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Hi,
I'm concerned about the possibility of folk-tale or speculation being presented, over and over again, as watertight fact. Do reliable sources really say that Madoc sailed to the New World? Did he really use a magnetic compass?
bobrayner (
talk) 18:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Is this article really necessary? It's about a ship about which nothing is known, and may not have existed. But more importantly it is not - or certainly should not be - about Madoc's voyage. Why? Because we already have a B class (arguably much better) article on Madoc, and that is where the material on the voyage should be. A lot of the material in this article is hypothesis and speculation - and a lot of it is about the voyage, and not the ship. So, we have two articles about the voyage - this one, and Madoc. See Wikipedia:Content forking - this is a textbook example. At the very least, the material about the voyage needs to be removed from this article - it's unnecessary and confusing duplication for readers. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 19:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
POV language, and a lot of rubbish sources. The article appears to be a content fork from Madoc and should be redirected, with a mention of the ship in Madoc's article. Hobsbawm's book at [1] mentions this and can be used. Even a lot of that is rubbish, eg "One historian of the late twelfth century recorded that the Gwennan Gorn was constructed from oak trees of Nant Gwynant." Historian? Then why is his book self-published by Trafford? There was no "Zella Armstrong Willem", the 'Willem' seems to be an error, but she was basically a genealogist from what I can see. And as she published a magazine called The Lookout [2], she may be self-published as well. Ah, they were, and she may not even have been a geneaogist, see [3]. Don L. Wulffson has an article which is just a stub, but he isn't an RS, just a writer. [4] [5] may be ok but is a copyvio link. Haven't we discussed the Boren's before? I'm sure we have. Clearly not an acceptable source. Ditto Curran's self-published book. Deacon isn't an RS either, we discussed that. Not every source in "Some historians say Madoc landed in the Florida area with his ship the Gwennan Gorn on his trips from Wales" mentions the Gwennan Gorn. But as I say, redirect, a para in Madoc's article. I'm still on a break. Dougweller ( talk) 14:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
The professor of history at Emory & Henry College, Eugene L. Rasor, doesn’t seem to have a history as a book reviewer. This then would be hearsay, or original research, of an opinion from a professor of a college as a self-published source. Did he put this in some book review published by a reputable publisher that we can take a look at? However, I do have a couple of book reviews from reputable sources that shows Ellen Pugh’s book "Brave His Soul" is an excellent Welsh historical source:
If I know the concerns, perhaps I can use a different source (as many items have several sources). Usually if there is one source, there are more for the same item or sentence. I am not using original research, but have found the material in some reference source.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 18:44, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, by a double check, all sources in "Some historians say Madoc landed in the Florida area with his ship on his trips from Wales" mentions Florida. Which ones do not?-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 18:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
No, it doesn't, or at least I can't find any folklore that does. This is sourced to the book by the Borens I discussed somewhere, but is reviewed here. http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=13&num=2&id=397 [7]. We wouldn't use them to claim the Ark of the Covenent is in Utah, and we shouldn't be using them for this article either. No folklore mentions a "marvelous director", this is a phrase from the Book of Mormon. Even the Borens don't claim it is mentioned in folklore - in fact they don't even seem to be claiming that Willem says Madoc had one, only that he was looking for one. Much of the paragraph on this alleged compass has sources that don't discuss Madoc. Of those that do, one is a random website, one is the book by the librarian Ellen Pugh, and the third is Deacon who from the snippets I can see is simply writing about the possiblity he used a compass (and who isn't a RS). Dougweller ( talk) 10:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
From an edit by me in April at Talk:Madoc. n a rather odd footnote, an editor writes " Ellen Pugh career: Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University), Cleveland, OH, cataloger, 1943-45; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, cataloger, 1945-47; Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, OH, branch librarian, 1955-58; University of Nebraska, Lincoln, order librarian, 1958-63; University of Oregon, Eugene, cataloger, 1963-65; University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, cataloger, 1965-68; Washington State University, Pullman, serials librarian, 1969-" - she was also described as a Welsh historian, although she obviously isn't. She was a librarian with evidently no training in history. Emory & Henry College emeritus professor of history Eugene L. Rasor said of her that she "speculated about Prince Madoc but not convincingly". I can't see any way that she can be a reliable source for anything historical. Dougweller ( talk) 10:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
The use of Willem is solely to do with Madoc, not his ship, and is I believe possibly misleading. What the article on Madoc actually says is: "Willem the Minstrel, around 1250 to 1255, identifies himself in his best known work Van den Vos Reinaerde as “Willem, die Madocke makede” (Willem, the author of Madoc). What may be a fragment of this work was found in France in the 17th century. It provides no topographical details relating to North America. It does mention what may be the Sargasso Sea and says that Madoc (not related to Owain in the fragment according to Gwen Williams) discovered an island paradise. [1] [2]" None of the sources in that section are reliable sources by our criteria - Armstrong is a self-published author (certainly not a historian), Loker's book seems self-published as Solitude Press seems to publish nothing by other articles (and he has no qualifications in history, "Aleck Loker, educated as a physicist, worked for the U.S. Navy as a scientist and flight test engineer for more than thirty years."). I don't know who John Miles is but reliability is not the default (nor is it clear what he says as I can only see snippets). As to the "literature of Holland", what exactly is this? What reliable source says this is found in the literature of Holland and exactly what literature are we talking about? My guess would be that this is not an independent source is the statement implies, but is the Dutch author Willem. And recall that we have no original copy of Willem. Dougweller ( talk) 11:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
References
I'm not going to comment on whether this article should be deleted or not. However, just reading it on its face, it is evident that the authors have gotten bogged down in their sources. There are far too many sources listed - are all of them important and unique? Also, there is a huge amount of repetition. Tell what is known once, in chronological fashion. There is no need to repeat the assertion that Madoc sailed on two journeys over and over again. I would use three paragraphs: 1. State what happened before his first journey (who he was, why he built the ship); 2. Discuss the first voyage; 3. Discuss the second voyage. Simplify. Also, the listing of sources at the bottom should be complete enough so that readers can find these sources. The sources should not be referred to in the text. It is not important to encyclopedia readers where the manuscripts are located. Good luck with the article. -- Ssilvers ( talk) 13:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Fringe tag and duplication tag removed since these issues have been cleared up by User:Dougweller plus the improvements I recently made.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 19:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I can't see why the sources for this should be anything other than academic sources that pass our RS criteria. Not even popular writers on history such as Peter Aughton (who doesn't reference his books well) [8]. Aughton seems to be accepting the story as true and speculates on its sails, saying that "The brothers took two ships on their venture, called the Gorit Gwynanl and the Pedr San/. Apart from the names we have no details of these ships but they were probably similar in construction to the open ships of the Vikings, carrying a single square sail and powered by banks of oars to port and starboard." In the article this becomes "Madoc's ship likely had a large single square sail based on British shipbuilding techniques of the twelfth century." But it is just speculation bsed on nothing but the author's guess (and on the basis of Aughton do we remove all the other details he says we don't have but are in the article?). The next sentence says "One historian speculates that the sail had a broad Templar cross on it." But the Borens book, which locates the Ark of the Covenant in Utah [9] clearly fails completely our criteria for sources. And they are clearly not historians, so why are they described as "one historian"? I also see a children's book as a source. I'm at a loss as to why this was considered a reliable source (by our criteria of course). I've removed quite a bit more with detailed explanation in the edit summaries. I still say that a romantic poet is not a reliable source, and repeat that as much as possible we should have academic sources and also we must be specific, not just say "stories" or "folklore" - what stories, what folklore? We do have some reliable sources. Cwrtmawr MS. 530 and Lloyd-Morgan for instance. What else? Dougweller ( talk) 16:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
To add to the discussion above, one of the sources used by the editor who created this article is [10], the Encyclopedia of Alabama in an article written by a historian. It says "The version of the legend centering on the Mobile connection was popularized by the relentlessly determined preservationist and unreliable amateur historian Hatchett Chandler and the equally unreliable amateur historian Zella Armstrong of Chattanooga in the book Who Discovered America? The Amazing Story of Madoc (1950)." It also does not mention the Gwennan Gorn so I'm removing that section. Dougweller ( talk) 08:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hi,
I'm concerned about the possibility of folk-tale or speculation being presented, over and over again, as watertight fact. Do reliable sources really say that Madoc sailed to the New World? Did he really use a magnetic compass?
bobrayner (
talk) 18:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Is this article really necessary? It's about a ship about which nothing is known, and may not have existed. But more importantly it is not - or certainly should not be - about Madoc's voyage. Why? Because we already have a B class (arguably much better) article on Madoc, and that is where the material on the voyage should be. A lot of the material in this article is hypothesis and speculation - and a lot of it is about the voyage, and not the ship. So, we have two articles about the voyage - this one, and Madoc. See Wikipedia:Content forking - this is a textbook example. At the very least, the material about the voyage needs to be removed from this article - it's unnecessary and confusing duplication for readers. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 19:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
POV language, and a lot of rubbish sources. The article appears to be a content fork from Madoc and should be redirected, with a mention of the ship in Madoc's article. Hobsbawm's book at [1] mentions this and can be used. Even a lot of that is rubbish, eg "One historian of the late twelfth century recorded that the Gwennan Gorn was constructed from oak trees of Nant Gwynant." Historian? Then why is his book self-published by Trafford? There was no "Zella Armstrong Willem", the 'Willem' seems to be an error, but she was basically a genealogist from what I can see. And as she published a magazine called The Lookout [2], she may be self-published as well. Ah, they were, and she may not even have been a geneaogist, see [3]. Don L. Wulffson has an article which is just a stub, but he isn't an RS, just a writer. [4] [5] may be ok but is a copyvio link. Haven't we discussed the Boren's before? I'm sure we have. Clearly not an acceptable source. Ditto Curran's self-published book. Deacon isn't an RS either, we discussed that. Not every source in "Some historians say Madoc landed in the Florida area with his ship the Gwennan Gorn on his trips from Wales" mentions the Gwennan Gorn. But as I say, redirect, a para in Madoc's article. I'm still on a break. Dougweller ( talk) 14:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
The professor of history at Emory & Henry College, Eugene L. Rasor, doesn’t seem to have a history as a book reviewer. This then would be hearsay, or original research, of an opinion from a professor of a college as a self-published source. Did he put this in some book review published by a reputable publisher that we can take a look at? However, I do have a couple of book reviews from reputable sources that shows Ellen Pugh’s book "Brave His Soul" is an excellent Welsh historical source:
If I know the concerns, perhaps I can use a different source (as many items have several sources). Usually if there is one source, there are more for the same item or sentence. I am not using original research, but have found the material in some reference source.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 18:44, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, by a double check, all sources in "Some historians say Madoc landed in the Florida area with his ship on his trips from Wales" mentions Florida. Which ones do not?-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 18:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
No, it doesn't, or at least I can't find any folklore that does. This is sourced to the book by the Borens I discussed somewhere, but is reviewed here. http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=13&num=2&id=397 [7]. We wouldn't use them to claim the Ark of the Covenent is in Utah, and we shouldn't be using them for this article either. No folklore mentions a "marvelous director", this is a phrase from the Book of Mormon. Even the Borens don't claim it is mentioned in folklore - in fact they don't even seem to be claiming that Willem says Madoc had one, only that he was looking for one. Much of the paragraph on this alleged compass has sources that don't discuss Madoc. Of those that do, one is a random website, one is the book by the librarian Ellen Pugh, and the third is Deacon who from the snippets I can see is simply writing about the possiblity he used a compass (and who isn't a RS). Dougweller ( talk) 10:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
From an edit by me in April at Talk:Madoc. n a rather odd footnote, an editor writes " Ellen Pugh career: Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University), Cleveland, OH, cataloger, 1943-45; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, cataloger, 1945-47; Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, OH, branch librarian, 1955-58; University of Nebraska, Lincoln, order librarian, 1958-63; University of Oregon, Eugene, cataloger, 1963-65; University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, cataloger, 1965-68; Washington State University, Pullman, serials librarian, 1969-" - she was also described as a Welsh historian, although she obviously isn't. She was a librarian with evidently no training in history. Emory & Henry College emeritus professor of history Eugene L. Rasor said of her that she "speculated about Prince Madoc but not convincingly". I can't see any way that she can be a reliable source for anything historical. Dougweller ( talk) 10:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
The use of Willem is solely to do with Madoc, not his ship, and is I believe possibly misleading. What the article on Madoc actually says is: "Willem the Minstrel, around 1250 to 1255, identifies himself in his best known work Van den Vos Reinaerde as “Willem, die Madocke makede” (Willem, the author of Madoc). What may be a fragment of this work was found in France in the 17th century. It provides no topographical details relating to North America. It does mention what may be the Sargasso Sea and says that Madoc (not related to Owain in the fragment according to Gwen Williams) discovered an island paradise. [1] [2]" None of the sources in that section are reliable sources by our criteria - Armstrong is a self-published author (certainly not a historian), Loker's book seems self-published as Solitude Press seems to publish nothing by other articles (and he has no qualifications in history, "Aleck Loker, educated as a physicist, worked for the U.S. Navy as a scientist and flight test engineer for more than thirty years."). I don't know who John Miles is but reliability is not the default (nor is it clear what he says as I can only see snippets). As to the "literature of Holland", what exactly is this? What reliable source says this is found in the literature of Holland and exactly what literature are we talking about? My guess would be that this is not an independent source is the statement implies, but is the Dutch author Willem. And recall that we have no original copy of Willem. Dougweller ( talk) 11:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
References
I'm not going to comment on whether this article should be deleted or not. However, just reading it on its face, it is evident that the authors have gotten bogged down in their sources. There are far too many sources listed - are all of them important and unique? Also, there is a huge amount of repetition. Tell what is known once, in chronological fashion. There is no need to repeat the assertion that Madoc sailed on two journeys over and over again. I would use three paragraphs: 1. State what happened before his first journey (who he was, why he built the ship); 2. Discuss the first voyage; 3. Discuss the second voyage. Simplify. Also, the listing of sources at the bottom should be complete enough so that readers can find these sources. The sources should not be referred to in the text. It is not important to encyclopedia readers where the manuscripts are located. Good luck with the article. -- Ssilvers ( talk) 13:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Fringe tag and duplication tag removed since these issues have been cleared up by User:Dougweller plus the improvements I recently made.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 19:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I can't see why the sources for this should be anything other than academic sources that pass our RS criteria. Not even popular writers on history such as Peter Aughton (who doesn't reference his books well) [8]. Aughton seems to be accepting the story as true and speculates on its sails, saying that "The brothers took two ships on their venture, called the Gorit Gwynanl and the Pedr San/. Apart from the names we have no details of these ships but they were probably similar in construction to the open ships of the Vikings, carrying a single square sail and powered by banks of oars to port and starboard." In the article this becomes "Madoc's ship likely had a large single square sail based on British shipbuilding techniques of the twelfth century." But it is just speculation bsed on nothing but the author's guess (and on the basis of Aughton do we remove all the other details he says we don't have but are in the article?). The next sentence says "One historian speculates that the sail had a broad Templar cross on it." But the Borens book, which locates the Ark of the Covenant in Utah [9] clearly fails completely our criteria for sources. And they are clearly not historians, so why are they described as "one historian"? I also see a children's book as a source. I'm at a loss as to why this was considered a reliable source (by our criteria of course). I've removed quite a bit more with detailed explanation in the edit summaries. I still say that a romantic poet is not a reliable source, and repeat that as much as possible we should have academic sources and also we must be specific, not just say "stories" or "folklore" - what stories, what folklore? We do have some reliable sources. Cwrtmawr MS. 530 and Lloyd-Morgan for instance. What else? Dougweller ( talk) 16:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
To add to the discussion above, one of the sources used by the editor who created this article is [10], the Encyclopedia of Alabama in an article written by a historian. It says "The version of the legend centering on the Mobile connection was popularized by the relentlessly determined preservationist and unreliable amateur historian Hatchett Chandler and the equally unreliable amateur historian Zella Armstrong of Chattanooga in the book Who Discovered America? The Amazing Story of Madoc (1950)." It also does not mention the Gwennan Gorn so I'm removing that section. Dougweller ( talk) 08:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)