Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:15, 21 August 2008

Welcome!

Hello, Mountdrayton, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!

MOS stuff

Hey there, just so you know, it's not necessary to change dates from a "November 5" format to a "5 November" format. Both are acceptable. Cheers, Murderbike (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

There's also a setting in your "preferences" that controls how Misplaced Pages displays dates to you. - JasonAQuest (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

March 2008

Welcome, and thank you for experimenting with Misplaced Pages. Your test on the page Michael Leunig worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment further, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Gillyweed (talk) 01:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know that your "experiments" on the page David Kindersley were absolutely spot on. Thanks and well done Motmit (talk) 08:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a tip - put something on your user page. Red user names come second to IP numbers as questionable editors - Regards Motmit (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Max Plowman

Thanks for the useful edits there. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Blanking and deleting categories

Why? Why are you deleting categories, inserting redundant ones, and blanking at least one page? I don't understand the meaning of this. Please respond on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks I also studied philosophy at university and earlier today I was reading a text on logic; I hope that is useful as well.

First off, let me clarify what might be a misunderstanding on your part: these ethnic categories are just that - they refer to a nationality of an individual, not his citizenship, per se. For instance, Albert Einstein is in several "American X," "German X," "Jewish X," and "Swiss X" categories. Clearly, the American ones only refer to citizenship, the Jewish ones only to ethnicity, and the German and Swiss ones to some combination of the two.

Personally, I am a bit put-out by the very notion of "British X" categories, but clearly if someone is a "Scottish X" he is necessarily a "British X" by virtue of the fact that Scotland is in Britain. As long as "Scottish X" categories exist, they are more particularly and precise than "British X" categories and should be used. I see no reason why someone should be a "British X" and a "Scottish X" since the latter is a subcategory of the former. (Should he also be a "European X?" Simply an "X?") This is my point about redundant categories. I honestly do not understand why you wrote "inserting new ones" on my talk as I never alleged this of you.

Finally, if you want a category deleted, removing all its members and blanking it is precisely what not to do. You can - and should - start a discussion about it. If you make the following type of allegation to an admin: "X category is empty, it's a waste." One of two things may happen: 1.) he will be diligent and discover why it is empty (if it is empty because you emptied it and blanked it without discussion, he will not delete it) or 2.) he will notice that it is empty and delete it on good faith that someone didn't come along and empty it himself without any discussion or consensus. If you do want everyone removed from "English/Scottish/Welsh X" categories and have them deleted, that is fine and well, but you should seek consensus first and follow what it dictates.

Please respond on my talk if you have more to say on the topic. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone left me a message on my talk asking me to take a look. I skimmed so I may be missing some nuance here. If there is an issue with a particular category or set of categories, the way to get it resolved is to have a discussion at the Categories for discussion (CFD) page. This avoids doing a great deal of work that others revert, and hard feelings generally, because you already have consensus to do the change when you go to do it. I think if you have issues with some of these CO categories you should discuss it at CFD and see where it takes you. But just randomly removing things, blanking things and the like is not likely to work. I hope you find this advice helpful. If you're not quite sure how to start the discussion up at CFD please ask for help. ++Lar: t/c 21:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Categories again

Re John Tunnard (and I notice you've done the same with other articles): I can't at this instant point you to the guideline, but it is the convention not to include a regional parent category (e.g. if someone's in Category:English artists, you don't need also Category:British artists).

I just read the discussion at User talk:Koavf#Categories. You may well be right logically, but it simply isn't the way it's done here.

For instance, check out Robert Burns, Stanley Baker and Arthur Quiller-Couch. Although they were all British, the categories solely refer to them as Scottish, Welsh and Cornish. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing some of your other edits, I'd also encourage you to follow the advice given above about British vs. English categories for people. You've continued to engage in what could be seen as disruptive behaviour by continuing to change many of these categories after other editors have tried to explain to you the normal conventions that are followed on WP. It's basically a futile exercise, since your changes will likely just be reverted. If you'd like to discuss how a category is applied, you can place a nomination at WP:CFD (the instructions are on that page). Please heed their advice, and this advice; doing so will keep you from not only hurt feelings but other types of trouble as well. Good Ol’factory 22:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Any particular reason you're consistently ignoring this advice and continuing to make these kinds of edits? If I didn't know any better I'd begin to think you are using WP to make a point about the use of "British" vs. "English" or "Welsh". This, of course, would not be a good thing to be doing; is there is some other explanation? Good Ol’factory 02:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is some other explanation. At the risk of being a bore, let me recite the history.

I have been working in the field of conscientious objection for over thirty years. I currently have at my finger tips details of some 10,000 British objectors, 7000 of whom I have studied in some depth. (This is quite apart from overseas objectors, a whole other story.) It is hardly surprising, therefore, that on entering Misplaced Pages my first attention should be turned to COs, and, more specifically, British COs. I was gratified to find that there is a category of British COs, not simply because of my personal interest, but also because, in contrast with some Wiki categories, "British COs" is capable of unique and precise definition: "Persons who have been liable to British military conscription and who have conscientiously objected thereto".

On examining the British list within its wider context, I found three problem areas. There were some British COs who had been assigned to a general CO category, together with miscellaneous COs of other countries; there were British COs with Wiki articles who had not been assigned to a CO category at all; and there were British COs who had been assigned to a sub-category of English COs. I first set about gathering in the British COs from the general category (This seems to have usefully encouraged someone else to allocate other miscellaneous COs to a relevant country category, on a similar definition to mine - "Persons who have been liable to X military conscription and who have conscientiously objected thereto". I then worked on bringing in the British COs in Wiki who had not been assigned to a CO category at all, including a few "red" names who had not yet achieved an article. This left the "English COs" for further consideration.

Now, whatever other differences there may have been between England and other parts of Britain, there has never been any specifically English (or Welsh, Scottish or even Irish) system of military conscription, so a definition "Persons liable to English military conscription etc" does not make sense, and to use it as a direct contrast with "British COs" would misleadingly imply that there had been such a specifically English system which needed to be carefully distinguished. I considered the potential counter argument that what might be meant was English persons liable to British etc, as distinct from Welsh/Scottish persons liable etc, but apart from the question as to whether there is much point in such distinction, the distinction is not capable of absolute definition - there is no legal definition of "English" nationality. (This does not mean, of course, that nothing in Wiki can ever be defined as "English"; "MPs for English constituencies", or "English local authorities", are perfectly logical and proper categories.) But to attempt to separate out supposedly English COs is more likely to create new problems rather than solve any supposedly existing ones. Certainly, when I took a closer look at the designated "English" COs I could not find them any more obviously English than others not so designated, and, indeed, some were decidedly problematic. Guy Aldred, for example, was born in England, but spent half his life in Scotland, his adopted home and workplace, even bequeathing his body to a Scottish hospital; his personal CO experience was during his time in England, but his contribution to the wider CO movement, particularly through the Strickland Press and The Word, was rooted in Glasgow. Confining him to "English", if it serves any purpose at all, seems designed to exclude him from the purview of someone researching either the wider British or the more specifically Scottish scene and to what purpose except to obfuscate - which surely cannot be Wiki's objective? I could quote numerous other examples, but, doubtless, a moment's reflection will bring to mind cases from your researches where "English" is a reductio ad absurdum.

With that in mind, I transferred the "English" COs to the "British" category, leaving the "English" sub-category empty - it had had only half a dozen or so apparently randomly selected entrries as against the by now 100+ British entries. No-one complained, and, indeed, someone put up a discussion point suggesting that the "English" category was redundant and suggesting merger with the British one. I replied explaining the history, with reasons; no-one else intervened, and after a week or so the English category disappeared. I thought, how civilised, how rational - a work well done, and continued to gather in yet more British COs.

Then Justin Koavf entered the scene, and, without any discussion at all, entirely unilaterally, not only recreated the "English" sub-category, but also created entirely new "Welsh" and "Scottish" sub-categories. Inevitably, they involved confusions and anomalies of the kind I have described, as well as misleadingly implying the concept of specifically English/Welsh/Scottish conscription to which one needed to object. Although he had consulted no-one, I attempted to engage him in dialogue, explaining my own ratio decidendi, and inviting him to explain his. His only response was to say, "Personally, I am a bit put-out by the very notion of British X categories", which, so far from being a ratio, is 'using WP to make a point about the use of "British" vs. "English" or "Welsh"', in other words, the same private prejudice with which you were tempted to charge me.

Unable, therefore, to engage, I attempted a compromise by leaving his sub-categories for whatever private purpose they served him, and retaining the consistent and logical British category so that serious researchers would neither be confused nor misled. Then Gordenofcartoon entered the lists and admitted, I "may well be right logically, but it simply isn't the way it's done here" - which, sadly, again lacks any ratio.

It is apposite also to remark that I have talked and corresponded with hundreds of British COs, including some on the Wiki list, with the families of COs, with fellow researchers and others, and no-one outside Wiki has had any problem with the overall terminology "British COs". Some people are frankly amazed that there should be any dispute, and it is certainly not helping the reputation of Wiki.

You have asked me whether I have "any particular reason". I have attempted to explain my ratio decidendi in as coherent a way as I can. Can you please explain your own ratio in supporting Justin Koavf and Gordonofcartoon in their insistence on English/Welsh/Scottish sub-categories without any explanation of what they are supposed to mean or how they are defined - as distinct from my own specific self-contained definition of "British COs"?

Exactly what is your ratio for defining Guy Aldred as "English", but his co-worker and successor John Taylor Caldwell as "Scottish", when Caldwell himself was happy for them both to be British?

Why was Justin Koavf permitted without comment unilaterally to create his sub-categories, whilst I am censured for merely attemptin to restore the status quo ante?

Why is it apparently fine to have one all-US CO category without subdivision into states, and one all-Australian CO category without subdivision into states, but not fine to have one all-British CO category without subdivision?

Finally, as to the category discussion procedure, I regret, that, accustomed as I am to logical reasoning, I could not make sense of the procedure page to which you gave me a link. Moreover, the examples cited seemed to be of a less complex nature than the British vs English/Welsh/Scottish CO scenario.

Mountdrayton (talk) 02:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I was specifically referring to an instance that had nothing to do with COs. It was an instance of you chaning "English musician" to "British musician". I could haul up the instance if necessary, but in my opinion it's old news that you probably don't particularly want to address. In the case of COs, I'm not so much interested in either position (I don't care one way or the other), but my point is that it's always best to use the talk pages to discuss issues like this, especially when other editors have asked you to stop. Regardless of your personal logic you use, disregarding others and going forward and making the changes that you've been questioned about can cause hurt feelings and does little to solve the issue, since it just results in reversions of any changes you make. Good Ol’factory 03:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Another point of note: changing text from "he was born in York, England" to "he was born in York" is generally not a good idea in an encyclopedia which is used by non-British people since (1) there is more than one York, and (2) many readers won't know where "York" is, but seeing "York, England" will give them a better idea. This is generally true, but all the more so when the birthplace is mentioned before any statement of the person being English, British, or whatever. I realise this may not conform with what you think is logically the right thing to do or what is commonly done in the UK, but clarity is always a good thing. Good Ol’factory 03:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

F. Henry Edwards

Please see Talk:F. Henry Edwards#Death sentence concerning your edits to this page. Good Ol’factory 22:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to assert this, you must provide citations to independent, reliable sources, and not just assert it. Good Ol’factory 22:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you missed my above suggestion, so I'll restate it. You need to provide references for changes like this, especially when what you are asserting contradicts an already-existing source. If the sources disagree, then that can be discussed in the article. Good Ol’factory 22:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

You hardly gave me time to respond to your earlier comment, and I was, in any case, distracted in the midst of completing my original edit to the F Henry Edwards article. I can best summarise the position thus:

The original article asserted a claim that Edwards was sentenced to death, but reprieved, as a Brtish WW1 conscientious objector. It cited as a source for this claim an article to be found on the web. That article itself, however, is unsourced as to this claim, and gives no particulars as to date, place, or other circumstances of such claimed sentence; nor does it state any specific alternative sentence. On the other hand, the matter of British WW1 COs formally sentenced to death, but reprieved, is one of the most closely researched aspects of that era of conscientious objection. The War Office records in the National Archives and the records of the No-Conscription Fellowship, the main British CO organisation, agree that in June 1916, in courts-martial on five separate, identified, days, a total of 35, fully named and identified, COs were court-martialled in France, for disobedience, and formally sentenced to death, but immediately reprieved, a sentence of ten years penal servitude being substituted. The matter was the subject of questions and comment in Parliament. F Henry Edwards was not among those 35, nor was he among a wider cohort of 42 named COs improperly shipped to France, from whom the 35 men sentenced to death were selected. There is no record of any other death sentences on COs at any time, and no-one has ever suggested that any such records were supressed.

It seems likely that the fears and rumours of the time that other COs might be sentenced to death has been extrapolated over time, like Russian scandal or Chinese whispers, into a purported fact that Edwards was so sentenced. On any clear view of the total facts, that is not the case, although proving a negative is always more complicated than proving a positive. After considering carefully how best succinctly to deal with this matter, I elected to delete the manifestly erroneous claim of sentence to death, however sincerely made, but, in order to indicate that the deletion was not arbitrarily made, to append a note to the reference citation pointing out that that article is unsourced and, indeed, erroneous.

I trust you will see, therefore, that it is the original version of the Misplaced Pages entry, and its attributed source, which were making an unsubstantiated claim, and it is I who have gone to contemporary sources to disprove it. It would raise the original claim to an undeserving level of apparent importance to convert an almost throwaway half a sentence into a whole paragraph of detailed refutation, as you imply I should.

I hope you agree.

Mountdrayton (talk) 23:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason I gave a second notice is you made the same edit I objected to after I posted my comment. I just assumed you didn't see it, so I posted again. I'm not doubting any of the facts of what you write about above; however, the bottom line is we just need a source. If it's "one of the most closely researched aspects of that era of conscientious objection", then surely there's a source that exists that lists the names of the 35 men in question. This could be used as a source to state in the article that although some sources claim he was sentenced to death (the magazine article), there is no record of this in the War Office. It's not that complicated an issue, really, but we can't make changes in WP based on our own personal knowledge unless we provide sources to back up that knowledge. Good Ol’factory 00:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed. Mountdrayton, read the WP:NOR policy. Personally, I think Fellowship Magazine is not the most authoritative of sources - small publication, that might exaggerate for polemical purposes - but nevertheless, overriding it on grounds of your own unpublished research is not on. External sources are not required to provide their own sources. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 01:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's better. See, not so bad — now we have a source and it's sorted out. Good Ol’factory 03:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

A further comment: In fairness, it should be stated that Fellowship is a thoroughly reputable magazine, being the publication of the US Fellowship of Reconciliation, founded 1915. Andrew Bolton, however, is not one of their own members, and it seems likely that he submitted the article on behalf of the RLDS, not a group with which the FoR would ordinarily have much contact. A link on the article led me directly to the RLDS rather than the FoR. Neither the RLDS nor Bolton have so far responded to my emailed comments on the sentence of death claim, a silence which may well speak for itself.

Mountdrayton (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Let me know if you ever hear anything about that, I'd be interested to know what they say. Good Ol’factory 22:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

But, of course, WP:NOR needs bearing in mind. Private unpublished communications between Mountdrayton and RLDS/Bolton (and any editorial inference about their failure to reply) is completely inadmissable for use here per WP:NOR - unless they can point to usable sources. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 22:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes; I asked to be told simply out of personal curiousity, not for any editing purpose. Good Ol’factory 22:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

My email to Bolton/RLDS was primarily for their information rather than in expectation that they could provide anything useful, whether for Misplaced Pages or any other purpose. So far, I have not even had so much as a holding reply. I referred to the comment in the Fellowship article that repetition of Edwards' experience as a CO was discouraged in US RLDS circles, and suggested that the reason might well be that Edwards was embarrassed by the version in circulation because the purported sentence to death at the core of it is untrue.

When I have more time I may write to the US FoR directly about the discrepancy in the article snd invite their comment as to the circumstances in which it was published.

Mountdrayton (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I have now received a reply from Andrew Bolton, the author of the Fellowship article, apologising that he has just returned from an extended trip abroad. He has conceded that the death sentence account handed down within RLDS and the family has no verifiable source and is contradicted by established sources on British CO death sentences. He is in touch with Edwards' son, and they are both keen to collaborate with me in refining the account of Edwards' CO experience as much as we can. This may be put up on the RLDS website, so that it can become a citable source.

Mountdrayton (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Re minor edits

One other procedural point: I recommend you check out Help:Minor edit. The minor edit flag is reserved for completely uncontentious edits that require "no review and could never be the subject of a dispute" (e.g. correction of obvious spelling mistakes). Changes like altering or adding categories aren't viewed as minor, especially if they have already been disputed, and to mark major edits as minor is widely viewed as poor etiqette. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Help please

I am working on the Timeline of children's rights in the United Kingdom and wonder if you could please help me with citations to amplify details of call-up in 1942 and post-war peace time conscription. Thanks SJB (talk) 15:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this. You seem to have set yourself a mammoth task, not least because I imagine from your spelling that you are from the other side of the pond, as they say; it would also account for one or two other eccentricities. How did you get hooked on this particular topic?

That apart, I am also puzzled that, wide as your self-appointed remit is, you seem to have made it even wider. I cannot see that you have anywhere offered your own definition of a child. Under the UNCRC, as you will know, the age is set at 18. Yet a number of the cases and incidents you cite relate mainly, if not solely, to over-18s. Conscription in the UK is one such (about which you ask me), as it never applied to under-18s, except that, by voluntary arrangement, at the time of post-WW2 conscription, a boy coming up to 18 could ask for his call-up to be expedited if it would assist him to be released at a particular time to enter a university or college - a very minor marginal detail affecting a minuscule number of youths.

It may be that you are taking the view that until the change in the age of majority, which you refer to only as the voting age, whereas it is much more than that, you are taking the view that all persons under 21 were children. If so, you need to spell that out. Even with that, some of your examples seem to go beyond the children's realm. The Brixton riot, so far as I was aware of it, was primarily an adult affair, and I would not ordinarily expect to see it discussed in the specific context of children's rights.

On the other hand, though you have fascinatingly dug out some interesting early cases, I looked in vain for Denis O'Neill, who died in 1945 as a foster child in Shropshire, for Lady Allen of Hurtwood (incidentally the widow of Clifford Allen), whose letter to the Times you refer to in a footnote, but without giving her the credit, and for the Curtis Committee, all of which led to the Children Act 1948. I mention these simply because they sprang immediately and automatically to mind, without my having to turn to any works of reference ot the web, as I read through your timeline.

As you will see, I did some tidying up as I read through your screed, but before I go into the details of WW2 conscription, I need to know how you see it affecting "children".

Mountdrayton (talk) 01:47, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks very much for the comments and edits. I've transferred your comments and my responses to the article talk page.. SJB (talk) 13:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)