User talk:Xover/Archive 6

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Congratulations

Thanks for all of your hard work on SAQ and my congratulations on it making FA. I have added the article to my watchlist and am an admin, so if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

And now...?

Hi Xover. Well, I guess we made it! FA at last, thanks to Tom, Nish, and Paul, and to a great extent from your superlative support, as well as that of some others, and thanks for the kind mention of me in your closing remarks on the FAC page. (And of course Johnuniq certainly more than deserves his mention as well.) I do not at all regret having involved myself with the SAQ article, and I am glad I tolerated the insanity and sheer chaos that prevailed when I first started to contribute, and was able to get past that uncertain time.

So...As I recall, a while back you asked for help with Edmond Malone. While I do not wish to get involved in any research for that page (for various reasons, not the least of which would be my poor access to sources), still, if and when you get involved again with improving that page, I will be glad to assist with the kind of editing I did on the SAQ page and to at least provide another pair of eyes going over the article. At this point, I will say that it treats far too little of his accomplishments as a Shakespeare scholar. You would think, from what is there right now, that his major claim to fame was his being an Irish lawyer. But you must be well aware of that shortcoming and don't need me to point it out. I suspect it has to do with those public-domain biographical sources from which it was originally constructed. Right now, except for the single sentence that constitutes the lead, anyone casually glancing at the article would not really grasp what is truly notable about Edmond Malone, who was surely not just a Shakespearean scholar and editor, but one of the greatest of his age, perhaps of all time.

I will add the page to my watchlist, but if you want to call my attention to anything in particular, do not hesitate to ask for my assistance. Regards, Alan W (talk) 02:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks again for all your help on the SAQ and its FAC. Edmond Malone was my pet project before the SAQ sucked me into its vortex, and I'm planning to get back to it as time allows (I need to catch up a bit on work and IRL projects first). I would very much like to have some more eyeballs on the article, and your comments here are actually exactly the kind I need. Well, not that specific issue, but that kind of issue. The imbalance you spot is actually due to the thing being only half done right now. I was stuck on finding something interesting to say about his career as a lawyer, and a segway to his move to London, when I got distracted. The rest of the article is essentially untouched; and much of what's there is from those public domain sources you mention. As you might notice that whole first part of the article is cited to Peter Martin's biography, but as we get to London I'm planning to bring in more and more of Schoenbaum's Lives (which talks about his achievements as a biographer and editor), and then finally supplemented by Margareta de Grazia's Shakespeare Verbatim and possibly Shapiro (since he spends quite a bit of time on Malone in the early chapters) to cover modern reactions and criticism. My biggest problems are that I have to rely much too heavily on Martin, and I'm having trouble finding sources that discuss his relationship with Dr. Johnson (Martin describes them as intimates, but fails to go into details on the relationship or even interactions). --Xover (talk) 16:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on April 23, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 23, 2011. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbhotch* ^{۩ ۞} 02:43, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him. Proponents (called "anti-Stratfordians") say that Shakespeare was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason did not want or could not accept public credit. Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims. Despite the scholarly consensus, the controversy has spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed, including Francis Bacon, the 6th Earl of Derby, Christopher Marlowe, and the 17th Earl of Oxford. In 2010 James S. Shapiro surveyed the topic in Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, in which he criticised academia for ignoring the topic and effectively surrendering the field to anti-Stratfordians, marking the first time a recognised Shakespeare scholar has devoted a book to the topic. Filmmaker Roland Emmerich's next movie, Anonymous, starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave, portrays Oxford as the real author. (more...)

Romeo Montague

Hi ! Thanks for your message. I'm using Lady MacBeth as a mode. I don't have any modern editions of the play unfortunately, so I am citing a nineteenth century one which is fully visible on GoogleBooks. The text seems pretty good to me, and it is nice to be able to hyperlink to the text in the bibliography. If this is an issue, I can look for a better edition, although I doubt the there will be any particularly significant differences between the texts. --Anthem of joy (talk) 10:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

King Lear

Cool! Overso thanks for the invisible barnstar! I would have made more hoo-ha about the thing and suggested that the wikiproject take up where I left off. But I got stuck on a couple of points and then the moment passed. Oh, well...

Undecided whether to pursue the King Lear thing or to (invisibly!) start the same process at Macbeth instead. But as you may (or may not) remember from my more active days, my particular interest is afterlife/legacy things, so the top three quarters of the Shakespeare articles don't interest me so much. AndyJones (talk) 12:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Edmond Malone Again

Hi Xover. I see you've dug in and begun to expand the Edmund Malone article in good earnest. You've added some good material. As you see, I've touched up a few things. I was about to go on, but it occurred to me that the obvious redundancies in the "London" section probably exist because you haven't gotten up to revising that section yet. So I'll wait to see what you come up with.

By the way, those two block quotes from that speech of Malone's seem odd to me, in that there is an attribution at the end of each. I think that that kind of thing is done for "pull quotes", which are not the same as ordinary block quotes. I know that the template is a blockquote template, but in this context, where the quotes are block quotes because they are too long to be in-line quotes but are otherwise part of a continuous passage of expository writing , well, I don't think they look right. Just my opinion, for what it's worth. Regards, Alan W (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. You're right, the London section is the separating line: I'm working strictly chronologically right now and am about to start in on the transition from Ireland to London.
The two blockquotes bother me too, somewhat. I absolutely want to include that speech—since it is one of the few really quotable bits by Malone, and one where he is at his rhetorical and oratorial best—but long stretches of quoted material is hard to incorporate well into an encyclopedia article. You'll have noticed, I'm sure, the excessive number of elision markings as I struggled to pare it down as much as possible without ruining the meaning. I'm… uncertain how to deal with the attribution here. The context of the quoted material can, I suppose, be worked in well enough in the surrounding text, but all direct quotes must be cited, and it would look really odd, I think, to have a bare citation on a blockquote like that. Perhaps not. Feel free to futz with it if you have any ideas.
I'm not particularly familiar with Goldsmith (you can safely assume I am ignorant on most subjects, and here my only real exposure to him is through my interest in Malone) and so would not be a good judge of to what degree he may be considered a patriot. I was going by the impression Peter Martin gives, and in my prose attempting to make it clear that Malone was weering more and more into politics and in particular that he was of a strongly patriotic bent (because Martin emphasises that throughout Malone's life). Your corrections, I think, do well in addressing this without ascribing excessive sentiment to Goldsmith himself.
Finally, I am tremendously grateful that you keep an eye on this. It is reassuring to know I have such capable eyes watching for my inevitable mistakes.
PS. Oh, and I have a complete transcript of the speech over at WikiSource: s:Speech to the Electors of Trinity College, Dublin. When I read between the lines there I get the impression that he may have had help with this speech, perhaps by Anthony Malone but perhaps also by someone yet more famous (since he alludes to the greatest orator and persons capable of giving the greatest character witness). I also suspect that where he talks about molesting a corrupt government he is in fact subtly refering to Baratariana and implicitly that those listening are aware of his association with that publication. If so then this speech is certainly even more pivotal regarding his life than superficially obvious. The men he says he has lived in intimacy with may simply be Flood and Grattan, or his friends who are by now Fellows of the college (Kearny, say), but could equally well be Goldsmith or even Johnson himself. Sadly, it is very unlikely, in the wake of Martin's book, that any further serious research will be done in this area in the foreseeable future. --Xover (talk) 13:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I see I didn't make myself clear. Nothing wrong with the block quotes themselves. They're not that long or obtrusive. It was the "—Edmond Malone, speech to the electors of Trinity College" after each one that I found jarring. Well, I have done the futzing you suggested (though not perhaps to do what you thought I meant to do), and what I did was merge the identification of the speech that is the source of the quotes into the text that introduces them. I also make clear in this way the source of the earlier in-line quote from the same speech. Hopefully, the result is acceptable to you.

Now, if I had been the first to work on or substantially expand this article, I would have stuck with a more old-fashioned style of citing sources instead of the {{sfn}} template. But that is my personal choice and in no way is meant to imply that I think you were wrong to do it your way. The advantage of the way I would have chosen is that in each appropriate footnote to the block quotes, I could have written something like "'Edmond Malone, speech to the electors of Trinity College', quoted in Prior 2010, pp. 467–69." That is assuming that the speech is in fact quoted in Prior, which source I do not have. In any case, different strokes for different folks, or some such cliché, I suppose. :-)

I would also (and maybe you can still do this using the templates you are employing), provide a separate citation for the Trinity College speech. It's a primary rather than a secondary source, but there is no Wiki rule prohibiting citation of primary sources in cases like this. You are using the quotes to illustrate something Malone said, and as an example of the kind of speech he could write. You don't put any particular spin on it, or use it as the basis for any kind of original research, so as I see it this would be perfectly permissible, and even desirable. You could include in it a link to the Wikisource text that you painstakingly uploaded, if these templates allow that. In fact, in looking back at some of your comments, above, I'm thinking now that you might want to rework things further so that you cite the speech as a separate source. That way you could have the footnote after each block quote cite that source, which might be desirable. Citation of Prior could be worked in close by as appropriate.

Finally, thanks for your kind words about my editorial contributions. Glad that you find what I'm doing helpful. And it's nice to be appreciated. I'm happy to do it also because this is a worthwhile project, and you are approaching it seriously and carefully, and doing it well.

In short, this page is still on my watchlist. Looking forward to reading your next contributions (actually, I have not closely looked at what you did just before my last edit, but it is too late now; I'll get to it in the next couple days at least, hopefully). Regards, Alan W (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, no, you were clear; it was my reply that was a little confused. I found the attribution lines after the quotes jarring too, but in addition to that I'm a little uncomfortable with very long blockquotes, and so my reply was in relation to that issue as well. In any case, I think you've found an excellent way to deal with it. The only change I'll make is to use the "title" of the speech as merely descriptive and not as an actual title. Thank you!
As for the citation templates, they aren't meant to be shackles: they're there to make it easier to achieve a consistent visual formatting (and emit metadata). If we need to do something that the {{Sfn}} template doesn't support, we can, e.g., use the {{Harvnb}} template which emits identically formatted text but without the implicit <ref> tags. For instance, you can where needed use <ref>{{Harvnb|Prior|2010}} given in {{Harvnb|Martin|2005}}</ref>. It is of course preferable to not mix templates or citation styles too much—simply for the sanity of the editors, including potential future ones—but there's no particular reason to avoid it in the cases where it is necessary. In this particular case I considered doing it that way, but decided it was better to just use the usual short cites: I'm citing Prior for the quotes (because I'm using different/longer quotes than Martin gives), and Martin for the meaning and significance of them (i.e. so that the selection of the quote does not become OR or SYN). I toyed with the idea of specifying that it's Malone I'm quoting and not Prior himself, but I think the surrounding text makes that sufficiently clear (now). In any case, it's not set in stone, so if you want to try a different approach you should feel free to just have at it. At some point before FAC we'll need to go through the whole article looking at each place where we've made some exception rule like this and make sure they are consistent overall, so I'm not overly concerned with getting it "perfect" at this stage.
And, as I try to be solicitous in noting, this is a long-term project, so don't feel obliged to be glued to the screen for this. It's nice to get running feedback and copy-editing, but it'll be just as helpful and useful if you just do it whenever the fancy takes you. To give you an idea of the timeframe I'm envisioning, the 200th anniversary of his death will be 25 April 2012, and I have a vague ambition to be ready to have it as Today's Featured Article then. Iff I can manage it, which I am not at all convinced is the case. --Xover (talk) 11:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Understood about my contributing only as is convenient to me. But I work slowly myself, in any case. As I once remarked to another Wikipedian, recalling the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day," if that city had been my responsibility, Rome would still be under construction. :-)

Quite an ambitious goal you have set yourself. As I can find the time to help, I certainly will. For the projects I initiate, I have not yet specifically and deliberately set FAC as a goal, though I have occasionally pitched in with substantial projects started by others that ended up rated FA. (In one case, it was to save an FA from the threat of being delisted, and I ended up adding quite a bit that I was later happy with. Some things have worked out well despite my initial reluctance.) But I digress. I'll take a look now at your latest contributions here and will see if I can add or modify anything to advantage. Oh, and with respect to the templates, if you can use them to get the most out of them without thinking you have to be shackled, so much the better, and I can't fault your approach. Regards, Alan W (talk) 02:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Malone's Speech

Might as well start a new section for this commentary, since I have much to say here about a specific matter. I have been thinking about Malone's "Speech to the Electors of Trinity College", and I am a bit uneasy about the way it is being handled now. In a Google search, I discovered that the original edition of Prior's book is available from Google Books, so I now have that. Now I see where the original is, and I am assuming that this text is where you got what you copied to Wikisource. Nothing wrong with that, but this has led to my mulling over a few aspects of this speech.

First, I am a bit troubled that you removed the title of the speech from the article. That wouldn't be bad if your reference went something like 'Malone, Edmond. "Speech to the Electors [etc.]", in Prior,....[etc.]' Without that, it is unclear to Wiki readers that the quotes are precisely from this speech, or that the entire speech was in fact left in manuscript, later to be included in the "Maloniana" section of Prior's book. Even though the speech might not have been published in Malone's lifetime, it clearly was published later, in Prior's biography. You also might link to the Wikisource transcription that you put there. However exactly you handle that, I don't see what objection you have to giving the title of the speech in either the text of the article or a footnote. Without that, unless the reader goes searching for and through Prior's book, he or she might believe that the quotes from that speech are from some listener's recollection, or perhaps even some reconstruction by Prior that might not represent Malone's exact words. Usually you take a scholarly approach in your Wikipedia work. By being so vague about these quotations, you are departing from your usual practice into something that in my opinion is unscholarly because it is so vague. One way or another, I strongly believe that the title of that speech should be given, even if only in a footnote.

Another thing I'm wondering about is the date. Prior gives the date as "1774 or 1775". Do you have reason, backed up by a reliable source, to believe that it definitely was 1774 and not 1775? In your Wikisource transcription, you give the date as only 1774. On what do you base that? If Martin says enough to make it reasonably certain as 1774 rather than 1775, then that should be enough. But I'm wondering about this, since nothing in the Malone article makes this clear.

Yet another thing I'm wondering about is your changing of the year of Prior's book to 2010. Yes, I know that that is the year of the copy you are citing from. But it looks to me like that must be a photographic reprint of the 1860 original. I think that a 2010 year would be justified only if this were a later edition, or a later printing done in a way that changed the pagination. It is too much of a coincidence that the pagination of the speech is the same. So the citation is really from the 1860 edition. If the reader were to find that edition and go to those pages, he or she would find the speech there. I think that 1860 is the year to give. Have you found some Wiki guideline that specifically says that even if the source is a photographic reprint of an earlier one, the year of the reprint should be the one given? If so, then even though I wouldn't like it, I couldn't argue with your choice. But, the more I think about it, what difference would it make if you left out the 2010 year altogether? Absolutely no practical difference, as the reader would find the speech on the pages given anyway, and it's really the same book. Leaving out 2010 also avoids misleading the reader into thinking that this is a book by a contemporary biographer of Malone. (Granted, you do say it was originally published down in the references, but if the casual reader just looks at the note, then a half-conscious impression might be drawn that this is from a contemporary source.)

Also, related to all of the above, since your footnote cites Prior without any further explanation, that could mislead the reader to think that Prior comments on this speech in some way. But no, those pages are simply where a transcript of the manuscript of the speech may be found. That was not at all clear to me until I looked at the source myself. Again, if you expanded the footnote to give the name of the speech and then indicated that it was "in Prior", that would be much clearer. Maybe even more explanation would be desirable. Anyway, here is one case where I think a lot more than a bare {{sfn}} is needed.

Some stuff to think about, anyway. Regards, Alan W (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, Alan, comments such as this is why I am so very glad to have enticed you to engage yourself in this article! Most people can barely be persuaded to point out spelling errors, and here you land a deeply reasoned and thorough analysis of important issues of attribution and proper citation. Thank you!
To take the easy part first, Martin makes it clear (he states it outright) that the year is 1774; and you can actually see his reasoning in the speech itself. Malone says “…a few months ago I obtained, at too high a price indeed, an honourable independence…” referring to the death of his father and the resulting legacy, and his father died on 22 March 1774. Were I Martin I might have hedged slightly more, or provided specific citation of additional evidence, since one might reasonably quibble over what span “a few months ago” constitutes. But the inference is reasonable enough, and I see no justification to diverge from the reliable source here.
Similarly, the year given in the citation to Prior is that of the edition I posess; which is what the guidelines suggest. The rule of thumb is “say where you got it” and I got it from the 2010 reprint of the 1860 original. It is, as you surmise, a photographic reproduction, and so giving the year as 1860 would not as such be very wrong; but even photographic reproductions may introduce alterations (a poor scan, or a missing page, or any number of other issues) and determining the accuracy of the reprint would, to me, verge on original research. Giving the year as 1860 would also suggest to the reader that we are citing an 1860 work directly (which immediately makes them wonder about primary source and OR issues) and would not match the actual work following the ISBN link would lead them to. I am probably nearly as ambivalent as you on this issue, but I believe practice on Wikipedia suggests the current approach to this is the correct one.
Finally, to the meat of your comment, I am, as I have previously suggested, somewhat ambivalent on the precise manner and form of attribution to use here. A few factors that have informed my decision so far: the "title" of the speech is most likely an invention by Prior, and not, in the sense we usually understand it, a title given by Malone himself to this text; and the quotes from the speech are cited to the source from which the text was got (Prior), while the interpretation of it and its context are cited to, and filtered through, the reliable secondary source (Martin). This latter is entirely in line with the general Wikipedia practice of placing a citation immediately after any direct quote, and to place citations for every abstract fact that may be challenged or at least after each paragraph. I don't find your point regarding the potential confusion of the reader with regards to the text's accuracy (i.e. the distinction between a third-party memorial reconstruction vs. a first-hand written script of the speech) persuasive. The accuracy of a fact or a direct quote given in a Wikipedia article is presumed to be great, or, if the accuracy is less, the inaccuracy should be pointed out in the article. If, for instance, a modern biographer (Schoenbaum, say) discussed this speech but gave the year as 1775 (where Martin gives 1774), the article would need to point out this uncertainty (i.e. “Martin says 1774, but Schoenbaum thinks it's 1775”; Prior I choose to disregard as a primary source in this specific case, cf. above). Absent such an explicit discussion of the accuracy, the presumtion is that the text given is highly accurate.
However, as I've previously mentioned, I am considerably ambivalent on the speific form of attribution and citation for the speech itself. Strictly speaking the attribution should be to "Edmond Malone" and to the speech itself (the primary source), but the citation should be to Prior (the secondary source that reproduces it). The current approach of attributing to Malone in the prose and citing Prior for the direct quote ticks these boxes for me, but I am at the same time sympathetic to your view that the citation itself should serve both functions. Especially since I am fairly certain that part of my motivation, subconciously, for the current approach is to keep the references and citation templates "clean" (I am a bit of a computer geek, and a perfectionist of the wrong sort to boot), rather than purely by objective reasoning as to the correct form of attribution and citation. I am similarly, and for similar reasons, ambivalent on whether to double-cite this to both Prior and Martin: I am generally of the opinion that Prior, being, by sheer age, very close to a primary source itself, must thus be dealt with carefully to avoid delving into original research. Citing Martin in addition to Prior would make clear to the reader that Martin verifies and confirms Prior in this instance; which would also have the happy side-effect that it would then be possible to (very carefully) cite Prior singly for things which cannot be cited to Martin (a good quote that Martin does not include, say).
I will take a closer look at this when next I edit the article (there are some embarassing typos and grammatical errors in the last few additions and changes as well) and see if epiphany strikes. Meanwhile, do, please, keep gracing me with your thoughts on this and any other issues; and, as always, do feel free to mess about with the article itself (my edits are too infrequent for edit conflicts to be a concern, and should we disagree on some point it is easily remedied afterwards). While I am blessed with a healthy dose of arrogance—having, in addition to my fair share of it, also approriated your share, and their share, and our share of it—I harbour no delusions of perfection: and even should I happen to disagree on some specific point I generally find the disagreement itself helpful in reasoning about whatever the issue may be. --Xover (talk) 10:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking my comments as constructive rather than some other form of criticism. I still don't agree with you entirely, but your response is well thought-out and well written, and from it I "see where you're coming from". The computer geek in you is obvious. I am a bit of one myself, and I work every day with hard-core computer geeks, so I can understand. I wouldn't be surprised if you worked with HTML code in some professional capacity; who else would think of breaking paragraphs (without being forced to) with <br> tags, as you do here? :-)

I think where we disagree the most is in your extreme reluctance to be caught red-handed using primary sources, as if fleeing guiltily from a crime. I do not see anything wrong with using primary sources. In fact I believe that judicious use of primary sources may improve the readability of an article. If the source is, as it is here, what is considered a representative passage of writing by a notable figure, it really helps to convey the character of that notable figure's writing by incorporating that primary material. The important thing is to use the primary source correctly, according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. According to WP:PRIMARY, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." And that is exactly what you are on the verge of doing here (you really are doing it, but what bothers me is that you seem to be trying to cover it up): the speech as printed in Prior is the primary source, while Martin is the "reliable secondary source for [its] interpretation". If you were to, as I suggest, indicate more clearly exactly what it is you are doing, I really doubt that you would be dragged in shame before some Wiki court. Prior is from 1860? So what? Malone himself goes back long before that. We are dealing with subject matter that would be lost in the mists of history, except for our enshrining it here for public enlightenment. Of course the interpretation needs to be done by means of the best available reliable secondary sources. And that is where Martin comes in.

As for the title, again, you could indicate in the footnote that it is, or very likely is, by Prior. And if Martin says that the year is 1774, well, there's your secondary-source interpretation of that point, and so be it. I certainly see a conflict as expressed in your actions. You must hold the title in some respect, since you use it for what you put on Wikisource. You don't even say anything there about where it comes from. If you are clear about it here, then the reader is that much more enlightened.

Since this article is still suffering growing pains, I am not in a hurry to make any changes to this right now. Eventually I may try to work out a modification that I feel would be acceptable to both of us (unless you do so first, of course; or, who knows? some other editor might jump in). Right now, I am happy to see you keep up the good work, and as before I will touch things up with various edits of my own. Regards, Alan W (talk) 02:11, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I've actually never worked with HTML in any professional capacity, so it's mainly just a consequence of hobbyist interest; much like my interest in Shakespeare.
On primary vs. secondary sources I think we're in agreement, but I think I need to elucidate in that my previous comments on this were in the vein of explaining my reasoning rather than making an argument in favour of or against the particular point. Before “some Wiki court” I am not at all concerned with, because the relevant usage is entirely according to policy; rather, in more or less political terms, citing an 1860 source directly is apt to induce certain people to make knee-jerk assumptions that are tedious to deal with. However, that is not as such an argument in favour of any particular course as much as it is an observation of one positive side-effect of the result of the actual reasoning: namely that practice suggests citing the work from which you got it rather than that work's original source.
As best I can tell our disagreement boils down to whether it is material, to the reader, that the speech was transmitted in manuscript rather than a transcript or memorial reconstruction. I do not, here, weight the distinction significantly; and note that Prior doesn't really specify his source, so it would be speculation on our part to say anything on the matter (above that we got it from Prior, and that Martin vouches for authenticity and meaning). The "title" can certainly be given as a title, but, as I say, I am reluctant to do so when using it as a description of the material in question will suffice.
That being said, my opinion on these points is not set in stone, and I will be happy to entertain any changes you propose. --Xover (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting, about your working with HTML as a hobbyist. I can appreciate that, since my knowledge of programming languages comes also from hobbyist interest, and I have never attended a class in anything to do with computers.

I was perhaps exaggerating a bit, with tongue in cheek, when I used the expression "before some Wiki court". And I don't think we really disagree that much about most things. But I would have taken a different approach with the speech and the application of a year to the Prior citations. Once I found the Google Books version, I would have looked at that to verify pagination, etc., and that would have been justification for my leaving out the 2010 year altogether in favor of 1860, which I feel would have conveyed the origin of the material more accurately. My thinking would have been, if you can easily avoid being misleading, why not do so? Since, however, you were the one who found and introduced this material, I will not press the point. I just wanted to make my own thinking clear, while indicating how I would have done it. You make a good point about the title of the speech, which may well have been the creation of Prior, that making a good reason not to give it explicitly in the body of the article. I think, however, that there should be a reasonable way of introducing it into the first appropriate footnote. I am returning to this, because I do think it important to show more clearly that, however Prior got the original manuscript, this is really a primary source that happens to have been included in a kind of appendix to a secondary source. Thanks you your pointing out the ability to lengthen those notes with another variant of the Harvard form, I will (eventually if not right now) experiment with adding a bit more to one of the notes by that means.

I will conclude by mentioning that I like the way you are progressing with your expansion of the article (I have not checked to see if any more was done today, but as you must have seen I touched up some of what you added yesterday). It's coming along nicely. Regards, Alan W (talk) 02:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)