[Freeciv-Dev] Re: historical background on nations/leaders Was:historical background on wonders

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

  Mathias and others,

The topic of Real World history appear quite often here, and as
Arkadiusz said there is a lot of interest in it, but until now,
it always had some relevance to the game, e.g. it was related to the
rules to be used for city names.  A border case is discussions in the
nations to include and the names of their leaders and cities.  Many
list members think these should not be discussed here at all, saying
Freeciv is only a game.  If the likely content of the Civilopedia and
the ensuing discussions on history become the subject of discussion
here, I think we will have a lot of aggravation.

Would it be worthwhile to ask John Goerzen to create a separate list,
freeciv-pedia?

> But Tomasz's statements in our discussion about German leaders
> draw a completely different picture about polish history lessons -
> which confused me.

You have to be very careful in interpreting e-mail, often
there is irony or dry humour where you don't expect it.
Public mailing lists are not the easiest medium to discuss
sensitive subjects.

> I was asking if Hitler should be listed with the other German
> rulers. I believe that - without no comment - this glorifies 
> him, for people not that common with German history.

Well, it lists him as one of the most important German leaders.
 
> Since Tomasz showed me, that taking him out of the list,
> would enforce us to _censore_ *all* dictators, I think
> a short historical report about nations and leaders would
> be a compromise.

The optimal solution would be hyperlinks everywhere, so you could
click on any leader's name to find the explanation ...
 
> BTW: Something else which confuses me in Tomasz's picture of 
> the world is that he sees Hitler as a "normal" dictator...

It would be difficult to find convincing criteria that keep
Hitler off the list while Stalin, Mao, and many others stay on.

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