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I have reverted edit 794246181 by 70.64.100.245 as I feel the concept of voluntary emigration is an important one. The complete sentence in the article therefore reads "The cumulative effect of the Clearances, and the large-scale voluntary emigrations over the same period, devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland; the effect of the Clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture." There are a number of deficiencies in this text as it stands, but the mention of the voluntary aspect is an important part of explaining the empty landscapes of many of the cleared regions.
Population numbers, in many/most instances, continued to climb whilst clearance was ongoing. Therefore if you are looking for a reason for the destruction of the Gaelic culture, it is difficult to directly blame clearance for this. The best causative link between the two might be the change to crofting communities (which were largely the creation of the first phase of the clearances), thereby generating the need for migrant work to provide cash to subsidise the otherwise insufficient living to be obtained on a croft. This work was generally obtained in the English/Scots speaking Lowlands (both rural and urban). This process was further assisted by the various church-based educational societies (such as the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge); some of these groups initially tried to teach only in English, but rapidly moved to teaching reading (of the Bible) in Gaelic, but, in time, they were (surprisingly) put under pressure by the Gaelic community also to teach English. The explanation being that English was the "language of work". (Statistics on Gaelic and English literacy show a strong relationship between being able to speak English with being able to read both Gaelic and English.) The large seasonal migrant population of crofting communities - typically young men and women - therefore could acquire a broader range of employment opportunities.
A problem with the sentence quoted in the first paragraph is that it says that the large-scale voluntary emigrations were concurrent with the clearances. It would be better to make clear that these continued and accelerated as clearance ceased. I also am less than happy with " the effect of the clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture". It appears much more likely that these were two events that were going on at the same time, with some inter-relation between them, but neither being overwhelmingly the result of the other.
In looking at other events which destroyed Gaelic culture, one could assert that that clearance was somehow linked to breakdown of the clan system. However, cause and effect are the other way round - the clan system was already in demise as clearances started in any quantity.
I've not cited any references to support the above. All the opinions I have expressed can be found collected together in Clanship to Crofters War by T M Devine. Specifically, this deals with:
Chapter 1 - Clanship (the rise and fall thereof)
Chapter 3 - The Transformation of Gaeldom (this chapter starts with "Gaelic Society and clanship were in decay long before the later eighteenth century.....")
Chapter 7 - The Social Impact of Protestant Evangelicalism
Chapter 8 - The Language of the Gael
Chapter10 - The Migrant Tradition
Many writers on the subject cover the population numbers at the time of clearance (Richards is a good source in his several works).
I have not been able to engage directly with the IP editor that I have reverted. I would hope that if the editor feels that I am wrong to revert, that we can have some discussion here. I appreciate that there are some complex points involved - especially since there were some emigrants who would undoubtedly have questioned their voluntary status, even if not technically evicted as part of a clearance. However, there are many more who did decide to emigrate of their own volition. Why, otherwise, would the Passenger Vessels Act of 1803 have been enacted? ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:19, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Farming to sheep-raising isn't a revolution. The article should identify enclosures as the primary agricultural change, comparing it's lateness in comparison with the Lowlands, England, the rest of the UK, and Europe.
In itself this wasn't a revolution, because it was a late development of a widespread phenomenon.
The reasons for it's late change is more pertinent than the narrowing of farming into sheep raising. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 09:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
I have been thinking long and hard about the edit putting the word improvement in inverted commas. I have come to the conclusion that this is POV and, even if it is not, the absence of inverted commas does not cause the same problem, if incorrect, as their presence if that is incorrect. Hence I have amended the section heading Economic improvement by removing the inverted commas. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:22, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Very sure that authors quoted relate instances where improvement happened, without enclosure, before enclosure too.
Enclosure itself is a debated concept. It happens in Brazil at the present moment, it's a hot environmental topic. In the Highlands enclosure involved people, not the environment itself.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of all the facts, not merely the academic literature on it. The crofter movement, and the Government legislation on crofting itself, goes beyond the literature in placing enclosure as a debated concept.
Yet happy delving for literature if necessary.
What seems preferable is perhaps highlighting what improvement entails; because improvement is specifically linked with enclosure, enclosure primarily meant sheep raising, and for sheep raising to be a success it meant merely a profit. That isn't necessarily everyones idea of improvement because profit can come in various forms, and mere profit isn't the profit that sustained the farming economy and Highland society before enclosure.
Beyond that enclosure meant other things, and there are well documented cases of it failing. That makes improvement a debated concept.
The question that is vital in all this is "for whom" because improvement in itself if documented doesn't necessarily equate to improvement for everyone or for someone or some group. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 02:44, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
The economics of debt is an interesting topic for another article. Yet most nations for instance incur national debts, and mere profit is excluded from an idea of improvement in the overwhelming majority of nation states, as long as the debt creates profit elsewhere. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 02:59, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
I was recently reading WP:DUE, and I became concerned about the balance of the amount of text on various parts of the subject covered by this article. I thought this needed some hard numbers to help assess the matter. In order to measure the weight given, I used word counts in the article and also in Eric Richards' book The Highland Clearances (since this is a work to which, I imagine, most active editors hereon will have access). [3] Looking at the article, there are approximately 6,326 words in it as it stands. The section on Discrimination is 757 words long, or 12% of the overall article, and this is split into 330 words on religious discrimination and 426 on pseudo-scientific racism.
Going now to Richards, using Kindle location numbers and the rule of thumb of 23 words to one Kindle location unit, this estimates the book at 211,508 words. Using the Kindle search function, I have found 90 words about religious discrimination (page 81, in the section about voluntary emigration). This is 0.04% of the entire book.
I have searched for discussion of pseudo-scientific racism or anything similar but not found anything in this work. (Please let me know if I have missed anything.)
So, from this, we see that the article has more words on religious discrimination than an entire book on the Highland Clearances. I do not expect the percentage of the article to be the same as the book, but the large difference, and the absolute number, tells us something. Nor do I suggest that absence of comment by Richards on the racial discrimination against the Gael to suggest that it should not be included. And I do appreciate that the issue is more than just a simple word count. However, I believe that what is needed is to reduce the prominence given in the article to this part of the overall subject, particularly the length of the relevant section. I think the same conclusion would be reached from a wider study of suitable sources.
We also have the following difficulties:
Within the Discrimination section, there is one 'citation needed' and 5 primary sources, 2 of which are used to give direct quotes. This follows on from mentioning a quote used by James Hunter (that at least has the advantage that it is derived from a secondary source written by a respected historian working in the subject). Both primary sources and quotes are meant to be avoided, limited or used with care (
WP:Primary,
WP:LONGQUOTE,
WP:quotefarm).
The solution to all the above would appear to be to reduce the size of the Discrimination section. A return to the version of this section that existed on 30 August might be the easiest way to achieve this. That would give a Discrimination section of about 295 words, which would be slightly less than 5% of the entire article. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 19:06, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
I take the view that dodging usage of the word "improvement" is POV. The word is widely used by writers on this subject (see the discussion above about putting it in quotes). With the word "Economic" in front of it, it demonstrably is improvement in that context. It is also clear that the change from the old-style of agriculture introduced money into the economy - something which, by the time the Highland Potato Famine arrived, undoubtedly saved many lives in the Highlands. I don't think there is any doubt that there is a social downside to improvement of the type discussed in the article (where-ever it occurs). But ignoring the other aspects of the subject is an incomplete story. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 09:20, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I disagree. ' With the word "Economic" in front of it, it demonstrably is improvement in that context. ' It demonstrably is deterioration: the Highland economy was ravaged, virtually destroyed, to the detriment of thousands of people. The change benefited a few landowners and their farmers, so the balance was not an improvement but a deterioration in the living and economic conditions of the majority. I think the reversion is using too narrow a conceptions of 'Economic', which should refer to the overall benefit or harm to the people of the district. The fact that many people refer to it as 'improvement' does not make that term NPOV. TonyClarke ( talk) 18:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
( talk) 20:03, 1 October 2017 (UTC) Thank you for all of the research, citations and comments on this. My original intention was just to point out the POV use of 'improvement'. To me , that term is evaluative, while 'change' is not. I think that NPOV should be aimed at here, particularly about this still very sensitive subject. We could debate it endlessly, but I was just expressing a semantic opinion in my original edit. TonyClarke ( talk) 04:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
TonyClarke ( talk) 22:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
(b) No, I am not suggesting we apply our POV policies to academic historians. That would be absurd, which is why i have not done it.
(c) Published sources include the feelings of the displaced who certainly did not see it as an improvement. Their point of view needs to be implicitly acknowledged by avoiding using the term 'improvement ' tout court. For me, that is what your quote from the POV policy says about this situation. We need neutral language which I am beginning to tire of repeating here.
(d) What was said in the previous section from the one under discussion does not materially affect my expressed views.
(e) By loaded term I mean that the term 'improvement' is used to express the point of view of the landowners only and is therefore biased and POV. We need neutral language here which does not dismiss one important point of view i.e. that of the displaced.
I have now answered your points without you anywhere answering mine, about the basic semantic implications of 'improvement'. I agree the discussion is going nowhere, and feel that academic sparring is diversionary. I thank the several editors who have commented on this and would ask any others to please give their comments before I consider restoring my original change. TonyClarke ( talk) 22:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science.
Historical scholarship is generally not: Journalism Opinion pieces by non-scholars Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources Any primary source; however primary sources may be used in accord with the WP:Primary rules. This includes primary source collections, or the primary source sections or appendixes of otherwise scholarly texts Annotated editions of primary sources, with the exception of the explicit annotations Online editions of primary sources produced by libraries and archives.
It is a frequent misunderstanding of the NPOV policy, often expressed by newbies, visitors, and outside critics, that articles must not contain any form of bias, hence their efforts to remove statements they perceive as biased. The NPOV policy does forbid the inclusion of editorial bias, but does not forbid properly sourced bias. Without the inclusion and documentation of bias in the real world, many of our articles would fail to document the sum total of human knowledge, and would be rather "blah" reading, devoid of much meaningful and interesting content.
References
Could the user ThoughtIdRetired please read WP:NOTESSAY. They have changed and deleted vast amounts of this article, including deleting sources that disagree with their personal opinion. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 19:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Courteous isn't a description that could be used in describing Thoughtld Retired's editing process. Citing WP: DUE whilst deleting WP:RS and suggesting because article, book names or chapter or sub-paragraph headings don't mention religion that it is not WP:DUE, is an error in fact. It is a superficial reading of WP:DUE, that deletes a small section creating a smaller section with less WP:RS.
The editing process for the section on religion was long and is documented in the talk page archive, it is a genuine attempt at WP:CONS. ThoughtIdRetired has already been told this by another user in a previous disagreement about editing that section.
Ignoring other users is now a habit, because in another section on economics, the user is dismissing several users again.
WP:CONS is really the answer to WP:NOTESSAY. My hope is ThoughtldRetired can reach consensus with multiple users who disagree with the deletion of old sections on the one hand and the editing and enforcement of personal edits on the other. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 12:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to flag this up again.
(a) I am happy with Camerojo's recent deletion and reasons - it reads fine to me and with further material in the article this should work out OK. (I am still concerned about the cause and effect issue relative to clearance and the demise of Gaelic culture - it is much more complex than the quote from Dawson and Farber.)
(b) A quote from Devine to throw into the melting pot [discussion of removal to crofts or villages on coast] "...before the 1830s some clearances resulted in the substantial voluntary emigration of local communities.....Inevitably, therefore, emigration in reaction to eviction varied significantly from area to area." [1]: 180
I think we need to be careful not to paint ourselves into a corner over how "voluntary" is used. I don't think the quote in (b) can be misunderstood. I think the term "emigration in reaction to eviction" may be useful. Will need to find some more references on those who emigrate pre-emptively - i.e. before any actual eviction.
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 19:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I have deleted the following (at the end of this explanation). The reasons are:
(1) There is a general consensus among historians that the destruction of Gaelic culture, or more precisely of the clan as a social, cultural and economic entity was a long-term process which started before the Clearances. There appears to be some dispute over the detail, which needs further analysis. However, looking at this general consensus, the statement that "...in the end they destroyed much of Gaelic culture" is, at best a dangerous over-simplification and at worst, simply untrue.
(2) There has been discussion about the word "voluntary" and a feeling that something needs to be done about its use. I have just located a reference that might assist here (People and Society in Scotland, vol 1, page 86). In the meantime, removing the problem passage is a stop-gap solution. I think a solution for the whole article would be to briefly discuss "non-enforced" emigration (we are going to have to find a way of talking about it) as part of the overall context in which the Clearances existed. I note that it is possible, in some instances, to view emigration as a form of resistance to the changes of which Clearance was part. By this I am referring to the various emigrations, often led by now-redundant tacksmen, and I also have in mind the departure of the richer farmers who got fed up with lack of security of tenure. (And there is the tale of one third of the residents of St Kilda departing to Tasmania with their laird following them, begging them to come home. Richards is the ref for this, but cannot lay my hands on the detail right now.) There is some work to do to pull this all together into a functioning part of the article.
(3) As an article in the category history, we should strive to use sources as per
WP:SOURCE AND
WP:HSC - the major part of the guidance is to prefer sources that are "historical scholarship". It appears that the authors of this reference are both lawyers and not historians. I cannot track any positive assessments of this work by historians that would validate its use. I don't know if any other users can identify anything that would help meet the demands of WP:HSC?
That clearly leaves a need for some replacement text, but there is some work to do to identify and represent the slightly different views of different writers on the decline of the clan and the associated destruction of Gaelic culture. And, as mentioned above, work to do on emigration.
I have copied the deleted passage below, largely so that the reference is preserved if it is appropriate to use it again in the future. Deleted text follows:
The cumulative effect of the Clearances and the large-scale voluntary emigrations over the same period devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland; in the end they destroyed much of Gaelic culture. [1]
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 22:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
TonyClarke ( talk) 12:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
I cannot track any positive assessments of this work by historians that would validate its use. I don't know if any other users can identify anything that would help meet the demands of WP:HSC?
"Thus the 'rage for emigration' in the later eighteenth century can be deemed voluntary only to the extent that relatively affluent tacksmen and tenantry were not prepared to accept downward social mobility and depression of their living standards when freehold land was on offer in America."
"The emigration of tacksmen and middle rank farmers can be seen in part as a flight of capital from Gaeldom and still further diminished the entrepreneurial pool."
The voluntary nature of non-clearance migration or emigration was questioned before in the talk page archives.
It is a matter for serious discussion because the lead should mention either indisputable facts or be a summary of topics in the article.
The latter point, that the Highland Clearances didn't have a devastating impact on Gaelic culture should not be deleted because it satisfies both these necessities.
Both points are interconnected, the comparative questionable nature of voluntary emigration links with the anti-Gael cultural legislation, that arises with Jacobite rebellion, mentioned in the vast majority of RS on the Highland Clearances.
Any attempt at severing those links would negate the social circumstances that those Cleared faced when they migrated or emigrated, be it legislative discrimination or social discrimination. For instance, racism didn't end with the Civil War in the USA. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 22:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
It simply isn't the case. Legislation was passed that ended the clan system, and enforcement was thorough. It's cited in the article. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 23:26, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I have deleted the reference [1] as it appears, by some distance, not to meet any criteria for being a reliable source. The Gaelic name for the event discussed can easily be referenced from other sources, such as Richards [2]: 111 (Confusingly, on the same page of this ref, Richards uses a different definition of "the Second Phase of the Clearances" than used by Devine, Lynch, Allan Macinnes and others.)
This section will need some revision, as it seems to miss most of the salient facts about the Ross-shire Insurrection/Year of the Sheep. This is an important part of the whole story as it is one of the relatively rare mass disorder events of the Clearances. (Lynch
[3]: 375 suggests that there were more than 50 individual acts of protest at plans for clearance, but if you look at those where the military were called out or put on notice, these were much rarer. Hence the importance of this section.)
ThoughtIdRetired (
talk)
13:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I note that an IP editor has added the NPOV template on the section titled "Causes". Whilst there is much discussion on the talk page, none of it seems to address the tagging, which seems to apply to the whole section. There is no specific entry on the talk page by the IP editor that I can find. Has anyone any suggestions for a course of action?
The guidance for the template says (bold added):
".... strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page), to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, the template can be removed;..."
I am inclined to delete and then revert the tagging to try and flush out the thinking behind the tag, ideally with references. Has anyone got a better plan?
Or does the IP editor wish to explain their arguments now? ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:26, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
I have reverted the 21:01, 19 October 2017 edit by
User: WyndingHeadland (and the 2 associated minor edits) for the following reasons.
1) The edit summary misrepresents the position over consensus on the content that has been edited. This subject breaks down into 2 parts:
a) The edit by
User: WyndingHeadland has deleted text that was specifically agreed in a talk page discussion. This can be found in the talk page archive 4, that
User: WyndingHeadland directs us to in the edit summary. The sequence of events can be summarised as follows:
(i) The discussion was started by
User:ThoughtIdRetired on
22:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC) with a proposal to delete the section on Religion.
(ii) There was some conceptual agreement from
User: Catrìona on
00:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC), with a suggestion of an alternative approach.
(iii) The point raised in (ii) was agreed by
User:ThoughtIdRetired on
00:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC) and expanded into a plan for some additions to the article (which have since been incorporated).
(iv)
User: Camerojo then joined the discussion on
05:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC), pointing out the previous talk page correspondence. There were further rounds of discussion on this, with
User: ThoughtIdRetired changing their opinion and suggesting a new piece about religious discrimination for the article, to be included as part of a section that discusses the other proximal causes of clearance. A draft of the actual text on religious discrimination was included in the talk page discussion.
(v) There was no further comment from
User:Camerojo and
User: Catrìona stated
“Looks like a nuanced, relevant, concise, and NPOV treatment of the topic. Great work! “on
16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
(vi) The above was taken as a consensus to go ahead with the changes discussed. These were carried out on 23:04, 9 July 2017, a full week after the endorsement by
User: Catrìona mentioned in (v). This delay allowed anyone else who so wished to contribute.
(vii) To sum up: there was a proposal which was modified by discussion, a piece of text was proposed and supported, there was no active opposition to this text, it was inserted into the article, together with the other text that was discussed at the same time.
The edit by
User: WyndingHeadland on 21:01, 19 October 2017 has therefore deleted text that was agreed by a consensus reached after discussion.
b)
User:ThoughtIdRetired raised (on the talk page) what was perceived as a problem of balance (
WP:DUE) in the article on
19:06, 10 September 2017 (UTC).
(i) The suggested solution was to delete some of the older text on discrimination and religion, leaving the newly written material to handle the subject. This dealt with a number of problems with the older text. There were no comments on this proposal, so, 10 days later (23:15 on 20 September 2017), the proposals were put into place.
(ii) On 19:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC),
User: WyndingHeadland made some accusations about inappropriate editing. Among other discussion, the sequence of events (as summarised immediately above) was explained to
User: WyndingHeadland – in short, the plans had been posted on the talk page, and there had been 10 days in which comments could have been made.
(iii) There was no answer to this from
User: WyndingHeadland, until, on 21:01, 19 October 2017, when the user made the edits under discussion: deleting agreed text and adding previously deleted material whose deletion had been carefully justified.
User: WyndingHeadland made no justification for this edit, beyond an edit summary that, as demonstrated above, is, in the most favourable interpretation, misleading.
(iv) So, in summary,
User: WyndingHeadland has ignored the logical reasons given for deleting the old text on religion and has gone ahead and made an edit without contributing to any discussion on the point.
2) The replacement text in the 21:01, 19 October 2017 edit by
User: WyndingHeadland has numerous deficiencies, both on its own and in comparison to the text deleted in the same edit.
a) The deficiencies of the replacement text, from a stand-alone view point are substantial – but a summary of the more obvious points is as follows:
(i) In the version of this text that existed on 21:18, 18 December 2016, the first sentence of the section headed “Religion” had a “citation needed” tag. This has been deleted by the 03:47, 16 September 2017 version, but without the issue being resolved, either on the talk page or with an appropriate reference.
(ii) In the 03:47, 16 September 2017 version, there is a further “citation needed” tag in the penultimate paragraph of the section. This does not appear in the version inserted on 21:01, 19 October 2017, though the issue remains unresolved.
(iii) The statement (para 3 of section) “…religious discrimination is not considered, by some historians, to be a reason for evicting tenants as part of any clearance” is not supported by the reference, since the reference is written by two human rights lawyers in a book canvassing for a change in international law (that would give them more work). The key point is that the book is not written by historians, so does not support “…considered by some historians…”.
(iv) Para 3’s last sentence is widely disagreed with by modern historians (and the cited reference is the book by the human rights lawyers, who as non-historians, are a questionable reference according to
WP:HSC).
(v) Para 4 (“Nevertheless, anti-Catholic sentiment…..”) is not supported by the first two references given.
The first is referring to emigration rather than clearance (and note the definition used in the article – in fact. if you read further in the source that provides that definition – Watson and Allan – it specifically states “Areas could also become empty by net, non-enforced emigration, with or without pressure from landowners to leave, but it would be confusing to refer to this as clearance.”)
The second reference (“Toiling in the vale of tears”) actually is a misquote of the third!! It talks about voluntary emigration, citing our third reference as its source, but does not correctly convey the content therein.
(vi) The last paragraph quotes Richards, but does not make totally clear that he is referring to those who choose to emigrate, not those who are evicted (or “cleared” in the terminology of the subject). I accept that we have the pending task of discussing “voluntary” emigration within the article – it is a problem to convey all the shades of grey between someone thinking there is a better life overseas and a person for whom emigration is the last resort as no realistic option is left for them in their home country. That does not take away from the fact that this last paragraph is misleading.
b) The comparative points between the two bodies of text that were swapped in the edit of 21:01, 19 October 2017 are shown below. For clarity, the “deleted text” is the version that existed before this edit and which was agreed on the talk page on 16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC). The “replacement text” is that which was added in this edit.
The deleted text provides much more information on the events discussed in the reference “Cargoes of Hope and Despair”: it mentions that the landlord was a recent convert to Presbyterianism; it explains how a potential loss of rent stalled the process; it gives the numbers of families evicted out of the total tenant population and says how many emigrated and where they got the money to do so. None of these points are made clear in the replacement text. The source “Cargoes of Hope and Despair” is used as a reference, but the content is largely ignored.
(3) To come back to the point about consensus, archive 3 of the talk page includes the following:
"Quality/Neutrality
This article seems to present a partisan point of view, founded perhaps in one of the cited sources (Prebble) whose work on this subject is generally discredited by serious historians. I think an extensive audit of neutrality is needed, together with an injection of some new sources. Am I alone in thinking this? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:17, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
No argument here. Please see the extensive arguments in Archives 2.--SabreBD (talk) 00:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes another informed pair of eyes on this article would be welcomed. Camerojo (talk) 21:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Indeed. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)"
I think this is a good demonstration of a consensus that the article had/has deficiencies, which are currently being addressed by successive rounds of editing.
User:WyndingHeadland appears to ignore talk page content such as this, taking what appears to be a completely contrary understanding.
Throughout all the interactions with
User: WyndingHeadland, it is hard to point to any situation where the user has employed specific references to support their position. It is actually quite hard to find anything that supports the idea that the user has even read any of the references concerned.
There has also been an unpleasant thread of accusation of bad editing practices; and it is hard to discern any logical argument to support these accusations. It is very difficult to avoid the slow adoption of the idea that
User: WyndingHeadland is engaged in disruptive editing (
WP:DISRUPT). Answering the various allegations takes a lot of time that would be much better spent on dealing with the many problems with this article.
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 13:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
This article isn't on The Highland Emigrations, it's on The Highland Clearances and how they relate with emigrations. An important element in the Clearances is social changes. The user has a personal NPOV problem that has been raised by, including myself, 3 users. He is attempting a reduction of the Clearances to simply an economic issue.
The above is a simple Occam's Razor description of the problem. The user has shown himself unable to engage in consensus creation without indulging in vast changes.
Filibuster talk page comments won't win support for the project that users other than himself have saught to impose upon a complex topic. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 21:06, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Because engaging with the user creates talk page responses on multifarious issues, instead of specific issues, that is much much longer than the consensus agreement he wishes to delete.
Until any user can respond without the filibuster POV rants that demand complete response or nothing at all the user is unlikely to reach consensus.
As was correctly said, the only social issue the user determined is valuable is reduced to an economic social issue. The POV ranting and personal essay needs to stop. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 09:47, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
An unsurprising turn of events. The user would prefer the topic to be about Highland emigration and a POV justification for the conceptually debatable topic of enclosure, if not all enclosures, then certainly in this specific instance.
He is treating the topic one dimensionally as purely economic. Social circumstances are ignored and where there is any conception of any social circumstances they are only related in reference to economics.
His POV on economics is a deterministic financial view that disregards non-deterministic social economics.
There were social reasons over and above financial reasons for the current topic of the Highland Clearances.
The user has taken to radically overhauling the article as a personal essay and is engaging in rants and multifarious points on the talk page due to the significant amount of deletion they are engaged in.
Quantity does not equate with quality. Editing a personal essay into the topic and writing rants on the talk page that can be adequately surmarised as supporting an 18th and 19th century-conception of the Highland Clearances as "improvement" isn't anything new. The amount the user has written, and the timescale the user has written it in, shouldn't be confused as being a sign of reaching NPOV standards. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 14:32, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Due to an edit war that was reported at WP:AN3 and seems to be continuing I have fully protected this article for one week. Please use the talk page to get agreement on further changes. See WP:Dispute resolution for what to do if editors don't agree. EdJohnston ( talk) 13:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
The topic of migration should make reference to the Highland Bounds such that the terms migration, emigration, and immigration have proper reference to the Highlands and Gaelic culture.
This relates with the previous raised contested conception of enclosure because enclosure elsewhere isn't so directly relatable with a cultural shift as it is in the Highlands.
As it happens many histories of the Clearances happen within the context of Scotland overall, and not the Highlands.
The topic is the Highland Clearances, not enclosure, or Scotland. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 14:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, User:Camerojo - conciseness is clearly the key.
Looking now at possibility of an "Emigration" section for "Economic and Social Background" based on Richards [1]: 80 among other references, particularly picking up early (including pre-clearance) emigration and then mentioning the coerced emigrations of the second phase, which are best fully dealt with in actual examples of individual clearances (in later sections: "Individual Clearance Events" - but not sure on this title). I think this is where the article could bite the bullet of explaining the whole range of possible circumstances in which people emigrated. Your ideas would be welcome. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:21, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
References
Richards 2013
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).In the talk page archives there has been an incomplete answer for the question of the wording of the phrase "change" from farming to sheep raising.
Enclosure is a "change". Yet it doesn't adequately address the NPOV necessary.
Perhaps the sentence needs reference to the contested nature of enclosure rather than the positive "change."
Because this was a question that has arisen from the talk page, personally don't want credit for resolving it. Would prefer the talk page answers the question. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 13:38, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
My complete agreement. Talk page discussion should be on point. That discussion had a previous weighing of language describing farming and sheep raising. Where precisely it is would need more time locating it. Please excuse me for the moment, can update later.
"Change" is synonymous with being positive. It isn't necessarily positive. It has that as an aspect of it's use in current language.
Anything that suggests movement is seen as positive. Movement down or beneath is negative. It's a bias natural in language.
Movement can be neutralised by talking about force for instance. A forced change takes away the natural positive bias, and includes the equal and opposite force that is synonymous with being negative. Neither is necessarily positive or negative, because force is simply movement that is unnatural and against something, and for instance a skyscraper isn't natural.
Planned change is two positive biases for instance, that should be avoided, equally forced departure.
NPOV is best placed with "forced change" in my view. Or something else other than change. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 06:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Forced change to me is best at the moment, however. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 07:15, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Enforced change has my support. Isn't my ideal choice, however if it resolves the outstanding question better than previously it is for the best. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 11:06, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 |
I have reverted edit 794246181 by 70.64.100.245 as I feel the concept of voluntary emigration is an important one. The complete sentence in the article therefore reads "The cumulative effect of the Clearances, and the large-scale voluntary emigrations over the same period, devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland; the effect of the Clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture." There are a number of deficiencies in this text as it stands, but the mention of the voluntary aspect is an important part of explaining the empty landscapes of many of the cleared regions.
Population numbers, in many/most instances, continued to climb whilst clearance was ongoing. Therefore if you are looking for a reason for the destruction of the Gaelic culture, it is difficult to directly blame clearance for this. The best causative link between the two might be the change to crofting communities (which were largely the creation of the first phase of the clearances), thereby generating the need for migrant work to provide cash to subsidise the otherwise insufficient living to be obtained on a croft. This work was generally obtained in the English/Scots speaking Lowlands (both rural and urban). This process was further assisted by the various church-based educational societies (such as the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge); some of these groups initially tried to teach only in English, but rapidly moved to teaching reading (of the Bible) in Gaelic, but, in time, they were (surprisingly) put under pressure by the Gaelic community also to teach English. The explanation being that English was the "language of work". (Statistics on Gaelic and English literacy show a strong relationship between being able to speak English with being able to read both Gaelic and English.) The large seasonal migrant population of crofting communities - typically young men and women - therefore could acquire a broader range of employment opportunities.
A problem with the sentence quoted in the first paragraph is that it says that the large-scale voluntary emigrations were concurrent with the clearances. It would be better to make clear that these continued and accelerated as clearance ceased. I also am less than happy with " the effect of the clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture". It appears much more likely that these were two events that were going on at the same time, with some inter-relation between them, but neither being overwhelmingly the result of the other.
In looking at other events which destroyed Gaelic culture, one could assert that that clearance was somehow linked to breakdown of the clan system. However, cause and effect are the other way round - the clan system was already in demise as clearances started in any quantity.
I've not cited any references to support the above. All the opinions I have expressed can be found collected together in Clanship to Crofters War by T M Devine. Specifically, this deals with:
Chapter 1 - Clanship (the rise and fall thereof)
Chapter 3 - The Transformation of Gaeldom (this chapter starts with "Gaelic Society and clanship were in decay long before the later eighteenth century.....")
Chapter 7 - The Social Impact of Protestant Evangelicalism
Chapter 8 - The Language of the Gael
Chapter10 - The Migrant Tradition
Many writers on the subject cover the population numbers at the time of clearance (Richards is a good source in his several works).
I have not been able to engage directly with the IP editor that I have reverted. I would hope that if the editor feels that I am wrong to revert, that we can have some discussion here. I appreciate that there are some complex points involved - especially since there were some emigrants who would undoubtedly have questioned their voluntary status, even if not technically evicted as part of a clearance. However, there are many more who did decide to emigrate of their own volition. Why, otherwise, would the Passenger Vessels Act of 1803 have been enacted? ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:19, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Farming to sheep-raising isn't a revolution. The article should identify enclosures as the primary agricultural change, comparing it's lateness in comparison with the Lowlands, England, the rest of the UK, and Europe.
In itself this wasn't a revolution, because it was a late development of a widespread phenomenon.
The reasons for it's late change is more pertinent than the narrowing of farming into sheep raising. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 09:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
I have been thinking long and hard about the edit putting the word improvement in inverted commas. I have come to the conclusion that this is POV and, even if it is not, the absence of inverted commas does not cause the same problem, if incorrect, as their presence if that is incorrect. Hence I have amended the section heading Economic improvement by removing the inverted commas. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:22, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Very sure that authors quoted relate instances where improvement happened, without enclosure, before enclosure too.
Enclosure itself is a debated concept. It happens in Brazil at the present moment, it's a hot environmental topic. In the Highlands enclosure involved people, not the environment itself.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of all the facts, not merely the academic literature on it. The crofter movement, and the Government legislation on crofting itself, goes beyond the literature in placing enclosure as a debated concept.
Yet happy delving for literature if necessary.
What seems preferable is perhaps highlighting what improvement entails; because improvement is specifically linked with enclosure, enclosure primarily meant sheep raising, and for sheep raising to be a success it meant merely a profit. That isn't necessarily everyones idea of improvement because profit can come in various forms, and mere profit isn't the profit that sustained the farming economy and Highland society before enclosure.
Beyond that enclosure meant other things, and there are well documented cases of it failing. That makes improvement a debated concept.
The question that is vital in all this is "for whom" because improvement in itself if documented doesn't necessarily equate to improvement for everyone or for someone or some group. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 02:44, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
The economics of debt is an interesting topic for another article. Yet most nations for instance incur national debts, and mere profit is excluded from an idea of improvement in the overwhelming majority of nation states, as long as the debt creates profit elsewhere. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 02:59, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
I was recently reading WP:DUE, and I became concerned about the balance of the amount of text on various parts of the subject covered by this article. I thought this needed some hard numbers to help assess the matter. In order to measure the weight given, I used word counts in the article and also in Eric Richards' book The Highland Clearances (since this is a work to which, I imagine, most active editors hereon will have access). [3] Looking at the article, there are approximately 6,326 words in it as it stands. The section on Discrimination is 757 words long, or 12% of the overall article, and this is split into 330 words on religious discrimination and 426 on pseudo-scientific racism.
Going now to Richards, using Kindle location numbers and the rule of thumb of 23 words to one Kindle location unit, this estimates the book at 211,508 words. Using the Kindle search function, I have found 90 words about religious discrimination (page 81, in the section about voluntary emigration). This is 0.04% of the entire book.
I have searched for discussion of pseudo-scientific racism or anything similar but not found anything in this work. (Please let me know if I have missed anything.)
So, from this, we see that the article has more words on religious discrimination than an entire book on the Highland Clearances. I do not expect the percentage of the article to be the same as the book, but the large difference, and the absolute number, tells us something. Nor do I suggest that absence of comment by Richards on the racial discrimination against the Gael to suggest that it should not be included. And I do appreciate that the issue is more than just a simple word count. However, I believe that what is needed is to reduce the prominence given in the article to this part of the overall subject, particularly the length of the relevant section. I think the same conclusion would be reached from a wider study of suitable sources.
We also have the following difficulties:
Within the Discrimination section, there is one 'citation needed' and 5 primary sources, 2 of which are used to give direct quotes. This follows on from mentioning a quote used by James Hunter (that at least has the advantage that it is derived from a secondary source written by a respected historian working in the subject). Both primary sources and quotes are meant to be avoided, limited or used with care (
WP:Primary,
WP:LONGQUOTE,
WP:quotefarm).
The solution to all the above would appear to be to reduce the size of the Discrimination section. A return to the version of this section that existed on 30 August might be the easiest way to achieve this. That would give a Discrimination section of about 295 words, which would be slightly less than 5% of the entire article. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 19:06, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
I take the view that dodging usage of the word "improvement" is POV. The word is widely used by writers on this subject (see the discussion above about putting it in quotes). With the word "Economic" in front of it, it demonstrably is improvement in that context. It is also clear that the change from the old-style of agriculture introduced money into the economy - something which, by the time the Highland Potato Famine arrived, undoubtedly saved many lives in the Highlands. I don't think there is any doubt that there is a social downside to improvement of the type discussed in the article (where-ever it occurs). But ignoring the other aspects of the subject is an incomplete story. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 09:20, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I disagree. ' With the word "Economic" in front of it, it demonstrably is improvement in that context. ' It demonstrably is deterioration: the Highland economy was ravaged, virtually destroyed, to the detriment of thousands of people. The change benefited a few landowners and their farmers, so the balance was not an improvement but a deterioration in the living and economic conditions of the majority. I think the reversion is using too narrow a conceptions of 'Economic', which should refer to the overall benefit or harm to the people of the district. The fact that many people refer to it as 'improvement' does not make that term NPOV. TonyClarke ( talk) 18:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
( talk) 20:03, 1 October 2017 (UTC) Thank you for all of the research, citations and comments on this. My original intention was just to point out the POV use of 'improvement'. To me , that term is evaluative, while 'change' is not. I think that NPOV should be aimed at here, particularly about this still very sensitive subject. We could debate it endlessly, but I was just expressing a semantic opinion in my original edit. TonyClarke ( talk) 04:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
TonyClarke ( talk) 22:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
(b) No, I am not suggesting we apply our POV policies to academic historians. That would be absurd, which is why i have not done it.
(c) Published sources include the feelings of the displaced who certainly did not see it as an improvement. Their point of view needs to be implicitly acknowledged by avoiding using the term 'improvement ' tout court. For me, that is what your quote from the POV policy says about this situation. We need neutral language which I am beginning to tire of repeating here.
(d) What was said in the previous section from the one under discussion does not materially affect my expressed views.
(e) By loaded term I mean that the term 'improvement' is used to express the point of view of the landowners only and is therefore biased and POV. We need neutral language here which does not dismiss one important point of view i.e. that of the displaced.
I have now answered your points without you anywhere answering mine, about the basic semantic implications of 'improvement'. I agree the discussion is going nowhere, and feel that academic sparring is diversionary. I thank the several editors who have commented on this and would ask any others to please give their comments before I consider restoring my original change. TonyClarke ( talk) 22:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science.
Historical scholarship is generally not: Journalism Opinion pieces by non-scholars Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources Any primary source; however primary sources may be used in accord with the WP:Primary rules. This includes primary source collections, or the primary source sections or appendixes of otherwise scholarly texts Annotated editions of primary sources, with the exception of the explicit annotations Online editions of primary sources produced by libraries and archives.
It is a frequent misunderstanding of the NPOV policy, often expressed by newbies, visitors, and outside critics, that articles must not contain any form of bias, hence their efforts to remove statements they perceive as biased. The NPOV policy does forbid the inclusion of editorial bias, but does not forbid properly sourced bias. Without the inclusion and documentation of bias in the real world, many of our articles would fail to document the sum total of human knowledge, and would be rather "blah" reading, devoid of much meaningful and interesting content.
References
Could the user ThoughtIdRetired please read WP:NOTESSAY. They have changed and deleted vast amounts of this article, including deleting sources that disagree with their personal opinion. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 19:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Courteous isn't a description that could be used in describing Thoughtld Retired's editing process. Citing WP: DUE whilst deleting WP:RS and suggesting because article, book names or chapter or sub-paragraph headings don't mention religion that it is not WP:DUE, is an error in fact. It is a superficial reading of WP:DUE, that deletes a small section creating a smaller section with less WP:RS.
The editing process for the section on religion was long and is documented in the talk page archive, it is a genuine attempt at WP:CONS. ThoughtIdRetired has already been told this by another user in a previous disagreement about editing that section.
Ignoring other users is now a habit, because in another section on economics, the user is dismissing several users again.
WP:CONS is really the answer to WP:NOTESSAY. My hope is ThoughtldRetired can reach consensus with multiple users who disagree with the deletion of old sections on the one hand and the editing and enforcement of personal edits on the other. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 12:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to flag this up again.
(a) I am happy with Camerojo's recent deletion and reasons - it reads fine to me and with further material in the article this should work out OK. (I am still concerned about the cause and effect issue relative to clearance and the demise of Gaelic culture - it is much more complex than the quote from Dawson and Farber.)
(b) A quote from Devine to throw into the melting pot [discussion of removal to crofts or villages on coast] "...before the 1830s some clearances resulted in the substantial voluntary emigration of local communities.....Inevitably, therefore, emigration in reaction to eviction varied significantly from area to area." [1]: 180
I think we need to be careful not to paint ourselves into a corner over how "voluntary" is used. I don't think the quote in (b) can be misunderstood. I think the term "emigration in reaction to eviction" may be useful. Will need to find some more references on those who emigrate pre-emptively - i.e. before any actual eviction.
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 19:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I have deleted the following (at the end of this explanation). The reasons are:
(1) There is a general consensus among historians that the destruction of Gaelic culture, or more precisely of the clan as a social, cultural and economic entity was a long-term process which started before the Clearances. There appears to be some dispute over the detail, which needs further analysis. However, looking at this general consensus, the statement that "...in the end they destroyed much of Gaelic culture" is, at best a dangerous over-simplification and at worst, simply untrue.
(2) There has been discussion about the word "voluntary" and a feeling that something needs to be done about its use. I have just located a reference that might assist here (People and Society in Scotland, vol 1, page 86). In the meantime, removing the problem passage is a stop-gap solution. I think a solution for the whole article would be to briefly discuss "non-enforced" emigration (we are going to have to find a way of talking about it) as part of the overall context in which the Clearances existed. I note that it is possible, in some instances, to view emigration as a form of resistance to the changes of which Clearance was part. By this I am referring to the various emigrations, often led by now-redundant tacksmen, and I also have in mind the departure of the richer farmers who got fed up with lack of security of tenure. (And there is the tale of one third of the residents of St Kilda departing to Tasmania with their laird following them, begging them to come home. Richards is the ref for this, but cannot lay my hands on the detail right now.) There is some work to do to pull this all together into a functioning part of the article.
(3) As an article in the category history, we should strive to use sources as per
WP:SOURCE AND
WP:HSC - the major part of the guidance is to prefer sources that are "historical scholarship". It appears that the authors of this reference are both lawyers and not historians. I cannot track any positive assessments of this work by historians that would validate its use. I don't know if any other users can identify anything that would help meet the demands of WP:HSC?
That clearly leaves a need for some replacement text, but there is some work to do to identify and represent the slightly different views of different writers on the decline of the clan and the associated destruction of Gaelic culture. And, as mentioned above, work to do on emigration.
I have copied the deleted passage below, largely so that the reference is preserved if it is appropriate to use it again in the future. Deleted text follows:
The cumulative effect of the Clearances and the large-scale voluntary emigrations over the same period devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland; in the end they destroyed much of Gaelic culture. [1]
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 22:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
TonyClarke ( talk) 12:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
I cannot track any positive assessments of this work by historians that would validate its use. I don't know if any other users can identify anything that would help meet the demands of WP:HSC?
"Thus the 'rage for emigration' in the later eighteenth century can be deemed voluntary only to the extent that relatively affluent tacksmen and tenantry were not prepared to accept downward social mobility and depression of their living standards when freehold land was on offer in America."
"The emigration of tacksmen and middle rank farmers can be seen in part as a flight of capital from Gaeldom and still further diminished the entrepreneurial pool."
The voluntary nature of non-clearance migration or emigration was questioned before in the talk page archives.
It is a matter for serious discussion because the lead should mention either indisputable facts or be a summary of topics in the article.
The latter point, that the Highland Clearances didn't have a devastating impact on Gaelic culture should not be deleted because it satisfies both these necessities.
Both points are interconnected, the comparative questionable nature of voluntary emigration links with the anti-Gael cultural legislation, that arises with Jacobite rebellion, mentioned in the vast majority of RS on the Highland Clearances.
Any attempt at severing those links would negate the social circumstances that those Cleared faced when they migrated or emigrated, be it legislative discrimination or social discrimination. For instance, racism didn't end with the Civil War in the USA. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 22:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
It simply isn't the case. Legislation was passed that ended the clan system, and enforcement was thorough. It's cited in the article. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 23:26, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I have deleted the reference [1] as it appears, by some distance, not to meet any criteria for being a reliable source. The Gaelic name for the event discussed can easily be referenced from other sources, such as Richards [2]: 111 (Confusingly, on the same page of this ref, Richards uses a different definition of "the Second Phase of the Clearances" than used by Devine, Lynch, Allan Macinnes and others.)
This section will need some revision, as it seems to miss most of the salient facts about the Ross-shire Insurrection/Year of the Sheep. This is an important part of the whole story as it is one of the relatively rare mass disorder events of the Clearances. (Lynch
[3]: 375 suggests that there were more than 50 individual acts of protest at plans for clearance, but if you look at those where the military were called out or put on notice, these were much rarer. Hence the importance of this section.)
ThoughtIdRetired (
talk)
13:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I note that an IP editor has added the NPOV template on the section titled "Causes". Whilst there is much discussion on the talk page, none of it seems to address the tagging, which seems to apply to the whole section. There is no specific entry on the talk page by the IP editor that I can find. Has anyone any suggestions for a course of action?
The guidance for the template says (bold added):
".... strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page), to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, the template can be removed;..."
I am inclined to delete and then revert the tagging to try and flush out the thinking behind the tag, ideally with references. Has anyone got a better plan?
Or does the IP editor wish to explain their arguments now? ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:26, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
I have reverted the 21:01, 19 October 2017 edit by
User: WyndingHeadland (and the 2 associated minor edits) for the following reasons.
1) The edit summary misrepresents the position over consensus on the content that has been edited. This subject breaks down into 2 parts:
a) The edit by
User: WyndingHeadland has deleted text that was specifically agreed in a talk page discussion. This can be found in the talk page archive 4, that
User: WyndingHeadland directs us to in the edit summary. The sequence of events can be summarised as follows:
(i) The discussion was started by
User:ThoughtIdRetired on
22:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC) with a proposal to delete the section on Religion.
(ii) There was some conceptual agreement from
User: Catrìona on
00:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC), with a suggestion of an alternative approach.
(iii) The point raised in (ii) was agreed by
User:ThoughtIdRetired on
00:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC) and expanded into a plan for some additions to the article (which have since been incorporated).
(iv)
User: Camerojo then joined the discussion on
05:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC), pointing out the previous talk page correspondence. There were further rounds of discussion on this, with
User: ThoughtIdRetired changing their opinion and suggesting a new piece about religious discrimination for the article, to be included as part of a section that discusses the other proximal causes of clearance. A draft of the actual text on religious discrimination was included in the talk page discussion.
(v) There was no further comment from
User:Camerojo and
User: Catrìona stated
“Looks like a nuanced, relevant, concise, and NPOV treatment of the topic. Great work! “on
16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
(vi) The above was taken as a consensus to go ahead with the changes discussed. These were carried out on 23:04, 9 July 2017, a full week after the endorsement by
User: Catrìona mentioned in (v). This delay allowed anyone else who so wished to contribute.
(vii) To sum up: there was a proposal which was modified by discussion, a piece of text was proposed and supported, there was no active opposition to this text, it was inserted into the article, together with the other text that was discussed at the same time.
The edit by
User: WyndingHeadland on 21:01, 19 October 2017 has therefore deleted text that was agreed by a consensus reached after discussion.
b)
User:ThoughtIdRetired raised (on the talk page) what was perceived as a problem of balance (
WP:DUE) in the article on
19:06, 10 September 2017 (UTC).
(i) The suggested solution was to delete some of the older text on discrimination and religion, leaving the newly written material to handle the subject. This dealt with a number of problems with the older text. There were no comments on this proposal, so, 10 days later (23:15 on 20 September 2017), the proposals were put into place.
(ii) On 19:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC),
User: WyndingHeadland made some accusations about inappropriate editing. Among other discussion, the sequence of events (as summarised immediately above) was explained to
User: WyndingHeadland – in short, the plans had been posted on the talk page, and there had been 10 days in which comments could have been made.
(iii) There was no answer to this from
User: WyndingHeadland, until, on 21:01, 19 October 2017, when the user made the edits under discussion: deleting agreed text and adding previously deleted material whose deletion had been carefully justified.
User: WyndingHeadland made no justification for this edit, beyond an edit summary that, as demonstrated above, is, in the most favourable interpretation, misleading.
(iv) So, in summary,
User: WyndingHeadland has ignored the logical reasons given for deleting the old text on religion and has gone ahead and made an edit without contributing to any discussion on the point.
2) The replacement text in the 21:01, 19 October 2017 edit by
User: WyndingHeadland has numerous deficiencies, both on its own and in comparison to the text deleted in the same edit.
a) The deficiencies of the replacement text, from a stand-alone view point are substantial – but a summary of the more obvious points is as follows:
(i) In the version of this text that existed on 21:18, 18 December 2016, the first sentence of the section headed “Religion” had a “citation needed” tag. This has been deleted by the 03:47, 16 September 2017 version, but without the issue being resolved, either on the talk page or with an appropriate reference.
(ii) In the 03:47, 16 September 2017 version, there is a further “citation needed” tag in the penultimate paragraph of the section. This does not appear in the version inserted on 21:01, 19 October 2017, though the issue remains unresolved.
(iii) The statement (para 3 of section) “…religious discrimination is not considered, by some historians, to be a reason for evicting tenants as part of any clearance” is not supported by the reference, since the reference is written by two human rights lawyers in a book canvassing for a change in international law (that would give them more work). The key point is that the book is not written by historians, so does not support “…considered by some historians…”.
(iv) Para 3’s last sentence is widely disagreed with by modern historians (and the cited reference is the book by the human rights lawyers, who as non-historians, are a questionable reference according to
WP:HSC).
(v) Para 4 (“Nevertheless, anti-Catholic sentiment…..”) is not supported by the first two references given.
The first is referring to emigration rather than clearance (and note the definition used in the article – in fact. if you read further in the source that provides that definition – Watson and Allan – it specifically states “Areas could also become empty by net, non-enforced emigration, with or without pressure from landowners to leave, but it would be confusing to refer to this as clearance.”)
The second reference (“Toiling in the vale of tears”) actually is a misquote of the third!! It talks about voluntary emigration, citing our third reference as its source, but does not correctly convey the content therein.
(vi) The last paragraph quotes Richards, but does not make totally clear that he is referring to those who choose to emigrate, not those who are evicted (or “cleared” in the terminology of the subject). I accept that we have the pending task of discussing “voluntary” emigration within the article – it is a problem to convey all the shades of grey between someone thinking there is a better life overseas and a person for whom emigration is the last resort as no realistic option is left for them in their home country. That does not take away from the fact that this last paragraph is misleading.
b) The comparative points between the two bodies of text that were swapped in the edit of 21:01, 19 October 2017 are shown below. For clarity, the “deleted text” is the version that existed before this edit and which was agreed on the talk page on 16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC). The “replacement text” is that which was added in this edit.
The deleted text provides much more information on the events discussed in the reference “Cargoes of Hope and Despair”: it mentions that the landlord was a recent convert to Presbyterianism; it explains how a potential loss of rent stalled the process; it gives the numbers of families evicted out of the total tenant population and says how many emigrated and where they got the money to do so. None of these points are made clear in the replacement text. The source “Cargoes of Hope and Despair” is used as a reference, but the content is largely ignored.
(3) To come back to the point about consensus, archive 3 of the talk page includes the following:
"Quality/Neutrality
This article seems to present a partisan point of view, founded perhaps in one of the cited sources (Prebble) whose work on this subject is generally discredited by serious historians. I think an extensive audit of neutrality is needed, together with an injection of some new sources. Am I alone in thinking this? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:17, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
No argument here. Please see the extensive arguments in Archives 2.--SabreBD (talk) 00:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes another informed pair of eyes on this article would be welcomed. Camerojo (talk) 21:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Indeed. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)"
I think this is a good demonstration of a consensus that the article had/has deficiencies, which are currently being addressed by successive rounds of editing.
User:WyndingHeadland appears to ignore talk page content such as this, taking what appears to be a completely contrary understanding.
Throughout all the interactions with
User: WyndingHeadland, it is hard to point to any situation where the user has employed specific references to support their position. It is actually quite hard to find anything that supports the idea that the user has even read any of the references concerned.
There has also been an unpleasant thread of accusation of bad editing practices; and it is hard to discern any logical argument to support these accusations. It is very difficult to avoid the slow adoption of the idea that
User: WyndingHeadland is engaged in disruptive editing (
WP:DISRUPT). Answering the various allegations takes a lot of time that would be much better spent on dealing with the many problems with this article.
ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 13:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
This article isn't on The Highland Emigrations, it's on The Highland Clearances and how they relate with emigrations. An important element in the Clearances is social changes. The user has a personal NPOV problem that has been raised by, including myself, 3 users. He is attempting a reduction of the Clearances to simply an economic issue.
The above is a simple Occam's Razor description of the problem. The user has shown himself unable to engage in consensus creation without indulging in vast changes.
Filibuster talk page comments won't win support for the project that users other than himself have saught to impose upon a complex topic. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 21:06, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Because engaging with the user creates talk page responses on multifarious issues, instead of specific issues, that is much much longer than the consensus agreement he wishes to delete.
Until any user can respond without the filibuster POV rants that demand complete response or nothing at all the user is unlikely to reach consensus.
As was correctly said, the only social issue the user determined is valuable is reduced to an economic social issue. The POV ranting and personal essay needs to stop. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 09:47, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
An unsurprising turn of events. The user would prefer the topic to be about Highland emigration and a POV justification for the conceptually debatable topic of enclosure, if not all enclosures, then certainly in this specific instance.
He is treating the topic one dimensionally as purely economic. Social circumstances are ignored and where there is any conception of any social circumstances they are only related in reference to economics.
His POV on economics is a deterministic financial view that disregards non-deterministic social economics.
There were social reasons over and above financial reasons for the current topic of the Highland Clearances.
The user has taken to radically overhauling the article as a personal essay and is engaging in rants and multifarious points on the talk page due to the significant amount of deletion they are engaged in.
Quantity does not equate with quality. Editing a personal essay into the topic and writing rants on the talk page that can be adequately surmarised as supporting an 18th and 19th century-conception of the Highland Clearances as "improvement" isn't anything new. The amount the user has written, and the timescale the user has written it in, shouldn't be confused as being a sign of reaching NPOV standards. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 14:32, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Due to an edit war that was reported at WP:AN3 and seems to be continuing I have fully protected this article for one week. Please use the talk page to get agreement on further changes. See WP:Dispute resolution for what to do if editors don't agree. EdJohnston ( talk) 13:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
The topic of migration should make reference to the Highland Bounds such that the terms migration, emigration, and immigration have proper reference to the Highlands and Gaelic culture.
This relates with the previous raised contested conception of enclosure because enclosure elsewhere isn't so directly relatable with a cultural shift as it is in the Highlands.
As it happens many histories of the Clearances happen within the context of Scotland overall, and not the Highlands.
The topic is the Highland Clearances, not enclosure, or Scotland. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 14:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, User:Camerojo - conciseness is clearly the key.
Looking now at possibility of an "Emigration" section for "Economic and Social Background" based on Richards [1]: 80 among other references, particularly picking up early (including pre-clearance) emigration and then mentioning the coerced emigrations of the second phase, which are best fully dealt with in actual examples of individual clearances (in later sections: "Individual Clearance Events" - but not sure on this title). I think this is where the article could bite the bullet of explaining the whole range of possible circumstances in which people emigrated. Your ideas would be welcome. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 14:21, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
References
Richards 2013
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).In the talk page archives there has been an incomplete answer for the question of the wording of the phrase "change" from farming to sheep raising.
Enclosure is a "change". Yet it doesn't adequately address the NPOV necessary.
Perhaps the sentence needs reference to the contested nature of enclosure rather than the positive "change."
Because this was a question that has arisen from the talk page, personally don't want credit for resolving it. Would prefer the talk page answers the question. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 13:38, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
My complete agreement. Talk page discussion should be on point. That discussion had a previous weighing of language describing farming and sheep raising. Where precisely it is would need more time locating it. Please excuse me for the moment, can update later.
"Change" is synonymous with being positive. It isn't necessarily positive. It has that as an aspect of it's use in current language.
Anything that suggests movement is seen as positive. Movement down or beneath is negative. It's a bias natural in language.
Movement can be neutralised by talking about force for instance. A forced change takes away the natural positive bias, and includes the equal and opposite force that is synonymous with being negative. Neither is necessarily positive or negative, because force is simply movement that is unnatural and against something, and for instance a skyscraper isn't natural.
Planned change is two positive biases for instance, that should be avoided, equally forced departure.
NPOV is best placed with "forced change" in my view. Or something else other than change. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 06:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Forced change to me is best at the moment, however. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 07:15, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Enforced change has my support. Isn't my ideal choice, however if it resolves the outstanding question better than previously it is for the best. WyndingHeadland ( talk) 11:06, 30 October 2017 (UTC)