Talk:Mud March (suffragists)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Notes

Why have the footnotes been removed? SarahSV ^(talk) 21:23, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Fixed. - SchroCat (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Legacy section

I've mentioned this before, but in case it's overlooked, the legacy section is poor and needs a rewrite (particularly from "Their struggles were rewarded"). It sounds as though all the women had to do to get the vote was march around Hyde Park a few times. Either that section should be reduced to focus on the immediate aftermath, or (better still) it should offer a scholarly summary of the period between the march and 1918. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:17, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I've taken out half that paragraph to see how that looks, and the whole section is now pointed more towards the immediate aftermath and the window 'memorial'. - SchroCat (talk) 06:26, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

"Lady Day" quote

I'm not sure we need to long quote from the "Lady Day" article. From The Onserver's leading article, it is a general statement of their belief regarding women's suffrage, rather than being specifically about this event. - SchroCat (talk) 05:39, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

It was part of the press reaction, and it's interesting. That was the attitude the women were up against. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:07, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure 'interesting' is the right criteria for selecting quotes. I think part of my problem is that it's very long and it just sits in the footnotes without any supporting text – and that means there is no context to it. I think many readers will look at it and just ask why it is there. If it's had received some critical commentary in a secondary source, I'd be happier using it, but it's use doesn't seem very clear. – SchroCat (talk) 06:20, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll reduce it, but I think it should remain. I should imagine readers will know why it's there. The context is the Observer views in the reaction section. More should be said about which newspapers supported which political side. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:30, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm still unconvinced that it should be there, but I've added a line to give it some semblance of context, otherwise readers won't know, for example, that it was part of the leading article quoted in the body. As it's so long, I've dropped it into block quote format, which I think is the right way to do it (although it wouldn't surprise me if the MoS says to format long quotes in footnotes differently). - SchroCat (talk) 09:19, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Reverting

SchrCat, please respect BRD. You're edit-warring to remove text and sources that have been in the article for months. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

They are superfluous to understanding the background to the Mud March. All interesting stuff in the grand scheme of things, but not to this specific topic. Just because something has been in the article only for months does not make it sacrosanct. - SchroCat (talk) 21:50, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

It's your opinion that it's superfluous. I disagree, and clearly other editors do too because you've removed more than just the text I added. We need to understand something about the relationship between the groups. You've removed it three times in one hour: 20:44, 6 June, 21:32, 6 June, 21:45, 6 June. Please revert yourself. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The relationship is already clear enough for this article. We refer to the overlap in membership and to the cordial relationship between the two organisations: that is what is needed for people to understand the background to the Mud March. No-one needs to know about the relative stances on party politics and the class issue: it is immaterial in its impact on the march.

I am aware of the edits this evening: you have reverted twice, as have I. I do not know why you needed to refer to actions I know I have taken? - SchroCat (talk) 22:05, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

SchroCat, you're not allowing anyone else to edit the article, not even to add a reference, and you've had the {{Under construction}} on it since 6 June (twice removed by different editors, twice restored by you). What's going on? SarahSV ^(talk) 18:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

SchroCat, I'd appreciate a reply. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• Sarah, Please don't chase me for an answer after less than 45 minutes if I've not been online: I do have a life off-wiki.

Please assume good faith. Of course I'm allowing other people to edit the article, but you made two edits that were not an improvement, as my edit summary made clear. That explains exactly why each of your two edits were reverted, but should you wish for clarification, please outline which part of the explanation was unclear. - SchroCat (talk) 20:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)- SchroCat (talk) 20:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

You've reverted every edit I've made since 6 June, including edits that restored material you were removing. Also, the under-construction tag isn't needed. The page isn't being built or rebuilt. This is all ordinary editing. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:59, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

It's being edited, including some rebuilding to come shortly. There really is no need to remove this - is there any particular rush to get rid of it? - SchroCat (talk) 21:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• SchroCat, I've restored these posts from the archive because they're very recent, and the issues are still under discussion. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:56, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

If you really to, than I'll not revert, but it seems quite pointless: the first entry is about the footnotes - now fixed, and the issue has been closed since. This thread has been surpassed by the ones below, or a new one can be opened. - SchroCat (talk) 09:03, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Colons

SchroCat, of all the difficulties here, the colons are the least important but the easiest to resolve, so I'll start there. You've been removing them before quotations here and at other articles I've edited, leaving no punctuation, saying it's British English. For example, at Women's Sunday, you removed the colon after Standard:

According to The Standard "From first to last it was a great meeting, daringly conceived, splendidly stage-managed, and successfully carried out. Hyde Park has probably never seen a greater crowd of people."

But punctuation is needed there, and a colon is fine in British English. Colons are used (for example) before quotations of more than one sentence or for emphasis. See New Hart's Rules, p. 162, 9.2.2. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:26, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

It's an American practice, and not one common to BrEng, where the use jars. To my British eye no punctuation is needed in the Standard example. I'll dig out my copy of Fowler and see what it says there (but I agree wholeheartedly with the University of Sussex, who call the practice "wrong"). - SchroCat (talk) 05:49, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

No, it's a British practice too. The example you cite that was declared "wrong" is:

President Nixon declared: "I am not a crook."

I probably wouldn't do it there, but I might. As I said above, it's used in British English for quotations of more than one sentence or for emphasis. You also removed it from footnotes, where it was used in the way the University of Sussex site supports. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking at New Hart's Rules, this is a guide for Oxford English, not 'standard' English, which differs. I'll get back to you with the guidance from the 'standard' English style guides. - SchroCat (talk) 09:13, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking over a few of the guides for standard English (and ignoring the journalese), there is a range of opinion from nothing to comma to colon. On those quotes we have here, there is nothing to mandate a colon in good formal BrEng. - SchroCat (talk) 11:58, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

New Hart's Rules is standard, and this isn't a contentious point. Which style guide recommends no punctuation in the kind of example I gave above ("According to The Standard ...)? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:49, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

You're right, it's not contentious as there are three different ways of doing it: nothing, comma or colon, and the guides vary in their choice. De gustibus and all that. Aside from the University of Sussex, the Penguin Guide to Punctuation also supports no need for them. I think this non-issue is clouding things slightly, and it would be best to look at other things and circle back to this later. You said "of all the difficulties here" in relation to the article: can you clarify what difficulties you see with it? - SchroCat (talk) 09:07, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Punctuation is needed in the example "According to The Standard 'From first to last it was ...'". The University of Sussex doesn't support what you're saying. I can't imagine that Penguin does either. The reason I mentioned it is that you've been following me to articles I've edited or created to change my punctuation. I hope that stops. I'll open another thread about the general problems with the article. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:12, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Sarah, Please AGF. I have not been following you to articles. I have been looking through the UK events at Template:Suffrage, and various other women's suffrage articles, as an examination of my edit history shows. I haven't made a similar suggestion about Jessie Murray, for example. – SchroCat (talk) 19:57, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

It felt as though, after I began objecting to the Black Friday FAC on 4 June, you started following me to women's suffrage articles to make minor edits shortly after I'd edited them:

• I edited Ernestine Mills at 07:01, 6 June. At 07:16, 6 June, you arrived to change my spelling, add two links, and join two paragraphs. [1]
• I edited Battle of Downing Street at 21:02, 6 June, shortly after creating it. At 21:34, 6 June, you added "df=yes". [2]
• On 7 June you wrote that you'd had to ask me before to "play nice". [3]
• I edited Women's Sunday at 03:17, 12 June, an article I'd created. At 08:44, 12 June, you changed my punctuation with edit summary "BrEng". [4] (It was LQ as it was, by the way.) The following day, you removed a colon, citing "BeEng". [5]
• I edited Great Pilgrimage at 03:51, 12 June, which included adding an infobox that contained a red-linked name. [6] At 22:02, 13 June, you created an article about that person. [7] On 22 June, you removed a link I'd added to the infobox. [8]
• I edited Women's Coronation Procession at 04:11, 12 June. You arrived at 08:46, 12 June, to add three citation-needed tags. [9]
• I edited Women's Social and Political Union at 05:11, 16 June. At 10:51, 16 June, you reverted an edit I had made to a heading, calling it " poor grammar". [10]

The effect of this is to make me not want to edit in this area. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:31, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

• Ernestine Mills: been on my watchlist since I edited it in March;
• Downing Street: I saw the addition to the Template:Suffrage, as it was an article I was going to pop a stub in, following the mention in the Black Friday article;
• Women's Sunday: Ditto;
• Katherine Harley: I have started several articles about suffragists/~ettes;
• Having seen the IBs being added, which contained several errors, I checked the ones you added to correct those errors (if you want to call that "following", then so be it);
• WSPU: Been on my watchlist since April.

Your list also doesn't take into account the several other articles on women's suffrage that I've edited or started (and I have no idea if you have been there before me or not). I'll repeat: I have been active on several suffrage articles and I have not been following you around. Was Jessie Murray a coincidence?- SchroCat (talk) 08:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Issues

You asked what the general difficulties were. I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll start with a bit of background.

Brian began a rewrite of this on 5 March 2018, and you opened a peer review on 8 March (which usually means the next step is FAC). There was no discussion about this on-wiki that I could find. This was the version taken to peer review. I objected because the article had considerable problems. (I had intended to write them up, but I didn't because I was reluctant to prolong the disagreement.)

According to the history stats, Brian has written 32,903 bytes (37.7%); I've written 28,005 (32.1%); you've written 7,853 (9%). You recently added the {{Under construction}} tag, kept it there for over two weeks, and edit-warred to remove material and retain the tag. I've never seen anyone do that before. So I suppose the first question is why you want to nominate it for FAC, and how we develop a version that has consensus (and is stable re: FACR 1e). SarahSV ^(talk) 20:15, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure of the point of the history. I thought you were going to provide details of what you think could be improved in the article as it stands. The Authorship stats give a slightly different set of figures, although I'm not sure if either of hen ignore things like over-long quotes.

I've asked both you and Brian if you would like to co-nominate, and I think that if the potential issues you think are there are examined, this can be improved further: do you have any thoughts on either what is missing from the article, what could be improved or what should be altered? - SchroCat (talk) 20:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Again, I would need time to write it up. I've wondered whether we should discuss these issues somewhere centrally. I don't like invoking OWN because it's overused, but what happened here and at Black Friday (and elsewhere) feels like a very extreme instance of OWN. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:47, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

And again Sarah, please AGF. Trying to improve an article to be the best it possibly can be is certainly not anywhere near OWN, particularly when I've asked the other two people were ho have worked on the article to co-nominate. An OWN accusation is nonsense, I'm afraid. Now, if you have any observations to improve the article then I look forward to hearing them. - SchroCat (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

But am I again expected to drop everything and go back to researching the Mud March because you want a gold star? You wouldn't let anyone edit it for over two weeks, not even to remove the {{Under construction}} tag, and during that period most of what you did was remove text. I was earlier told I ought not to comment here on talk because you had taken the article to peer review.

Researching a topic well involves reading a lot of material that you don't have to read. Reading only what's needed to produce something for FAC will never produce anything good. The article is then reviewed by people who are your wiki-friends and/or who may know nothing about the topic and haven't read the sources. What is the point of that? It means that you're not challenged and don't grow as a writer. It's all about the star, rather than about trying to produce high-quality work. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:17, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Sarah, you do know about AGF, do you? Your comments are so monumentally far off the mark it's ridiculous. It's not about the gold star, it's about developing high-quality content. I'm not expecting you to drop anything or spring into action to do this ahead of anything else you are working on. If you had said 'Yes, I'm interested in improving this article, but it'll take me X months to be in a position of being able to do it', I would be entirely happy with that. Your comments that I wouldn't let anyone else edit the article are wrong. You added something that was not an improvement, and the edit summary I left when I removed it explained exactly why I was removing it. Why people decided to try and remove the (normally uncontentious) "under construction" tag is a mystery; as I asked above, why the rush to remove it? What was the need that this article didn't need the tag when it was obviously being worked on? As to Brian's request about not commenting here but at the PR, mileage obviously differs, but some people find it easier to keep all the comments about article development in one place, rather than two separate pages. It was something of a non-issue at the time, as far as I was concerned, and I don't know why you need raise it again now.

As to the reading and research I have done, I am afraid you have absolutely no idea as to what I have researched in this area (general and specific), both on and off wiki. You have no idea of my off-wiki interests or activities, let alone my motivation. 'Please comment on the content rather than the contributor' has never been more apt than it is in your comments. If you wish to work together to improve this article (even if it's at some point in the future), then I would welcome it, but please do not try and malign my motivations. - SchroCat (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that it's not about the gold star. In that case, why the speed? At Mud March, a rewrite was added on 5 March, and it was at peer review on 8 March. At Black Friday, a rewrite was added on 18 April, and it was at peer review on 19 April.

You're right that I don't know what research you've done, but the articles don't suggest that there has been deep reading. It feels as though a template has been created, and the fields are filled in depending on the title. That's why some of the sentences in Black Friday were copied word-for-word from sentences that Brian wrote for Mud March.

I would enjoy working with anyone who wants to try to write excellent articles about these issues, especially Black Friday. There's less that can be said about Mud March.

The problems with this article are structural. The first draft was biased, in my view, against the suffragettes. I edited it to try to reduce that. But really the problem was the entire approach. For example, it was the suffragettes who organized the first big march (1906 WSPU march), not the NUWSS. And Mud March wasn't the first to get publicity; the suffragettes had already worked out the importance of the press. Nor was it the first march to include working-class women.

To create an accurate account, we would have to become familiar with the primary sources—the women's accounts. That will show to what extent there was fluidity between groups and strategy. But that's a lot of work. Then you have to choose the best secondary sources. That's a lot of work too. There are researchers who are excellent on the analysis but who routinely make factual errors. You have to know the literature to know who is good for X but should be avoided for Y. Choosing the sources carefully is what will make this article come together. My main criticism of the article was that that work had not been done, and the effects of that omission remain.

And, by the way, just to be clear about this criticism: I'd have been much less critical of the first draft if that's how it had been presented—as something that would be improved over time, because I understand that first drafts are very much work-in-progress. What concerned me was the presentation of it as something almost ready for FAC. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

There is no need for speed, but once an article has been re-written, I normally don't see the need to hang around and instead I pop it straight into PR to get input from others; I know the subject I write on fairly well, and the content normally needs very little further work, except on the prose. I'll fully accept that I am a generalist, not a specialist, so my knowledge, while good and fairly deep, is not at the expert level. That's why I ask outsiders to have a look (Professor June Purvis and Elizabeth Crawford for Josephine Butler and Black Friday; Professor Iain McLean for the Aberfan disaster): they have all been extremely helpful in nudging me in some directions, altering the emphasis of a point or two to ensure the article is at its best.

There is no "template" to this, despite what you think (unless a rather broad 'Background', 'event' and 'aftermath/legacy' is considered a "template", although it's not exactly a ground-breaking approach that gets used). As I think I have said to you before, the sentence and a half copied over from this to Black Friday was an oversight that occurred in my sandbox where I had only partially rewritten it, but forgetting to do it fully after having been disturbed. I am afraid that I cannot "prove" my levels of reading, but that is why we have AGF, that people who are obviously taking some time and effort to improve articles that end up being an encyclopaedic level coverage of the subject have done so properly. That is what has clearly happened with this (and with Black Friday too, if you want to include that in the mix).

I don't necessarily agree that there are structural problems with the article, although I fully accept that the emphasis may be worked on a little more. I don't think we claim (in the current version) that this was the first big march of the suffrage movement, but we do make it clear that it was the first big march of the suffragists, who were copying some of the tactics of the WSPU. One of the problems with this subject (the Mud March, rather than anything wider), is that it is a minor footnote to history, with some sources omitting it from the story altogether, or referring to it only in passing, rather than examining it closely. Unlike something like Black Friday, there is no dedicated book ( as opposed to Morrell and, as a primary source, Murray and Brailsford for Black Friday), and much of what has been gleaned from the secondary sources is thin.

Again, I would be absolutely delighted if you are able to work on this at some point. You'll note that my note on your talk page, I say that I want to take this through the review process "at some stage": that is still the case, and if that stage is next month or next year, that is fine by me (and probably by Brian as well, although the reply on his talk page doesn't specify it, but his priority has always been quality). - SchroCat (talk) 08:52, 25 June 2018 (UTC)