Talk:Ada Lovelace/2011/May

What is a reliable source Wikipedia:Reliable sources?

In the article Ada Lovelace User:Wolfkeeper has, in good faith Wikipedia:Assume good faith, added the following passage:

"Ada apparently was a hard drinker and gambled heavily. At the time of her death she owed £2000. Additionally, she flirted with other men, and numerous scandals were apparently covered up by her husband."

As source for this information User:Wolfkeeper gives (http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/index/learning_about/learning_publications/literary-associations/ada-lovelace.htm) and and claims, that "as a UK government heritage source", it should be "pretty reliable". However, the site referred to says nothing about the identity or qualifications of its writer or the sources that he or she referred to. Anonymous and unsourced information about historical matters is not suitable for Wikipedia or for any other form of scholarship, not even if it appears on a local government web site.

It may be that the information added by User:Wolfkeeper is, in fact, accurate. If so, it should be able to be verified by an examination of the ample biographical material referred to in the article. I have deleted the passage in the hope of such research being done. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC).

It's not anonymous, it's an official website run by the UK government. That's like saying you can't trust anything published by NASA, unless it's signed to a particular individual. No. Reverted.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And it's not published by local government, it's a national park run by central government.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The exmoor national park page is basically a tourist information web site. It looks as if it has been put together by a tourist officer, not a historian or biographer of Lovelace. It might be good enough, if it weren't contradicted by another source. The recently added external link is to a BBC program in which three specialists - historians and biographers specialising in the period or subject - discuss Ada Lovelace. They dismissed quite quickly the suggestion that she was 'hard-living'. Listen to the streaming audio and see what you think. As I say, I would be more comfortable with the exmoor reference if it weren't contradicted by this one. --Pstevens (talk) 08:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

To be strictly accurate, they in no way disagreed that she drank, and implied that it could have affected her behaviour (as much as her possibly being bipolar would have), and they also said she wasn't as hard living as her father (big deal!) and her husband gambled much more; but that she certainly did gamble. All in all, I'm not seeing anything that disagrees in any major way with the exmore park information. At most, they added the word 'allegedly' in front of the 'hard drinking' in the bbc radio 4 piece.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 03:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

"... rather a dull life in comparison to many other figures of her day ..."; "... it is not Ada who is doing most of the gambling ..." (but her husband); "... there's very little about drink ...", but "prescribed" opiates for terminal illness, "probably cancer of the uterus but we don't know for sure - Professor John Fuigi on the Radio 4 programme, about 30-35 minutes in, describing his conclusions from examining three archives of correspondence between Lovelace and her contemporaries. Wolfkeeper, I can see why you want to include this, since it is often quoted, but perhaps we should be saying that she has this reputation (citing the Exmoor website or other reference) but it may not be wholly justified (citing the Radio 4 program or other reference). --Pstevens (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest the program doesn't seem to come down hard either way; I've listened to it twice, and even the Radio 4 program description says she is 'allegedly hard drinking'. But I'm quite happy with it to have both sides in, it's just that the article seemed to imply that she was this saintly woman, but if half the sources on her are anything to go by, she's probably not that saintly. ;-)- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The issue at stake is not whether Ida Lovelace was a lush. The biographies, written by scholars with access to primary sources, will determine this. The issue at stake is whether a tourist web site can be taken, without further investigation, to be a reliable source of information for Wikipedia about the minutiae of nineteenth century English social history. I commend the other editors for pursuing the research further. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC).

I would say that this is probably a fairly reliable source and would be fine for use at this stage of the article. I would expect to find corroboration in other materials though, and would probably favor deleting the passage if none was found. I plan to do some serious work on this article in the next month and will keep this in mind while doing research. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize that the exmoor site was contradicted by a better source. Gimme danger (talk) 10:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The National Park page is a reliable page on that national park's issues, not on the biography of Lovelace. For extraordinary claims, we need an extraordinary source, i.e. from an actual book on her biography. bogdan (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I can cite a little information on this out of "Ada, A Life and a Legacy" by Dorothy Stein. "The issue of Ada's gambling did not become a matter of vituperation on the part of her mother until much later, and then only because it revealed the extent of Ada's alienation and provided Lady Byron with a weapon against her son-in-law. At the beginning she covertly aided and abetted Ada in her new enthusiasm." (Page 211) Earlier on the page, there is a quote from Ada's writings acknowledging that she is suffering from despair at the "great pecuniary losses I have sustained by betting". The book, as a whole, is very clear that Ada herself was interested in betting, and acquired great debts in the process. 207.207.127.231 (talk) 00:43, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

possible source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5p_tBcrd0&feature=player_detailpage#t=2188s

01:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)