Talk:Anthony Wood (antiquary)

Untitled[edit]

Did he play the violin? I would have thought a viol would have been more usual in those days. Xxanthippe 22:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. I looked up the ODNB article just now, and it says: 'After his graduation Wood, or, as he would style himself after 1660, à Wood, remained in Oxford, devoting himself to the study of heraldry and of music, for he was becoming proficient on the violin'. NinaGreen (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great-grandparents[edit]

From the edit history:

17:44, 14 January 2014‎ PBS (updated citations. Who his great grandparents were is not pertinent to this biography, so removed that sentence with its support citations.)
17:54, 14 January 2014‎ NinaGreen (Undid revision 590693163 by PBS (talk)Reverted deletion; information useful to many Wikipedia readers as his background is largely unknown; should be discussed on Talk page before any deletion))

If the edit I made had just been the removal of the information to which you are attached then a total revert would be reasonable, but a total revert which simultaneously removed inline citations provided for paragraphs copied from another source that did not have them (a breach of WP:PLAGIARISM) and putting external links back into a see also section (a breach of WP:EXT) is in my opinion careless when a partial revert is all that was needed to put back your preferred text.

NinaGreen in your edit history you write "information useful to many Wikipedia readers as his background is largely unknown", but how do you know that this is true? Is it not more likely that people come to this article to read about the notable events in which Anthony Wood was engaged?

You have been told by myself (in several places including your talk page), by user: Agricolae (see Talk:Christopher Hatton), that notability is the criteria for inclusion, What Wikipedia is not makes it clear that an article should not be an indiscriminate collection of facts. Piling up the first paragraph of an article with anything more the name of the father and mother is not helpful unless the father do not have an article in their own right but had a notable parent themselves, in which case mentioned a grandparent is useful. However in the biography section(s) of the article only relatives who have a notable interaction with the subject of the biography are notable for that biography article. So for example a man one brother who was a business partner but a third brother went into a completely different sphere of life and had no notable interaction with the subject of the article then clearly the the partner would be mentioned in the natural flow of the text while the other brother would not.

The sentence under discussion is:

His great-grandparents were Richard Taverner (d.1575) of Woodeaton, Clerk of the Signet to Edward VI, and Mary Harcourt, one of the eight daughters of Sir John Harcourt (d. 19 February 1566) of Stanton Harcourt.

In what way are the facts mentioned in this sentence

great-grandparent Richard Taverner (d.1575)
great-grandparent Mary Harcourt
Mary Harcourt one of the eight daughters
great-great-grandparent Sir John Harcourt

are notable for the subject of this biography? -- PBS (talk) 13:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PBS, you wrote: 'You have been told by myself (in several places including your talk page), by user: Agricolae (see Talk:Christopher Hatton), that notability is the criteria for inclusion'. And I have now pointed out to you several times, but you do not appear to be listening, that notability is the Wikipedia criterion for inclusion of a biography per se. Notability is not the Wikipedia criterion for inclusion of each and every fact in his biography once the person in question has been deemed sufficiently notable (according to the Wikipedia criterion) to warrant a biography in the first place. You are confusing the two things, and are deleting valuable information from Wikipedia articles, using this confusion between two different things as a pretext. NinaGreen (talk) 01:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So why do you think the facts mentioned in this sentence

great-grandparent Richard Taverner (d.1575)
great-grandparent Mary Harcourt
Mary Harcourt one of the eight daughters
great-great-grandparent Sir John Harcourt

are notable for the subject of this biography? -- PBS (talk) 14:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's the wrong question. Wikipedia policy does not state that every fact in a biography must pass a 'notability' test. Wikipedia policy states that a person must pass a notability test before there can be a Wikipedia biography on him. Wikipedia policy also states that unsourced content can be deleted by any editor. However you are making a habit of deleting sourced content according to your personal view of what should be in a Wikipedia biography. That practice is not in accordance with Wikipedia editorial policy. Rather than deleting other editors' work, why don't you create new Wikipedia biographies in line with your own personal standards? Wouldn't that be a better use of your time? If you created a number of such brand-new Wikipedia biographies in line with your own personal standards, perhaps you could persuade Wikipedia to adopt your personal standards for biographies as policy. NinaGreen (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The counter argument already been presented to you by Agricolae ten months ago ( 02:35, 7 March 2013)

WP:WEIGHT, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NOR, WP:RS (you say it is from a RS, but it isn't cited as such). That will do for starters. The benchmark for inclusion is not whether it is factual or not (if you find a reliable source that said that Queen Elizabeth had a fried tomato for breakfast on June 29, 1987, it doesn't necessarily belong in an article, however factual it might be), nor is it whether there is a single person anywhere in the world who 'might find it useful'. Do the biographers of Christopher Hatton find the fact that he descends from king Henry II notable enough to devote significant coverage to this fact? If not, then for this Wikipedia article to include this bit of trivia is to give it an undue weight, to suggest by implication that this is a highly relevant piece of information in understanding the man, when none of his biographers think this is the case.

There is nothing novel in this answer or the view it represents, it is one held by many editors on Wikiepdia as reflected in the guidelines and policies that Agricolae presents in the first line of his/her answer. -- PBS (talk) 08:19, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PBS, there is no 'counter-argument'. Something is either Wikipedia policy, or it isn't. There is no Wikipedia policy stating that each and every fact in a Wikipedia biography of a historical personage must pass a 'notability' test devised by you. Nor is there a Wikipedia policy stating that editors may delete sourced content. There is a policy stating that Wikipedia editors may delete unsourced content. As I've suggested before, wouldn't your time be better spent creating new Wikipedia biographies in line with your personal standards and persuading Wikipedia to accept your personal standards as policy, than what you are presently doing, i.e. destroying other editors' work which may be of interest to Wikipedia users? NinaGreen (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]