Talk:Goths

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Intro

I sincerely hope that this article isn't about American politics, per above. What I react mostly to is the idea that the Scandinavian origin hinges only on the credibility of Jordanes in the intro. I think it should be more in line with this more scholarly and neutral approach:

Nevertheless, that these explanations cannot be used to confirm the historicity of the origin myth does not mean that the Goths and many others did not originate from Scandinavia. Several independent, unrelated, pieces of evidence, both philogical and archaeological,⁴⁵ indicate that there might be a grain of historical truth in these stories. If Scandza is a literary motif, it might also reflect some long-gone historical reality,⁴⁶ at least for the Goths, the Lombards, and the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps even for groups like the Heruli, the Vandals and the Burgundians too. Several of the groups were tied up with the Nordic regions.⁴⁷ Over the generations, the origin myths would have been handed down and recreated in a multitude of ritual contexts, associated with the social reproduction of the people and the warrior kings' sacred position. (in Hedeager, Lotte. 2003:27-28. Rituals of Power From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages Series: Transformation of the Roman World, Volume: 8 Editors: Frans Theuws and Janet Nelson)

If RS don't consider it to hinge solely on Jordanes' credibility, neither can we as WP editors, and I really really hope that this article is not considered to be a tool in American identity politics, because then all hope is probably lost for this article and the POV tag may have to stay in place as long as that debate lasts.--Berig (talk) 07:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Much of this article, including the lead, has been written by me, and there is certainly room for improvement. Thanks for making this clear, Berig. I have made a proposal for fixing these issues at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths (see this diff for exact changes). The proposal seeks to make the structure of the article more encyclopedic, to remove duplication, and to present a more balanced and coherent account of Gothic origins. Please let me know if your consider it an improvement. Krakkos (talk) 16:16, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

It looks fine, but I am curious about why Jordanes has to be attributed here as an inventor in what looks like he proclaimed it "said". Encyclopedia Britannica calls it their own legend and often information from a medieval scholars are called "legends" and "traditions". I don't think it is very controversial to call it their own tradition. Maybe you know that Theodoric's mausoleum was decorated with a frieze in a pattern that otherwise is only found on ornaments from 5th and 6th century Scandinavia, possibly as a reference to their traditional origins in Scandinavia. I added it not long ago with a reference in the article Theodoric the Great[1]. Adding that it was their own tradition, or may have been their own tradition, doesn't hurt anyone here. You should be able to find references for it. I also wonder if it is WP:DUE to cite only dissimilarities between East and North Germanic. There are words that Gothic had in common with the Gotlandic dialect of Old Norse (lamb, as the word for "sheep", and lukarn, IIRC). Also it could be worth mentioning new theories such as the Goths having originated in a trading network across the Baltic Sea, such as the one that the Gotlanders kept maintaing until they were replaced by the Hansa, or the theory of charismatic clans.--Berig (talk) 17:37, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I have now made an attempt at adding the suggested improvements to the article. Regarding Jordanes, there are several historians who disagree very intensely with the idea that his account on Gothic origins was based on any Gothic material. Though this appears to be a minority viewpoint, i think we have to include these views in the article. Appropriately balancing these opposing viewpoints while simultaneously making the article readable is not an easy task, but i have made an attempt. Details on the views of various historians, such as Peter Heather, Herwig Wolfram, Walter Goffart and Wolf Liebeschuetz, are included in the footnotes. Feel free to let me know what you think. Krakkos (talk) 19:13, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I have now made another attempt at addressing your concerns, particularly your suggestions on how we should approach Jordanes. Feel free to let me know what you think about the changes. Krakkos (talk) 23:37, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

It is considerably better now. I will read it more closely later today, but I doubt that there will be any major concerns from my side.--Berig (talk) 10:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I would like to bring up the "classification" section. This section should deal with how modern scholars classify the Goths. How Romans vaguely generalized, missidentified and categorized distant and exotic nations is more anecdotal and belongs in a historiography section. Otherwise, I think it looks fine now, and considerably more balanced.--Berig (talk) 14:49, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

PS, or, it should at least give prominence to modern scholarship and tell the reader about that first. Then, the classification of classical authors can be added as a curiosity.--Berig (talk) 15:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I have made an attempt at modifying the "classification" in accordance with your suggestions. The classification by classical authors of the Goths as Getae or Scythians isn't taken seriously by any scholars, so i guess you are right that that we should not be giving that too much weight. Feel free to let me know what you think about the modification. Krakkos (talk) 16:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I won't bother you with minor quibbles. I have removed the tag. Thanks for your great work!--Berig (talk) 16:16, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi Berig. Coming late to the discussion, but some small remarks:

• Encyclopedia Brittanica is not really a strong source given how hard we worked to looked for the best sourcing on this article in the past. To cut a long story short, the Scandinavia story of Jordanes is not seen as a reliable source by the experts on Jordanes. Peter Heather is a key source on this point. Of course that does not mean the Jordanes narrative should not be mentioned or anything like that. Indeed, obviously some scholars (mainly Scandinavians according to one published remark) still see it as reflecting some reality, but I just want to say that I agree with the need for some caution about balance. We don't want to be treating Heather as "fringe". I think Krakkos and you have also agreed.
• One practical suggestion: we should be careful about telling our readers Jordanes was simply a "Gothic" writer. He identified as Gothic, but he was writing as a Romanized person, long after the Goths had mainly dispersed far from their original concentrated settlements in Roman territory. We should make sure that we don't give the wrong impression - for example that he was a near contemporary of events.
• I noticed your remark about the frieze. I noticed you posted one source so far (Näsman). Is that the source which first made the proposal, or does this position have a bigger literature which can show us the "field" accepting/rejecting/debating it? It is clearly interesting, but we should work out what sources exist in order to balance anything we write about that.
• FWIW, Walter Pohl who is clearly one of the main scholarly experts on Germanic peoples today, does not include Goths as a Germanic people in his writing. His reference work on the Germanic Peoples, for example, does not cover them. He covers them elsewhere, and argues pro-actively for this categorization. He is clearly not a member of Goffart's school, but rather the senior active representative of Wolfram's more conservative school (in as far as we may speak of "schools"). I just say this to make sure you realize that not classifying the Goths as Germanic (except in the linguistic sense) is not a fringe position. More generally, modern academics no longer accept the straightforward equation of linguistic classifications and ethnic classifications, as I'm sure you realize, and so Pohl's decision is quite consistent with that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The idea that we somehow have to choose or balance between the so-called Vienna and Toronto schools of historians are a false dilemma. There are plenty of prominent historians, such as Peter Heather and Wolf Liebeschuetz, who disagree with those schools on fundamental points. The views of philologists and archaeologists are perhaps even more relevant for the question of Gothic origins than those of historians, and must also be taken into account. In a 2018 work summarizing the historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence on Gothic origins, Robert D. Fulk notes that "the considerable majority of scholars" consider Jordanes' account on Gothic origins in Scandinavia and Poland to be "trustworthy at least in general outline". Wikipedia articles should prioritize and be structured around the majority views. We should of course include prominent minority viewpoints as well (which this article already does), but there is a limit to how much weight we can give them without the early part of this article degenerating into an exegesis on the Getica. Such an exegesis is better suited at Jordanes, Getica and Origin stories of the Goths. Krakkos (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I did not say that we are balancing only those two schools, did I? I only mentioned Goffart in order to point out that this article is not much influenced by him or his school at the moment. But clearly, according to numerous comments by you, Heather and Wolfram are two of the most respected sources on the the topic of Gothic origins. Neither believes that Jordanes is literally correct about a physical migration from Scandinavia. In any case, what edit are we arguing about? I was explaining what the best-known recent historians and philologists say, because it seemed Berig might not be aware of it. I did not propose any specific edit, unless you could being careful not to simply call Jordanes a Goth in any way which implies he was actually a near-contemporary of their migrations.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:12, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Berig I just noticed that the topic of this frieze was brought up by you before (March and April 2020, above) and Ermenrich and GPinkerton had doubts also. It seems important to get some sourcing rationales on record because in essence you are arguing this is a "game changer" piece of evidence, but it does not seem to be well-known among in the international community yet?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:32, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

It was certainly my impression from grad school here in the last ten years that Scandinavian origins are highly poo-pooed at least in certain circles. If you are mostly around scholars who doubt Scandinavian origins, as I seem to have been, it's definitely intimated to you that it's the majority opinion among historians nowadays. My specialty, however, is High and Late medieval German literature, so I wouldn't claim to known the lay of the land as far scholarly consensus. Genetics research seems to be revising a lot of the early skepticism about large migrations being something possible at least. I wouldn't say this article has been effected by American politics, but like everything Germanic it's very much in the shadow of the Nazis and white supremacy. It's not surprising that people would want to reject a central narrative that they latched onto to, namely migrating Germans conquering Europe.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Ermenrich, also remember that the Cold War era was dominated by Immobilism. Andrew, you have to write your posts in a much more concise way. I think we all need time to process what you write above, before we can answer you properly, so I will have to put my answer on hold, for now. May I ask you a personal question? Why you really find a possible connection between the Goths and Scandinavia so problematic? Is it ideological? You seem to be so very passionate about it that there must be something deeper than the mere intellectual stimulation of it.--Berig (talk) 15:59, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I honestly have no preference at all Berig, and I do not consider it disproven by the way. Indeed, I think at least a Scandinavian cultural influence into the Polish area is widely accepted. That's the honest truth. There are a lot of smoke screens around. The content dispute with Krakkos on this article has mainly been about misreadings of the sources which we agree are important. But I think it was inflamed by issues on other articles, as well as earlier issues concerning Germanic categories etc. Maybe it will help if I do give more "personal" background to you, because we've not worked much together. However, of course then I'll be told it was a bad idea to post a long post, and this makes it easier for smoke screens to start appearing again, so I'll post more personal information on your talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:42, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I notice I never placed this quote on this talk page yet. It just illustrates the point Ermenrich made. I am not taking sides, but pointing to what published scholars say: [2] [Dennis] Green: Earlier this year I was in Sweden discussing this problem with a number of Swedish archaeologists. They, of course, are firmly convinced of the Swedish origin of the Goths. But even amongst the Swedes there is dissension as to where in Sweden the Goths may have come from. Four of the contestants being Västergötland, Östergötland, Aland and Gotland. So to take the problem back to Swedish origins would have opened up yet another hornets' nest of scholarly disagreement. The discussion before and after adds to it.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Could you cite some specific examples of what you consider to be misreadings, if you consider there are any in the article? So that the discussion can get beyond schools or names of scholars, because pretty much any scholar will have made multiple nuanced statements on relevant issues? And specifically because I wonder whether things may be complicated in this instance by the fact that "Scandinavia" is quite a large area, and even "Sweden" has a different extent depending on period. For example, I doubt any modern scholar is propounding a view specifically that the Goths originated in Scania, but some may have been arguing against that old proposal in some passages; and then there's mainland Gotland and the island of Gotland. And I see your quote above mentioning Åland, which is broadening things a bit. But maybe that's not the key issue; could I ask you for some specific quotes from sources, especially those you see as being misread, so we can see what the issues are? Yngvadottir (talk) 03:19, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: hi, I think there might be a misunderstanding. I have not yet looked through the newest edits by Krakkos and Berig and so I have not noted any problems with that sourcing. Hopefully there will be none. I entered a conversation where various claims were made claiming that the article now is and was biased because it is too negative about Jordanes and his account of Scandinavian migration. In the ensuing discussion Berig made personal accusations about me being biased, and I explained that scepticism about these things comes from the expert sources. And I noted that in the past of this article well-known sources were often mis-read. (See the history of this talk page.) There are also sources that seek evidence to prove Jordanes was right and I have nothing against those, but they should be presented in a balanced way of course. Many of them openly start by using Jordanes as their starting point, and, as published experts have remarked, these sources tend to be Scandinavian, and not experts on Jordanes interpretation. In our search for sources we've also seem Polish researchers, but generally speaking it does seem to be correct that the pro-Jordanes researchers have not moved the international consensus very much. In any case, they can not be equated to an international consensus. Does that make sense?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:46, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any personal accusations, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place :-) However, if you think the article is unbalanced now, and/or misrepresents the scholarly consensus, I still request specific quotations. What's this about Polish researchers, for example? This may turn out to be one of those areas where the archaeologist, the philologists, and the historians—to say nothing of the clacissists and the Germanicists—are sometimes talking about different things and other times not fully aware of what the others are saying, and there may indeed be something that could usefully be added. Yngvadottir (talk) 07:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I am sure the article can be improved in many ways. But there are no clear proposals right now. Hopefully you are not asking for a review of the entire history of all discussions about sources on this talk page. So your question should be addressed to Berig who initiated the above discussion. More generally, I think anyone who sees a problem or has a proposal should explain their thinking before I am asked to reply to it? :)

For the most relevant unjustified personal accusation you just have to look a few posts above in this thread: "May I ask you a personal question? Why you really find a possible connection between the Goths and Scandinavia so problematic? Is it ideological? You seem to be so very passionate about it that there must be something deeper than the mere intellectual stimulation of it." The discussion here goes together with Berig's parallel post to an admin who intervened on this article in the past [3] "I am starting to doubt that his agenda is for the benefit of this project". I think it is up to Berig to clarify these WP:ASPERSIONS, or more simply to cease making them. So far there is no explanation of the background thinking to these remarks, and no diffs showing any "agenda". As far as I am concerned, these vague accusations come out of the blue, and have no connection to reality. Nevertheless, I have also posted on Berig's user page with an attempt to give a serious answer to the "personal question", which is BTW a straightforward example of a leading question. Hopefully there was just some kind of misunderstanding caused by the difficulty of following past discussions on this page? Honestly I do not know.

An obvious speculation to make is that different historical debates are being confused. A different WP controversy where the word "agenda" really was used, which is touched upon above, but more relevant to other articles such as Germanic peoples, is the one about Wikipedia's past tendency to try to base our articles on old and low-quality sources which equated large language families with ethnicity. Many Wikipedians were once critical of Krakkos because of edits following that agenda, and Krakkos often accused them of being the ones with an agenda. (So this is is the only agenda I can think of anyone saying I have.) Hopefully we are past this. But maybe this is somehow an issue affecting Berig's out-of-the-blue accusations?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I didn't see that as an accusation, but since you're here, I for one would still like you to look at the article and cite specific scholarly statements representing important viewpoints that you think are being neglected—or misrepresented—or statements that in your view phrase something better. Otherwise, I take it you think Krakkos's work fixed the most important issues? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, the first accusation is an accusation in the form of a leading, or perhaps more precisely a "loaded" question (i.e. one which contains an accusation within the phrasing of the question), while the second is an example of casting aspersions, so it makes an accusation between the lines. They were not exactly subtle or unclear! And no, I'm afraid you can not conclude what I think based on a non-answer. Honestly, those look like simplified teaching examples of some dodgy (but ancient) debating tactics that would normally only be used in bad faith debates. I hope that was tongue-in-cheek?

To be clear, I did not do a detailed check of the major edits done by Krakkos, and this was a relatively big round of editing done without clear pre-discussion. If you happen to know what the "important issues" were which Berig and Krakkos attempted to fix, then can you please help everyone to understand what they were? If you want feedback on a proposal, it is normal to spell out what the proposal is. That might allow a more straightforward discussion?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, I do see a lot of back and forth above between Berig and Krakkos before the tag got removed, and I've looked at the article and it seems to me to cover the disagreement in evaluating Jordanes' statement about the origin of the Goths pretty well, but having just rewritten an article myself because I could see commonly held scholarly positions that were not covered, I can appreciate that those more familiar with the scholarship, or familiar with other parts of it, might have a different perspective. Since that seemed to be what you were saying, I would still appreciate some specifics if when you examine it anew, you find it still appears defective to you. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I understand theoretically the type of issue you are asking about, and there have been many such discussions on this talk page and so just demanding that other editors give you a full summary, to see if you have anything to add, is not a workable approach? Anyway, maybe these bullets help...

• In the context of starting a discussion in this thread, started by Berig, but aiming the question mainly at me (as I understand it) I now note your edit concerning the mausoleum of Theoderic, which does constitute an interesting open question raised by me to Berig, which I also mentioned on his talk page. Concerns were raised before by other editors, and that seemed reasonable. Berig apparently sees it as a big breakthrough, but is there any evidence that the field has come to a consensus? Maybe if this is a topic you can help on, you should start a new thread.
• OTOH, concerning Jordanes and the reliability of his Scandinavian narrative, Berig is the one who raised concerns about the balance, but he seems to want to review his thoughts on it after the replies from Krakkos. That seems appropriate to me. Honestly I don't think Berig correctly appreciated that there is a definite dominant negative position on this topic among the most cited commentators on that work including the well-known "Tory" and pro-Brexit, anti-immigration historian, Peter Heather, so it involves a broad spectrum of experts on the old written narratives, not just Walter Goffart (who seems to make people angry in the other direction). There have been extensive discussions in the past about this involving many editors. Berig's accusation that this was a personal "passion" of one Wikipedia editor was a definite misrepresentation. For anyone who is not aware of the gorilla in the room, Berig's username is derived from a heroic character in the Jordanes migration story, and that story provides Scandinavia with a link into the centre of Roman history, that was much beloved by romanticists in pre-WW2 historiography. My own notes on this talk page about that topic have been based on the published works of recorgnized experts, and have been consistent with the positions of other editors.
• There is a secondary discussion about Jordanes which is touched upon also, and this is the question of whether there is significant evidence apart from Jordanes for sufficiently strong connections between Wielbark and Scandinavia to indicate any significant kind of migration, rather than just an unsurprising cultural influence (given the proximity). This is a topic where there is more diversity of opinion so one where WP needs to explain some different opinions. Certainly some academics have claimed that there never would have been any such a strong preference among some researchers, who literally make it their stated aim to find such evidence, if it were not for Jordanes. This is, once again, not an extreme or radical position associated with any one school or political persuasion. (From what I have seen in the small number of less well-known articles about DNA, archaeology etc, it is indeed accurate to say that some, perhaps all, researchers who argue for Jordanes being right are explicitly starting with the Jordanes account and looking for evidence to prove it correct. So the published sources who claim this to be the case seem to have a point?)

Note that no one is arguing that there is no connection between Scandinavia and the Gdansk region - not here, and not in the published sources we cite. The primary and secondary questions about Jordanes mentioned above are about whether he can be taken to be literally true, which almost no published scholars believe, or perhaps partly true. (Many academics after WW2 have followed the Vienna school argument that the name of the Goths, and a small number of prestigious people, came from Scandinavia and founded a culture which spread. But others argue that we don't really have evidence for this either, and so we don't have much strong evidence to go beyond saying that Wielbark was a local synthesis which was influenced by various neighbouring regions in ways that are now difficult to determine in detail.) Hope this helps.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Here are some sources on the views of the majority of modern scholars on Gothic origins:

"How the Goths arrived at the Black Sea, and where they originated, are matters of debate. The usual assumption, and the one still credited by the considerable majority of scholars, has been that the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula. Their area of settlement on the southern coast of the Baltic is called by Jordanes Gothiscandza... In accordance with the account of Jordanes, the Goths have usually been identified with the Gutones first mentioned by Pliny the Elder ca. 65 CE as living on the shore of (apparently) the Baltic Sea. On this reasoning the Goths have also commonly been associated with the island of Gotland and with the region of south-central Sweden called Götaland (named after the ON Gautar, OE Gēatas), from which areas they are assumed to have migrated originally... In more recent times the account of Jordanes, recorded so many centuries after the purported departure from Scandinavia, has been called into question, in part on archaeological grounds... [T]he presence of Goths in Scandinavia is not to be doubted... At all events, the name of the Goths is so common in place-names in Sweden—and place-names are often among the most archaic evidence—that it is difficult to believe that the Gothic presence in Scandinavia could have been a late development." – Fulk, Robert D. (2018). "Provenance of the Goths". A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-90-272-6312-4.

"Greek and Roman sources of the first and second centuries A.D. are the earliest written evidence we have for the Goths, under the names Guthones, Gothones, and Gothi. The sources agree in placing these people along the Vistula river, although whether they were on the coast or a bit inland is unclear. Also not totally clear is the connection between these people and other tribal groupings of similar names found at that time and later in parts of south central Sweden (now Västergötland and Östergötland) and on the island of Gotland. If the legend recorded by the sixth-century Gothic historian Jordanes is accurate, the Goths came to the mouth of the Vistula from across the sea, displacing a number of Germanic tribes who were there before them, including the Vandals. The weight of scholarship appears to support this story, with (mainland) Götland being seen as the likely point of origin, and the early first century B.C. as the likely time. Owing perhaps partially to population pressure, a large number of Goths subsequently left the Vistula in the mid-second century A.D. Around 170 they reached an area north of the Black Sea, where they settled between the Don and the Dniester rivers." – Robinson, Orrin W. (2005). "A Brief History of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths". Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Taylor & Francis. pp. 36–39. ISBN 0-415-08169-6.

"Most scholars agree that contents of Jordanes' text... concerning the arrival of the Goths and Gepidae from Scandinavia to Pomerania is fully reflected in archaeological sources." – Olędzki, Marek (2004). "The Wielbark and Przeworsk Cultures at the Turn of the Early and Late Roman Periods" (PDF). In Friesinger, Herwig; Stuppner, Alois (eds.). Zentrum und Peripherie. Mitteilungen Der Prähistorischen Kommission. Vol. 57. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 279–290. ISBN 9783700133179.

"The story by Jordanes about the migration of Goths from Scandza is a matter of a vivid and long standing discussion between historians. 'Most scholars argue that it is a part of the Gothic tribal tradition." – Kasperski, Robert (2015). "Too Civilized to Revert to Savages? A Study Concerning a Debate about the Goths between Procopius and Jordanes". The Mediaeval Journal. 5 (2). Brepols: 33–51. doi:10.1484/J.TMJ.5.108524.

Krakkos (talk) 10:53, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Krakkos. That looks like good confirmation to me. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Can you please explain what you think it confirms and what that implies for the article? I find this entire discussion extremely fuzzy in terms of edit proposals, and I think we need to remember this is an article talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

We can fill this talk page with quotes once more, but WP policy tells us to look for the current experts, and not to cherrypick quotes from sources written primarily about other topics. To attempt a compact summary about who the experts are, from discussions so far:

• Historians regarding the migration. You've said yourself Krakkos that the most respected authorities on the origins of the Goths are Heather and Wolfram, and we could probably add Pohl. Anyone else at that level? Kulikowski perhaps?
• Commentary on Jordanes. The only major modern commentators on Jordanes and the Scandinavian migration are Heather, Christensen and Goffart.
• Concerning archaeology we can look at many writers but I've not seen evidence of any simple consensus. Therefore we need to look at review discussions about the field. In terms of commentary about the field as a whole we have seen e.g. the comments of Florin Curta, and the conversation I linked to above which includes the opinions of Schwarcz [4]. Among non-archaeologists we have many comments by historians and philologists (Heather, Halsall, Goffart). What many/all of these (in both groups) claim is that archaeologists who claim a Scandinavian migration do so based on Jordanes (ie evidence from outside their field), and tend to be Scandinavian. This appears to be correct. It also seems that archaeologists who've commented on the field, like Curta and Schwarcz, are sceptics. I think our current article is, if anything, biased against positions like those of Schwarcz, Halsall and Curta. More generally we're risking OR in the sense that for a pro-mass-migration argument we can not find any secondary sources; we can only cherrypick individual "primary" sources, ie specific speeches and research papers with no special claim to fame and no authoritative literature review.

Is this a reasonable summary?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:26, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Krakkos for providing reliable sources per WP:RS/AC.--Berig (talk) 17:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect. Please read RS/AC again? These can't "trump" the recognized authorities that all experts cite such as Wolfram and Heather and Christensen or even Goffart. I own at least one of those books. Nice books, but these are NOT about Jordanes or about Scandinavian migration theories. These are just quotes cherry-picked out of side remarks in books about other things. If we are all allowed to do that we won't get anywhere. We could look at who they cite, if anything. I have shown above my summary of how we can judge the academic consensus in this case, and that is a rough summary of months of detailed discussion of sources here in the past. Of course that can maybe be improved upon, but you have not attempted to engage in constructive conversation at all. Your remark is clearly completely out of line with WP policy. Just cherry picking from textbooks seems to show no understanding of Wikipedia or academia, which would be strange? I understand you are experienced in both? Please address this in terms of the expert sources which scholars cite on the specific topics being discussed. That is what I've tried to do.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:14, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this attempt at diminishing sources. Please provide relevant quotes of your own instead.--Berig (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I have, over and over and over again. Tell me what you want a quote for. But how have I diminished them? They quite simply do not claim to be in the business you want them to be in.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:26, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

So far I have seen you on talkpages making assertions that seem very farfetched to me, and sometimes absurd. Your strategy is always to shift the burden of evidence on everyone else, but it stops here. I will not accept any more assertions and claims from you without full quotes with references.--Berig (talk) 20:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

First of all, your new references, found by Krakkos, do not say what you think they say. So that gives me a problem to answer you in any sensible way. What are you claiming Krakkos has proven? What do you want a source for?

• The first one is a book by a scholar specialized in Old English in a book about Early Germanic grammar. The position quoted looks like a recitation of the Vienna position associated with Wolfram etc, which does not demand an actual major migration, only cultural influence and small group movement. It is not saying what you want it to say, and is not inconsistent with the current article. ADDED to try to avoid relying too much on good faith etc: the Vienna position must surely be what Berig referred to above as the "theory of charismatic clans" and which I have also mentioned several times as a position held by Heather, Wolfram, Pohl, etc. Hopefully this is in the article already?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
• The second one is from a book I really love which is a primer on early Germanic languages. The quotation given takes no [ADDED: strong or authoritative] position, but says "IF". It is simply not saying what you want it to say. It is not really saying anything relevant to our discussion.
• The third one is an archaeologist giving opinions on non-archealogical evidence (Jordanes) [ADDED: and citing what archeaologists think about that]. For archeaology he cites Bierbrauer and Kokowski [ADDED: and others], who've both been discussed here before. Kokowski certainly used Jordanes, not archaeology, as his source. So [ADDED: for Jordanes] we need to look at what Jordanes experts say. Don't we? If you want, I can link to previous discussions. Let me know if you want this. [ADDED: For what Polish archeaologists think, the article is not censoring anything, and I've not denied it either, but the question in this discussion is whether they can be seen as a world consensus.] MORE ADDED (again to avoid any misunderstandings, real or fake): One complication with a simplistic interpretation of this quote is that it is basically impossible to say that Jordanes was literally correct about everything. The quote given can't therefore be taken in a simple literal way. But if the quote only means that Jordanes contains information which is "rooted in" what really happened, then this quote would not be inconsistent with, for example, the Vienna position, which is that it was just a small number of people who brought some prestigious names and traditions. I am not saying this is what the author intended. It probably is not. I would be happy to learn more. But this would not inconsistent with my current understanding, or the current article? As to whether the author is right about "scholars", clearly, for example, we know of a LOT of scholars who believe in a "theory of charismatic clans", so I don't believe anyone in this discussion can't understand why we need to be a bit cautious about it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:37, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
• The 4th one is taken from an abstract. I don't think we've discussed this author before Krakkos? I suspect Krakkos has only read the abstract it is hard to know what to address here. I'd be interested to know what the article says.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: (because nothing seems obvious in this discussion): the quote given is about Gothic tradition, not what really happened, and it seems to agree with Heather. So this is another quote in line with the types of opinions I cited above. I believe Heather's position on this is cited in the article already?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Berig I think to show good faith you should start by giving at least one example of a far-fetched assertion I've made. You've asserted that you've seen some so please put one on the table for us all to see. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: please also remember to explain what the relevance is for the article as it currently stands. Remember I have no asked for any changes and you also seem happy with it. It is a balance mainly decided by Krakkos so far.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Berig, as a reality check it seem necessary to register that one remarkably strange thing about this discussion is that it seems to be about me, not the article, and yet you and Yngvadottir won't actually get to any point about me either. Not only does this discussion not look like its ever been aimed at discussing any edit proposals, I can't even see any point where either of you have defined a disagreement with me, or even doubt about any specific thing I've really said. The whole discussion seems to purely be a vehicle for casting WP:aspersions so far. The fact that you can't define anything you really want to argue against makes your demand for a citation quite strange, and very far from any WP norms on what these article talk pages are for. (Just any citation??)

To the extent that Jordanes is apparently a personal concern of yours, I still don't understand what your point about Jordanes is. If you are arguing that he can be taken literally for things he said happened thousands of years before him then obviously my scepticism about that would not be unique, to say the least. So why aren't your attacking all the editors of this article instead of just me? If your point is simply that archaeologists find evidence of links to Scandinavia which are "consistent with" Jordanes then who is arguing against that?? The main challenge then becomes a question of how we word that. (For example if these archaeologists are including something like the "charismatic clans" scenario in their definition of "consistent with Jordanes", then as editors we have to be careful to remember that our readers would be totally misled if we would use wording that implies "Jordanes was proved correct".) But I don't see anything above indicating any concern with any specific wording? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:47, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Change proposal in prehistory section

We currently have:

Most scholars believe that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is derived at least partially from Gothic tribal tradition and trustworthy in its general outline.[27=Fulk][28][29][30] This has however been fiercely disputed by some scholars, particularly historians.[citing Heather]

I propose that at the very least, the part in red needs to be urgently removed as it is seriously misleading. Only one of the sources being cited uses this type of language, and it is from a book on Germanic languages [27=Fulk], not from any scholar specialized in Jordanes. It is also clearly "wrong", in the sense that it disagrees with what the expert sources say. If anyone has time, further tweaks will eventually be needed, so please consider making them...

• To shove the most common opinion of the textual expert historians into a side remark in a second sentence is seriously misleading. The historians involved happen to be the experts we should be citing. We really only need to be citing their opinion? Heather, Christensen and Goffart, the three authors who've written on this disagree on many things, but they all agree that Jordanes can not be used as a straightforward report of the prehistory of Goths. I would say this is the consensus of all historians in this area. The debate in the field is between Jordanes having zero value, or limited value, for pre-Ukraine events.
• Our article is avoiding mentioning what the Jordanes experts always remark, and what Jordanes himself remarks: his sources for the pre history of northern Europe are commentators on biblical myths, such as Orosius and Josephus. He mentions them himself, and the similarities are traced by the experts in this field. To the extent such things are handled in our more specialized articles instead of here, we still have to be careful not to create a POV problem by only removing mention of these source of Jordanes, while not removing mention of the more controversial argument that Jordanes might have been influenced by "Gothic traditions".
• Concerning the 4 sources on the first sentence I also have concerns. The first two are from books about Germanic languages, the second of which is not even a research work but a university primer. The third one, as far as I can see, has not been read by any Wikipedian. We are just citing broad language from the abstract? (It appears Kasperski is following Heather because he specifies the same exact bit of Jordanes as possibly being based on reality. One wonders why we don't cite Heather instead. But unless we read more than the abstract, should we be citing it at all?) The 4th one is an archaeologist, i.e. from another field. With the possible exception of the abstract, these clearly are not the expert sources which academics cite on these topics, to say the least. In fact, I'm afraid it looks like they've been cherry picked because they disagree with the sources the academics cite. I struggle to see any justification for keeping this whole sentence, at least if we follow WP core content policies.

We should all keep in mind that this article is about an historical people who are named in written records. It is not about a language family, or archaeological material cultures. Even though such evidence is clearly relevant, we can't let ourselves simply equate the topics of different fields. We should also keep in mind that there is a massive difference between saying there is archaeological evidence of connections between Scandinavia and Gdansk, and saying that Jordanes has been proven correct. This is not a "fine point". It is basically impossible to say Jordanes might be correct in any general way. But to understand this you need to look at Jordanes and modern commentators on Jordanes, not side remarks in archaeology or linguistics articles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this proposal is an improvement. Detailed discussion of Jordanes and his book belongs at Jordanes and Getica. Robert D. Fulk clearly states that "the considerable majority of scholars" consider Jordanes' migration story "trustworthy at least in general outline". Fulk, Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki are certainly more qualified to review the academic consensus on this question than we are. See WP:RS/AC. Krakkos (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Only Fulk can be used to justify the wording we have, but (a) the "safety net" words, at least in general outline, make this quote highly unsuitable for WP (but highly useful for cherry picking), because they could mean almost anything (b) According to our article on Fulk he is an expert on Old English and Old Icelandic literature, and this article is a book on A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages ; (c) the disagreement between his wording and those of the experts in the field of Jordanes interpretation and commentary is extremely stark. It is not us judging him, it is Wenskus, Wolfram, Pohl, Heather, Christensen, Goffart, Kasperski, Halsall, Kulikowski etc etc etc. You obviously looked very hard to find this one stunning quote, and we are using it three times. That is a red flag. Note to all of us: this topic is now being discussed in two section, because Krakkos started a new section below as a reply to this one. I suggest moving that section to here as a sub-section.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

-continued below. do not use this section any more. discussion continues below in unified section-

Unified section for further discussion

Note, Krakkos has removed parts from this thread, breaking it somewhat [5], but it still contains the latest source-related replies to both the above thread and the parallel thread [6] opened by Krakkos.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion for the two above sub-sections should now be here please. The posts above represent the answers to the last posts in both the above two sub-sections.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Here are some quotes which reply to all of the above discussion sub-sections...

• Despite the undeniably Gothic nature of some of its material then, any reconstruction of Gothic history between 350 and 500 based on the Getica will be misleading - See p.32: Heather, Peter (1994). Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001. ISBN 9780198205357. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Today we are able to conclude that this narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framewok and the content of the story. But in spite of all this, it is never justifable to completely discard a relic of the past. If it cannot tell us something about the past it claims to describe; then at least it speaks volumes about the period in which it was conceived - contingent of course upon our own ability to precisely date the source. Parting is a painful process, as in this case, where we must relinquish something we have grown accustomed to regarding as Gothic history. - See p. 349: Christensen, Arne Søby (2002). Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 9788772897103. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:00, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted that Krakkos. It is evident that your unacceptable resectioning separates my responses from the posts by you which they are replying to, and was being used by you to demand replies to the same point multiple time after you have already received them. I don't accept you doing this to my posts. It is not normal Wikipedia behavior to create two versions of one thread - obviously. Stop it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:52, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Krakkos, continuing the ONE discussion HERE, do you accept that the quotes I have given HERE now demonstrate the problem with using the Fulk quote?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC) By the way, another problem with this Fulk quote, even putting aside its obvious disagreement with Jordanes experts is that it makes a basic mistake about Jordanes. the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula. Nope. Jordanes can not be made to say that, and the Jordanes experts disagree with Fulk on this also. We are currently citing this quote three times for the following:

• "Most scholars believe that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is derived at least partially from Gothic tribal tradition and trustworthy in its general outline"
• "The general outline of Jordanes' account of Gothic migration from Scandinavia is considered trustworthy by a considerable majority of scholars, with the time of migration set at around the 1st century BC."
• "The Goths are generally believed to have been first attested by Greco-Roman sources in the 1st century under the name Gutones."

I don't think Fulk should be used at all. This is cherry-picking of a source which is never cited by anyone writing about Gothic migration, in order to say the opposite of what the real highly-cited authorities say. Can anyone find any single academic citaiton of Fulk as an authority on Gothic migration?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The diverse views of historians like Heather and Christensen are cited numerous times throughout the text. Note that Heather's views on Gothic origins have changed quite considerably since he published Goths and Romans 332–489 (1994). In the years after the publication of that book he familiarized himself with the recent work of Polish archaeologists and published The Goths (1998), which goes into much more detail and accepts (like Wolfram and Kazanski) the possibility of partial Gothic origins in Scandinavia. Robert D. Fulk is a distinguished scholar in the field of Germanic philology, and certainly a reliable source. He is well qualified to conduct a review of the academic consensus on Gothic origins, and certainly more qualified than we are. See WP:RS/AC. Note that Fulk refers to the academic consensus on the accuracy of the general outline of the Getica rather than its entirety. This general outline is that Goths had moved from the Baltic to the Black Sea. That general outline is considered accurate by the majority of scholars (including Heather). Removing quality sources like Fulk will not be an improvement to this article, but will only serve to prevent understanding. Krakkos (talk) 09:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

In short, Fulk is demonstrably wrong in his description of both what the experts think and what Jordanes wrote, and this creates no dilemma for us on WP (considering RS), because he is not a widely-cited expert on this topic to begin with. We don't need to cite him. Please explain why you INSIST on citing this source, and NOT Heather or Christensen? I don't think we need to guess, because you've made it clear already, many times...

• Quotes like the above show that Heather and Christensen think the OPPOSITE of what Fulk is saying, and you are misleading our readers about their opinions. Your attempt to argue that they kind of agree with some bits is your non-expert OR and clearly tendentious.
• Just focusing on your OR argument that you think they really agree with Fulk on one little bit, because they don't find the Polish origins part unreasonable, that is clearly not relevant to the texts you are creating in WP. You are saying Jordanes is generally correct, which is utterly wrong, and it clear that for you one of the most important things you want to imply is concerning migration from Scandinavia. That's the big issue that Berig asked you to change, and so it also happens to be the basis of your claim to have edited based on a pre-agreed consensus, which is clearly not true.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Change proposal in classification section

I now see that some of the recent changes have introduced some serious problems which need to be fixed. On the 18th of March [7] we had this version which was already very controversial...

The Goths and other East Germanic-speaking groups, such as the Vandals and Gepids, were never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors, who consistently categorized them among the "Scythians" or other peoples who had historically inhabited the area.[11][12][13][14]

The Goths were Germanic-speaking.[15] They are classified as a Germanic people by modern scholars.[2][1][16][17][18] They are today sometimes referred to as being Germani.[19][20]

Now we have this.

The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship.[1][2][11][12][13] Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they are more specifically classified as being among the East Germanic peoples.[14][15][16]

When first generally believed to have been mentioned in classical antiquity the Goths were classified as being Germani,[17] while authors in late antiquity no longer identified them as such.[18][19][20][21] In modern scholarship the Goths are sometimes referred to as being Germani.[22][23]

Problems:

• First sentence in the new version describes a common position but one which certainly disagrees with the position of many (probably most) historians who are the cited experts in this field. Examples: Walter Pohl, Guy Halshall. We have to at least admit the existence of this disagreement among the experts. A simple compromise would be to add in the sense of being speakers of a Germanic language to the sentence, in order to make it clear which type of definition is being used here.
• The third sentence in the new version is quite simply wrong, and this is something I would say the experts have a consensus on. It is citing a tertiary reference work about archaeology whereas the past version, which said precisely the opposite, was making 4 citations from 3 highly cited experts in this field (Halshall, Goffart and Wolfram). It would be easy to add more, because this is NOT a controversial point. So the first sentence in the older version should be reintroduced to replace this new sentence. [ADDED: The new wording "late antiquity" appears to be OR or SYNTH by a Wikipedian. This is not coming from the sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)]
• The last sentence in both versions should be removed, because it is also wrong. Both citations are to a modern author, Heather, who is not, in either case, discussing ancient word use.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship, in the sense of being speakers of a Germanic language. Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they are more specifically classified as being among the East Germanic peoples. The Goths and other East Germanic-speaking groups, such as the Vandals and Gepids, were however never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors, who consistently categorized them among the "Scythians" or other peoples who had historically inhabited the area.

New proposal above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:08, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

This proposal is not an improvement. Our sources do not state that the Goths are classified as Germanic purely for linguistic reasons. That the Goths were considered Germani in early classical antiquity is reliably cited. Goffart, Halsall and Wolfram are all cited. Check the footnotes. The fact that modern scholars such as Peter Heather refer to the Goths as Germani is relevant information. Krakkos (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

No, first such authorities do say, over and over, that Goths are called Germanic based on language family, and secondly none of these sources says the Goths were called Germani in classical times. Indeed they actively state that they did NOT. But maybe I am mistaken and then no problem. Just please tell me where they say this? While you collect evidence for the second point, here is some for the first. These are just a few I could find very quickly (because as you know, we've discussed this many times):

• Halsall 2014, p. 520, using the Gothic peoples as an example: "Linguistically, we can justify a grouping on the basis that all these peoples spoke a related form of Indo-European language, whether East, West or North Germanic. Such a modern definition, however, does not equate with the classical idea of the Germani." * Halsall, Guy (December 2014). "Two Worlds Become One: A 'Counter-Intuitive' View of the Roman Empire and 'Germanic' Migration". German History. 32 (4). Oxford University Press: 515–532. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghu107. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
• Goffart 2006, p. 222: "No discernible benefit comes from our being reminded again and again in modern writings that many of these barbarians at each other's throats probably spoke dialects of the same language. The G-word can be dispensed with." Goffart, Walter (2006). Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-81222-105-3.
• Pohl, p. 172: Pohl, Walter (2004b), "Der Germanenbegriff vom 3. bis 8. Jahrhundert – Identifikationen und Abgrenzungen", in Beck; Geuenich; Steuer; Hakelberg (eds.), Zur Geschichte der Gleichung "germanisch–deutsch", Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 34, ISBN 9783110910964

In summary, we need to make this change or a very similar one. We can not leave this as is. Thanks for replying in the same thread!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Krakkos can we confirm that you have found no source which says the Goths were called Germani in classical times? I know I have not waited long, but of course we have worked on this exact question before.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:44, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

That the Goths were considered Germani in parts of classical antiquity (but not in late antiquity) is reliably sourced:

"The Romans... became aware of some groups regarded as Germani, notably the Goths, migrating south-eastwards during the early centuries AD towards the Black Sea." – James, Simon; Krmnicek, Stefan, eds. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Roman Germany. Oxford University Press. p. XV. ISBN 0199665737.

"The Wielbark culture incorporated areas that, in the first two centuries ad, were dominated by Goths, Rugi and other Germani..." – Heather, Peter (2010). Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 104. ISBN 9780199892266.

Check the article for additional sources. The majority of scholars believe that Tacitus mentioned the Goths in Germania, and in that work he explicitly refers to them as Germani. Krakkos (talk) 10:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The first two quotes are modern usage, not classical. You know we also have RS citations literally saying that there is no such classical case. So we know where this ends up. The third one is about the Gutones. While it is true that these may have been ancestors of the Goths it is not certain, so to equate them in a simple way is clearly OR. I understand the temptation of cheating and slipping some OR in, in order to avoid having to explain things in a slightly more complex way, but I can not let myself accept that I'm afraid. I suggested a non-OR way to explain the evidence below...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:02, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

BTW you don't name the author in the first quote and the link does not work for me but I presume it is Heather. We have had several long discussions about Heather's terminology in his recent popular books. Germani is a term Heather often uses in his more recent English-language categorization. He also explains that he knows they were not one unified culture and did not even all speak Germanic, but his generally reasoning is that Germanic languages were "dominant" in those areas, so it a deliberately fuzzy category that combines fuzzy geographic and linguistic assumptions. I am not placing long quotes for things that have been discussed many times here or on Germanic peoples, because one of the biggest complaints about these discussions has always been that they get too big. But I will provide what is needed, when asked for, and when the intention is clearly practical and good faith.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC) But keeping it short, our current footnotes 18, 19, and 20 provide some examples of sources which are quite clear on this, as Krakkos surely knows.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we move ahead on this please? I think my proposal is uncontroversial to be honest, and the current (new) version is clearly very wrong. I proposed (as a first step at least)...

The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship, in the sense of being speakers of a Germanic language. Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they are more specifically classified as being among the East Germanic peoples. The Goths and other East Germanic-speaking groups, such as the Vandals and Gepids, were however never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors, who consistently categorized them among the "Scythians" or other peoples who had historically inhabited the area.

Is there really any doubt about any sourcing issue here? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There are sourcing issues with this proposal. That the Goths are considered Germanic only for linguistic reasons is a controversial statement which requires sources. Scholars frequently point out Germanic elements in their religion, law codes, literature, archaeology and other cultural aspects. That the Goths were never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors is also very controversial and only sourced to Halsall, who in turn cites Wolfram. Heather, Wolfram and practically all archaeologists believe that the Goths were mentioned by Tacitus (under the name Gotones, by whom they according to Wolfram were "clearly counted among the eastern tribes of the Germanic peoples". Goffart emphasizes that it was specifically in late antiquity that the Goths were never called Germani. That is more correct. I'm working on a solution for how to improve this section, but it in order to help the rest of the community understand what's going on i believe it is best to fix one section at the time. Krakkos (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos: you know we don't only have Halsall, so please don't force me to write longer and longer posts. The following in your post is OR:

• Your Gutones reasoning, which I have spelled out more in the sub-section below, is clearly multi-step OR. Your use of the words "practically all" is also OR. My reading is that very few scholars would say that the Gutones are simply the same people as the Goths. It is commonly believed that the "Ukrainian" Goths known to classical history were a people whose exact cultural influences are now difficult to reconstruct. No simple migration of a whole people from Poland is considered proven by many key scholars, even if there might have been influences and the movements of small numbers of individuals. But your preferred wordings make a simple equation and demand a migration of a whole people. Consider not only Goffart, but also Halsall, Kulikowski, Curta etc. I believe this is also the position of at least some of the Vienna school. For the second migration, Heather is actually one of the stronger proponents of a real migration (differently to the Scandinavian migration). As an archaeologist, Curta's critique of historian Heather's archaeological beliefs is pretty significant.
• Your attempt to use the comments of a minority of scholars like Liebeschuetz about the possibility of cultural ties between the northern barbarians apart from language is OR. Even he emphasized that he was starting from language as a defining factor. We had a long discussion in early 2020 where I recall you ended up breaking up your replies between different threads on two articles (at the time), Germanic peoples, and Germani (which is now a redirect but still has a talk page). Liebeschuetz is also certainly not mainstream on all of this, and he presented himself as going against the trend. We've also seen how the key link in his argumentation, the assumption that all Germanic peoples were speaking mutually intelligible "dialects" is in sharp disagreement with philologists such as Dennis Green.
• Your re-writing of Goffart seems to be a new line of OR and completely opposed to what he argues! He does discuss classical usage such as Tacitus, quite a bit!

I want to avoid writing too much, or any seeming "gotcha" moments in content discussions like this, which might lead you to feel attacked. But we must break these types of circular discussions, which are not good for you or anyone else. So please remember I can post diffs about this exact issue which show you in discussions going back more than one year, on at least 3 articles (including this one).

Back-up Proposal: We can revert this section to the pre March 18 version. All proposals for moving ahead should be better than the March 18 version if they are to be considered worth doing. That version had input from many editors including yourself. You had no justification to change it in the way you have.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The OR bit

Side note: Upon reflection, I suspect the "late antiquity" wording is intended to reflect a Wikipedian's judgement that the Gutones mentioned by Tacitus etc should count as Goths, and were, by implication, Germani? If so, although this is not water-tight, I don't personally deny the rough logic. Unfortunately, it would still be OR as far as I can see, and should not have been attached to the source given because it does not seem to say anything about changing classical terminology. A more policy consistent way to handle such things is to simply lay the raw information out for our readers, and not just insert our own synthesis attached to an academic source who says nothing about classical terminology changing in late antiquity. An example of how this could be done would be to add a sentence like this: The earlier Gutones, reported by first and second century authors Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Ptolemy as living near the mouth of the Vistula, were described as Germani in that period, and as will be discussed below, they are possibly ancestors of the later Goths who lived in what is now the Ukraine. This is the more correct way to do this I think.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

This proposal is not an improvement. It reads like an essay. The Gutones are discussed in other sections. It shouldn't be necessary to duplicate discussion of the Gutones in multiple sections. The majority of scholars treat Gutones as just another name for Goths, and this proposal thus gives undue weight to a minority position. Krakkos (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos: I see the point here of course because the part you are commenting on here is only intended as a way to compromise on the OR. Otherwise the OR needs to be removed, obviously. We do not have a source for classical Latin terminology changing in this way concerning the Goths. They were never called Germani (except in the one obviously accidental case mentioned by Pohl, which we also cite in Germanic peoples in footnote). Of course if you can find evidence to the contrary then I'll be happy to learn something new.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The new source Kasperski

I have mentioned above that it appears to me the Kasperski article, which has recently been added, has not been read by any Wikipedian, but only cited from the abstract. It used for the current footnote 29, to support this sentence: Most scholars believe that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is derived at least partially from Gothic tribal tradition and trustworthy in its general outline. This is important, because as noted by me above, Kasperski seems to be the only one of 4 sources given for this sentence who is actually writing about the reliability of Jordanes. The wording being quoted by us is from the abstract The story by Jordanes about the migration of Goths from Scandza is a matter of a vivid and long standing discussion between historians. Most scholars argue that it is a part of the Gothic tribal tradition.. I would like to note that I now have access to the article and find the body of the article uses very different wording. Some extracts:

Some researchers claim that the source of his inspiration was an original Gothic tribal saga. It is even believed that the story about the origin (origo) of the Goths in Scandza is one of the most important parts of the Gothic tribal tradition, [...] However, not all scholars share this belief.

The above is from the opening passage, summarizing what historians write. Kasperski does NOT take a strong side in this opening section which reviews the field's position EXCEPT that he agrees with Goffart and his followers about something:

Walter Goffart and his followers [...] have demonstrated that the message of the Getica should not be analysed in isolation from a debate that took place in Constantinople in the 550s, and that the nature of that debate is precisely what may have affected the content of Jordanes’s work.

His DISAGREEMENT with the way we are reading the abstract becomes more clear as his own thesis is laid out. It is clear he does NOT even accept Heather's argument that Jordanes might partly reflect some real Gothic tradition:

The thesis, proposed here, that Jordanes is the actual author of the motif of the Gothic migration from Scandza clearly contradicts the view that the story of that migration comes from Gothic tribal tradition [...]

This kind of deconstruction — and, as its corollary, the division of Jordanes’s narrative into a ‘real’, Gothic tradition, and ‘constructed’ threads, originating from the ancient tradition — is a flawed procedure, distorting the message conveyed by the work. My goal is to show that the story of the Gothic journey from Scandza to the shores of the Pontic Sea has its own meaning, structure and narrative logic. That narrative structure resists the kind of deconstruction just noted; it is a closed, organic whole. Thus, the story can be analysed only in its entirety

Goffart continues to be cited approvingly throughout. I would like to thank Krakkos for bringing the source, but it is clear we can NOT use it in the way we are using it. Strangely enough, I honestly can't find anything like the abstract within the article. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Kasperski clearly writes that the majority of scholars believe that Jordanes' Getica "is part of Gothic tradition". I may be that he disagrees with that majority. That should not prevent us from using him as a source on what the majority believes. Kasperki's article is primarily on Jordanes and Getica rather than the Goths themselves. I think details on Kasperki's personal views on Jordanes and the Getica primarily belong at the articles Jordanes and Getica. Numerous editors have expressed their concern about this article becoming an exegesis on the Getica, and i agree with those concerns. Krakkos (talk) 10:33, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Abstracts are made in various ways, and relying on them like you often do, is not best practice, and some would say it is dodgy and a red flag. The authoritative and careful version of Kasperski's understanding is the version in the article which uses these words: "Some researchers claim [...] However, not all scholars share this belief.".

Secondly, I am not opposed to moving details to other articles in some cases, but in this case you are removing mainstream ideas about the unreliability of Jordanes, which is of central importance to this article. In fact, you are effectively demanding that we remove the scholarly opinion about Jordanes, but leave in Jordanes himself as our effective authority.

This is not a minor detail. We only need to look at the recent discussion between Berig and yourself to see how we all know this is making an important change to what the article is telling readers. Most obviously: this makes it appear that academics see Jordanes as reliable and you yourself find this very important because it helps you imply that academics all believe there was a straightforward migration from Scandinavia (as opposed to signs of cultural contact). As Kaliff (who is also distorted in this articles) explains, modern academics do not believe Jordanes was right in any simple way, or that there was anything which can be called a migration in any simple way. You can't get that out of our current article because it is being hidden.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for modifications to the Prehistory section

Note, this section can only be understood by comparting to what it is replying to, which is another section above [8]. Krakkos has removed parts from this thread, breaking it somewhat [9]. Despite comments by Krakkos indicating that they are not aware of replies, there are replies above. The latest are in a new sub-section.[10] --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Due to concerns that the Prehistory section may appear to take Jordanes too literally, i have made a proposal which seeks to address these concerns. The proposal can be found at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths. The proposed edit will look like this diff.[11]. If the proposal is considered an improvement, i ask for permission from the community to implement it in this article. Krakkos (talk) 09:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Not a suitable solution at all. And why (once again) do you post this response in a new section Krakkos? That is tendentious and deliberately makes it difficult for anyone to read this page. We have discussed this many times before. Can you (or any third person) move it into the section I started please, as per normal WP practice? To repeat, we must urgently remove any statement which says any majority of scholars finds Jordanes "trustworthy" for his migration stories of the Goths. There should be no question of keeping this. No scholar at all literally thinks this, and neither do you for that matter.

Your proposal keeps this wrong information: Jordanes' account of Gothic migration from Scandinavia is considered trustworthy by a considerable majority of scholars, with the time of migration set at around the 1st century BC.. That is clearly very misleading! Readers will not be able to understand the word game being played here. The fact is, that Jordanes did NOT say any such thing, and the simple way of explaining what "re-setting" means here is that we actually have to change what Jordanes said. In other words, we think he is wrong. His account is NOT accepted in a literal way by anyone, and our readers are not being informed that when archaeologists say Jordanes was consistent with what they think, they mean some isolated aspect of Jordanes looks right, but they also definitely do not agree with the narrative Jordanes gives. (The context of the side remarks you quote from in archaeological articles makes their meaning clear. Pulling them out of context changes their meaning.)

Ironically, it is very appropriate to look at the Kasperski article you brought to us concerning the cherry-picking type of approach some people have to Jordanes, as quoted above: This kind of deconstruction — and, as its corollary, the division of Jordanes’s narrative into a ‘real’, Gothic tradition, and ‘constructed’ threads, originating from the ancient tradition — is a flawed procedure, distorting the message conveyed by the work.. I agree with this peer reviewed expert. Note that no-one is proposing to remove all reference to academic cherry-picking, but our sentence is in another league.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Krakkos that this is a very sensible and balanced mainstream version that should be implemented ASAP. The best I have seen so far. I agree with Andrew Lancaster that we must avoid cherry-picking, as it is really forbidden by WP:DUE. All too often we find articles littered with WP:UNDUE POV references from cherry-picked hypercritical historians, and that is not acceptable at all. Naturally, Andrew Lancaster agrees, like me and everyone else here, that there can be no compromising with Wikipedia policies, such as WP:RS/AC and WP:DUE.--Berig (talk) 12:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I have now implemented the proposed modifications in the article. Thank you for highlighting the importance of WP:RS/AC. I think the article now has a good foundation for future improvement. Krakkos (talk) 13:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@Berig yes I do agree with the importance of those policies. But I honestly can not see how you can possibly justify the wording I've placed in red, if we really agree on those policies? This looks like straight-up policy violation to me. In any case you must be able to explain some rationale for why my concerns mentioned above can be utterly ignored? So please do that? I think it is important that you demonstrate your understanding and respect for WP policy, even when it threatens your username's street cred. :)

@Krakkos, wow, that was quick. So how can you say that a consensus was reached when you only wait long enough for one person to agree and then edited immediately, despite obvious strong disagreement from another editor? Surely that looks like you are trying to act quickly before anyone comments. This reminds me that this thread should be reconnected, to the full explanation it was replying to. May I do so please?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The only dissenter I have seen on this talkpage is you, Andrew Lancaster. You have very idiosyncratic interpretations of what is mainstream.--Berig (talk) 13:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is of course not surprising, when they only had 10 minutes to do so! Your approval: 12:53, 27 March 2021; final edit: 13:06, 27 March 2021‎. ...And you are the only assenter, so how is there any kind of consensus here? ...And I am the only one of us two who explained any rationale at all, let alone idiosyncratically. It is easy to constantly make accusations like you do when you never post any evidence of it, or attempt to justify anything.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Your "strong disagreement" did not touch upon the actual proposal. Instead you complained about material that is already in the article. The only editor who commented on the the actual proposal was Berig, and he strongly supported it. Krakkos (talk) 14:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Your proposal was clearly being presented as an answer to the concerns I had raised in the original section about this text. In that respect, it clearly fails to address the very clear problem I have proven to exist in the text. That's the priority for now. (To the extent that it does bring the red words into question, then it disagrees with those words in red, which introduce it. So that can't be a good solution can it?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:27, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

At User talk:EdJohnston you stated that the sentence that was proposed here "is not being disputed by anyone, and it not likely to be."[12] You clearly did not dispute the proposal, but sought rather to stonewall it as a bargaining chip to remove other information you don't like. That is not helpful. Krakkos (talk) 23:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

No, not at all, but I understand your question, and perhaps a lengthy explanation can help Berig understand what we've learned here in the past a bit better:

• 1. Practical aspect. As explained, I am only assessing your edit as a reply/solution proposal to the concern I raised. I have not closely assessed the new paragraph you added. You've been making a lot of changes, so I need time, and I also don't want to overload this talk page. I can see that your confusion about this might be in good faith, but it is a result of this approach you have of constantly starting new talk page sections which are supposed to be replies to other sections, but aren't. You are make proposals which you present as replies/solution but that is not what they really are. They are actually a way for you to keep making edits to the article as if you were not under restrictions. I sympathize with you on the impracticality of this consensus first regime, but your method is confusing, and I guess you intend it to be confusing. If, however, you had proposed your new paragraph as new material, then you might not have gotten such a fast answer from Berig I suppose. But at least it would have been clear that the new material is not part of the discussion with me.
• 2. Just as an example of how the sentence can be uncontested material, but I might still suggest deleting it, is that I think it probably replicates things said in other parts of the article. Also, as mentioned in my remark to Berig, the sentence seems over-sourced (too many footnotes). Another thing which is a common problem on this article is that the selection of sources used to back sentences up seems to often be made up of a large number of sources from periphery fields like linguistics and archaeology. There seems to be a big effort sometimes to avoid citing the academics in the most relevant field who are really most well-known and most cited for some positions we are explaining, such as Wolfram, Heather, etc. As you know, my fear is that the cause of this is that the more refined explanations of such authorities is often inconvenient for the simple "Scandinavian migration" POV which Berig and others prefer, whereas "Jordanes was right" types of wordings written in asides in WP:PRIMARY and WP:TERTIARY sources are much more easier to manipulate to make them say something which is not correct. As a result we are constantly on the edge of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH even though we know there are real authoritative sources we could use instead.
• 3. To be clear about my remark to Berig on EdJohnston's talk page, it should not be seen as an approval of the new paragraph, but rather the context makes clear that the one sentence I mentioned is not information I am trying to remove from Wikipedia, which is what Berig falsely claimed. One reason I can say the claim was ridiculous is that, as anyone who knows this topic would realize, the sentence is essentially repeating something which is mentioned elsewhere in the article as a mainstream idea. Furthermore I've confirmed I agree with that assessment of what is mainstream in many previous posts. It is essentially apparently the exact same thing which Beros called the "charismatic clan" proposal. It is one of the main mainstream opinions, but not the only one. But a Scandinavian clan with influence in Poland is NOT the same as "Jordanes was right" in any simple way. Berig in his opening statement clearly seemed to distinguish his own position from this position. It seems he believes a strong "Jordanes was right" is a real academic position, but it is not.
• 4. I now believe that one source of confusion on this talk page, apart from the constant aspersion casting, is that Beros is only aware of this clan idea from a French archaeology article, and does not realize that it is ultimately derived from the Vienna school of historians and philologists (Wenskus, Wolfram, Pohl) and seen as doubtful, at least for the Scandinavian migration, by many others such as Heather. It is not a theory which came from archaeology, but it is one cited by archaeologists. This theory also can not be equated to saying "Jordanes was right" in any simple way, but it is probably the most extreme pro-Jordanes accuracy theory among Jordanes experts. Even though some archaeologists might use such a simple equation in our article such wording would be misleading our readers. No one thinks Jordanes is literally true. You and I have tended to use Heather's formulation of saying that he believes Jordanes really did have some Gothic traditions as sources, which might have reflected some reality such as the names of real people (e.g. Berig, Filimer) but not all the details of events. The best source for Heather on this topic is the one he still cites, and other academics also cite. I have a copy but FWIW mine is dated 1991? fn 83 on p.66 shows Heather stating that Hachmann, Goten und Skandinavien, shows that there is no archaeological or philological evidence that the Goths really came from Scandinavia. But for those who view Gothic oral history in Jordanes as a window into the authentic past, Scandinavian names at Getica 3.21-4 and the Berig story nevertheless guarantee the Goths' Scandinavian origins: e.g. Wolfram, 21ff.

• Heather, Peter (1994). Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001. ISBN 9780198205357.

• 5. The words in red still need to be removed. They are fundamentally wrong and distort what the field believes. One source (Fulk is your only source for this wording) can not be used to make an extremely strong remark about a whole field's position in ways which obviously disagree with the sources who are uncontroversially acknowledged to be the authorities. Consider WP:EXCEPTIONAL. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

"The words in red" are reliably sourced to this survey of interdisciplinary research on Gothic origins by Robert D. Fulk:

"How the Goths arrived at the Black Sea, and where they originated, are matters of debate. The usual assumption, and the one still credited by the considerable majority of scholars, has been that the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula. Their area of settlement on the southern coast of the Baltic is called by Jordanes Gothiscandza... In accordance with the account of Jordanes, the Goths have usually been identified with the Gutones first mentioned by Pliny the Elder ca. 65 CE as living on the shore of (apparently) the Baltic Sea. On this reasoning the Goths have also commonly been associated with the island of Gotland and with the region of south-central Sweden called Götaland (named after the ON Gautar, OE Gēatas), from which areas they are assumed to have migrated originally... In more recent times the account of Jordanes, recorded so many centuries after the purported departure from Scandinavia, has been called into question, in part on archaeological grounds... [T]he presence of Goths in Scandinavia is not to be doubted... At all events, the name of the Goths is so common in place-names in Sweden—and place-names are often among the most archaic evidence—that it is difficult to believe that the Gothic presence in Scandinavia could have been a late development." – Fulk, Robert D. (2018). "Provenance of the Goths". A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-90-272-6312-4.

Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki (a specialist in early Gothic archaeology) make statements in a similar vein:

"Greek and Roman sources of the first and second centuries A.D. are the earliest written evidence we have for the Goths, under the names Guthones, Gothones, and Gothi. The sources agree in placing these people along the Vistula river, although whether they were on the coast or a bit inland is unclear. Also not totally clear is the connection between these people and other tribal groupings of similar names found at that time and later in parts of south central Sweden (now Västergötland and Östergötland) and on the island of Gotland. If the legend recorded by the sixth-century Gothic historian Jordanes is accurate, the Goths came to the mouth of the Vistula from across the sea, displacing a number of Germanic tribes who were there before them, including the Vandals. The weight of scholarship appears to support this story, with (mainland) Götland being seen as the likely point of origin, and the early first century B.C. as the likely time. Owing perhaps partially to population pressure, a large number of Goths subsequently left the Vistula in the mid-second century A.D. Around 170 they reached an area north of the Black Sea, where they settled between the Don and the Dniester rivers." – Robinson, Orrin W. (2005). "A Brief History of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths". Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Taylor & Francis. pp. 36–39. ISBN 0-415-08169-6.

"Most scholars agree that contents of Jordanes' text... concerning the arrival of the Goths and Gepidae from Scandinavia to Pomerania is fully reflected in archaeological sources." – Olędzki, Marek (2004). "The Wielbark and Przeworsk Cultures at the Turn of the Early and Late Roman Periods" (PDF). In Friesinger, Herwig; Stuppner, Alois (eds.). Zentrum und Peripherie. Mitteilungen Der Prähistorischen Kommission. Vol. 57. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 279–290. ISBN 9783700133179.

Per WP:RS/AC, it is not up to dilettante Wikipedians to determine "what the field believes". Statements on what the field believes must be cited from reliable sources. Krakkos (talk) 11:07, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed you are right. And of course this reasoning has already been replied to. It was silly that you created a new section for your reply to another section, but it is inexcusable for you to now deliberately alternate your answers now between the two sections as if you saw no replies! This is ONLY something you would want to do if you want to make this talk page dysfunctional. I am sick of asking nicely and I am going to move this response section to be a sub-section of what it was answering. I will then start a new sub-section for onward discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I have undone your resectioning[13] per WP:TPO and WP:BRD. Your resectioning made the talk page even more confusing and misrepresented what i have written. If there is anyone making this talk page "dysfunctional" it is you, with your endless talk page posts and unhelpful resectionings. Krakkos (talk) 20:10, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD and WP:TPO, i have once again undone your attempt[14] to resection and change the meaning of what i have written. This is not helpful and just creates more confusion. Please refrain from editing my posts. Krakkos (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

That is a very misleading description of my edit Krakkos. I moved a WHOLE section, which you yourself presented as a REPLY to another section which I created which was at a completely different part of the talk page. So I brought it closer to what it was replying to, and made it a sub-section which is more clearly a reply. [15] I then began my replies in a new section UNDER both the older ones. My AGF rationale aim was clear, and based on WP's core aims: I want to avoid you continuing to ask for replies twice by breaking the thread into two and jumping back and forth between them. I have never seen anyone do this like you, but it is something you've done continually during content disputes on this article and in Germanic peoples. It is very bad form.

It is therefore you who have now [16] clearly broken my WP:thread, disconnecting my newest replies from what they were responding to, and moved one of your posts away from its thread so that it seems to have never been answered. I did not break your thread, you are breaking both our threads. Furthermore, this is clearly not just incompetence, because you are still insisting on pretending that I have not replied to you, in cases where you clearly know that to be untrue. I've pointed the problems out, and you've doubled down. It can only be concluded that you are doing this to confuse other editors. I can't find an AGF scenario here.

Let's consider the context here: we are discussing basic problems I have identified in your latest major round of editing, which you did without any consensus, and therefore against the ruling of EdJohnston. In reply, instead of good faith discussion, you are deliberately ruining the threading on the talk page, as you have done in the past. My attempts to get serious sources and rationales posted in a logical way are being hidden from sight behind all these threads where you are pretending you don't know what the sources say, and asking for proof over and over.

Logical conclusion. Shouldn't we revert the article back to this version until we can confirm that you have a consensus for introducing such problematic material? One reason for proposing this step is that it would make a simple RFC, whereas normal BRD editing to tweak sentences is not available to us due to the decision of EdJohnston which is a result of your past call for intervention into this article which you are still apparently trying to "own".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think reverting to this proposed version is helpful. That would involve the reversion of many improvements and the removal of large amounts of quality sources from Peter Heather, Lotte Hedeager, Michel Kazanski and others. I think those improvements help give editors a better understanding of the topic, and thus provides a good basis for further discussion and improvement. I think it would be better to point out the "problematic material" and propose ways for how we can make it less problematic. That would enable us to solve existing problems while also keeping useful material. Krakkos (talk) 09:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

If you are referring to the remark beginning,

Kasperski clearly writes that the majority of scholars believe that Jordanes' Getica "is part of Gothic tradition". I may be that he disagrees with that majority

That avoids answering Andrew's query. He said that an editor had quoted the abstract. That while this can be verified, the actual paper nowhere appears to validate that précis. It would follow use of it is dubious, unless you can find a wording in Kasperski that is close to what the abstract says. Nishidani (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have made an updated proposal at Talk:Goths#Another proposal for modifications to the Prehistory section which seeks to ensure that the sentence in question takes the content of Kasperski's actual paper into account. Krakkos (talk) 16:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It would also fix a large number of problems. Another approach would be that you start proposing fixes to those, instead of doubling down on positions which you KNOW to be controversial and non-consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Note, Krakkos has removed parts of the above thread, breaking it somewhat [17]. Despite comments by Krakkos indicating that they are not aware of replies, there are replies above. The latest are in a new sub-section.[18] --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Request to add links to Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki

Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki are cited here, but there are no links to their articles. The given name of Olędzki is also incorrectly spelled "Mark" rather than "Marek". I would like to add links to their articles and to correct the spelling of the name of Marek Olędzki. Krakkos (talk) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I have no objections, and I trust no one else would. Thanks.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Restarting

I see that the reciprocal diffidence is kicking. I think Ed Johnson closure of the discussion on his talk page an indication that one should avoid personalizing this, and that, editors here should avoid second-guessing motives and simply, in an orderly fashion, putting down briefly the various issues which have been touched on. There is the possibility that my stepping in here may be read as responding to some call from Andrew. This is not the case: my intervention arose from observing that his bona fides was considered suspect: that contradicts my experience of this editor.

It's a bit awkward stepping in medias res. I'm tempted to think one way forward would be to proceed Hysteron proteron. Andrew's last note raised an issue with Kasperski, stating that the phrase quoted comes from the abstract, but that Kasperi's text nowhere provides a warrant for the generalization in that abstract.

I think that deserves an answer, which I have yet to see. I haven't the paper in question.Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani, actually I have limited my notes on concerns to a small number for now. There is more to be said about the Kasperski problem. I'll start with these remarks:

• Another example of the exact same problem (an abstract being cited, for wording quite different to the more spelled-out discussion in the text) is Kaliff 2008. Very similar situation. We cite (current fn 30) from abstract "The archaeological record indicates that Jordanes' history concerning the origin of the Goths was based on an oral tradition with a real background.". The conclusion of the article does not mention Jordanes at all, and gives a different impression of what the author intends. Here is the opening of the article, and the opening of the conclusion:

The old theories of a migration from Scandinavia to areas in present-day Poland during the 1st century AD, often referred to as “the Gothic problem”, is the main background for this paper. In modern research, the theory of a massive migration has generally been abandoned.

In my opinion, the similarities between some of the Scandinavian and Wielbark contexts are likely to be the result of a complex process of interaction, evolving for centuries. Contacts have been established through trade and exchange, between groups and individuals. Limited migration is likely to have taken place in the shape of dynastic marriages, trading colonies, travelling artisans as well as young men hiring out as mercenaries. When the Wielbark Culture evolved out of earlier cultures in the Pomeranian area, this process could have been the result of both endemic development as well as impact from outside impulses.

I put it to you that no reader of our article is going to understand this article to have said such things. We are citing it for this sentence: Most scholars believe that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is derived at least partially from Gothic tribal tradition and trustworthy in its general outline. I'd say this is completely opposed to the real opinions of the author.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)] [...continued below...]

Yes, that sentence struck me as problematical from the outset. It's bad with classical/ancient authors to give a general ticket of approval like this (from Herodotus and the Tanakh onwards). As it stands, its narrative function is clearly one of giving some street cred to the idea of a Scandinavian origin (conserved, we are made to think, like the origin of an Abrahamic figure from Ur ) recollection of which was sustained for over two thousands years before it was written down.Nishidani (talk) 14:07, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but I think the Vienna school position (Wenskus, Wolfram, Pohl, Bierbrauer etc) is still respected, is the strong pro-Jordanes school, but they certainly don't believe you can take him literally for much. They came up with the idea of the Scandinavian migration being a few people and some cool cultural memes. Others question even that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have made an updated proposal at Talk:Goths#Another proposal for modifications to the Prehistory section which seeks to make the sentence in question less problematic, and to balance it through giving increased weight to dissenting views in the following sentence. Krakkos (talk) 16:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• [...continuing...] Would you agree that if an abstract is giving a different impression than the actual article, that the article should be considered the most carefully written wording, and not the abstract? Might seem obvious, but please humour me, and place your opinion on record. :)
• A practical problem we have faced here, and previously on Germanic peoples is that Krakkos places masses of footnotes onto single sentences, giving a strongly sourced impression to some editors, and giving the impression that it would be pointless to raise issues with any single footnote. However, all or most of the footnotes generally have problems. The normal approach on WP is to remove un-needed footnotes. A large number of footnotes being used would normally be a red flag that WP:SYNTH is going on. I propose that one simple piece of low hanging fruit on this sentence is to remove the irrelevant sources, and make it clear the source is Fulk, reducing it to one footnote. Do you agree? Whether Fulk is an RS for over-ruling all the Jordanes experts is another question! (See discussion above.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)] [...continued below...]

The usual justification for several sources/footnotes is to show all editors, at a glance, by citing in each the relevant quotes, where a disputed sentence is coming from. It saves all other editors a lot of time, as long as the cited material contains quotes supporting the paraphrase. With those quotes lined up, one can either (a)validate the summary (b) challenge it as WP:SYNTH or (b) rewrite the sentence to reflect the substance of those quotes. In a conflicted article, they are to be expected, but if agreement can be found for a different formulation, some of that sourcing can be removed.Nishidani (talk) 14:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, so here we have four sources: Fulk (a Germanic languages expert writing about Goths, which I can't check the context of), Robinson (a primer on early Germanic languages), Kaliff (abstract), Kasperski (abstract). Only Fulk uses the strong wording which we are using. Krakkos is it possible to check if Fulk cites anyone else for this quote?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• [...continuing...] All of this is connected to some other discussions which have gotten nowhere. I have stated that it is quite unsurprising to read sentences saying things like "Jordanes is confirmed" and then finding that in the context, the author does not mean that literally, except in an extremely limited way such as "Scandinavian influence in the archaeological Wielbark culture". But our readers can not see the context, when this article is using sentences written by people (mainly archaeologists) like Kaliff to say that "Jordanes" or migration pure and simple, has been proven correct. They clearly do NOT think this.
• One of the "classic" problems we keep having here is the use of research papers from the technical fields like genetics and archaeology. (Consider WP:PRIMARY.) You and I have seen this before of course. Academics in these fields often include some token references to things said by historians or whatever other fields they want to present their research as impacting. But how many such references can be added up to become proof of a consensus among historians? I'd say that no amount of such references justifies this method, which is clearly WP:SYNTH, especially when editors of this article have no shortage of URLs to the real historians. Do you agree?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC) [Rejoiner: of course some archaeologists also write more than technical papers about archaeology. Please no-one claim I am insulting archaeologists. I am distinguishing different types of publication. Checking context is the first thing to do in source disputes. Context can completely change the meaning of a sentence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)]

I have made a reply above on the citing of Kasperski. Regarding the sentence in red, i am always open for proposals on making modifications. Could you please try to reduce the frequency and length of your talk page posts? Krakkos (talk) 10:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I made a simple proposal.[19] The reason I have to write at length so often is because of this habit you have of constantly pretending to forget things. I'll respond above on Kasperski.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Another proposal for modifications to the Prehistory section

I've made another proposal for modifications to the Prehistory section. It seeks to address concerns that have been raised at multiple sections above. Due to controversy over what the "majority" of scholars believe about Gothic origins and Jordanes, i have switched the words "majority" with "many" in sentences on this question cited to Robert D. Fulk, Orrin W. Robinson and others. I have also expanded quotations from Robert Kasperski and Anders Kaliff to give a clearer pixture of their thinking, and added a quotation from Walter Goffart to get better balance. The proposal can be seen at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths, and the edit would look like this diff.[20] If the community considers the proposal an improvement i would like to get permission to implement the edit. Krakkos (talk) 11:27, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I am afraid that for me, the words "trustworthy in its general outline", which you are insisting on, just can't be justified in any way. This just does not match our sources does it? "Trustworthy in a general outline" is actually very strong wording that amounts to saying Jordanes basically described what happened. You know this is wrong and that no version of this article which says this is going to be a consensus article. No scholar [ADDED: at least not one cited by scholars as an expert on this topic] believes this. It is clear that to the extent "some" scholars think Jordanes might reflect some aspects of things that really happened, all scholars agree it would have been very different from what he described. This is especially the case with the Scandinavian migration, i.e. the Berig story, which the Jordanes experts (apart from the Vienna school, perhaps) believe is largely based on typical Roman Christian tropes. I also have to say that I find it unfortunate that you have once again started a new section!

Maybe this helps. The correct way to give a balanced account about Scandinavian influence on the Gutones (migration is not a clear word for any academic position) would be to balance the latest most-cited experts (Heather, Christensen, Goffart) with (1) the archaeologists for their archaeology and not their abstracts, and, (2) concerning the Jordanes question, the scholars who defend the idea that Jordanes was influenced in some small way by real pre-history concerning Scandinavia all cite the Vienna school (Wenskus, Wolfram, Beirbrauer in work that connects to archaeology, Pohl in updated 21st century works). These are the champions for that (contested) position. The last two seem particularly relevant to me, and I'm surprised you've not used them. I would be very happy to see you or anyone else do a better job of explaining their argumentation, both here and on the other relevant articles. The fact is that this is not my favourite topic in the world, so although I've read a lot about it (and spent too much on books) I don't have every source we need. However, if I have time I can help you for example with German texts. My concern, as always, will only be that their position is not presented as a consensus (except in aspects where it perhaps really is one of course).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but because I feel more optimism about the tone here I'm going to add a bit more. It would be worth a lot if it might actually be read and appreciated properly:

• Even though academics are allowed to make asides which make sense in context such as "Jordanes was right", and then explain that mean it in a very limited way, we are not, because we are doing something in a different, encyclopedic, context.
• When we have proof that some scholars are saying that Jordanes might have been reflecting real events in an inaccurate, distorted, almost unrecognizable way (which is the best you'll get from academics, for example the Vienna school, or even the Polish and Scandinavian archaeologists), then your task as a WP editor is different from those academics. Your task is to describe those details (the "aspects" that might be "reflected") and not to simply say something like "Jordanes was right about Scandinavian migration". (If the details are hard to explain we still have to find a way. We may not simplify.)
• You might argue that you have done that, but just that it is lower down in the article, or moved to other articles. But that's a big problem. They are hidden and dominated by the "Jordanes was right" type comments, which really should not be in Wikipedia at all, because no academic believes this. Funnily enough, I think you also don't believe Jordanes was literally right. You just want to find a way to make sure the Scandinavia migration is given a fair representation and that's fine. See my advice above about ways to do that.

I hope this helps clarify the WP policy on these things.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have now modified the proposal further in order to address your concerns. See User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths. The proposed edit will be like this diff.[21] Krakkos (talk) 15:56, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! May I ask what purpose the word "generally" has though? A lesser issue is that I am not a fan of these very long footnotes, although I obviously I understand the good faith intentions. Similarly, I am not a fan of footnotes in the middle of sentences. Why not treat Goffart and Heather as two similar historians on that particular point? Because you work on those bios perhaps you know better, but I guess are allowed to be called historians (and philologists as well)?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have now made a second modification to the proposal in order to address your concerns. See User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths and this diff[22] for the entire proposal, and this diff for the newest modification.[23] Since Heather (1994) is not an ideal citation for the entire sentence in question (he disagrees with Goffart's description of the Getica as a fabrication), i added a more appropriate citation from Christensen instead. I understand your concern about long footnotes, but it is a great way to help the community understand what the sources say. I believe that is particularly important in editing disputes. Once the article reaches a more agreeable state we could perhaps trim the length of the footnotes. Peter Heather and Walter Goffart are definitely historians, but they probably have some training in classical philology too. "Generally" i understand as a shorthand for "for most scholars believe x but not everyone agrees". In the Prehistory section it is said that "Modern scholars generally locate Gothiscandza in the Wielbark culture". As it appears that few scholars disagree with that location, i would be fine with removing "generally" from that sentence altogether. The word "generally" is used in other sections of the article, but i would prefer that this proposal limits itself to focusing on the Prehistory section. That makes it easier for the rest of the community to understand what is being proposed. Are you fine with implementing the proposal now? Krakkos (talk) 18:23, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I mis-typed. My concern was with the word "general" in "on certain general details". What role does that word play? I guess it can be removed? It can probably be misunderstood in too directions. I am neutral about "generally locate". Apart from that, it seems to me this fixes some of the concerns recently introduced, and brings no new ones I can see. I honestly have no idea if that can be called a consensus! I agree that with the long footnotes, we can treat them as training wheels for now, as long as they do not get so complex that they make WP:V difficult. We went through a long footnote phase on Germanic peoples also. Don't forget there are of course still other new concerns.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the word "general" (although that word is explicitly used in one of the sources). See User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths and this diff.[24] Could you now be so kind as to grant me permission to implement this proposal, so that we can move forward with improving other parts of the article? Krakkos (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Words can change meaning in new contexts. But as far as I am concerned this specific edit seems acceptable now. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 00:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I have now implemented the proposal. Krakkos (talk) 08:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Prehistory section: similar new material that also needs removal for the same reasons

We have now apparently made difficult progress on one sentence which has being telling our readers wrongly that "Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is derived at least partially from Gothic tribal tradition and trustworthy in its general outline". So I have tried to make time to review more of the large amount of new changes made without pre-discussion by Krakkos after 18th March [25], which reintroduced POV positions that were debated many times in the past and are known to be non-consensus. I found several other freshly changed parts of the same section which repeat the one problem we have already discussed:

Most scholars agree that Gothic migration from Scandinavia is reflected in the archaeological record,<ref name="Olędzki_2004_279">{{harvnb|Olędzki|2004|p=279}}. "Most scholars agree that contents of Jordanes' text... concerning the arrival of the Goths and Gepidae from Scandinavia to Pomerania is fully reflected in archaeological sources."</ref> but the evidence is not entirely clear.<ref name="Heather_OCD"/>{{sfn|Heather|1998|p=26}}<ref>{{harvnb|Oxenstierna|1948|p=73}} claimed to have found archaeological evidence of a Gothic origin in [[Östergötland]]. [[Rolf Hachmann|Hachmann]] 1970 claimed there was no archaeological evidence for a Scandinavian origin of the Goths. {{harvnb|Kokowski|1999}} and {{harvnb|Kaliff|2008|p=236}} believe there is archaeological evidence for a partial Gothic origin in Scandinavia.</ref> The general outline of Jordanes' account of Gothic migration from Scandinavia is considered trustworthy by a considerable majority of scholars, with the time of migration set at around the 1st century BC.<ref name="Fulk_2018_21"/><ref name="Robinson_2005_36"/>

This is misleading again, in the same way as previous discussed cases. The sourcing problems are the same as previously discussed, involving distorted use of sources, borderline OR or SYNTH, and problematic sources such as Fulk. One different one, Olędzki, is being wrongly used for a single "status quaestionis" sentence. This is a WP:PRIMARY source, an archeaological report, not a literature review. The sentence only cites other archaeologists. As usual in archaeological papers (see our many previous discussions, for example on Kaliff) reading the actual paper shows that there is no question that author thinks Jordanes was really accurate. For archaeologists, Scandinavian influence and interactions is all they are talking about (and indeed all they can prove), and that is not what Jordanes described.

Actually, these sentences are also not good editing because they are so repetitive and inconsistent with the rest of the section. These sentences are covered by sentences above and below, which however give different information. Remember, Jordanes reported the migration of a whole people, which he said happened about 1490 BCE. No academic believes this to be accurate. Introduction of unclear words to cover these obvious problems is clearly not going to be comprehensible to readers (for example talk of re-setting "the time of migration" or "partial migration", and are a kind of OR). These wordings only make sense in this discussion on the talk page. Proposal: Is there any argument for not simply deleting all of the above? The material above and below it seems to cover the same topic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

• Re this. Krakkos, my problem with tweaks after long arguments about how to modify by tweaks the existing text, is that the prehistory section itself looks as though it starts off on the wrong foot, so that minor adjustments can't resolve the issue. I think that excellent tweak is appropriate to the underdeveloped Jordanes page, or to the far more balanced (if still underworked) Origin stories of the Goths page, not to this.

Here, the major decision should be to what degree a single, highly problematical datum in Jordanes should be allowed to establish the basic outline of the pre-history section. I don't think Jordanes' point (Christensen dismisses it most recently as utterly fictitious) should have the preeminence it gets and that rather the archaeological material, and clarifications of what groups constituted a Gothic entity are owed priority. Jordanes' note deserves a sentence, not extensive discussion of what authorities think of it.Nishidani (talk) 08:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I tend to agree, and FWIW you can make normal changes to the article, while Krakkos and I can not. (So feel free!) I am struggling to see any real progress after March 18. But each change we want to do theoretically requires pre-consensus, though the discussions are, erm, not easy. So we can do either slow tweaks, or large RFC-based edits such as the other option I am still very tempted to propose...

• Potential action: RFC for a full revert to the position of March 18, which was a version that had been helped by a lot more editors.

Normally in a situation like this, the potential for compromise looks great because when we slow down and look at everything and AGF, I believe the concerns of Berig and Krakkos would be better covered by avoiding making the article so repetitively and insistently Jordanes-based, and instead making distinct clear no-tricks discussions of (1) the Vienna school's hypotheses based on the Wenskus Traditionskern methodology (which is more or less the true modern "Jordanes light" that archaeologists have in mind) and (2) the Wielbark archaeology. An obvious procedure might look like this...

• Potential action: start by improving the Wielbark-related articles, and then proposing a summary for here, based on the consensus there?
• Potential action: Crazy idea: Should there be an article specifically on the various Traditionskern hypotheses related to the Goths? (Obviously it would have to include discussion of the criticisms etc.)

Such procedures on other articles would of course not mean that editing here should stop in the meantime, because the article has some real misrepresentations, as discussed. A revert definitely should be considered IMHO, because we are filling this talk page but getting nowhere.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the traditionskern (Stammessage/Wandersage) doesn't need another article since it would fall within Origin stories of the Goths.Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

While I am not sure that it best solution, probably more important to file for now is the fact that this is one of the complex matters which sometimes gets in the way on this article. I notice the term is mentioned on 6 articles in English WP already. 3 are authors (Wenskus, Wolfram and Heather). German WP has 8 hits. Maybe one way to think about this is to ask what the title of an article or sub-section would be.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Reverting back to older versions will result in the removal of lots of uncontroversial improvements. I think we should give further improvements a chance before we do any wholesale reverts. We have already made good progress. I have now made an attempt at addressing additional concerns with the Prehistory section. I don't think the sentence on archaeological evidence should be entirely removed. The disputed sentence cited to Robert D. Fulk and Orrin W. Robinson has been removed. The sentence cited to Marek Olędzki has been made less bombastic. I have also added a extra note on dissenting views, and useful citations to Dennis Howard Green, Rolf Hachmann and Volker Bierbrauer. The proposal can be found at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths and looks like this diff.[26] Would this proposal be an improvement? Krakkos (talk) 09:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Which non-controversial improvements do you claim have been made since March 18th? I am not asking this rhetorically. I am open to the idea there might be some, but it is difficult to trace them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Many useful technical changes have been done by various editors, duplications have been fixed, and the sectioning has become more logical and efficient. Most importantly, a large amount of sources from senior authorities on the Goths have been added. This includes Peter Heather, Dennis Howard Green, Michel Kazanski, Volker Bierbrauer, Lotte Hedeager, Thorsten Andersson and many others. Additional citations from the works of Arne Søby Christensen and Walter Goffart has been added too. Removing those sources deprives the community of information which provides them with a deeper understanding of the dissenting views among scholars. I think such an understanding is essential for further improvement of the article. Krakkos (talk) 10:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos:, Adding some sources sounds nice, but it would be relatively easy to recover those? I think you are in the best position to propose an edit which would not be a full revert. It looks like the discussions is otherwise going to take weeks or even months?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Thanks for the feedback on the proposal. I agree that Jordanes' Getica and other literary evidence is of questionable value for Gothic prehistory, and that archaeological evidence should be given high priority. However, the Getica plays a very important in modern reconstructions of Gothic history. A Peter Heather says:

"Modern approaches to the history of the Goths have been decisively shaped by the survival of one particular text: the Origins and Acts of the Goths or Getica of Jordanes. Written in Constantinople in about AD 550, it is a unique document. Although its author wrote in Latin, he was of Gothic descent, and drew upon Gothic oral traditions... [T]he Getic's consolidated account has exercised enormous influence on the overall "shape" of modern reconstructions of Gothic history... Thanks to [archaeology]... it is now possible to exercise at least some kind of control of Jordanes' account of even this earliest period of Gothic history." – Heather, Peter (1998). The Goths. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-209-32-8.

The following sources are authoritative works and reference works which seek to present complete histories of the Goths:

• Wolfram, Herwig (1988) [Originally published in German, 1980]. History of the Goths. Translated by Dunlap, Thomas J. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05259-8.
• Heather, Peter (1998). The Goths. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-209-32-8.
• Kazanski, Michel (1991). Les Goths [The Goths]. Éditions Errance. ISBN 8861304885. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |nopp= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Heather, Peter (2012). "Goths". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 623. ISBN 9780191735257. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
• Heather, Peter (2018). "Goths". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. p. 673. ISBN 9780191744457. Retrieved January 25, 2020.

While none of those sources consider the Getica particularly reliable, they nevertheless structure their histories of the Goths around it, supplemented with archaeological, linguistic and historical analysis. I think that Wikipedia should structure its prehistory of the Goths like our most authoritative sources do. Krakkos (talk) 10:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There is something to what you say here, but...

1. Yes. I think no-one would argue that Jordanes should not be mentioned for several different reasons. For example he is cited as an influence on the idea that the Goths came from Scandinavia. But our current explanation of Gothic history is effectively based on Jordanes, and repetitively insisting that he is a reliable. Instead, I think everyone who ever comes to this article feels we should be switching more quickly from mentioning his influence, to discussing the modern scholars. Continually comparing to Jordanes means we end up saying things like "archaeologists have proved Jordanes right" even though we know that is misleading.

2. Interesting point you raise about the structuring of some sources, but I would point out that of course when we look for Jordanes experts, we of course find sources which are structured this way. But this particular WP article is about Goths broadly. We can handle such Jordanes discussions on WP also in more specialized articles? I suppose we already are.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Krakkos. I'm not doubting the utility of Getica at all, and I think that this page should not spend time discussing scholarly assessments of it as a reliable source on Goths. From what I see, so far, there is a general acceptance of Jordanes' value for recent Gothic history, whereas the Scandza material has only generated a motherlode of controversy. That detail should go to Jordanes or Origin stories of the Goths. Shifting it there means nothing is lost of the important work you have done on this. Christensen as you know, recently wrote,

‘The basic contention of this book is that nothing in the first third of Jordanes’ Getic a has anything whasoever to do with a history of the Goths. This was the part in which Jordanes described the emigration of the Goths from Scandza in the year 1490BC, outlining their history until they became divided into two groups after the Hunnic assaults in the mid-370s – the part of his narrative that was allegedly based on a Gothic tradition, a Gothic Stammessage or Wandersage. We found no evidence to support the truth of this allegation. Arne S. Christensen p.318

My argument is that, given the extreme contentiousness (the problem is probably unresolvable: most ancient history is merely the elaboration of hypotheses according to the strengths of philological/textual and archaeological analyses) the Scandza bit should not structure the prehistory section as it appears to have done.Nishidani (talk) 10:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Other spin-off articles can also be used to reduce complications, such as Wielbark culture. Note my suggestion for an article on the Traditionskern instead of migration hypothesis of the Vienna school. I think the Goths are the most famous example of this concept and this is of course the "charismatic clan" idea, to use Berig's term. Unless we feel that concept is going quickly out of fashion, which seems not to be the case, it will eventually need an article. It is a link between Jordanes debate and archaeological debate. Nishidani, it is difficult to imagine how your idea could be controversial and in fact similar ideas have been discussed and led to more work on spin-off articles. The practical problem is that we need to get a consensus on letting this article be as uncontroversial as possible on all such points. Krakkos and I do not just have "trust issues". We literally can't make casual tweaks in order to reign back anything we feel to be an exaggeration. Third parties have played a big role in helping get that done in the version which existed until March 18, and I'm hoping you can hang around a bit and look for those?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the structure of a Wikipedia article should be determined primarily by the structure of secondary and tertiary sources about the same topic. The reliability and contentiousness of primary sources is of lesser importance for article structure. Practically every major secondary and tertiary source on the Goths tells their history chronologically beginning with the Scandza story, regardless of whether they believe the story to be partially true or not. Krakkos (talk) 13:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: In the opening of this section you requested the removal of a sentence cited to Fulk and Robinson, and changes to our sentence on archaeological evidence for Gothic prehistory so that it will be less confirmatory of Jordanes. I have tried to do as you proposed, while adding sources from Hachmann, Bierbrauer and Green as you have previously recommended. The proposal can be found at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths and will look like this diff.[27] Would you be okay with implementing that proposal? Krakkos (talk) 13:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it is important to give a diff comparing to the situation on March 18. Explanation (please don't take this wrongly): The neutral option according to a careful methodology is to go back to March 18. That is just an objective description of the situation. Making dozens of little tweaks which take 2 or 3 days each (which is what we see so far, and has been typical before), in order to try to come back to the March level of neutrality is not an attractive proposal, so if you want to avoid a revert to March 18 I think you need to explain your proposals in terms of how we can avoid that.

Try to imagine that for some people, your edits after March 18 appear to be a sort of giant revert which was mainly targeted not at me, for example, but at reversing exactly those careful wordings on controversial, emotional even, issues which were the results of months and months of similar work that involved a relatively good number of experienced Wikipedians, who undoubtedly now curse both of us, and this article, for wasting hours of their precious lives. You may say that's not a fair description, but what I am saying is that it would be best anyway, if you try to present your ideas keeping in mind that the obvious easy solution is a simple revert to March 18, unless there is a good alternative. (Fixing some footnotes? Not so hard.) Please understand that according to my understanding of life, the Universe and everything, the better you present your argument (even if you think this is against me), and the better that your proposals really are, the better for Wikipedia and all of us with any interest in moving these articles foward. The person who might benefit the most is you, and that would be great. I am not your enemy. If it is still a goal of yours to bring this article to GA standard, then these types of discussions are a vital phase. (A GA article can't be one with on-going content disputes. Trying to make Goths a GA article requires compromising skills, and is quite a challenge.) Actually we've been incredibly lucky in terms of the quality of editors who drop by on this important article, but we need to be listening to them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:01, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The 18 March version looked like this.[28] That version includes even more discussion on Jordanes and starts off Gothic prehistory with distinct sections for both him and the Gutasaga. Apart from not having distinct sections for the Gutasaga and Jordanes, the current version (30 March) has merged the sections on goldsmithing and architecture into the Culture section. The sections on goldsmithing and architecture were written by REKKWINT and he has not cursed, but rather thanked me for the changes i made to his material. Reverting will also undo improvements Yngvadottir and Carlstak have made. In short, reverting back to the 18 March version will result in an article which is even more reliant on Jordanes and other legendary stories, and the removal of a large amount of reliable secondary sources (particularly from archaeologists) which the community can use for further improvement to the article. That would be a step in the wrong direction. With the implementation of the proposal[29] i have outlined above, we could make the Prehistory section even less reliant on Jordanes and more based on reliable secondary sources. We have made good progress and i think there is a real possibility for productive future work. The proposal was made on the basis of concerns you raised and i would like you (and other members of the community) to have a look at it in view of implementing it. Implementing the proposal would enable us to move more efficiently ahead with improving other sections of the article. When editors avoid engaging with each others proposals it becomes more difficult to improve the article than it has to be. Krakkos (talk) 20:01, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos: I wish you'd posted your proposal link with a comparison to March 18 as requested. This is that diff. I'll have a look, but remember that the difference between proposing a full article revert or reverts on specific sub-sections is a trivial one, and recovering things like new sources is also very simple. Such things can still be done with a fairly simple RFC. So some type of revert is still an attractive option if we can not move things ahead. Of course I am not against you proposing a "third way" with new ideas (as the history of this article and talk page surely show), but please try to avoid taking any positions which might lock discussion into circles. BTW one thing which I find negative with this direction is that in the sections of concern, the March 18 version was subject to a LOT of careful review by editors such as Carlstak, Srnec, Mnemosientje and Ermenrich which also perfected the style and clarity a lot. Nishidani has remarked that he thinks many problems come originally from sloppy wordings, and he has a point. Removing careful wordings in controversial sections seems a shame.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Nishidani here (and in most places on this talk page, from what I can see). It requires a selective and unbalanced reading of the scholarly literature to conclude that the Scandinavian origins as presented in the Getica are accurate and accepted as such by scholarly consensus, and the archaeological evidence has yielded almost as much scholarly controversy as the Getica itself. Christensen and Heather, I think, should hold a lot of weight here. They are widely cited in both historiography and philological/linguistic literature. Ghosh 2015 is also notable if you want a recent discussion which holds a good middle ground between old-school Altgermanistik and Anglophone skeptics (despite Ghosh working in Toronto iirc, he doesn't just parrot Goffart) and engages critically with a lot of scholarly literature from many different viewpoints. Anyhow - the Scandinavian-origins narrative must absolutely be presented with a lot of caution if we want to be true to the current scholarly literature on the subject. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:55, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Since Krakkos has mentioned my name, I'll offer some thoughts. First, let me say that I second Nishidani's statement, "I'm not hostile to any editor who, like yourself, obviously rolls up his sleeves to the armpits." Krakkos is a hard worker and very knowledgable. I'm glad that Nishidani has joined the discussion, and brought his inimitable style and scholarly rigor; it's good to see Mnemosientje participating as well. I should say that Andrew Lancaster is as indefatigable an editor as any I know; though I sometimes find his prolix style frustrating,;-) I have no doubts of his sincerity and his desire to improve the article. All these editors know far more of the subject than I, but I will contribute in any small way I can. As Nishidani mentions further down, this talk page is confusing, and it's difficult to keep track of all the threads, but as long as we keep the atmosphere collegial, I think involved editors can collaborate and thrash this out. Carlstak (talk) 23:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Carlstak I accept being called prolix when it comes to articles like this. By "like this" I would define them as "articles where no one can follow anymore and someone needs to sit down and be thorough".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Despite all the difficulties, I'm glad someone's doing it.;-) 11:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(Looking at the discussions on this talk page and some earlier similar controversies elsewhere on WP, I can't help but be reminded of Chris Wickham's 2012 remark that "no one in the rest of Late Antique studies gets as upset about anything as do the five or six schools of late antique/early medieval 'Germanic' ethnicity." Now of course this isn't purely about ethnicity, but the problems discussed have a lot to do with that broader discussion. Debates on Gothic history, and the histories of early Germanic-speakers in general, can be surprisingly political and heated.) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

True, but I think its clear we should try to avoid mixing in any of the debates unless we need to on this broad article at least. I am glad you mentioned it though, because one thing I feel a lot of Wikipedians misunderstand is that Goffart makes academics angry for different debates than the ones that make people angry here (or on Germanic peoples). For example there is apparently a lot of bitterness about "identity" as a topic, and also about "accomodation". Let's not go there. I think Goffart's comments about the terminology "Germanic peoples" have been taken as sensible and worth discussion, by most academics in the same field, even if they decline to change their own word usage.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The Goths in Ancient History (2020) by David M. Gwynn

David M. Gwynn is Reader in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of the monograph The Goths (2018). He has recently written the article The Goths in Ancient History (2020). It is probably the most up-to-date overview of Gothic history available at the moment. He cites historians such as Heather and Goffart and also some archaeological evidence. Here are some extracts which may be helpful in determining how the history sections of this article should be structured and focused:

"Jordanes... drew upon both Gothic oral tradition and Roman literary sources in constructing his narrative... Jordanes above all preserved how the Goths themselves remembered their past, and no other single work has exerted a greater influence on later interpretations of the Goths and their legacy... [H]e combined Gothic oral traditions with stories told by Greek and Latin writers of other tribal peoples... From the historical perspective taken in the present chapter, the name ‘the Goths’ has a more precise significance. The Goths were a Germanic tribal people... Gothic origins are shrouded in mystery. According to the oral traditions known by Jordanes, the birthplace not only of the Goths but many other tribes was the great island of Scandza. This island, which Jordanes described as ‘a hive of races (officina gentium) or a womb of nations (vagina nationum)’, was located in the northern Ocean opposite the mouth of the River Vistula, which flows through modern Poland into the Baltic Sea. Scandza therefore equates at least approximately to Scandinavia, and it was from this legendary homeland that the Goths began their long migrations. Led by King Berig, they crossed the sea and landed in Europe. Several generations later, as their population expanded, the Goths then travelled on southward under King Filimer and settled in the fertile country of Scythia (roughly modern Ukraine), near to the Black Sea... Jordanes’s narrative undoubtedly combines mythical embellishments with exaggerated praise of his Gothic ancestors. Still, his outline of early Gothic history may be broadly accepted. A Scandinavian origin cannot be proven but fits with our limited knowledge of Gothic customs, while the southward migration towards Scythia probably began during the late second century AD. In the regions north of the Danube River and the Black Sea, archaeology has confirmed the presence of a largely uniform culture that began to flourish around the mid-third century." – Gwynn, David M. (2020). "The Goths in Ancient History". The Cambridge History of the Gothic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 22–27. ISBN 9781108561044.

You are not listening. I asked a very specific question about the priority given to a mythic narrative in the prehistory section over the archaeological material, the way that whole section is framed in terms of one highly contested line in Jordanes. As earlier, all you do in response is cite another book that buttresses your position. The result is a strawman.

David Gwynn is a classicist, and here concentrates on the accounts of Goths in late Greek and Roman history. As the above quote shows, he skates fluently over all the minefields and jumps the obstacles raised by Germanic specialists, and just tosses in his hat, with minimal reservations, into the ring with his view that Jordanes was a Goth (challenged), that he was privy to oral traditions (challenged), and that his Scandza legend material conserves an authentic memory (challenged). By the way he didn't write a monograph. That work for Reaktion Books is a popularization of Gothic history. Compare the quote you just make from an outsider's overview, endorsing the Scandza legend, with the quote from Christensen. The conclusions are diametrically opposed, from total acceptance of the Scandza core historicity to total dismissal. merely adding quotes for one side is pointless.Nishidani (talk) 14:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I gave you a very specific reply in the section where you raised your question, stating that i believe our overview of Gothic prehistory should be framed on the basis of how our most reliable and relevant secondary and tertiary sources frame it. In that reply i also made a very specific proposal for how to secure that the section is better framed as such.[30] That proposal has not been replied to. It would have been helpful if you could highlight which "Germanic specialists" that have raised obstacles, and which "archaeological material" that you think should be given more priority.

I am as entitled to share quotes from the work of Gwynn (published by Cambridge University Press in 2020) as you are to share quotes from the work of Christensen (published by Museum Tusculanum Press in 2002). Christensen, who is a classicist like Gwynn but only an associate professor, intentionally ignores archaeological evidence on Gothic origins (p. 40), and deals mostly with mythic narratives. As Christensen himself has admitted, his work is more of a deconstruction of the origin stories of the Goths than a history of the Goths. His book (a translation of his Danish-language Ph.D. thesis) has been described by Michael Whitby as "surely too extreme" and "little more than a long footnote" to what has been published by Peter Heather and others on the Goths. It is certainly not an as influential, relevant or frequently cited work on Goths than those of fellow historians like Heather or Herwig Wolfram.

I sense a bit of hostility in your comment. I hope you understand that many Wikipedians are wary of hostile editing environments, and that such conditions may result in driving editors away. Krakkos (talk) 20:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not hostile to any editor who, like yourself, obviously rolls up his sleeves to the armpits. That is relatively rare. I'm stringent. I've no pretension to have anywhere near your depth of reading on this where I have only a general knowledge. But, I am rather good in my own estimation, on questions of historical method, and that's what makes my approach somewhat stringent. No hostility intended. Strong disagreement need not be taken as antipathy. Most of the people we quote are colleagues, who are not known to have left their meet-ups at conferences with something like the scenary of Kill Bill's more boring episodes.

If you replied to me, I can't see it. The quote from Gwynn tells us just where Gwynn an outsider, places himself in the spectrum of Germanic scholarship's contradictory conclusions about Jordanes. I am saying that the mythic skerrick re Scandza merits a line or two here, not a paragraph on controversies about Jordanes's reliability. This place is so disjointed that all sequence is lost (at least on me). I won't repeat myself.The prehistory section needs one or two sentences on Jordanes's Scandza, and the rest of the material should go into sister pages, where any editor can expatiate at length on the infinite distinctions and niceties of a long scholarly squabble.

As to my background, first classics and then the ideology of cultural and ethnic classifications, the Goths attracts me because it is a good example of what Roland Steinacher writes about, perhaps with undue dismissiveness. But large numbers of of these ancient ethnonyms are problematical descriptors. One can quote bits from all of the varied sources one desires on general views, but if one doesn't begin by interrogating those texts on what Goths we are describing, then much of what follows will be nonsense. How do sources square Procopius's 'Γοτθικὰ ἔθνη πολλὰ μὲν καὶ ἄλλα πρότερόν τε ἦν καὶ τανῦν ἔστι,'(De Bellis 3:2.2)- a good witness for the polyvalency of the word 'Goth', with the various uses of Goths in Jordanes (Gothi minores at Getica 267). Nishidani (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

) ,.

Review of new proposal by Krakkos 31 March 2021

As discussed above, I will review the new draft proposal of Krakkos by comparing it to the version of March 18, which had a consensus history. I will try to limit myself a bit, and break it into sections. In some cases, we can consider reverting a whole section.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Lead

• This was fully deleted from the lead and should be replaced because we need to clearly state where the Goths are first uncontroversially known from in written history. This is an article about a people from written history. They were first definitely reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Later, many moved into the Roman Empire, or settled west of the Carpathians near what is now Hungary.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• New weasel words trying to under-state things: "the accuracy of this account is unclear". These replaced "but his reliability is disputed". The original was much better.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Krakkos proposal: "From the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture expanded southwards towards the Black Sea in what has been associated with Gothic migration, and by the late 3rd century it contributed to the formation of the Chernyakhov culture." I think this wording needs tweaking, such as "From the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture expanded southwards towards the Black Sea, contributing, in turn to the Chernyakhov culture further south, which is associated with the classical-era Goths." --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Classification section

As it currently stands the new proposal, and the current article, are totally unacceptable, not only for the normal reasona but also because OR has now been introduced (second paragraph). To be honest, the old version was also controversial, because the last two sentences gave a confusing impression which seems intended to mislead readers. See discussion above.[31] A simple revert is one option, and I have also proposed two possible new versions. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC) Maybe this helps:

March 18 consensus:	Version today (31 March):
The Goths and other East Germanic-speaking groups, such as the Vandals and Gepids, were never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors, who consistently categorized them among the "Scythians" or other peoples who had historically inhabited the area.[11][12][13][14]	The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship.[1][2][11][12][13] Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they are more specifically classified as being among the East Germanic peoples.[14][15][16]
The Goths were Germanic-speaking.[15] They are classified as a Germanic people by modern scholars.[2][1][16][17][18] They are today sometimes referred to as being Germani.[19][20]	When first generally believed to have been mentioned in classical antiquity the Goths were classified as being Germani,[17] while authors in late antiquity no longer identified them as such.[18][19][20][21] In modern scholarship the Goths are sometimes referred to as being Germani.[22][23]

The March 18 consensus version strikes me as better. I see no improvement in the later versionsNishidani (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed version (by me):

The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship, in the sense of being speakers of a Germanic language. Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they are more specifically classified as being among the East Germanic peoples. The Goths and other East Germanic-speaking groups, such as the Vandals and Gepids, were however never considered Germani by ancient Roman authors, who consistently categorized them among the "Scythians" or other peoples who had historically inhabited the area.

Note: never. There is NO scholar who argues against this. Optional sentence to try to support the thinking behind the OR, without going too far:

The earlier Gutones, reported by first and second century authors Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Ptolemy as living near the mouth of the Vistula, were described as Germani in that period, and as will be discussed below, they are possibly ancestors of the later Goths who lived in what is now the Ukraine.

I think either the short or long version would resolve a lot of issues which are otherwise going to permanently mar this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

These are good proposals, subject to tweaking. I think some consideration should be given to sorting out the Getae/Gepid/Gutones/Goth issue in classical languages, not only Latin, but also Greek. But it is too early for me to make a considered set of suggestions.Nishidani (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

So between the March 18 version and my proposal, any preference?

Concerning Getae and Gepids, keep in mind the importance of balancing between this article and specialist articles. I'd say the Getae identification is not taken very seriously, so it is more for the specialist articles. Concerning the Gepids, you raised a point somewhere about the plural Gothic peoples, as in Procopius. THIS article is probably the article which could best handle the bigger Gothic peoples concept. It is something this article could focus on more clearly if we get rid of some of the distractions. I had not thought of it being relevant to this section, but you might be right, given that comment of Procopius. I suppose this will lead to a complication. I can't immediately remember academic comments but I presume we'll need to be thoughtful about how to associate, but not equate, this concept with East Germanic speakers (i.e. a linguistic definition of an ethnic group)? Something for later?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Prehistory

Lots to look at here unfortunately. I will add, bit by bit.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• This section has been turned into a sub-section of "History". That's a bit grating to me, just because it is illogical. Not sure what others think. The rhetorical purpose is pretty clear: it stops readers from feeling any caution about equating the "Ukrainian" Goths to the "Polish" Gutones. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: the effect on readers in this case is not likely to be enormous, I would guess.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Apart from that, this is a relatively large and complex section, which had 4 sub-sections. These have been converted into two sections: Prehistory and Early History. Early History is now a section about the Gutones, based on the sub-section previously called "Vistula region evidence". I believe that is a change which is not in line with NPOV, and a deliberate movement away from a neutral description.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: I think the potential for readers to be misled by this title is unfortunately reasonably big. I am opposed to anything which simply equates Gutones to Goths, even though I understand why people want to do it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Krakkos are you sure Hachmann and Bierbrauer were on the same side of the debate about Scandinavia?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Probably the most potential for controversy is about the wording issues discussed in sections above,[32][33][34] including comments by Nishidani. At first sight it looks like the proposal is avoiding the concerns raised, but I hope others will look. It is such a complicated situation now, that I might be missing something.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos and Andrew Lancaster: I have boldly edited this section to tighten it up and make its development more logical, plus copyediting. Here is what I did:

• Specified that Scandza is an island, a useful tip-off as to why Jordanes' accuracy might be questionable.
• Removed This has however been fiercely disputed by some scholars, particularly historians, who emphasize that the Getica contains numerous inaccuracies and possible fabrications. as redundant to Historians are not in agreement on the authencity and accuracy of this account, while keeping both Christensen quotations.
• Removed reference to the Gutasaga as pointless and counterproductive.
• Removed Skeptics of Scandianvian origins state that there is not enough evidence that such migration played an important role in Gothic origins. because it tells us nothing but that skeptics of Scandianvian origins are skeptical of Scandianvian origins, which we already knew.
• Removed Archaeological evidence shows an early southward expansion of the Wielbark culture along the left bank of the Vistula. This area has a particularly high concentration of stone circles and inhumation burials, and is often specifically equated with Gothiscandza. as drifting off-topic. We have articles for Gothiscandza and the Wielbark culture.

Everything else was re-arranging, I believe. Srnec (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

AGF or WTF

Krakkos how should other editors of this article understand the "good faith" situation here when you have now posted a misleading call for action here on the talk page of another article: "It could be of interest to editors active here that the closely related article Goths may be on the brink of being rewritten in the style of Germanic peoples" [35]? That seems like a deliberate misrepresentation (you recently made major changes to this article, and you are against reverting back to the old consensus version, not resisting ideas for new changes) and a deliberate attempt to reconfigure these discussions into a battle between some types of factions? I think that was a very bad idea, and unhelpful to the good faith efforts everyone is making to try to understand your concerns, find ways to represent them, and work with you. Why do you do these things just when everything looks friendlier?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

'In the style of the Germanic peoples' article? I, for one, haven't even read that page so as one of the ostensible cabal, I can hardly be inspired by it as a model.Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The dog whistle words which Krakkos has been using to try to make people literally angry at me, with some success clearly, are "Goffart" and "agenda". This has succeeded on several articles (also for example on Heruli) to create significant disruption to making an encyclopedia via proxies, and IMHO I also believe Krakkos is contacting people off-wiki pro-actively to make them angry, as I have explained before in various places.

It is just ridiculous that this is still happening. And ironically Krakkos always ends up exposed and feeling more defensive, which also then indirectly hurts Wikipedia even more. Why not stop trying this BS! Sheeesh.

STATEMENT: Concerning Goffart, I feel a similar respect to Heather, Halsall, Pohl or any of these authors. It is a great debate which I was not really very aware of before getting involved in trying to work these articles out. I truly enjoy reading such authors, and do not believe myself the superior to any of them, as Krakkos apparently does. The sourcing questions on both articles are actually pretty bloody clear for anyone who understands WP's core policy rules. This is nowhere near the difficulty level some less-studied ethnic topics face.

Whatever the details of the case may be off-wiki, it is totally "not cricket" to try to create any kind of angry faction (Goffart or anti-Goffart) in order to score points in a simple content dispute! It seems to me to be a moment where I am not even being too strong if I use the words "for goodness sake".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

RfC

Should the prehistory and early history sections of this article be less focused on controversial origin stories like Jordanes' Getica, and more focused on archaeological, linguistic and contemporaneous historical evidence?--Berig (talk) 17:20, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

We should notify normal editors of this article and talk page? (I see you've done a round of notifications to people you often work with, but...) Obvious ones include Mnemosientje, Srnec, Carlstak, GPinkerton--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Conditional yes [ADDED: but open to other approaches]. I think I agree, but it depends a bit on how we would define this fairly broad wording in practice. Is there any chance it will lead to disagreements about what the RFC meant? Seems a good discussion to have though. Thanks. I do think we need to mention Jordanes of course. He is the original Scandinavian origins story, even though his version is obviously dubious. My opinions are explained in several recent discussions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC) It is discussed more above but maybe it helps to say I am worried about people using this to turn our summaries of archaeologists' findings into "archaeologists have have proven Jordanes right" (about a simple transfer of a whole people, as opposed to a complex range of interaction options). It should of course be possible to avoid that issue, but...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2021 (UTC) I also agree with Srnec that reducing discussion of Jordanes is not really hitting the nail on the head yet. If we simply treat Jordanes as correct, and for example start to treat the Gutones as the identical to the Goths, an idea which would arguably not exist without Jordanes (according to the experts), then this proposal could make the article worse. (Influence from Vistula direction is not the same as a mass migration.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Wolfram: "the question is not whether Scandinavia was the "original homeland of the Goths"; at best it is whether certain Gothic clans came from the north across the Baltic Sea to the Continent." (Wolfram, History of the Goths, 1990 p.37) (Note that for the Poland to Ukraine migration proposal, Peter Heather is not in agreement with a large part of the field, with his confidence in real significant movement of people, as described by Jordanes.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. One line in a lengthy text has generated massive commentary, and to orientate the prehistory section in terms of this origin myth leads to endless complications in doing justice to the controversies it has generated. Scandza warrants mention of course, something along the lines:'Jordanes writes that the ultimate origin of the Goths lay in the island of Scandza from which they are then said to have emigrated in 1490 BCE.'Nishidani (talk) 18:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Right, but did that any one line create so much debate because of something intrinsic to it, some true belief of the editor who just could not get it, or just because drama is being created artificially, using whatever anchor points are available? The history of the discussions recently and further back would indicate it is the latter. But I agree with the idea of attempting to remove anchors. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Don't think we should worry about that, per the general scholium's advice about hypotheses non fingo. Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Maybe my way of framing my concern was wrong. The concern is that trying to reduce discussion of Jordanes might not be hitting the nail on the head. It might clear the mess a bit, but will this article then be filled with more synth derived from archaeology articles (which in turn all actually refer to Jordanes)? That has been equally or more controversial and the article could be worse. (Because worse balanced.) See also the "vote" of Srnec below. Is Jordanes the real problem? I think the problem is more generally that Goths are Goths, but these complex issues concern debatable "pre Goths" and there is a long-running attempt to treat them as simply Goths. (Which some academics do, like Heather, but there is clearly no consensus, and we know that.) I think there are still gaps in our working consensus. I have made a new RFC below.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:38, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes – The amount of explanatory footnotes and focus on essentially discrediting a controversial primary source account from antiquity is excessive. General readers benefit less from extensive scholarly disputes about source credibility than they do from matter-of-fact, academically substantiated evidence from secondary sources about what we know from archaeological records, linguistic evidence, and the available history of the people. We should certainly trim down the overly abundant and lengthy explanatory citations. Some of these are way outside the scope of an Encyclopedia and are more befitting of specialized scholarly journals. It's not that there's anything wrong with much of it, but it does not benefit the typical reader. One of the points of disagreement I have had with a certain editor over the years has been this very fact and that individual's insistence on exhaustively including scholarly debates that are of little interest to the VAST majority of Wikipedia's readers. We must distinguish between Wikipedia and the Oxford Journal of Ancient History (sorry if this feels flippant). Otherwise, readers will find the article less useful. --Obenritter (talk) 18:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Probably me? But no problem. I'd say in any case your point is very logical here, and on this article it is easy to see we are slipping off the tight-rope to one side, and we need to move back the other way. Furthermore, I've learned here (with some credit to Krakkos) that we can spin off smaller articles which are MUCH less controversial for all parties. Honestly, my vision for Germanic peoples was similar (more to spin-offs, shorter article) but in the first round of changes that was difficult for all of us to imagine. It is hard to agree on moving OUT some favourite bit. In the long-run that is probably the way there also. The experience on this article has made me believe more in that strategy. We just need to avoid POV forks. I hope the well is not too poisoned by talk of Goffart agendas! :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Sections are fine as is: In my view, the History sections are fine; the fact that some aspects are disputed is not ideal, but that's life. Peter K Burian (talk) 19:19, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, let's stick to mainstream scholarship on this topic. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, I think focusing more on what archaeologists, linguists, and historians have to say about the Goths origins and less on the text of Jordanes is in order.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• No. I'm being a bit deliberately contrarian here, but the whole problem is an obsessive focus on origins. And it's genuinely impossible to overstate the centrality of Jordanes to this issue. There's nothing less controversial about the archaeology, because its ethnic interpretation hinges on written evidence. If we want to write an article that is all matter-of-fact, we have to drop the Goths' origins. They spring into being fully formed north of the Black Sea and that's that. Everything before that has a question mark after it. And it just so happens that no other question marks in Late Antiquity are as contentious as the ones concerning Gothic origins. Nobody debates the origins of the Franks like this.
  I have just read (and edited) the "Prehistory" and "Early history" sections. The latter contains little Jordanes and is mostly an analysis of possible early mentions in Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus and Ptolemy. The former is indeed centred on Jordanes and is not a pleasure to read (not least because of the copious footnotes). I just don't see how adding more about the Wielbark culture will improve matters. I would suggest splitting off material to Origin stories of the Goths and renaming that article Origins of the Goths, reducing the load on this article and allowing for fuller development of various theories. Before I edited it out, there was mention of the Gutasaga. That sort of thing strengthens nobody's case without elaboration. Moving stuff to a separate article, would allow for some elaboration of all sides. Srnec (talk) 00:38, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

For the record, I am not opposed to this direction of moving forward. The choice between this philosophy and the one proposed by Berig depends, for me, on the practical details. Berig's proposal sounds simpler, but Srnec has had more recent editing and source-checking experience on this article and I suspect in practice Berig's proposal might need 2 or 3 more RFCs to convert into a clear agreement on real actions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I should mention that I don't agree that the article about this debate should be move to Origin stories of the Goths, which has nice clean boundaries and a good size. I am coming to believe that we need an article to cover the enormous literature on the Ethnogeneses (plural) of the Goths. This would be a place to clearly separate out the archeaological discussions, refer to the Jordanes discussions and perhaps most importantly finally give a home for the Traditionskern theories from other approaches, and not let them be presented in misleading ways as simple mass migrations. Post World 2 literature about the Goths tends to see them as a series of peoples, re-founded over and over, sharing some common threads, but not physically the same population. This article is failing to explain that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. Obenritter has verbalized thoughts I've had about the article, but expressed it better than I could. I agree that the amount of explanatory footnotes is excessive. I personally find them of great interest, but I think they are distracting and of little interest to the general reader. A greater focus on the archaeological, linguistic and contemporaneous historical evidence will benefit general readers far more than copious notes on the nuances of abstruse (to them) scholarly disputes. Although Srnec takes the "nay" side, he does make some good points. Carlstak (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but also relocate some material. I agree with the gist of Obenritter's comment, but Srnec also makes some good points, especially about renaming Origin stories of the Goths to r Origins of the Goths (especially since the original is ambiguous and implies only origin myths that the Goth had about themselves), then moving much of this material to that page, and leaving behind here only a WP:SUMMARY. This would also obviate the need for a bunch of distracting footnotes, since they would really belong (probably better as regular prose, not footnotes) in the origins article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

RFC on article focus

Yes or no or something else? This article should primarily focus upon the Goths described by Roman historians from the third century. The earlier Vistula Gutones, for example, are relevant, but a distinct topic which should not be simply equated to "Goths".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Possibly interested users (please add any missing): Berig Krakkos Nishidani Srnec Mnemosientje Carlstak Obenritter Peter K Burian Bloodofox Ermenrich SMcCandlish Yngvadottir Alcaios

• Yes, I am the one proposing that this is the focus. I think it is obvious, but in practice we have not all been working this way. The academic disputes about Gutones, Gauts, Wielbark etc are not about Goths as such, and involve several disciplines. They always include mentions of Jordanes, Ptolemy etc. They are too complex to handle in this article as a short aside near the start, without causing major problems, as we have seen. Reducing discussion of Jordanes is an idea which seems to have some consensus. If we reduce this key part of the origins discussion we should also reduce the other parts which are typically discussed together with it. A major complication in the literature is that academics often treat Gutones as predecessors of the Goths, in the sense of having a name and traditions which were passed on, even when they do not literally believe in a large migration. This important point has been very difficult to get worded properly here without taking over the article. Possibly we need a new Ethnogenesis/ Traditionskern/ Origins of the Goths article? I am not a fan of using the Origin Stories article for archaeology, etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• This article should focus upon the Goths as described by modern scholars. Modern scholarship on the Goths mostly focus on material from the 3rd century onwards, but material from earlier periods is usually included as well. In his The Goths (1998), which is often considered the standard work on the Goths in English, Peter Heather devotes about 15% of the book to these earlier periods. This is about the same amount of attention which this article Wikipedia article gives these periods.

The names Gutones and Goths are identical in the Gothic language. Practically all linguists and archaeologists treat the Gutones as Goths. Heather treats the Gutones as Goths. Herwig Wolfram (author of the standard work on the Goths in German) says that "whenever the Gutones are mentioned... these terms refer to the Goths". The entry for Gutones in the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde is a redirect to Goths. There are certain historians, such as Arne Søby Christensen, who doubt a connection between Gutones and Goths, but even he concedes that it is "normally assumed that [the Gutones] are identical with the Goths". This article should focus on what is normally assumed by scholars, while taking note of minority viewpoints. Our article Gutones is a POV fork based on a minority viewpoint and a verbatim copy paste of material from Goths and name of the Goths, and should probably again be a redirect to this article.

I don't think we should entirely remove this article's coverage of material prior to the 3rd century. It may however be an idea to reduce the complexity of that coverage, particularly through reducing discussion of Jordanes' Getica. That question is already being discussed in an RFC posted above less than a day ago. I must say that creating mulitple RFC's on practically the same issue within such a short period of time is not helpful for consensus building. Krakkos (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2021 (UTC)