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i removed this sentence, because it is opinion and can not be sourced. However most competent historians would argue the presenations at the battlefields are slanted in favor of the pro-slavery, pro-white supremacy Conferderate States of America.
The "gatekeeper" would like to see some references for these broad generalizations:
See above. Rangerdude 06:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, - Willmcw 06:08, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) Note: Critics of McPherson have taken over here and dominated this Wikipedia article. Amazing! I recently learned of his work as a civil war historian. It is clear his accomplishments as an author and historian are worthy. RD, I have no problem with including the information sourced on the Virginia UDC page, and any other information supported by specific, verifiable information. Many, most, some and related vaguenesses with no support should be avoided in an encyclopedia.
Regarding point #1, lasting 100 years is no guarantee of goodness. If you want to say it is "generally regarded", you are asserting something that is virtually unprovable unless someone has taken a poll. Just omit it.
For #2 & #3: If the SCV as a whole has expressed outrage, then the press release should not be hard to find. The SCV has a national governing body. If it wants to be outraged, it is capable of passing a resolution or writing an essay. And if one chapter of one society has expressed outrage, then that should be what we write. Whatever the verifiable facts are. There is plenty of room for facts and citations. There is no room for unsupported generalizations.
For #4: If you have a scanner or a good digital camera, and access to the newsletters, then you could scan in some of the articles or LTE's that you would like to use for citations. Otherwise they aren't verifiable. That's one of the Wiki tenets.
Regarding your other edits, you've basically reverted all of the editing that I did except for (some of) the new facts that I've added. I see that you wrote most of the previous article, but that doing so does not give an editor "ownership". The amount of space devoted to criticism is far in excess to the description of his many accomplishments, and it needs to be brought into balance.
Please do not add ad hominem comments to the edit summaries; they are not necessary or helpful. I do not think that it is appropriate for you to be accusing me of pursuing a POV in editing this article. Please, let's focus on writing a fair, even-handed, verifiable biography of a history professor. Thanks. - Willmcw 07:01, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The point is that most historians who run historical organizations write about historical topics in their organization's magazine. McPherson has used it repeatedly to pontificate about modern political issues including twice on Bush and Iraq and another time on the Michigan affirmative action case. That isn't even a simple break from the routine of historical writing - its a consistent pattern. Nor is that the extent of his activism as discussed in the current article. He's also spoken out about modern confederate flag controversies such as South Carolina. There's also the Pacifica interview, which if you read the entire thing you'll find it was a political commentary show called Democracy Now! and the subject was George W. Bush. I'm certain there's plenty of other things he's done, but I don't think that list of repeated and constant modern political commentary is "slightly active" by any means.
You're straining at gnats to deny the obvious, will. Some paleo-conservatives may oppose the war in Iraq, but they don't typically speak out in favor of an Affirmative Action court case or sign petitions supporting Bill Clinton. It is also my understanding that McPherson himself is open about his liberal leanings. A quick google search immediately pulls up three favorable articles written about him by leftist organizations that identify his politics as "progressive" or "liberal" [1] [2] [3]
Did you simply not read the Pacifica interview despite all our discussions of it? [4] He says very plainly at the end of the interview that he opposes the contemporary use of the flags and criticizes Trent Lott for defending it.
Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See the DiLorenzo article links for a criticism of his marxist themes. His marxist/revolutionary themes are also discussed in the favorable articles about him that I linked to above [5] [6]. Foner is related to McPherson in that both are well know Civil War historians and both have reputations for marxist-revolutionary themes in their approach to the war. Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Please do not add this material back in until you can support these vague assertions. Thank you. - Willmcw 07:47, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) Yes there are other critics, particularly at the Rockwell/Von Mises site. DiLorenzo is simply the most prominent of them and one of the best known academics to make this critique. Going through and naming each and every person who has ever blogged a critique of McPherson's economics though would be tedious and cluttery when DiLorenzo, who has a wiki article about him already, more than suffices. Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) I've added back some stuff you removed and modified others to include the specifics that you've filled in above. Thanks for providing that info. Regarding the AHA column, his predecessor is given the credit for setting the precedent of writing "president's columns" on politically-related issues. I've added a cite for that fact. Cheers, - Willmcw 09:55, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That is fine by me. If you know of a public domain photo of him by all means add it. Rangerdude 01:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If Eric Foner's "...marxist sympathies are well known and openly acknowledged by virtually all people who are familiar with him" then it should not be difficult to name one or two of those people. "unnamed critics" have no place in Wikipedia. Thanks, - Willmcw 02:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Nice try, but last I checked nobody appointed you "Source Policeman." If you find a source is lacking in an article and want to make an issue of it the very first thing you should do is attempt to find one yourself! I am not here to run errands for you, and seeing as Foner's marxist beliefs were a part of the article on him from its very first version long before I arrived there, you have no right to assign that task to me. Going through articles and selectively deleting things that you deem unsourced is deconstructive and approaches vandalism when it is recurring and when it supplants the information with snide unprofessional remarks in the article's text, which you have done several times. Try contributing something to an article for once rather than this silly game of self appointed policeman. Rangerdude 03:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
More guilt by association. Being liberal is bad, as is agreeing with Marxists about anything. Can we have diLorenzo introduced a few more times - maybe we could find out more about him here than there is on his page? and I don't think this article is quite 50% criticism of the guy yet. Maybe we could say he has no economics credentials a few more times. Get crackin'-- JimWae 05:58, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
This article needs to be cleaned up - there are significant grammatical mistakes throughout, and some NPOV work could be done too. I can't do this right now because I'm at school, and I'll probably forget by the time I get home, but it needs to be done. – ugen64 16:20, 19 May 2005 (UTC) I would add that this article also needs some substantive discussion of McPherson's ideas, in particular his view of the Civil War as a revolutionary struggle. As it stands this entry is not particularly helpful for someone who is not familiar with McPherson's ideas. One would get the impression from this article that he is mainly known for being disliked by southern neo-confederates. Bryanstreet 16:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC) I took out significant sections of the politics and advocacy section. The previous contributions make it sound like it is somehow suspect for a prominent historian to speak publicly about contemporary issues. This simply is not the case. The examples given, that he publicly opposed impeachment and that he also has opposed the Iraq war, are consistent with mainstream American opinion and hardly radical positions. This article needs more content which fairly describe the work McPherson has done as a scholar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bryanstreet ( talk • contribs) 20:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the sentence that I regard as supporting the assertion that McPherson was not breaking ground by using the "President's View" for commentary beyond history. - Willmcw 07:43, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
The issue of mentioning DiLorenzo's involvement with the League of the South is problematic under WP:NPOV as the selective presentation of this fact in an article that is not about DiLorenzo has the potential to carry with it both strong positive and negative POV's due to the controversy surrounding the organization. Of all the potential introductions given for DiLorenzo, the choice of highlighting the most controversial organization (when, for example, DiLorenzo is also far more closely affiliated with several other organizations such as the Von Mises Institute) indicates a clear attempt to bias the POV of this article against/towards DiLorenzo based upon one's perceptions of the LOS. That creates a POV problem, as per the NPOV policy, "The neutral point of view is not a "separate but equal" policy. The facts, in themselves, are neutral, but the simple accumulation of them cannot be the neutral point of view. If only the favorable (or the unfavorable) facts of a point of view are shown in an article, the article will still be non-neutral." In light of this, attempts to selectively highlight a fact that has strong non-neutral connotations may be construed as POV pushing and should be avoided. Rangerdude 18:57, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Rangerdude, do you have any informations about the reaction of the academic world towards DiLorenzo's work? Can you proof his reliability? E^(nix) 23:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank you, Rangerdude, for your last contribution. Well, I think we did a good job. It's much more informative now. I'm finishing my involvement in this article now. E^(nix) 11:11, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The (he has none) assertion has to be cut off. IMHO can be assumed that in 40 years practicing as Doctor of Philosophy McPherson has had enough time and intellectual skills to learn everything about economics he needs to know for his work. Learning about economics includes the training of economic grasp. So it can rather be assumed that McPherson has SOME (maybe still not enough) economic grasp than to assume that he has none as the sentence (he has none) does. E^(nix) 23:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
We still need a source for the SCV's outrage. Thanks, - Willmcw 06:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I immediately tried to confirm the context of these arguments, regarding McPherson's comments, as the article is definitely NPOV in its present form. The only remaining online segment from the "Democracy Now!" radio show is McPherson responding after Ed Sebesta had already made his arguments about various groups, including the Museum of the Confederacy, being "neo-Confederate". It is harder to shade exactly whether McPherson (and Sebesta) were referring to the HISTORICAL reason why these groups were formed, or whether they were referring to the PRESENT makeup of such groups, because the earlier segment from Sebesta does not exist where we can listen to it, or read its direct transcript. In other words, was Sebesta claiming that a group such as SCV was started in the 1800s with "Neo-Confederate" aims, or is he claiming that today the group has these motives? Therefore, is McPherson agreeing that historically, these groups were "neo-Confederate", or was he agreeing that they currently have a motive of "white supremacy". Context is important in making these accusations, and certainly in how they are discussed here. Far from what was previously written in the article, which claimed that McPherson accused board members of being "neo-Confederate," he went out of his way to compliment the museum and note that they had made strides in putting together a professional museum that could compete with any major museum in the US. What he specifically argued was that there was a "dimension" in which some hobbyists and museum supporters/board members could be considered "celebratory," while others would be considered "genuinely historical." This is the full, unexpurged commentary on that radio segment: MCPHERSON: I do think though, that the Museum of the Confederacy, as it exists today, is in a different category. Its founding motives, back in the 1890s, at the same time that the United Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were founded, its founding motives were celebratory. But over time, and especially in the last decade or two, it has become a much more professional, research-oriented, professional exhibit-oriented facility. Q: ...(asking about the Lone Star Ball) MCPHERSON: I, I can't ... I think the motives of people who fundraise money for the museum, and who attend balls in period costume and so on, probably range from celebratory to genuinely historical. So there is a dimension to that. But I do think that the Museum of Confederacy is now a research and professional museum in the same category as other highly regarded museums around the country. Some of its supporters, I'm sure, some of its sponsors, some of its members of the boards of trustees, are undoubtedly neo-Confederate. I do know that back in 1992 and 1993, the Museum of Confederacy had a special exhibit on slavery and on the relationship of slavery and the Civil War, which the Old Guard in Richmond, who identified with the Confederate heritage, were very angry about, because that exhibit made all the same kinds of points that Sebesta or I, or I would make about the Civil War, that slavery was at the root of the conflict that led to the war. That slaves played a major part as labor force for the Confederacy, but also a major part of soldiers for the Union. They've also had a good exhibit on Reconstruction, and on the creative, positive roles that blacks have played in Reconstruction. They have, they have moved away from the celebratory pro-slavery heritage that was involved in their founding. Additionally, the linked webpage that calls for a boycott of McPherson appears to be a Virginia chapter of SCV only. Did other chapters call for a boycott? Is there proof that this boycott was system-wide? Did the Daughters of the Confederacy join in the boycott? Any other group? This organization (SCV) is one that has had divisiveness and a split on other issues. There have been controversies regarding racism and. The way the article currently stands, there's almost as much about the Virginia chapter of the SCV as there is about McPherson - who is the article about? Perhaps this really belongs in a larger article regarding controversies about these Confederate organizations, rather than McPherson. Politely, 67.10.133.121 06:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Hello, last time i checked, this was an encyclopedia, not a boxing match. Why don't you just find another article if you guys just keep changing this one every five minutes? You can get a free website and write whatever you want but don't go over to wikipedia and do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Szanton ( talk • contribs) 01:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I offered some cited material from McPherson at the Gettysburg Campaign wiki site on the subject of R.E.Lee and his military strategy in Maryland.
An editor strongly suggested I get another source to maintain "a neutral point of view without giving undue weight to a singular author's point of view." Are you kidding?
Since when is it nessesary to "back up" McPherson? Is this also required when citing Douglas S. Freeman, Shelby Foote, Allan Nevins, Bruce Catton and others among this pantheon of US historians?
To say "it's a good idea to get more than one source" is nonsense. If an editor thinks another is needed, let them go and find one that suits his or her.
Too many "award winning" editors at Wiki as it is, too few real contributors. 36hourblock ( talk) 21:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
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This is the
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i removed this sentence, because it is opinion and can not be sourced. However most competent historians would argue the presenations at the battlefields are slanted in favor of the pro-slavery, pro-white supremacy Conferderate States of America.
The "gatekeeper" would like to see some references for these broad generalizations:
See above. Rangerdude 06:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, - Willmcw 06:08, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) Note: Critics of McPherson have taken over here and dominated this Wikipedia article. Amazing! I recently learned of his work as a civil war historian. It is clear his accomplishments as an author and historian are worthy. RD, I have no problem with including the information sourced on the Virginia UDC page, and any other information supported by specific, verifiable information. Many, most, some and related vaguenesses with no support should be avoided in an encyclopedia.
Regarding point #1, lasting 100 years is no guarantee of goodness. If you want to say it is "generally regarded", you are asserting something that is virtually unprovable unless someone has taken a poll. Just omit it.
For #2 & #3: If the SCV as a whole has expressed outrage, then the press release should not be hard to find. The SCV has a national governing body. If it wants to be outraged, it is capable of passing a resolution or writing an essay. And if one chapter of one society has expressed outrage, then that should be what we write. Whatever the verifiable facts are. There is plenty of room for facts and citations. There is no room for unsupported generalizations.
For #4: If you have a scanner or a good digital camera, and access to the newsletters, then you could scan in some of the articles or LTE's that you would like to use for citations. Otherwise they aren't verifiable. That's one of the Wiki tenets.
Regarding your other edits, you've basically reverted all of the editing that I did except for (some of) the new facts that I've added. I see that you wrote most of the previous article, but that doing so does not give an editor "ownership". The amount of space devoted to criticism is far in excess to the description of his many accomplishments, and it needs to be brought into balance.
Please do not add ad hominem comments to the edit summaries; they are not necessary or helpful. I do not think that it is appropriate for you to be accusing me of pursuing a POV in editing this article. Please, let's focus on writing a fair, even-handed, verifiable biography of a history professor. Thanks. - Willmcw 07:01, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The point is that most historians who run historical organizations write about historical topics in their organization's magazine. McPherson has used it repeatedly to pontificate about modern political issues including twice on Bush and Iraq and another time on the Michigan affirmative action case. That isn't even a simple break from the routine of historical writing - its a consistent pattern. Nor is that the extent of his activism as discussed in the current article. He's also spoken out about modern confederate flag controversies such as South Carolina. There's also the Pacifica interview, which if you read the entire thing you'll find it was a political commentary show called Democracy Now! and the subject was George W. Bush. I'm certain there's plenty of other things he's done, but I don't think that list of repeated and constant modern political commentary is "slightly active" by any means.
You're straining at gnats to deny the obvious, will. Some paleo-conservatives may oppose the war in Iraq, but they don't typically speak out in favor of an Affirmative Action court case or sign petitions supporting Bill Clinton. It is also my understanding that McPherson himself is open about his liberal leanings. A quick google search immediately pulls up three favorable articles written about him by leftist organizations that identify his politics as "progressive" or "liberal" [1] [2] [3]
Did you simply not read the Pacifica interview despite all our discussions of it? [4] He says very plainly at the end of the interview that he opposes the contemporary use of the flags and criticizes Trent Lott for defending it.
Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
See the DiLorenzo article links for a criticism of his marxist themes. His marxist/revolutionary themes are also discussed in the favorable articles about him that I linked to above [5] [6]. Foner is related to McPherson in that both are well know Civil War historians and both have reputations for marxist-revolutionary themes in their approach to the war. Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Please do not add this material back in until you can support these vague assertions. Thank you. - Willmcw 07:47, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) Yes there are other critics, particularly at the Rockwell/Von Mises site. DiLorenzo is simply the most prominent of them and one of the best known academics to make this critique. Going through and naming each and every person who has ever blogged a critique of McPherson's economics though would be tedious and cluttery when DiLorenzo, who has a wiki article about him already, more than suffices. Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC) I've added back some stuff you removed and modified others to include the specifics that you've filled in above. Thanks for providing that info. Regarding the AHA column, his predecessor is given the credit for setting the precedent of writing "president's columns" on politically-related issues. I've added a cite for that fact. Cheers, - Willmcw 09:55, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That is fine by me. If you know of a public domain photo of him by all means add it. Rangerdude 01:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If Eric Foner's "...marxist sympathies are well known and openly acknowledged by virtually all people who are familiar with him" then it should not be difficult to name one or two of those people. "unnamed critics" have no place in Wikipedia. Thanks, - Willmcw 02:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Nice try, but last I checked nobody appointed you "Source Policeman." If you find a source is lacking in an article and want to make an issue of it the very first thing you should do is attempt to find one yourself! I am not here to run errands for you, and seeing as Foner's marxist beliefs were a part of the article on him from its very first version long before I arrived there, you have no right to assign that task to me. Going through articles and selectively deleting things that you deem unsourced is deconstructive and approaches vandalism when it is recurring and when it supplants the information with snide unprofessional remarks in the article's text, which you have done several times. Try contributing something to an article for once rather than this silly game of self appointed policeman. Rangerdude 03:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
More guilt by association. Being liberal is bad, as is agreeing with Marxists about anything. Can we have diLorenzo introduced a few more times - maybe we could find out more about him here than there is on his page? and I don't think this article is quite 50% criticism of the guy yet. Maybe we could say he has no economics credentials a few more times. Get crackin'-- JimWae 05:58, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
This article needs to be cleaned up - there are significant grammatical mistakes throughout, and some NPOV work could be done too. I can't do this right now because I'm at school, and I'll probably forget by the time I get home, but it needs to be done. – ugen64 16:20, 19 May 2005 (UTC) I would add that this article also needs some substantive discussion of McPherson's ideas, in particular his view of the Civil War as a revolutionary struggle. As it stands this entry is not particularly helpful for someone who is not familiar with McPherson's ideas. One would get the impression from this article that he is mainly known for being disliked by southern neo-confederates. Bryanstreet 16:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC) I took out significant sections of the politics and advocacy section. The previous contributions make it sound like it is somehow suspect for a prominent historian to speak publicly about contemporary issues. This simply is not the case. The examples given, that he publicly opposed impeachment and that he also has opposed the Iraq war, are consistent with mainstream American opinion and hardly radical positions. This article needs more content which fairly describe the work McPherson has done as a scholar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bryanstreet ( talk • contribs) 20:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the sentence that I regard as supporting the assertion that McPherson was not breaking ground by using the "President's View" for commentary beyond history. - Willmcw 07:43, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
The issue of mentioning DiLorenzo's involvement with the League of the South is problematic under WP:NPOV as the selective presentation of this fact in an article that is not about DiLorenzo has the potential to carry with it both strong positive and negative POV's due to the controversy surrounding the organization. Of all the potential introductions given for DiLorenzo, the choice of highlighting the most controversial organization (when, for example, DiLorenzo is also far more closely affiliated with several other organizations such as the Von Mises Institute) indicates a clear attempt to bias the POV of this article against/towards DiLorenzo based upon one's perceptions of the LOS. That creates a POV problem, as per the NPOV policy, "The neutral point of view is not a "separate but equal" policy. The facts, in themselves, are neutral, but the simple accumulation of them cannot be the neutral point of view. If only the favorable (or the unfavorable) facts of a point of view are shown in an article, the article will still be non-neutral." In light of this, attempts to selectively highlight a fact that has strong non-neutral connotations may be construed as POV pushing and should be avoided. Rangerdude 18:57, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Rangerdude, do you have any informations about the reaction of the academic world towards DiLorenzo's work? Can you proof his reliability? E^(nix) 23:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank you, Rangerdude, for your last contribution. Well, I think we did a good job. It's much more informative now. I'm finishing my involvement in this article now. E^(nix) 11:11, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The (he has none) assertion has to be cut off. IMHO can be assumed that in 40 years practicing as Doctor of Philosophy McPherson has had enough time and intellectual skills to learn everything about economics he needs to know for his work. Learning about economics includes the training of economic grasp. So it can rather be assumed that McPherson has SOME (maybe still not enough) economic grasp than to assume that he has none as the sentence (he has none) does. E^(nix) 23:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
We still need a source for the SCV's outrage. Thanks, - Willmcw 06:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I immediately tried to confirm the context of these arguments, regarding McPherson's comments, as the article is definitely NPOV in its present form. The only remaining online segment from the "Democracy Now!" radio show is McPherson responding after Ed Sebesta had already made his arguments about various groups, including the Museum of the Confederacy, being "neo-Confederate". It is harder to shade exactly whether McPherson (and Sebesta) were referring to the HISTORICAL reason why these groups were formed, or whether they were referring to the PRESENT makeup of such groups, because the earlier segment from Sebesta does not exist where we can listen to it, or read its direct transcript. In other words, was Sebesta claiming that a group such as SCV was started in the 1800s with "Neo-Confederate" aims, or is he claiming that today the group has these motives? Therefore, is McPherson agreeing that historically, these groups were "neo-Confederate", or was he agreeing that they currently have a motive of "white supremacy". Context is important in making these accusations, and certainly in how they are discussed here. Far from what was previously written in the article, which claimed that McPherson accused board members of being "neo-Confederate," he went out of his way to compliment the museum and note that they had made strides in putting together a professional museum that could compete with any major museum in the US. What he specifically argued was that there was a "dimension" in which some hobbyists and museum supporters/board members could be considered "celebratory," while others would be considered "genuinely historical." This is the full, unexpurged commentary on that radio segment: MCPHERSON: I do think though, that the Museum of the Confederacy, as it exists today, is in a different category. Its founding motives, back in the 1890s, at the same time that the United Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were founded, its founding motives were celebratory. But over time, and especially in the last decade or two, it has become a much more professional, research-oriented, professional exhibit-oriented facility. Q: ...(asking about the Lone Star Ball) MCPHERSON: I, I can't ... I think the motives of people who fundraise money for the museum, and who attend balls in period costume and so on, probably range from celebratory to genuinely historical. So there is a dimension to that. But I do think that the Museum of Confederacy is now a research and professional museum in the same category as other highly regarded museums around the country. Some of its supporters, I'm sure, some of its sponsors, some of its members of the boards of trustees, are undoubtedly neo-Confederate. I do know that back in 1992 and 1993, the Museum of Confederacy had a special exhibit on slavery and on the relationship of slavery and the Civil War, which the Old Guard in Richmond, who identified with the Confederate heritage, were very angry about, because that exhibit made all the same kinds of points that Sebesta or I, or I would make about the Civil War, that slavery was at the root of the conflict that led to the war. That slaves played a major part as labor force for the Confederacy, but also a major part of soldiers for the Union. They've also had a good exhibit on Reconstruction, and on the creative, positive roles that blacks have played in Reconstruction. They have, they have moved away from the celebratory pro-slavery heritage that was involved in their founding. Additionally, the linked webpage that calls for a boycott of McPherson appears to be a Virginia chapter of SCV only. Did other chapters call for a boycott? Is there proof that this boycott was system-wide? Did the Daughters of the Confederacy join in the boycott? Any other group? This organization (SCV) is one that has had divisiveness and a split on other issues. There have been controversies regarding racism and. The way the article currently stands, there's almost as much about the Virginia chapter of the SCV as there is about McPherson - who is the article about? Perhaps this really belongs in a larger article regarding controversies about these Confederate organizations, rather than McPherson. Politely, 67.10.133.121 06:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Hello, last time i checked, this was an encyclopedia, not a boxing match. Why don't you just find another article if you guys just keep changing this one every five minutes? You can get a free website and write whatever you want but don't go over to wikipedia and do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Szanton ( talk • contribs) 01:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I offered some cited material from McPherson at the Gettysburg Campaign wiki site on the subject of R.E.Lee and his military strategy in Maryland.
An editor strongly suggested I get another source to maintain "a neutral point of view without giving undue weight to a singular author's point of view." Are you kidding?
Since when is it nessesary to "back up" McPherson? Is this also required when citing Douglas S. Freeman, Shelby Foote, Allan Nevins, Bruce Catton and others among this pantheon of US historians?
To say "it's a good idea to get more than one source" is nonsense. If an editor thinks another is needed, let them go and find one that suits his or her.
Too many "award winning" editors at Wiki as it is, too few real contributors. 36hourblock ( talk) 21:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
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