Talk:Dunsland

Over-drastic and unwarranted re-writes, reformats and deletion of sourced material

The edits made by Smalljim are too drastic a departure from the style and layout of the original article not to be done without prior discussion on the talk page. The editor concerned has developed a somewhat creepy habit of following Lobsterthermidor around WP and stamping his own mark on the latter's article. This is becoming very tedious indeed for Lobsterthermidor, and is viewed by him as vexatious. If you wish to change the central format of the article please discuss here. If you want to expand the text, great go ahead. If you want to challenge any sources, please add the usual cn tags. But please don't just "do it your way" to continue your long-running editorial battle with me. Even Your very first removal of my text "It was especially remarkable for having been held in a direct line of family succession from 1086 or earlier to 1947" is inexplicable. Please see the source I provided: Lauder, 1981, p.36: "The records of ownership are incomplete but it seems certain that Dunsland passed in unbroken line down the long centuries from the days of William the Conqueror until it was sold in 1947". (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 14:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC))

I have undone your revert to your version which was, to be honest, not really acceptable.

1. You do not own what you write here - WP:OWN.
2. I made a number of substantive corrections to errors in your version of this article, apart from reworking it into a more standard format, per the MOS.
3. Regarding that Lauder reference - she does not indicate that it was "especially remarkable" as you claim, and she only states that the unbroken line "seems certain", which nuance you have ignored - WP:STICKTOSOURCE. (Note also that I'm using the 2005 revised version of the book)
4. You happen to be editing in an area of interest similar to my own and in which I have access to a good set of references. If your work was of an acceptable standard, I wouldn't have to keep correcting it: as an admin I feel a particularly strong responsibility to do this, since it's unlikely that any other active Wikipedian is in a position to be able to do so.
5. Feel free to complain about me in an appropriate forum - the warning I've posted on your talk page reminds you of this.
6. The warning also strongly recommends that you do not revert again, without a consensus.

 —SMALLJIM  20:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It's funny how you seem to think you have the right effectively to revert my text and stamp your text down in place of mine, in pursuance of your edit warring over the past two years, and then to tell me when I suggest your edits were too drastic without prior discussion that I have made disruptive edits. I repeat: your edits were too drastic to be acceptable without prior discussion on talk, especially as you and I have been edit-warring for two years. Your edits were thus it seems to me a furtherance of your edit-warring. I suggest to resolve matters that before you drastically edit any more of my new articles you discuss your likes and dislikes of the product on talk first before wading in with drastic edits, which are clearly a provocative act in your edit-warring. Thus I have reverted to my last version, and request that you discuss your proposed changes on talk first. Is that reasonable? Also, please don't confuse your role as an admin with that of an editor, which you appear to be doing by issuing such threats as the one above. You have come back from your 2 month wiki-break and spent your first two days back exclusively in attacking and stamping your mark on new articles contributed by me. The way to solve edit-wars is not to walk all over the other person's text, when you know full well it will cause controversy. I look forward to hearing your suggestions for improving this new article contributed by me before you do any more drastic editing (I'd call it disruptive, certainly in furtherance of your edit-warring). Thanks. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 22:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC))

If you think I have been edit warring for two years Lt, stop complaining to me about it and start some sort of dispute resolution process so we can get clarity on who's in the right. Like I did last time ([1]).  —SMALLJIM  22:54, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe the approved process is for the two parties to attempt to reach a solution in the first instance. I have made a suggestion in my last post on talk of John Arscott. It's intolerable for me to be incessantly followed around WP in a creepy manner by someone who seems to be increasingly obsessive in stamping his mark on my work and in finding pedantic micro-matters to argue about. You appear to have returned from a 2 month wiki-break specifically with the intention of making your mark on 3 brand new articles created by me. Look at your contributions log, your first two days, and ongoing, were almost entirely devoted to systemmatically altering my new articles. I find that strange behaviour. Hours and hours of your uninterrupted work to that aim. It's looking to the dispassionate observer like obsessive behaviour. Please desist. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 00:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC))

Do you have a dispassionate observer to hand? The one I have here sees the situation quite differently :) I've been trying to help you improve your editing for some two years since July last year [2] because I thought you had the potential to be a valued contributor. I have very gradually had to resort to using larger sticks to achieve that aim, but my largest stick has now broken. You interpret my behaviour as obsessive creepy following-around: we're obviously not going to reach a solution ourselves. Raise a dispute resolution process that involves other editors.  —SMALLJIM  00:38, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't mean you can edit war with this editor, smalljim. BRD has one R in it. Toddst1 (talk) 15:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

References

Corrected version restored

I've undone your sloppy partial revert which reinstated several factual errors, made the formatting much worse (13 level-two headers in only 760-odd words!) and left the referencing out of sync with the text, apart from some other less important problems. It seems that your dislike for me has overwhelmed any need you may feel to maintain the quality of our articles. Please stop damaging Wikipedia with your inaccurate contributions. What you claim are vexatious alterations of no importance to your hallowed text, I see as the very core of an accurate reference work. You know that if you don't want your work to be altered, you don't publish it here.

Are you going to instigate a dispute resolution process? Whether you do or not, you'll eventually have to accept that your work is susceptible to improvement - probably by me, because no-one else is likely to do it, until some way is found to stop you being so disruptive. It's so damn silly because by taking more care in scrutinising your work in the light of our policies and guidelines before you post it, and being more amenable to changes to what you write you could still be a real benefit to WP.

And for the record, I don't get any pleasure out of doing this. Your reappearance forced me to resume editing here when I didn't really want to, out of my sense of responsibility to the project.  —SMALLJIM  11:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

If it's any help, I don't think much of either version, both of which lack basic links & categories, concentrate entirely on one aspect of the subject, & so on. The far-too-small image does not look as if it shows a house which after 1609 "survived almost unchanged until its destruction in 1967", & there is almost nothing on the house itself. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you, but I spent enough time checking and correcting what was already there without expanding it further - though there is a lot more info about the house in Lauder, so I might have a go, circumstances permitting. I thought at one stage that the fire might make the article a good DYK candidate too. Incidentally, regarding your inline comment re. de Savary/Savoury, I wondered the same thing, but that's what's in Lauder - and her other earlier book/leaflet on the subject (see Further reading) just says "a timber company". Peter de Savary was born in 1944 - could have been his father I suppose.  —SMALLJIM  16:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Tristram Risdon as a reliable source...

I've left a note on the page querying whether Tristram Risdon is a reliable source for the medieval history of Dunsland. Academic history was in its infancy in the 17th century, when Risdon was writing, and according to "Topographical Writers in South-West England", (Mark Brayshay ed), Risdon's original manuscript was "shamefully hacked around by a rogue publisher in the 18th century" prior to publication, and it is not known "what Risdon himself actually wrote". I can't find any modern academic historians who seem to be using him as a source for pre-17th century factual history. Is there a good reason for believing him to be a reliable source for the 13th century details etc. referenced here? Hchc2009 (talk) 18:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll field this one. Curll's hacked about version wasn't the basis for the 1811 edition of Risdon that we're using as a source, so that doesn't affect things. It's true though that as Youings says in Topographical Writers... we don't know exactly what Tristram Risdon actually wrote because the printed versions and the extant manuscripts have never been collated. The 1811 edition was based on one manuscript that the editors said "appeared to be the most correct" after comparison with several others (Preface p. ix.). So before citing Risdon on matters of fact, we should ideally ensure either that there's no more recent independent reliable source (and cite that instead), or that a later source has trusted Risdon (and cite that instead). When the fact that we want to use is only available in Risdon, we should take care to attribute him (e.g. "Risdon says ...<ref>").

In the present case, the whole of that para you queried was meant to be covered by the "Risdon stated..." proviso, and since Vivian's later pedigree is rather different (but has fewer details for the early period) I thought it best to mention both versions so the reader can decide.  —SMALLJIM  14:43, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough - thanks Smalljim. Hchc2009 (talk) 14:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

No probs. There's still some work I'd like to do on the article per Johnbod's comment above, but for obvious reasons (if you've been following along!) I won't yet.  —SMALLJIM  15:39, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Update: I don't think Lt is going to take me up on my offer of reverting the article to his version and working on it together, so I think I'm justified in continuing to improve it now.  —SMALLJIM  12:36, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Seems like a sensible approach. Hchc2009 (talk) 14:07, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. As Johnbod mentioned, more on the house itself would be useful, which I can add from Lauder - any other improvements you can think of?  —SMALLJIM  14:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)