Talk:Alan Turing

I would like to edit this page

I would like to edit and contribute to this page, could some one with the ability to allow this help me to grant me editing access to this page please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hexiode (talk • contribs) 05:13, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Of course. You can edit whenever you can as long as its unprotected. You can use Google Books or Britannica as an example. User:WernerHFan —Preceding undated comment added 13:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

BBC Two series

I watched a programme called "Icons" on BBC Two last night, and Alan Turing was voted the greatest person of the twentieth century. This could be mentioned somewhere in the article. Vorbee (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Vorbee. Yes, I agree. I've added a sentence at the end of "Posthumous tributes". I'm not sure if there is really scope for adding the other contenders. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Suicide as cause of death in the info box

We now have a cause of death in the info box: "Suicide by cyanide poisoning." This is certainly what the inquest determined and seems to be an uncontested fact. But is it a fair summary of what is in the article? The lead section says this, with the BBC source, as this might be considered somewhat controversial: "An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning." Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:13, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I changed it to Suicide (disputed). There might be a better solution. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I had a feeling the previous consensus was to just omit it. I'm sure it's been discussed before. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

The edit summary was simply "added suicide to cause of death." Would the editor who added care to give a rationale as well as a description? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Ashes

This source says that his ashes were scattered in the gardens of the crematorium which seems perfectly normal. It seems quite an odd claim to me that they were scattered "near" the crematorium. The single current source (given only in the infobox) is a Guardian film review? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

AFAIR, there's a bizarre law where the one thing you can't do in a crematorium is to store or scatter ashes in it. Like the one thing you can't do in a wedding venue is to hold a wedding reception there. So any ashes have to go "outside" the crematorium, where that's a very subtle boundary and may be as simple as "the gardens adjoining", but it's still a recognised demarcation. Thus both are correct. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:42, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I see. A source for that would be useful. I guess it depends on how you define "the crematorium". Stating "in the gardens of" seems equally correct and not open to interpretation. This is the wording used by Hodges (2012) on page 665, so I have adjusted the article accordingly. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:47, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

American English sources?

I little while ago I made an edit adding an extra source. The edit got reverted which I respect, but it confused me a little when the user that reverted wrote: "and this article uses British English, not American Englis". This confused me because I cited from a book wrote in American English. Are books written in American English not accepted as sources? -User:Year1888,10th April 2019, 12:37 (UTC)

@Year1888: I was the editor who reverted your change. To be clear, sources written in American English are fine to use. But your edit had two quite separate problems:

• You changed the spelling of "recognised" to "recognized" in the sentence "The headmistress recognised his talent early on, as did many of his subsequent teachers.". That is the change from British English to American English that I objected to; it was nothing to do with the source.
• The "source" you cited was not a source at all. It was simply this "The Innovators p. 40". That links to a Wikipedia disambiguation page, which is not a valid source. It looks like you are trying to cite a book (Walter Isaacson's book?). You need to use the {{cite book}} template and fill out the details of the book.

Railfan23 (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2019 (UTC)