Talk:Persia

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New Correction[edit]

I did some simple corrections to solve the problem in the old Persia which was a completely incorrect disambig page and had been caused about 858 articles to point to a wrong location.

1. Persia now have its own disambig page

2. And Persian its own disambig.

3. The item Perspolis had nothing to do in any of disambig pages above.

4. This way, I removed Redirection from Persian to Persia and made each page individual.

Note that the term Persia in 99% of places refers to ancient name of Iran and I think I could sacrifice those references in articles of city names in U.S. like Persia, Iowa and Persia, New York and Persia, California, in order to correct the other 99% of articles.

User:Sepand

Old Moves and Renaming[edit]

I think that Dab's points and Zereshk's edits have revealed some good points:

  • Persia and Persian are terms that define a culture group. The articles Persians and Culture of Iran try to address this ethnic group, and both do it very badly.
  • Iran is a term for an empire/kingdom/republic that has been used for centuries.
  • Iran has also been called Persia, which complicates things.

The clearest thing to do would be to change the Persia article into an article about the culture and send all the historical information to History of Iran. The problem with that is that hundreds and hundreds of Wikipedia articles link to Persia and Persian Empire, and most of those links want to go to articles on the kingdom and empire, not the cultural group. I think the best course would be this:

  • Move all the cultural content of this page either to Persians, Persian culture, or Culture of Iran.
  • Move all the historical information to History of Iran. Change this page into a redirect to History of Iran.
  • Make the top of History of Iran say, "This article is about the history of Iran, historically known as Persia. For the culture of Persia, see Persian culture."
  • Whenever anyone finds a link to "Persia" or the "Persian Empire," have it direct, if possible, to the specific dynasty or empire it refers to. Most of these links to Persia really want the Achaemenid dynasty, while many others want the Sassanid, Safavid, Qajar, or other dynasties.

That's one solution. Something has to be done to ease the confusion caused by the current setup. Fishal 20:43, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the current setup is confusing and needs re-organizing. I also agree with the first 3 bullets of your solution. Luckily, the historical section of Persia, and the History of Iran page are complementary; 70% of the History of Iran page is about 20th century Iran, whereas the opposite is true in the Persia page.
However I think that if we want things to technically be correct, we should redirect Persia to Iran after doing what you said.
Yet since this will be a major restructuring task, I suggest we obtain the vote of approval of User:Refdoc and User:Pouya as well before doing this. I'll be happy to help do this if my help is needed.--Zereshk 05:09, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good call. But I still think Persia should take you to "History of Iran" because in just about every context, Persia refers to Iran at some point in the past. Check out "What Links Here" from the Persia article. Like I said, hundreds of articles link there, and most refer tp the Achaemenid or other empires of the past. Fishal

Technically you are correct User:Fishal: just about in every context, "Persia" refers to Iran at some point in the past. That is how it is. But, in my opinion, it isn't how they should be. It is a mis-conception I think. Most Iranians or Persians dont think of themselves or "Persia" as a thing of the past (although nominally-officially it is). This is in fact what I meant by the "erroneous popular perception" at the top of the Persia article. But then again, I am open to the possibility that this is just my opinion.--Zereshk 02:02, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Right, but I think the fact that "Iranians have always called their country Iran" does make the name "Persia" kind of anachronistic. Iran is certainly not a thing of the past, and neither are the Persian people. But "Persia," the state, is a thing of the past. I think that our goal should be making the WIkipedia as easy to navigete as possible, and that means making sure links go where people expect them to go. Yes, someone writing about ancient Greece will link to Persia without considering the social or cultural weight that that term carries; but the fact is, hundreds or articles do that, and I feel like we have to accomodate them if we want a harmonious Wikipedia. So... I think we need feedback from others, and we need to get it quickly because right now the article is in this awkward transitional stage. -- Fishal 04:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


  1. I made a link to Persia (disambiguation) on top of the page. We can also make this page a disambiguation page instead of a redirect. The previous version of Persia (disambiguation) contained a list of topics related to Persia. I moved them all to a new page List of Persia-related topics, that might be helpful.
  2. Currently, Persian empire is a redirect page to List of kings of Persia. A great part of material in Persia can be moved to Persian empire and a condensed form of it can be put in History of Iran where a link to Main article (Persian empire) should be available.
  3. Persian was also a redirect page to Persia (disambiguation). I made it a disambig page.
  4. Since the definition of Persia in the page relates it to peoples possessing Persian characteristics and culture, we may create Persian people and put a shortened form of parts pertaining to Persian art, Persian literature and other related topics in that page while making links to more comprehensive pages.
  5. History of Persia currently redirects to Persia. We better make it link to History of Iran when it contain enough content about Persian empire.

--Pouya 11:50, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Zereshk asked me a while back to comment and I did not. I am sorry. It was not out of disregard, but I really struggle with this article and I said so much a long while back. The difficulty is the existence of a multiethnic empire called Persian Empire, a relatively small ethnic group called Persians, a much larger conglomerate of merging/merged/alligned/similar ethnic groups, an overarching culture common to many more ethnic groups and finally a language common to a number of ethnic groups paradoxically not all as easily subsumed under one heading as other groups who do not share the same language. So it is messy - typically human history really - and difficult to categorise. The article actually reflects this quite nicely by its own messiness :-)... It would be maybe easier to do a split along Pouya's lines, but link all articles tightly with lost of cross-over liinks and some catergories too. P.S.: I certainly think it is reductionist to the extreme to redirect Persian Empire to a list of Persian Kings. Refdoc 11:59, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the aforementioned. But Im afraid Im a bit lost on how to proceed with this all. It seems we have more links than I thought, adding to the confusion. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the moving business can lead the way, and I will just help with the tidbits and fine-tuning of the contents of the new pages.--Zereshk 14:11, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you, Refdoc, that some new categories and links are needed. But I think we all can agree that we have these tasks to start out:

  1. Take the historical info from Persia and put it into Persian Empire.
  2. Put a shortened form of it into History of Iran.
  3. Make History of Persia redirect to History of Iran.
  4. Take the cultural info from Persia and put it into Persians. (Pouya, that article already attempts to cover the concept of "Persian people")
  5. Turn Persia into a disambiguation page.

I would also suggest making Persian redirect to Persia and have it serve as a disambiguation page for Persia and Persians. Fishal 19:19, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK. I'll take care of item one and two.--Zereshk 19:35, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems you are concurrently working on that too! I'll then go ahead and transfer the cultural stuff to the Persian Culture page.--Zereshk 20:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

... and disambig links[edit]

Recently a well intentioned user started working through the list at Wikipedia:Offline_reports/This_is_one_of_the_most_linked_to_disambiguation_pages, picking the Persia item and started going through the ~1500 linking articles changing the disambig to [[Iran|Persia]]. Many of these are no doubt a bad idea. However, I see from the discussion above that many people here would recommend disambig links into the appropriate time period/section of Persian Empire.

That's a pretty big job. I would suggest that the folks who watch this page are better placed with the knowledge and motivation to do this correctly. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before some one else also dabs Persia -> Iran.

Alternatively, now would be a good time to discuss a different strategy. -- Solipsist 07:20, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:Fishal would be the appropriate person to addres this, I think. He has put a lot of effort into this.--Zereshk 18:39, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

H'm, I've -blissfully unaware- started disambiguating links - on the handful of pages I've done so far, Persia is used for, as you say, the Persian Empire of some time period. Has a conclusion been reached on this point, or should I refrain from disambiguating for the moment? Semprini 14:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In some cases, Persia is used in articles refering to a mostly geographic concept, and linking it to Iran or the Persian Empire would not make sence, as those articles are talking mostly about a political entity (see Mohalib, Islamic conquest of South Asia). This arises because the usage is from a time between the existance of these two political bodies. We have and article called Americas to describe that purely geographic existancy, how should we deal with the geographic persia? Smmurphy 07:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Persia and Iran[edit]

The whole world, from the English "Persia and Persian" to the Danish "Persisk" to the Hindi and Persian "Parsi" the era, nationality, and global representation of Iran (Land of Aryans) has always and will always be known as Persia. From Persian Carpets to Persian Poets to the Persian Caviar, the word Persian is what the world has used to describe derivatives from the land of Iran including Persians themselves. In History, the word Iran has been used to describe the Persian land as Persians considered their land the land of Aryans. Iran is a description of the Persian Land, not a name. It can be said, Iran is Persia, Persia is Iran. Reza Shah only declared the world to use the word Iran to refer to Persia after his co-operation with Hitler and the exchange of Aryan philosophy. The country Persia didn't change, nor was it taken over or invaded. The ruling goverment only changed. England or United Kingdom or Great Britian has more names than any other country, one can respectively argue the true name for Britian, England or whatever, to a deeper level than Persia. Is the British Empire or English Empire or United Kingdom Empire??? The same way someone in Qatar or Jordan are Arab, the same way people in Iran are Persian. People living in Iran are NOT Iranians, they are Persians. Do you call people in Qatar, Qatari's or Jordanese? No, they are Arabs. The word Persia and Iran are intertwined deeply and will be forever. As long as the Persian people see them selves as Persians living in Iran the land of Aryans so will the world. - Sina (UK)

Parsa[edit]

The etymology in the Persia article currently stops at "<Old Persian Parsa". Does anybody have a reference that traces the etymology further back (and thus, the etymology of Parthia further back as well)? Alexander 007 05:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to redirect[edit]

Over the past several months, what appears to be one user with a dynamic IP address has attempted several times to redirect this title to Persia (disambiguation). This has been reverted each time, by several different users. If this happens again, I will semi-protect the page to prevent further IP edits until a consensus on the redirect is reached.

Technically, the proposed edit is incorrect, because if "Persia" is indeed (as the edit implies) an ambiguous name without a primary topic, then the disambiguation page should be moved to this title, rather than being the target of a redirect. Therefore, if any user supports the change of the existing redirect, the correct method to propose this would be to propose on Talk:Persia (disambiguation) to move the disambiguation page to this title.

Apart from that, repeatedly attempting the same edit after it has been reverted by multiple other editors is a disruptive practice. Although Wikipedia encourages you to be bold, it also encourages you to engage in collaborative dialogue when your boldness results in disputes. The preferred approach is bold, revert, discuss, not "bold, revert, repeat". --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the page should be semi-protected (indefinitely), as I have already asked for it. I believe the current redirect (Persia redirecting to Iran) is correct. Regards, In fact 09:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Following the latest episode of such an undiscussed change, I have now semi-protected the page. bd2412 T 04:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Page is now fully protected. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:22, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 1 February 2014[edit]

Remove {{pp-pc2}} tag now the this redirect is no longer under PC2 protection. Guy Macon (talk) 04:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I've added Category:Redirects from historic names and Category:Protected redirects as well. "Historic" looked like the most apt term here, but if there's a better redirect template let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 4 December 2016[edit]

99.109.85.105 (talk) 01:58, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not done, as it's an empty request. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:58, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 13 April 2017[edit]

Can you please convert it to {{Redirect category shell}} because {{This is a redirect}} is deprecated 2602:306:36D5:5690:A93D:AC0D:17F8:1EE0 (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done please specify the exact text you want this changed to, the parameters on those templates appear to differ. — xaosflux Talk 01:45, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 23 May 2017[edit]

Please substitute {{This is a redirect}} so that it gets replaced by {{Redirect category shell}}, as the former template is deprecated. —MRD2014 📞 contribs 21:17, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:23, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 18 December 2023[edit]

Please add {{R with old history}} within the {{Rcat shell}} - the earliest revision in the history is Special:Permalink/404271 from Feb 2002.

Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 20:41, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done * Pppery * it has begun... 21:23, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Pppery: I might well be wrong here (please tell me if I am), but shouldn’t this redirect be tagged with {{R with history}} as well as {{R with old history}}? The reason I ask is because the former refers to the redirect containing substantive page history, while the latter to it being from a historical version of this Wikipedia project - and this redirect seems to meet both of those criterions. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 21:33, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about that, but {{R with history}} explicitly says This template should not be used for redirects [...] from a title that forms a historic part of Wikipedia, so I would say it doesn't apply. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough - thanks for the response :) ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 21:39, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]