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Biography: Military Start‑class

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Military history: Biography / North America / United States Start‑class

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A fact from Thomas Henry Barry appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 May 2009 (check views). A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2009/May.

Quotes

I politely disagree with removing the quotes in the references. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I politely disagree with you adding them in the first place. The vast majority of the community does not use them, consensus is against them. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Footnotes#Style_recommendations "he decision on whether to use quotes in footnotes is primarily a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Some citation templates include parameters for quotes, and quoted text can also be added inside a footnote either preceding of following a template-produced citation. Quoting text can be useful for the verifiability of material in an article. Footnoted quotes are acceptable if they are brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted..." these quotes are not brief and do not add anything appreciable. Every ref does not warrant a quote. Just like you added to R.A.C. Smith and George Murray Hulbert today, you add them because you like them but they are not used by most of the community, so consensus is against you. Do you recall the famous ANI thread on this from over a year ago? — Rlevse • Talk • 21:50, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Norton, I came across this question on your Talk page after I saw the new article R.A.C. Smith and edited it to remove the overuse of footnoted quotes. As I said at Talk:R.A.C. Smith, there is certainly no justification for extensive text quotes in citation footnotes, especially when you've already linked the cite to a stable online source such as the NY Times where verifiability is not an issue. Using the quote parameter in a citation should be done sparingly, such as to provide the reader with a fuller quote from a book when its inclusion in the main article text would be undesirable. I agree with Rlevse and have removed them here, in line with customary practice and consensus.  JGHowes  13:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Howes. I too saw this article discussed earlier today on RAN's talk page. I use the quotation feature in quotes, including a few edits earlier today, a built-in design feature of Misplaced Pages. It provides additional context for a quotation, especially useful when the sources are not available online as for articles in The New York Times before 1981, for which the vast majority of readers will not have access, no matter how stable the source is. There is no customary practice or consensus on this matter and it is purely a matter of personal preference. You are free to not use it and to ignore it when used. When I see someone edit an article on my watchlist and all that has been done was to change "color" to "colour" or "27 July" to "July 27", in cases where there is no clear choice of UK or US English, I shake my head at the waste of time of trying to impose an arbitrary preference. Just as I would not start a needless edit war over such formatting, I fail to see why anyone would start an edit war based on your personal preference. Rlevse is certainly aware of efforts to address the "footnoted quote" issue, for which Arbcom basically decided that the choice was an arbitrary one up to individual editors. If he wanted to utilize his position at the time as clerk to eliminate the use of footnoted quotes the opportunity was there and it was not taken. At this point, there is absolutely no policy issue preventing the use of quotes in footnotes and I see no consensus for their removal. In stating that a majority of people don't use the feature, Rlevse misrepresents the meaning of "consensus" in insisting that no one is allowed to use it ("you add them because you like them but they are not used by most of the community, so consensus is against you"). One would hope that admins and bureaucrats would be the first people to allow editors adding sources to articles to edit rather than to manufacture issues and create controversy where none exist. There must be real problems happening somewhere on Misplaced Pages where your collective authority can address far more genuine issues of importance. Alansohn (talk) 01:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

As you both well know, the FQ case said it was a community style decision. The vast majority of articles use few, if any fn quotes. I just checked the last 4 FA's on the main page. Only one uses any and it uses them sparingly and judiciously. So claiming these are the norm does not hold water. In this case, there is no consensus whatsoever that these need to be here, so RAN, who just put them back in, is only exacerbating the issue rather than trying to discuss it first. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's follow this logic. The last 4 FAs are not about people with three first names, or major generals or people who lived in Lower Manhattan. Therefore it is impossible to have an article with any of these features and they must be deleted immediately. That the last 4 or 14 or 104 articles you checked do not have some feature you arbitrarily do not prefer has no relevance here other than in trying to push your personal bias. The standard you demand that footnoted quotes can only be added if there is explicit consensus "that these need to be here" has been plucked out of thin air; It does not exist. It does Misplaced Pages a disservice to have bureaucrats edit warring by insisting that a design feature of Misplaced Pages cannot be used under any circumstances. You are free to use them sparingly as you see fit, or not at all, but an edit war solely for the purpose of imposing your view only serves to disrupt Misplaced Pages. Are there no real problems in Misplaced Pages that they have to be manufactured here about footnoted quotes after the needless disruption created a year ago because one editor decided to edit war on the subject? Why do you want to be Misplaced Pages's next User:RedSpruce, trying to create a confrontation when one does not exist? Don't bureaucrats have better things to deal with? Alansohn (talk) 05:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

"...useful when the sources are not available online..."– but in every instance in this article, the sources are linked and available to all, surely only a tiny fraction does not have pdf reader capability? Pasting entire paragraphs of NY Times articles in Misplaced Pages footnotes is superfluous, contrary to guidelines, and, in the case of articles published since 1923, a copyvio. We are supposed to paraphrase in our own words, citing the source, not pasting the source verbatim in articles or footnotes as you are doing. As WP:REF explains, a quote should be used in a citation only "...rarely, if the source is likely to be challenged". This does not fall into the rare exception case, and personal preferences do not trump Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, which should always be uppermost for all concerned. JGHowes  11:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

As a subscriber to The New York Times, paying several hundred dollars per year, I am granted a password-restricted access to all articles in the paper's archives before 1981 that are not made "available to all", even if every single internet user has access to read the .pdf files the paper uses to provide access only to its subscribers. Even if they were available online in their entirety to all readers there is no policy that forbids their use and inclusion. While the WP:COPYVIO policy is often dragged in to claim that such quotes are forbidden in footnotes, these same quotes of the same length are explicitly permitted to be "pasted... verbatim in articles" as long as there is appropriate attribution, a standard clearly met here when the quotation is within the source itself. These quotes here are brief, relevant and directly support the statements being included in the article. As I recall from my previous interactions with User:Rlevse after he started an edit war at another article, a gaggle of his fellow admins (and a few other editors) who had never edited the article in question before -- and with whom he has had frequent past contact on talk pages -- magically appeared to support his position. Rlevse is the most prolific editor on your talk page (other than yourself) and you are in the top 20 of the more than 1,000 editors who have edited his talk page. You have made 13 edits in a two-day span, nine of which appear to assist Rlevse in his latest cause and the other four being some random vandalism removal. I sincerely hope that this same pattern is not occurring all over again here to help out Rlevse in this latest edit war. I will do my best to assume in all good faith that this is not the case despite past history and the unusual circumstances here. Wouldn't it be great if our admins and bureaucrats dealt with the real issues on Misplaced Pages rather than going out of their way to manufacture edit wars where none are needed? Alansohn (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Rlevse and JGHowes on this issue. We should simply cite the source; inserting needless quotes will damage the bio. AdjustShift (talk) 15:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I oftentimes find quotations helpful in footnotes, especially when I read published books, i.e. being able to see right then and there the actual quotations from whence the information came. It is also helpful as a fast way of checking that the citation is not taken out of context and because they are just in the notes, it really does not hurt the flow of the main text. Best, --A Nobody 16:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

How exactly is the bio "damaged" by providing information to support the material being referenced? Why do a bureaucrat and multiple admins believe that an edit war over this issue is appropriate? Alansohn (talk) 17:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, let's see. I edited the quotes on only one day and RAN did so every day so far. Looks to me like RAN is the one editwarring. And it's interesting you're the one arguing for him instead of him dicussing it himself on the talk. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I am too familiar with the extreme damage and disruption results when someone dares to take the opposite side of an issue from yours and I'm discussing the issue here on the talk page, where you should have started the discussion before starting your edit war. Unlike you and your fellow admins who have jumped in here, I am not going to manufacture a rather foolish edit war in the article itself. I saw your two blind reverts here and here followed later both by a belated effort to start a discussion and by what could well be a meatpuppet jumping in to make a third revert for you. I am not going to pull the same policy violation in the article. I am following policy and discussing the problems created by your edit warring and trying to understand why the apparent team Rlevse strategy, in which other admins conveniently jump in to assist in the policy violation, is necessary. I have already debated this issue in the past and I'd prefer to do it with you, rather than your surrogates, and to do so on the talk page, not in the article as you have done. Alansohn (talk) 21:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Alansohn, please stop assuming bad faith. I am not trying to manufacture a silly edit war; I'm trying to do my best for the bio. We should write articles in our own words, and cite the source. Using copy-and-paste quotes in articles is needless. Here on en.wikipedia, we rely on inline citations. If someone wants to check that the citation is not taken out of context, he should check the source himself. WP readers can check the source. It is not important to use quotes so that the reader is able to see exactly where the information is in the source. Spoonfeeding a WP reader is a spectacularly bad idea. AdjustShift (talk) 02:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Quotes in footnotes is part of a deliberate, built-in design feature of our citation templates here on en.wikipedia. This is ultimately a matter of preference, with nothing to do with policy. I understand you don't like it and that you believe in all good faith that an article is somehow worse because it includes additional information in the form of footnoted quotes. On the contrary, I believe that they are a definite benefit to this article, with an equal amount of good faith on my part. Rather than telling a reader "hey, I dare you to click on this link, look at this source and search high and low to find what I might be referring to", I have the opportunity to make it infinitely clear what is being referenced from the source. I don't use it all the time, but I use it frequently as a means to inform the reader and to be rather specific about the referenced material. Feel free to look at the sources I and others have added within references and exercise your right to ignore the quotations if you feel you don't benefit from the information. It baffles me that you are one of three different admins who deems this a valid justification for blind reverts using justifications such as "needless" and "superfluous", purely to make the WP:POINT that you're not fans of these quotations, all the worse by doing so in a manner that reeks of meatpuppetry. That you feel the practice is "needless" or "not important" is a spectacularly bad excuse to needlessly manufacture an edit war over something that is truly not important. I will never force you to add quotations within your footnotes and I hope that you will offer the same courtesy to me and others who do use them. Alansohn (talk) 22:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Alansohn, you are not assuming good faith. I've not done any blind revert, I've erased needless quotes. There is no consensus to insert quotes in the bio, and I don't believe inserting quotes will benefit the bio. AdjustShift (talk) 14:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

You have removed them because you deem them "needless" and you "don't believe inserting quotes will benefit the bio". I do. And I've made the case that having these quotations makes the material being sourced clearer for all readers. I find it bizarre that three admins would be edit warring over the use of a design feature of the citation templates in en.wikipedia. There's a very simple solution: I will never force you (or any other editor) to add quotations in references and ask you not to force me (and other editors) to remove them based on your arbitrary preference on the matter. If you scroll down in an article and see such quotations, just ignore them. Respecting the fact that there are differences in opinion in these matters and allowing for such variations is exactly what admins should be promoting, rather than working together to impose preferences where it is truly "not important". Alansohn (talk) 16:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring by User:AdjustShift

It is truly disappointing that there is still edit warring going on in this article with the justification "There still is no consensus on the talk page to insert the quotes" (this diff) on a matter of personal preference for which there is no consensus on removal. It is truly sad that we can't count on admins to respect editing preferences and to instead see them work together to impose their views on a matter that is truly unimportant. That the best rationalization for removal is that these quotes are "needless" is a rather poor excuse to continue an edit war with a rather simple solution: Respect other editors and the way they use Misplaced Pages's design features. Alansohn (talk) 16:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

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