden Age.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I know, but I said that would bring confusion. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 02:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Middle Ages it is!Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 10:57, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Call it the Islamic Medieval period.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
If you search for Medieval it redirects to Middle Ages, so there is'nt a medieval page.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 12:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Official Language

I noticed a minor error on the page for Iran. The description of the country lists the official language of Iran as Persian. Persian is not exactly the official language of the Iranians. The actual official language of Iran is called Farsi, a semitic language very similar to Arabic and Hebrew. In fact Farsi takes many letters from the Arabic language into it's own. There are a few letters in Farsi that are not in Arabic, setting it a little apart from Arabic. I just thought that this should be clarified. Although the country is not a particular favorite of mine, it's culture deserves a little respect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryHawk (talk • contribs) 00:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Contrary to common belief, it is not a Semitic language. Persian belongs to the Western group of the Iranian languages branch of the Indo-European language family. Being a speaker myself I know that it was heavily influenced by Arabic due to the Arab Conquest of Iran (Persia), but the original words are Aryan. Farsi shares many words or words with the same origin with other Indo-European languages like English e.g. Bad, Madar/Mother etc. An argument has been going on for a while on Wikipedia and also in the International community; Persia or Iran?, Persian or Farsi? They are basicly the same language. Persian, the more widely used name of the language in English, is an Anglicized form derived from Latin Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Πέρσις Pérsis, a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian seems to have been first used in English in the mid-16th century. Native Persian speakers call it "Fārsi" (local name) or Parsi. Farsi is the arabicized form of Parsi, due to a lack of the /p/ phoneme in Standard Arabic. So as I said they are the same thing. So it's like saying Francaise or French, Cymraeg or Welsh.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 13:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

As Ardeshir babakan said Persian is the true name (Farsi is its local name* and it is not semitic. It is Indo_European language and belongs to the Iranian branch of it, together with Kurdish, Tajik etc... It has some semitic loanwords though mainly from Arabic and Aramaic (Assyrian) but not from hebrew. The alphabet in which it is written has more letters than the Arabic ones, and the alphabet does not deserve to be called Arabic alphabet any way, because it was taken from the Mesopotamian alphabets and were developed later by Iranians and Mesopotamians. Arabs used other Alphabets either Hebrew or similar to those of ethiopia, before the invaded the Sasanid empire--Babakexorramdin (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I never said Persian is the right name, I just explained where they came from. My personal opinion is in fact the opposite. I support the Farsi camp.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 00:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I do support Persian over farsi. farsi is just a local translation. In English it suggests an ethnic language, while Persian can be suggestive of historic Persia. moreover there are not many languages which bear the local names in English, some examples are Paplliemnto, Urdu, Zulu, Lingala, and Inuit. Persian is definitly not of the same type/ level historically and in terms of literature.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The fact that most languages are known by their English name is a good point, but your initial point is incorrect. It would be more correct to say that Persian is from a Greek translation of Parsi (Farsi). As wikipedia talk pages aren't forums for general discusion, we should look at which one the UN recognises (the Persian gulf is correct partially because the UN recognises this but not the "Arabian gulf" or the "Gulf").Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 14:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a problem with the official language on the right hand column. It states that the official language is "farsi". This is ironic since the article states itself that the language is Persian in the Language section. Moreoever, the wiki page on the Persian Language: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language#Local_names) notes that the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, the governing body that regulates the language, itself issued a statement saying that the correct ENGLISH name is Persian. Please have the right hand column language designation changed from Farsi to Persian please. 1 April 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikronium (talk • contribs) 07:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:BehnamFarid wants to keep a set of external links at the bottom of the article. My "motivation" for removing the "Faces of Iran" link are covered by WP:External links#Restrictions_on_linking:

  • Sites that violate the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work. Knowingly directing others to a site that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement. If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates its creator's copyright.

The uploader of the Youtube video that is linked to uses a large number of photos for which no source or licensing is given. Please do not readd it. Green Giant (talk) 02:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We must be very selective with external links, especially for a country. Otherwise, we might just provide links to 100 videos from Youtube or Google. Any external link must be very BROAD in scope and of good QUALITY and cover all the topics covered in the main article (or as much as possible). That's my opinion on this subject. SSZ (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Early Modern pic

The early modern era (changed due to a consencus on this talk page) has two Safavid images. They only ruled for 200 of the total of 500 years described in this section. I think a Qajar image would do. how about one relating to the constitutional revolution or an image of a king.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Safavids were so important in the Iranian political history that deserve two pictures. Constitutional revolution for Qajar is fine--Babakexorramdin (talk) 02:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The Safavids are important. I'm not denying that; but it's not that important. We lost A lot of land during the Qajar period. Our current borders were formed the Qajar period. Nader Shah saved iran from permanent occupation.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 10:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It was that importnat, also for god's sake do not edit this article with what you perceived by reading High schools history books!
and can you show us your consensus? where is it?--Pejman47 (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus for what? Sorry if I've done something wrong but I've forgotten. If your talking about the Achaemenid pic it's under "Another Image Question". I would also like to say that all of my history knowledge is not from my history books, but that book was nearest to me. I would also like to say that the Iranian history books (later years) are very informative.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 22:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've changed my mind. the subsection is too small for two images so let's get rid of the map. It is wrong (see Safavid/Pahlavi pic discussion section) and there is nothing special about the map. We have about seven maps & satellite images.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Section language and literature

Section language and literature should be revised heavily. We are not dealing with the Iranian languages in the region but with the languages of Iran. In addition only Persian literature is reffered too. A good article of Iran pays attention to all (larger) languages of Iran.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 19:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point. fine with me. but delete some sentences on Persian.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Banknote

The banknote image only shows the English side of the note. Could someone make one with both sides. I would do it but i'm not in Iran and my note is a bit tattered. Also generally add images of other banknotes for the rial article.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Ardeshirs Qs about the necessity of examples and the Safavids and the heart of persian Gulf

Dear Ardeshir. I think that those things were necessary, I had put some of those informations there myself because the anti-Iranianists are continuously abuse ambiguity in order to instigate ethnic and relkgious hatred and intra-state and interstate conflicts in the region. Also it is necessary that that The Safavid empire is explicitely is called an Iranian empire, at the moment The anti-Iranianists American and Israeli lobby are championing the idea that 1- Transcauacsus and republic of Azerbaijan were not Iranian 2- that Safavid empire was originated there and 3- They conquered Iran. They are violating the history. Unfortunately some obscure pseudo-scientists such as Brenda Shaffer and company are very eager to abuse these things.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I have never heard of these claims! This might be due to my ignorance or lack of media coverage or something. But Wikipedia wasn't made to prove some cowboy anti-Iranians wrong. Why should Kurdish and Azeri be in the infobox when languages like Pashtu or Baluchi aren't mentioned. I don't think that when people come to learn about Iran they just read the captions. Also I have suggested that we delete that image because (As you pointed out) it is wrong and it hasn't any significance in Iran's history. Maybe the Qajar borders would be good or maybe a picture of a famous person like a king. Or maybe we should just delete it and not replace it. The section is short now (Thank god) and two images might be too much. Also you shouldn't sandwich text between two images. Why is Iran in the heart of the Persian gulf? This implies that 1. Iran can fit in the Persian Gulf 2.It is an Island in the Persian Gulf 3.It has no neighbours 4. It can't border any other body of water(as it's in the middle of one). Another thing is what heart? Geographical, Political, Cultural, Historical, Economical or Demographical. All points can be contested. I won't undo your edit until the matter is resolved.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

1- You might not have heard these claims, maybe because you live in the USA. There the Iranian TV channels broadcast trivial things and live in the stone ages in general. 2-Baluchi could be there too, but it is a minor language spoken by some 2 Million peoples while Azeri and Kurdish are the biggest after Persian. Pashtun is ambigous because it is spoken by the Afghan immigrants. Iranian constitution does not speak about the immigrants languages status. But it could be a regional language after these immigrants live in a compact area for a long time 3- Safavids are the most important dynasty in Iran. The roots of modern Iranian state lies in that tiem. panturksist are now trying to change our histpory and say that they were not Iranians. 3- Iran lies in the heart of persian Gulf because the Iranian idlands are spread in the Persian Gulf from East to West and they often go very far in the International waters.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
1.Actually, I have never been to the US. I lived in Iran for most of my life and have been in the UK for six months. I have watched Iranian-American channels mainly to laugh at their accents and their naivety.2.Your second point is a good one and has convinced me 3.Safavid isn't the most important dynasty in Iranian history. The Medians were the first state of Iran. Iran was at it's largest during the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Parthian and Sassanid dynasties we beat the Romans and kept Zoroastrianism alive (collected the avesta). During the Tahirid dynasty Iran re-emerged as a state. During the Afsharid dynasty we took Delhi for the first time. Iran became prosperous under the Zandieh dynasty. Iran's current borders were formed during the Qajar period and Iran lost alot of power and was corrupted. During the Pahlavi dynasty Iran was greatly westernised and became wealthy and now iran is getting N power.4. Just because iran has a few islands in the Persian gulf it doesn't mean that the whole country is in the PG. You could say Iran has some islands in the heart of the PG but that's not important enough for the heading. You could also say that iran is in the heart of the Caspian because it has a few islands in the north.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe all dynasties were important? I wouldnt say that. Zand and Qajar were not powerful, but the constitutional revolution happened during Qajar (You can use Sattar Khan´s picture btw). Safavids´importance was in the fact that they built a reunited Iran out of ashes. If they were not there was no Iran now, but many small states, or who knows maybe Iran was part of Ottoman Empire or any other secanrio. Nader Shah was important too because he kicked Barbarians out of Iran, but it was a short period. From the Medians untill the end of Sasanians Iran was a powerfull empire, but then Arabs and Mongols and Javd and Hushang and Abdullah and Khare and Sage came. Safavids managed to build a reunited state again and laid the fundaments of modern Iran, the same state in which we are living now. If you are going to use a picture during Qaar, you better use Sattar Khan or Iranian lost territory in the Caucasus (Golestan and Torkamanchay)--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I think a sattarkhan pic would do.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 23:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

or maybe Jangali.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 23:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Sattar Khan is more notable--Babakexorramdin (talk) 09:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll change it now. I'll change the "Heart of the Persian Gulf" bit too.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Which picture? the Sattar Khan & Bagher Khan one or just Sattar Khan?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I would say that one with Sattar Khan--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

American or British?

I have a question. should this article adopt American English or Proper English. I support the latter because US English is only mainly used in the US.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, should we use BC/AD or BCE/CE (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Longer_periods). I personally think AD/BC is better.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't 'adopt' any style but follow the English of the original editor, per the Manual. As for BC/AD you should probably again follow the established way, though I must strongly note my support for using BC/AD, the CE nonsense is just an American ultra-Politically Correct fad and the vast vast majority of the world uses BC and AD. +Hexagon1 (t) 05:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The article can't be a mix of AmEng and proper English. Issues such as US or U.S. depend on it. I think Brit English should be encouraged. I would also like to say that I will change all BCE/CE to BC/AD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ardeshire Babakan (talk • contribs) 15:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. Please don't do that, per WP:MOS. ➪HiDrNick! 17:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

"Choose either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE system, but not both in the same article." Maybe you read this bit: "It is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change". But there isn't a single style on this page. Some use AD and others use CE. I just changed the CE/BCE ones. We think it's better,Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Territoial loss

I think it is important to mention territoal loss and the contemporary borders. Briefly the loss of Caucasus, Bahrain and Herat should be discussed. They both involved Imperial (Russian and British) envolvmenet and are still alive in the Iranian public mind as a major Trauma.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

When I checked some territorial losses were mentioned, but not Bahrain, Herat and Caucasus. I don't think such details are important on the Iran page.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

These are not detailles. these are major events which have shpaed the current borders of Iran.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The loss is mentioned, but no details are given. Mentioning the loss is enough.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

If you mean this :"resulting in Iran losing almost half of its territories to Imperial Russia and the British Empire, via the treaties of Gulistan, Turkmenchay and Akhal. In spite of The Great Game Iran managed to maintain her sovereignty and was never colonized, unlike neighbouring states in the region". It is not enough and is wrong too.

Iran did not lost jalf of its territory but less than than. It should be mentioned that Golestan and Turkmenchay meant loss of Iranian territories in the Caucasus (modern day Georgia, Armenia, republic of Azerbaijan, and Daghestan(. Akhal dealt with territories in Turkmenistan. Then Iran also lost Herat to the British. From this time The British intervened in Bahrain, but Iran lost it in 1971. These are important information. Mentioning territorial loss has not much value without mentioning its location. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not convinced and I have no more points to make. I'm not convinced so others must decide.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

lets say this. Mentioning the location of territorial loss is OK with Iranian wikipedians. If Iranian wikipedians do not agree with something, they can always reach me by many means and I will say that to you.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough! I would like to tell every wikipedian to check the details and if there are any concerns mention it!Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 21:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The interactive map is superior

Ardeshir jan why did you changed my edit ? the interactive map is better because we can use the mouse as the pointer and there is no need of putting number on any part of Iran: If some one asks why did us numbered Tehran as number 1 , and south Khorashan as the 30th , what would be our answer? By ordering with alphabetical order, it's simpler to find a name in the list, but by using random numbers that would be difficult.Besides, the interactive map provokes the reader to click on map and know more about Iran.--Alborz Fallah (talk) 10:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Good points. especially about the numbering issues --Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally support your changes, but we have to do these things democratically and properly. Otherwise we would be encouraging less established editors to change pages as they please. Let's start a discussion now. I am in favour for all of the above reasons and also because it is like the one on the Turkey (FA) page. I wanted to ask if the list of provinces next to it is necessary?Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

As no-one has objected to the new map then i will put it back in the article.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Better not to change the article as a parliament! If a change is right, it doesn't needs the opinion poll to be applied. If the change is wrong or there is conflict in a matter, it can be discussed and changed by consensus. I'm afraid acting like so, may disappoint the contributors!--Alborz Fallah (talk) 11:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The links on the map are enough and a list of provinces isn't necessary. I'll get rid of the list now.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

3 Achaemenid images

There are currently THREE Achaemenid image in the early statehood section and one sassanid image. What happened to the medians, greeks and parthians? i'm going to replace the lion image with a Parthian image.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Pejman47. Your image is more relevant, but I think that there are much more relevant Sassanid images than the Shapur bust. I'll search for some.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

History

I was thinking it would be better if we merged Early History and Pre-Islamic statehood and title it Pre-Islamic history. "Statehood" seems like an inaccurate term, since there was no such thing as citizenship or a nation state until the modern era, at least we understand it today. -Rosywounds (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Unlike Europe you can speak of statehood in the Iranian realm. Europeans often arrogantly disreagrd the fact that statehood in other parts of the world is older than theirs and then try to downplay these forms of statehoods, Statehood in the Iranian, Chinese and Indian realms are much older than the European one. These were state with satet apparatus and bureaucracy.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Iranians generally agree that the Medians started the chain of Iranian dynasties, and other states were smaller and didn't merit a "State of Iran" but merited an "Iranian State".Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

He was saying something else, which was very bad. He said that the Iranian states were not real states because a state cannot be ancient per definition. This is an arrogant European statement. because Europe had its states no earlier than the 17th century, they do not like to accept that there existed states in other parts of the world much earlier.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Please don't make this political. they were states.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

the notion of STATE is allways political!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Geog pictures

There are two pictures in the geography section showing green grass. As most of you know, Iran isn't like that. There are some places like that but it is 2/3 desert and 1/3 mountainous, but it is hard to find a picture of a desert in Iran. I think one should be deleted so I'll delete the fars one(the damavand one kills two birds with one stone). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ardeshire Babakan (talk • contribs) 16:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

>>> Iran is like that. Much grass, only central Iran is arid. North and West have much "grass". --Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

ok. to simplify it greatly, the Northwestern half of Iran is green and the south-eastern half is desert/mountains. I think one image full of greenery is enough.(forgive me for my unscientific terms but i can't be bothered to use them.)Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 17:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Unification

In the pagge's infobox there is a unification section; but clearly, someone has made some mistakes. Someone has added the first constitution, Islamic revolution and the sassanid dynasty! These weren't unifications or even reunifications!The Parthian and Safavid dynasties are noted as reunifications but the section in the infobox is called Unification! Why does it say unified under Cyrus tG? In the text it says that the medians made the first emipre/state of iran. It should only have the Median dynasty.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 19:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Unification is very easy. The Median Empire unified Iran. It was kept untill the end of the sassanids. Even Alexander and Seleucides did not disintegrate Iran. In the middle ages the Iranian unity was lost and the safavids reunified it and it is still kept.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the terms Unification and reunification as it is used here are not useful. It should be Established by the Median Empire and Restored or if you like unified by the Safavids. But we should keep in mind that the Safavids did not restore the Median or Achamenid Empire but the Sassanid Empire. their political system as well as the territories over which they ruled is virtually the same as the sasanid empire (proper)--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

So let's just mention the Medians and Safavids then. It feels strange. we're on at the same time doing the same thing!Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think Unification(I mean of Iran) is good enough for now. I don't think restoration is a good word here, but establishment seems better than unification, because if you say Iran was unified, it might mean Iran within it's current borders or historic borders or Iranian people or people of greater of iran or the unification of people who practice persian culture, but when you say Iran was established fewer questions are asked. You could say the Safavids Reestablished Iran (as a state) but restored suggests that they redid what was done in the median times.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Why not just copy Turkey's format... and please summarize the history section... overall this page is very shambly. lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by Micronie (talk • contribs) 15:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

We do generally look at other pages (which are featured) for guidance, but to copy another page is deeply immoral as we both undermine the work of the contributors of the Turkey page, and the work of people constantly improving the Iran page. There is also the fact that they are two different countries and to "Understand" Iran we may need to focus more on factors of Iran like the History and Culture sections, as all Iranians are proud of our history and culture.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm getting you right but, but if by two different countries you mean the historical Persia and modern Iran, I suggest you divide the history topic into to subs 'historical Persia' and 'Modern Iran', that would help everyone "understand" the difference between the two. I checked a number of other page's, all of them have much shorter history topics (e.g. Greece, Egypt, Britain) except for china which doesn't even have an economy topic. There is too much detail right now, I believe there is a page dedicated to 'History of Iran' isn't there? I'm Iranian, But I don't feel the need to force-feed our culture and history to others. You really look at other page's? Featured pages look nothing like this one. Thank y'all anyway , I'm not even helping, I feel kind of guilty I'm just being whiny. I don't know how to sign by the way March 12th

I meant Turkey and Iran are different. I know how you feel about force-feeding people and many times I've been frustrated by this. But the page has improved a lot. If you look at older editions of the page you would see what we were dealing with. It felt like they were trying to convert people or something. The history section is big but people think it should remain big, and these people have demoralized people who want to shorten it; by reverting edits and expanding it.. It should be big but not as big as it is now. About three screen-fulls is about right.The Turkey history section is about this big.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 15:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC) P.S. below the box thing where you write it says GFDL. go directly down and there are four wavy lines. click on that and save.

I also agree that Turkey format is not a good example. We have shorten the history section as acompromise, but shorter than this is not possible. Iran has a long history. In contrast to Turkey Iran has continous history, while Turkish historiography tebnds to neglect the long and rich history of Anatolia prior to the Turkish era. Therefore Iran and Turkey are not comparable in this respect.I think the history section is now good enough. I should say that we UNFORTUNATELY were FORCED to shortehn this section, Unfortunalety many information is lost, but it is shorter as you wished.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 09:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

What could be comparable were Egypt and China, but those articles are not featured either. We are dealing here with Historic nations, so we should set different criteria with regard to the length of history section.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 09:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect to Babakexorramdin but the history section is still a bit big. No one was Forced to shorten the article. Most people agreed that it was too big. Also, none of the information was lost as the information is already in their respective MAIN ARTICLES!!!!!Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

we Iranian wikipedians admitted to shortening only reluctantly, giving in to the demands of administrators hoping to elevate the article to the featured status. I do not know how many Iranian wikipedians were of this opinion. I was, and I know some. You can tyrace their discussion even in this talk page. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I am also an Iranian Wikipedian and I support shortening the whole page and I know other people who share my point of view. Stop implying that Wikipedia is wrong and a few proud editors are right. I am also proud but that doesn't affect my view on the issue. We don't have to force-feed and impose our history onto readers. If you want to expand Wikipedia's information on Iranian history PLEASE edit History of Iran.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 16:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You act as you are very important but don't know certain things. I did not mean it in a rude manner though. I have spoken in favor of you to those "proud" wikipedians, but your behavior tells me I was wrong.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that I am very important but maybe I act like it and I'm sorry if I do. The only thing I need to say is that main articles are there for a reason. I appreciate that you make your comments with no harm intended.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Very important, not important... too much drama! I'm a nobody here by that account, so what? The history section is way too big. there is a HISTORY OF IRAN article, designated to inform anyone who wants to study History of Iran! this is the Iran page. it should be balanced. Nobody said remove the history section but man o man that's biiiig! no offense but keeping it this way for the sake of a group of people's "pride" is both selfish and foolish. I have no say on this though. Just giving an observer's opinion. Micronie (talk) 18:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right. It is big and we should shorten it to around the size of the Turkey history section.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 11:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Late Modern era 1921 -

There is a mistake at the very beginning of the paragraph, as it says that Reza Khan overthrew the Qajar dynasty and became the Shah in 1921. This is not the case.

He overthrew the Dynasty in 1921, and what was left was effectively a constitutional monarchy without a monarch. He was Head of the Army for four years, if I am not mistaken, and then he was made Minister of War in 1925 by the Majlis. At the end of 1925, the Majlis passed a bill declaring that the constitutional monarchy would remain, and the foundation for Reza Khan to become the Shah was laid. Early in 1926, he was made the first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, not in 1921 directly after the coup.

In fact, the Iran article and the Reza Khan article on wikipedia contradict themselves. The Reza Khan article is more accurate in stating that Reza Khan was made Shah in 1925.

Albi 217.201.108.108 (talk) 11:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You are right--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sports

The brief section on the main Iran page devoted to sports contains errors. The sentences explaining that Iran is the origin of polo and the youthful demographic aren't well written.
More importantly, the following blurb about football claims that Iran was a World Cup finalist three times, which is not true. As the Sports in Iran article states, they've qualified for the tournament three times, not reached the finals. There should probably also be a line break between the football paragraph and the details of Iran's mountains. Thanks.
SunMachine (talk) 09:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Avicenna's Canon of Medicine

Picture of a book is not very interesting by itself (btw what are those glasses doing there?)

Why not replace the book's picture with something else. Any opinion/idea? 69.116.243.83 (talk) 14:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, what about this picture (from Timurid era) for a change?:

Illustration from Jāmī's "Rose Garden of the Pious", dated 1553. The image blends Persian poetry and Persian miniature into one, as is the norm for many works of the Timurid era.

Persian people article needs some attention too

Dorood guys. Great job on this article, I am very proud of the great work here. Can you also give some attention to Persian people? That article is very poor right now and needs some improvement considering how important an ethnic group Persians have been and still are.


Persian vs "Farsi"

Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Iranica and Encyclopedia of Islam use the term Persian and it is has been the common name used by scholars and scholarly material. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 11:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Discrimination against male

Why my example of gender inequality (that male are only 30% of students) is frequently removed?

    • There is no ACTIVE discrimination against males in Iran that I know of. It is against women, mostly through the Iranian law (ie. witness, divorce, etc). The reason to remove your comment was that it was not material and you could move it to education in Iran instead. 69.116.233.143 (talk) 17:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
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