User talk:Marshalb
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Battle of Albuera
Hi Marshalb,
Re your changes to Battle of Albuera: I reverted your edits (don't panic yet!), because you broke a reference, and also contradicted a couple of cited sources in places. However, having done the revert, I went back through and re-applied the changes I agree were corrections to the previous version (Soult's name, timing of 4th division coming up from Badajoz, and Kemmis being stranded). BTW, Sherer is referred to as either Joseph or Moyle Sherer, but I once dug out his memoirs, and his name was actually Joseph Moyle Sherer :)
The one thing I'm still uncertain about is Lumley taking Long's position as commander of the Allied cavalry. Oman is pretty explicit that Beresford replaced Long with Lumley as a result of Long's hasty retreat from the French cavalry. Yes, Lumley was senior to Long, but at the time Lumley had command of an infantry brigade in 2nd Division – he was a former light dragoon, so had experience of commanding horse. You, however, changed the article to suggest this was an agreed-upon plan, and I'm afraid I'd want a source for that suggestion, since it contradicts what Oman says. Have you such a source? Perhaps I should check Fortescue too, since he was much more in favour of Long than Oman was (Fortescue largely following Napier's account of the battle).
Thoughts, opinions, discussions always welcome. Carre (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, having checked Fortescue, I see where you get the Long/Lumley change from. That's interesting. Fortescue cites a couple of d'Urban's letters for his account – I'll see if I can find those letters, and if they check out, will apply that change to the article (with citation) then.
- Thanks for the corrections to the article, anyway! Such editing is good to see (although you need to be careful not to break stuff that's already referenced). Carre (talk) 21:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Carre
I just found this post by you on my Talk Page after leaving a post for you on your page. As I said, I am not very familiar with the workings of Wikipedia, but I think it is very odd to conduct a correspondence by means of "edits" to Talk Pages.
Marshalb (talk) 23:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hello again,
- Got your note – if you check the article now, the Long/Lumley thing is discussed more completely, with both versions reported by historians covered (by the way, Fortescue supports the version that the replacement was due to seniority).
- On sources, I'm not too trusting of d'Urban, for the simple reason that Oman et al use d'Urban letters to support the "incompetent" reason for the replacement, while Fortescue et al ALSO use d'Urban letters to support the other view. However, since we have 4 sources supporting "seniority" (d'Urban, Long, Fortescue and Fletcher), and another 4-5 supporting "incompetent" (d'Urban, Napier, Oman, Weller, Glover), it was worth putting in both views with the note that historians differ. Primary sources are generally frowned on, because it's too easy to fall into Original Research, but in this case there's plenty of secondary sources too.
- The bit about Lumley not arriving until late is still up in the air, to an extent, since several sources are quite explicit about him being in command of an infantry brigade in 2nd Division, until taking command of the cavalry, but this is probably too much detail for the article.
- As to the "best" way to communicate changes like this: normally, you do exactly what you did, and just edit the page. The only time it becomes necessary to communicate via talk pages is when there's disagreement in the content, as was the case here. The best way to go about it then is to use the article's own talk page, rather than an editor's (see Talk:Battle of Albuera, the discussion on this matter is in there).
- Anyway, I think all your major changes are now incorporated in the article, although in a slightly different way, so thanks for pointing out the mistakes :) Carre (talk) 08:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with who was first, and everything to do with being fair to the sources: historians have been arguing about Long's contribution to the battle and the causes for his dismissal for nearly 200 years and it doesn't matter how many new books come out on one side or the other, Wikipedia's job is to present both sides and let the reader decide. You are welcome to add new information and sources to the article provided they are sympathetic to the articles structure and prose, but to not make wholesale deletions of sourced material that you or your source happen to disagree with. Thanks--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
The current text about the Long replacement suggests that no one knows exactly how and why Long was removed. The new book by Dempsey provides the facts, which are that Wellington sent Long a letter on May 11 notifying him he was being removed from command but could retain his position until the replacement arrived. Long next sent Beresford a letter complaining about the seniority issue on May 13, and Beresford replied on the 14th that he was puting Lumley in charge. The fact that Lumley did not arrive at Albuera until the morning of the 16th is confirmed by other primary sources cited. That being the case, the speculative text in the article is unneccessary, even though footnoted, because it is specualation about matters which are now knowable as facts, not speculation. --Marshalb (talk) 21:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
- It is not unnecessary: quite apart from the importance of representing all viewpoints mentioned above, it is also important that wikipedia reflects other sources. For example, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is scathing on Long, accusing him on one occassion of losing "his head completely". Wikipedia should not blindly contradict such sources (nor should it follow them without qualification). Instead, it should acknowledge them all and provide evidence and context for the contrasting viewpoints so as the explain the discrepancies between the source material to readers. I have to add moreover that the evidence as you have described it above seems far from compelling and there will no doubt be further debate on the subject, so to remove earlier scholarship on the grounds that it has now been "superseeded" is probably unwise.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
May 2009
Constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, but a recent edit of yours to the article Battle of Albuera has an edit summary that appears to be inaccurate or inappropriate. Please use edit summaries that accurately tell other editors what you did, and feel free to use the sandbox for any tests you may want to do. Thank you. EyeSerenetalk 07:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Re Albuera
You'll see from the edit history that the edit where you use the summary "Added description of Albuera terrain" contains nothing relating to the Albuera terrain (diff). I've deleted nothing from the edit history - although I'm an administrator, only those editors with the additional oversight permission (which I don't have) can do this, and then only in certain circumstances. Thus you seemed to me to be using a deliberately misleading edit summary to get your preferred version of Long's replacement back into the article as the canonical version. It has already been explained to you why this is problematic - when sources disagree, per Wikipedia editing policy we are not permitted to select a preferred version but should present all versions with appropriate weight and leave the reader to make up their own mind.
If there has been some problem with the software or you accidentally missed an edit and didn't save what you thought you did, then I sincerely apologise for my assumption; please disregard the above notice. However, please also stop trying to change the emphasis in that section to support one interpretation over another. You have failed to gain a consensus for your edits there, so continually reinserting them will be seen as disruptive editing. There are methods listed here that may be helpful in resolving content disputes. EyeSerenetalk 07:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Eyeserene,
The edits I could not find have appeared, so thank you for that. However, I don't think you looked at what I did very closely since there is a long paragraph about the Albuera terrain in my May 6 edit. If your argument is that my title was misleading, you are incorrect and should have the courtesy to restore that material.
As for your other point about the Long controversy, I have explained over and over again that I am not attempting to "change the emphasis" or foster a particular interpretation. I am simply trying to correct the incorrect statement that Lumley superseded Long on May 15. (There may be some confusion because I did initially take issue with the reason why Long was replaced as well as the timing of the replacement. However, in response to the comments posted, I tried this last time to correct the factual point only and leave the details of the other controversy in the article.) I have posted specific cites and other information to support the correct facts and neither you nor anyone else has made the slightest attempt to refute that material. Why is this so hard? If you have evidence that Lumley replaced Long on the 15th, we could call it a controversy and leave it as an open question. If you and others do not have that evidence, why should you want to prevent the correction from being made?