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October 2009[edit]

user:Alex Craven you made a edit to this page. I have some questions.

Why did you remove most of the references to ODNB? For example:

  • "He has sometimes been numbered amongst the regicides; however, although he attended on the day that the sentance was agreed, Dove took no other part in the trial of Charles I, did not sign the death warrant, and he was not punished at the Restoration." has no reference, while previously "although active on several parliamentary committees he took no part in the trial and execution of King Charles I other than to attend when the sentence was agreed, on 26 January 1649" was referenced.
  • "He and his brother Francis (mayor of Salisbury in 1645 and 1650) were zealous parliamentarians, serving on a number of county committees from 1644" Where in the source that you used to replaced the ODNB is the opinion that he was zealous?
  • "His will was written in October 1664 and proved in March 1665: TNA, PROB 11/316, sig. 24." is a primary source and as presented is not from a secondary source, such as the ODNB -- where it was previously cited (All primary sources must be taken from published secondary sources (see WP:PRIMARY). -- PBS (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt Alex Craven can reply for himself. I have no critical knowledge of this ODNB article (by Gordon Goodwin, revised by Andrew Warmington), but of course the ODNB is notoriously unreliable. In October 2004, Andrew Warmington appeared on BBC TV's Mastermind quiz show offering the English Civil War as his specialist subject. In the general knowledge round he got six questions wrong in a row and finished last. Moonraker2 (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about the ODNB being 'notoriously unreliable', and I have no knowledge of Andrew Warmington. Most of my edits were because the original entry was badly written, and I thought it unnecessary to repeat ad nauseum a reference that could conveniently be cited at the top. If it's Wikipedia house style to keep repeating the same reference, then pop it back in.
As for primary sources, leaving aside the fact that the Wiki guidelines to which you directed me describe only one aspect of primary material, they also say: "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." I think that citing the dates that a will was written and proved falls within that sphere, and citing the reference to the primary source is more useful for somebody who might want to research Dove. As the ODNB online version is only available to subscribers, and not all libraries bother with the printed volumes, readers might not be able to find the references to the original material themself.
The nonsense thing is, of course, that when I publish this myself next year, I can make the quite logical conclusion that a man who served on almost every county committee from 1644-60, served in the Long Parliament and the Rump, was colonel of the county's militia, and High Sheriff in 1654 was a zealous Parliamentarian, and then cite myself on here as a secondary source, but I can't just make that quite obvious conclusion now. --Alex Craven (talk) 05:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have myself found many terrible mistakes in the ODNB. Vernon Bogdanor has called it (among other things) "thoroughly slipshod", while Nikolai Tolstoy has said of Bogdanor's comments that they are "overly mild".
There isn't a problem with a source which isn't available online, let alone one which is available to most users of UK public libraries.
If we need to recycle the same footnote, we can do it by using (the first time) <ref name=somename>Author, title, date, page number, etc.</ref>, and then after that <ref name=somename/>. That displays the same superscript number in the text, all going down to the same footnote. Moonraker2 (talk) 11:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as many of my colleagues wrote entries for the ODNB, I'm not going to make sweeping dismissive remarks. The advantage of an online, text, of course, is that corrections can be made easily.
Thanks for the tag. How is that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex Craven (talk • contribs) 15:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's it.
No doubt you're right that criticisms should be targeted and not aimed at the whole ODNB, which is huge. The trouble is, having found that standards there aren't what they were, it becomes harder to trust it. When you have to judge it according to who the writer is, if you don't know the writer you are left with doubts. Moonraker2 (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<--It was not the interpretation of the primary sources (important though that is, it was not relevant in this case). In this instance I was direction you to "Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, ..."

It is a good idea to cite the same reference multiple times, if that is where the information comes from. The reason for this is as anyone can add information an article that they may or may not source, it is useful for the reader (who is usually a general audiance and not a specialist) to know what the source is for any particular fact.

As anyone can add what they like to this article, it is best if everything is cited and the citation is from the secondary source. Further anything "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." (WP:PROVEIT) so opinions (or in Wikipeida parlance WP:POVs) need a source. In this case the [additional edits] you made on 18 October, were just what was needed.

As to your paragraph "The nonsense thing is, ...", I have worked on other Wikipedia articles with experts in their field and when their findings are published it usually makes available to the Wikipedia article opinions based on the interpretation of primary source which we can not do because of the restrictions on original research, but I hope you realise that the OR restrictions are there to protect articles from crankseditors with strong minority points of view, who are unfortunately far more common than academic experts as editors of many articles. -- PBS (talk) 10:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I still really don't like using the bullet points in the reference, though, it looks quite amateurish. Can we improve upon that? Is it even necessary, if WP policy is to direct readers to secondary sources when the primary source is not online? -- Alex Craven (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we can change the format to WP:CITE#Shortened footnotes. Then the bullet points would be in the References section. -- PBS (talk) 14:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Old DNB[edit]

I happen to have the old DNB at home, so I read the original article next to the revised version. The differences were really just revisions of the language: the old version mentions Dove's "contemptible practices", his persecution of Royalists and the "rancour" he felt for them. I don't think that Warmington added anything substantive that wasn't in the original article. Of course, this is the very reason why historians prefer to cite primary sources; it enables us to verify the facts for ourselves. --Alex Craven (talk) 19:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a bit surprising then that Warmington gets credited! You're lucky to have the old DNB at home. I've found some odd volumes online at Google books, but one day no doubt it will all be there. Moonraker2 (talk) 23:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Saved them from a skip when my old departmental library was closed :-)
Warmington revised the original article, and it does now read quite differently, but it is in fact still credited to Goodman (rev. Warmington). For what it's worth, the revised article is better, IMO. --Alex Craven (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The whole of the DNB is on line. You will find links to various sites:
--PBS (talk) 07:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's very helpful, PBS, many thanks. Moonraker2 (talk) 08:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed! As I'm between homes, I don't have my copy always to hand at the moment, so thank you. Would it not also be worth linking to the original article, then, so that readers can compare the two? (For a start, the original actually cites page numbers in Hoare, CSPD and the like.) -- Alex Craven (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fountell, Hampshire[edit]

The reason I queried the reference to Fountell in Hampshire is that I don't believe that there is such a place; at least, I can't find it. There is a Fontmell Magna in Dorset, a Fontwell in Sussex, and Fountell is a common alternative spelling for Fonthill in the seventeenth century and earlier. The original reference to Fountell came from the source that I have quoted (or its primary source), which states that Dove bought "Fountell" from the bishop of Winchester's estates. Fonthill Bishop, Wiltshire, was an estate owned by the bishop of Winchester. -- Alex Craven (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fountell is certainly a common old spelling of Fonthill in Wilts, and Wiltshire Place Names considers that the suffix '-hill' is to do with a wrong derivation. I believe until the early 20th century the usual local pronunciation was 'Funtle'. Rightly or wrongly, Sir Frederic Madden's Collectanea topographica et genealogica (1834), vol. 1, p. 126 ('Sales of Bishops' Lands'), lists this sale as by the Bishop of Winchester, in the county of Southampton, in the year 1648, "The mannor of Fountell", purchaser "John Dove, Esq.", purchase money £609 11s 4d. His source for that isn't clear. Moonraker2 (talk) 11:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen Hyde Cassan's The Lives of the Bishops of Winchester: Roman Catholic bishops (1827) at p. 31 has "February 7, 1649. The Manor of Fountell in Hampshire, sold to John Dove, Esq., for £609 11 4". Moonraker2 (talk) 11:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unluckily for this theory, as you may know, A History of the County of Wiltshire, vol. 11 (1980), says of the manor of Fonthill Bishop "In exchange for land elsewhere Ordlaf in 900 granted Fonthill, then said to be 10 hides, to Denewulf, bishop of Winchester. The manor of FONTHILL passed with the see and was apparently not surrendered at the Reformation. There is similarly no evidence of sale by the parliamentary trustees in the Interregnum." Moonraker2 (talk) 12:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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