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:Incidentally I think your jibe on "fringe "gay" scholarship" is unnecessary and unwarranted here. It is quite legitimate to try and cover the LGBT angle in articles provided there is balance and substance. I accept fair discussion to get that balance right, but do not think it needs to be mocked. Nor do I have an interest in making "pederasty appear ubiquitous". Nor have I yet to hear convincing arguments based on evidence that the literature itself is fundamentally flawed. I accept Fleming's arguments that the orientalist imagination overplayed the sexual elements and underplayed the wider political elements. But that is not the same as saying that the sexual elements had no basis in fact at all. ] (]) 16:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
:Incidentally I think your jibe on "fringe "gay" scholarship" is unnecessary and unwarranted here. It is quite legitimate to try and cover the LGBT angle in articles provided there is balance and substance. I accept fair discussion to get that balance right, but do not think it needs to be mocked. Nor do I have an interest in making "pederasty appear ubiquitous". Nor have I yet to hear convincing arguments based on evidence that the literature itself is fundamentally flawed. I accept Fleming's arguments that the orientalist imagination overplayed the sexual elements and underplayed the wider political elements. But that is not the same as saying that the sexual elements had no basis in fact at all. ] (]) 16:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
:: I already explained why the Drake chapter is unusable. Fleming explains why Foss is unusable. Murray's chapter is just a naive, uncritical rehashing of the same kinds of sources, Foss first among them, without any attempt at a critical evaluation of these accounts. The guy is no historian, and I am calling this "fringe" because I suspect the reason that a work of this low quality could be printed in a superficially respectable academic outlet is only because it places itself in the ''niche'' field of gay studies, where it is shielded from the exacting academic standards of real historians. A work like that wouldn't last a minute in a peer-reviewed environment of actual historical research. ] ] 05:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
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It might be true that some sources are less reliable, but we need some evidence or argument first please as to why this might be the case so we can all be reassured and perhaps have a chance to address concerns. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The first reference is a copy from a 19th century primary source(a biographer to be exact), while the second reference is a book titled "Asian Homosexuality", which is not rs not only because of its author who in the past has written many pov books related to homosexuality but because it copies again western travelers/biographers like Lord Byron and that is again the source for the text added in this article, a 19th century primary dubious reference.--— ZjarriRrethues —09:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid it's not sufficient to make such arguments on the basis that "its author who in the past has written many pov books related to homosexuality". This in itself violates NPOV. Wayne Dynes is Professor of Art History at New York City University. As such I think we have to credit him with a degree of academic objectivity. Although I fully accept that there may be many that do not agree with his conclusions. The primary source, meanwhile, seems positively what we're looking for. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
How can primary sources not be reliable or useful? I agree that they should be contextualised in order to remove bias but I've never before heard that you would ignore them in historical research. How odd. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
About the Dynes book: the text quoted here isn't even by Dynes. It's a chapter from some guy called Jonathan Drake, originally from an "International Journal of Greek Love"(!) from the 1960s. Its historical scholarship is so abysmal we simply shouldn't take it seriously. Presenting the whole devshirme system as if it had been purely a matter of procuring sex slaves is so far beyond anything even remotely debateble I refuse to enter in any discussion about that source. The other footnote fails to identify who that "popular biographer" was (certainly not Ruches himself, who, by the way, is a writer steeped in the anti-Albanian nationalist polemics of the postwar decades, and certainly no reliable historian either. Oh, and by the way, it was abominably poor English too ("typically", evidently a Greek barbarism here. Was that Ruche's error, or our Misplaced Pages editor's?) Fut.Perf.☼12:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems that there is an entire library talking about these Ali Pasha's 'Ganymedes' (harem boys) ], I wonder if there is any primary or secondary source that doesn't mention this, some examples:
The diamond of Jannina; Ali Pasha, 1741-1822 (one of Ali's most famous biographies) ]
The late Lord Byron: posthumous dramas. ]
Even an article from the New Yorker ] "long -haired Ganymedes, and grief-crazed women — the world of Ali Pasha,".
Off course there is no reason to avoid mention Ali's harem (both males and females). I understand if some users might thing that there is some kind of taboo situation on this.Alexikoua (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree. The sources seem to be widespread and seem to go hand in hand with depictions of 19th century albania as being a place where many men had same-sex relations, evidently with no sense of shame. How about the following text for inclusion:
There are widespread tales of Ali's sexual proclivities. Foss notes that "His energies and appetites were enormous and to cater for these he maintained a harem of some five hundred women. In addition...there was a seraglio of youths, some of whom were in constant attendance, as his pleasures were rumoured to be mainly homosexual". Contaldo80 (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you entering sources brought by the infamous user:haiduc? Can you enter the page number? I tagged as dubious and it'll be tagged such as long as we don't have any page numbers in the references. --Sulmues talk14:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what you're talking up re Haiduc I'm afraid. The Murray chapter in the work cited above begins on p.187 if you want to take a look, and goes into a fair amount of detail on homosexuality in 19th century albania. The Foss quote I used can be found in "The Muslim Bonaparte: diplomacy and orientalism in Ali Pasha's Greece" by Katherine Elizabeth Fleming, 1999 (page 20) Contaldo80 (talk) 15:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
So what have we got now? A couple of second-rate authors uncritically perpetuating cheap orientalist phantasies. And editors here like Contaldo80, who will go to great lengths citing that Foss book, second hand, combining it with unashamed original-research speculation, getting its title wrong in the process, and failing to take into account the (much more reliable and much better scholarship) source from which they are actually quoting it second hand, the Fleming book, which, if you read the context, you will find is only citing Foss as a characteristic example of crap to avoid. This is close-to-blockworthy tendentious editing and falsification of sources. What a miserable show. Fut.Perf.☼22:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be more constructive to have a proper discussion about the validity of sources rather than an unhelpful rant? You might also want to take a step back and avoid personal insults "editors here like Contaldo80, who will go to great lengths citing that Foss book". If you're implying that I'm showing bias or deliberately misleading then please do say so. And are you threatening to have me blocked because I have a different view to you on something?! Is this really a resposible way for an administrator to behave? Contaldo80 (talk) 08:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Re-reading Fleming I note that she criticises Foss for concentrating on "widespread and largely conjectural tales of Ali's sexual proclivities". She is critical of this because she believes that as a result such accounts are "remarkably bereft of any broader and more important historical tale than the one being played out in the wider Orientalist imagination of the west." My reading of that is that she does not deny that Ali may have had a male harem, but rather that this is a side-show. That's a different point than that being made by editors here. And I must confess to finding it odd in the extreme to discount primary sources - there are several contemporary accounts that reinforce the idea of the male harem. For a historian, primary sources are frequently the most important documents that you can find. But they must be contextualised to understand error and bias. The way forward, I would suggest, is to refer to the contemporary accounts but then refer to Fleming to make the point that we should avoid dwelling too long. To leave out completely without referring to something which is so widespread and common in beliefs on Ali Pasha would be unhelpful. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
How about?: Widespread tales emerged from visitors to Pasha's court of his sexual proclivities. Not only keeping a large harem of women, but also a seraglio of male youths, some of whom were in constant attendance. Such accounts, however, may reflect the wider Orientalist imagination of the west, and consequently underplay the more important historical role of PashaContaldo80 (talk) 09:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Contraldo80 FutureP explained you many times the reasons for not including anything similar. I will just repeat what I told you a couple of days ago: nothing based on pov/outdated/primary references should/can be added.--— ZjarriRrethues —12:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Er.... it doesn't work like that. There is no justification for not using primary sources, provided that we use a secondary source to contextualise. "Outdated" might apply to a secondary source written 50 years ago, but doesn't apply in the case of primary sources (and none of the secondary sources we are using are old). And in any case I'm not even proposing we quote primary sources! And finally can we stop with calling eveything "POV" - this is a very lazy argument that suggests anything that someone doesn't agree with or like is automatically due to someone else pushing their own opinion. I'm starting to detect bias - may Alexikouabe right that there is a "kind of taboo situation on this". I want to start hearing real concrete arguments and some solutions. Contaldo80 (talk) 12:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
It's been suggested that I am looking to suggest that Ali Pasha "was gay". Can I clarify that this is not my intention. "Gay" is a 20th century term with strong cultural connotations. Whatever Pasha may have been, he wasn't "gay" or wouldn't have recognised himself as such. The issue is fundamentally about whether he kept a male harem (and secondary whether that provides any evidence for homosexual, bisexual behaviour or pederasty). Contaldo80 (talk) 13:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually the only reason to avoid to mention something that's confirmed by the majority of Ali's biographies (primary/secondaries) is taboo and prejudice, not to mention that some Albanian nationalists found this a good field to initiate their edit war (like Kustrim and ip- revert only -accounts).Alexikoua (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
The point that (talk) makes is that discussion is not proceeding objectively and dispassionately based on the facts. That may suggest a degree of prejudice or distaste for the issue under discussion - I sincerely hope that is not the case. Contaldo80 (talk) 15:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
If that is a point made by Alexikoua, he had better refrain from raising it, for he is an editor who has hardly ever in all his career on Misplaced Pages made a single edit to any article that was not directly motivated by a single POV agenda (namely, making Albanians look bad and Greeks look good in the struggle over Epirus). What I object to in this situation is that we have a tradition of quite deeply and obviously flawed third-rate historiography in much of the literature, infected by orientalist stereotype and political prejudice, and that this tradition is being pushed along here through an unholy alliance of cheap sensationalism, an ethnic anti-Albanian agenda, and an apparent agenda in certain quarters of fringe "gay" scholarship that attempts to make pederasty appear ubiquitous. That agenda used to be pushed infamously by Haiduc (talk·contribs) here on WP, who thank God was banned, and who pushed it on the basis of equally third-rate sourcing on Albanian pederasty until that was rightly deleted. Here, we now have a single reliable source, and that is the one that explains how all the others are crap, which calls all the anecdotal material "largely conjectural", and which refused to deal with the matter any further beyond that. This is what we need to stick to. Fut.Perf.☼16:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Right - that's why I suggested we say: "Widespread tales emerged from visitors to Pasha's court of his sexual proclivities. Not only keeping a large harem of women, but also a seraglio of male youths, some of whom were in constant attendance. Such accounts, however, may reflect the wider Orientalist imagination of the west, and consequently underplay the more important historical role of Pasha".
Incidentally I think your jibe on "fringe "gay" scholarship" is unnecessary and unwarranted here. It is quite legitimate to try and cover the LGBT angle in articles provided there is balance and substance. I accept fair discussion to get that balance right, but do not think it needs to be mocked. Nor do I have an interest in making "pederasty appear ubiquitous". Nor have I yet to hear convincing arguments based on evidence that the literature itself is fundamentally flawed. I accept Fleming's arguments that the orientalist imagination overplayed the sexual elements and underplayed the wider political elements. But that is not the same as saying that the sexual elements had no basis in fact at all. Contaldo80 (talk) 16:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I already explained why the Drake chapter is unusable. Fleming explains why Foss is unusable. Murray's chapter is just a naive, uncritical rehashing of the same kinds of sources, Foss first among them, without any attempt at a critical evaluation of these accounts. The guy is no historian, and I am calling this "fringe" because I suspect the reason that a work of this low quality could be printed in a superficially respectable academic outlet is only because it places itself in the niche field of gay studies, where it is shielded from the exacting academic standards of real historians. A work like that wouldn't last a minute in a peer-reviewed environment of actual historical research. Fut.Perf.☼05:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
