Talk:Madoc

Altered source

Dunno why I'm editing something that needs merging, but the link in "Several local guest houses and pubs are called Prince Madoc in his memory. However, according to http://www.birch.net/~gbyron/kin/wales/page6.html " is dead. The "Porthmadog named after Madocks, not Madoc" thing is fairly well-established, but if you want a source, http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/historyhunters/locations/pages/4_2_the_cob.shtml will do. That paragraph is still a little confusing, though. Are the local pubs local to Wales, to Porthmadog, or to North America? I presume not the last, but haven't changed the wording there because I am not sure, although I altered quite a lot of the rest of the paragraph. -- Telsa 08:44, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Both merge notices on the Madog ap Owain Gwynedd and this page say the other is going to end as the ultimate home of the information. Which is it?

This article is about a legend, reverting to last good version that presents it as such

In this series of edits the article has been changed from an account of a legend, in roughly chronological order from its minimal historical root, to a garbled account of pseudohistory as retailed by various legend-manufacturers all the way to the present day. New sources have been inserted, most of them failing to meet criteria for reliability. At this edit I have reverted these changes. I will have a look through to see if any of the new sources are of any value for the article. Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Slow down Richard, if you read carefully then you'd see I virtually changed a few paragraphs that were referenced, the article is a complete mess and I conducted a tidyup, and I am going to revert what was done in goodfaith, please done do an edit war, if you have any concerns, talk is the place Cltjames (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Richard Keatinge: I was going to waste my time going through the article with a fine toothcomb like I did with my copy edit, but it's a complete waste of time. PLEASE LOOK CAREFULLY OR FORGET ABOUT A REVERT, YOU NEED TO IDENTIFY WHAT NEEDS TO BE REVERTED AS ALL I DID WAS RESTSRUCTED AND ADDED A FEW PARAGRAPHS. Cltjames (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Passing through. Not into history, but if the infobox is a new addition Talk:Madoc/Archive 1#Infobox appears to suggest there was consensus not to have one as it does make Madoc/Madog look more like a real person. But the mass-revert may be too drastic undoing all of Cltjames' work, especially without some agreement for it or obvious issues, but at the same time it was a big re-write so some errors could slip in (for any editor), but in apparent good faith. DankJae 20:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

OK thanks for the research @DankJae:, I will remove the infobox. But as to the rest of the work I conducted, it was all in good faith. And I challenge @Richard Keatinge: to act appropriately and go through the article with a fine toothcomb as I did to find any weaknesses. Otherwise, the article has been improved, not vandalised, not made worse. Cltjames (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Richard Keatinge:, please don't revert again... Please read Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary & if you have any contentions with my suggestion, please don't start an edit war and identify where in the article the text was altered incorrectly, or more so what exactly needs to be reverted, and if you can do this, then I will be happy to cooperate. Otherwise, please don't start an edit war, this wasn't fun in the Talk:House of Aberffraw article, and to reiterate, I virtually changed nothing, it was a tidyup and grammar which I conducted with an addition involving one extra source from the LA Times and a few more to backup the article, which is a reliable source. Cltjames (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Madoc revert for discussion, I want to avoid the complete mess we saw in the Aberffraw and King of Wales articles last year, and I've also lodged a formal complaint about those reverts too. To those involved in the Wales articles or Madoc, @DankJae:, @Sirfurboy:, @Doug Weller:, or Kentucky @StefenTower: please add to discussion regarding Madoc, as I pose the question: Is the article better now than before? And should there be a revert, or can we all agree a copyedit was overdue! Cltjames (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cltjames, all I will say is that King of Wales was a somewhat justified revert, you added "Kingdom of Cambria" etc?? that seemed a bit too much into pseudo-history. However, I still express my openess to List of legendary rulers of Wales as at least that has "legendary" in the title, so a bit more obvious. DankJae 22:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, done. I did an overall check for the past hour and finally published the article for legendary rulers. Although, I wanted to find more book sources, I've been too busy studying and this is all I can come up with for now. Please check it @DankJae:, thanks for your help. Cltjames (talk) 23:07, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cltjames Sorry but I think your version is problematic. Among other things, I'm afraid that your English isn't nearly as good as that in the version being reverted to, and there are sourcing problems. I should have spent more time looking at your edits earlier. Doug Weller talk 07:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller the article is a complete mess, and bullet points were a good idea. Were they not? Then my addition of the Moon-eyed people under the ==American settlement could be a good additon, please tell me why not, because there is a direct connection between the Moon Eyed People and Madog's settlers, and the LA Times is reliable and the article completely missed that connection. Then, the expansion of his family was a good addition, and the voyages story expanded was better. Also, the bottom is a complete mess with too many unnecessary sources and bare ISBN. I really don't see the counterargument !!?? Cltjames (talk) 08:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Dana Olson's book on the Moon-eyed people is self-published, can't be used. Your American settlement section was virtually unsourced and the one source, the LATimes, made is clear the giants claim is debunked, which you didn't mention. Doug Weller talk 09:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Also note another revert will be your 4th, ie you can be blocked. Doug Weller talk 09:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller What about a tipyup, references, sources & bullet points? What about the family background and voyages sections I rewrote?? These are fair points to make. Cltjames (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Um, that (now draft) article is the very copy of King of Wales that I said was too much into pseudo-history, definitely not what I expected nor suitable under that name. I expected like in lines of List of legendary kings of Britain, but more of a list. DankJae 13:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I have concerns about your edits, Cltjames, although I can see the good faith and intent behind them. But really, and I am sure we have been here before, one concern has to be the sourcing you are relying on. This comment edit conflicted with Doug Weller who has pointed out the self published work. Additionally historical articles, and those include articles about historical legends, should never be using newspapers as sources. That is an obvious red flag here. Let's begin with identifying the best sources, and proceed from there. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:09, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Cltjames, I agree with Sirfurboy that your good intent and good faith are clear. I do feel that you have learned something about Wikipedia, in that your references now generally point to a specific, and often relevant, comment. This is an improvement on your earlier practice, but references still need to be reliable, not self-published. Additionally, this is an article about a legend. It is not appropriately structured as a version of the pseudohistory according to the legend; it should be the real story of the development of the legend and the people who elaborated it. For that purpose, it would be entirely appropriate to mention, for example, that certain factoids were first reported by, say, Angharad Llwyd in 1833. It is not appropriate to report what Angharad wrote - or what any other mythmaker wrote - as fact. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Advert tag add by User:Cltjames

How is that justified? "Please help improve it by removing promotional language and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic text written from a neutral point of view. " \"flags the issue of an article that reads like an advertisement. For example, such articles may tell users to buy a company's product, provide price lists, give links to online sellers, use unencyclopedic or meaningless buzzwords, be filled with peacock language and read like the website of the article's topic or a press release touting its virtues, rather than that of a neutrally-written encyclopedia article about the topic. Advertisements are by no means limited to commercial topics and indeed are often seen for all manner of others, such as "noble causes", religious/spiritual leaders, sports teams, gaming clans and so forth. If the article's main problem is not advertising per se, then you can change the tag to something more appropriate, such as COI or Peacock or POV check . Pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic may be tagged for speedy deletion under section G11 of the criteria using db-g11 or db-spam To address the issue, rewrite the article from a neutral point of view – which is not just about the wording and tone, but also what the article covers and what it does not cover. Wikipedia articles should represent 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. Removing all promotional language is a good start, but depending on what is left, may only be a surface treatment. See what you can salvage, but often editors strip out all but the most basic content, leaving it in a stub state. If you want to build a solid article, explore the existence of independent sources for the topic, and build it from the ground up."

Can you be specific about how the tag meets the above? Otherwise it should be removed. Doug Weller talk 10:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller the tag was simply because what I did was to remove the reference and ISBN's, which was consistent in my approach to the article, to improve the style and presentation. This has been misconstrued so badly, and it's unfair that my work was reverted. The presentation of the ISBN makes the article look like a bookstore. So, in my previous edit, I changed the book titles to be presented with the author name. Can we at least revery the books section, please, and take it from there ? Cltjames (talk) 13:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Further reading "Use the same citation style that you've chosen for the references in the rest of the article. To maximize the readers' ease of finding these works, please provide full bibliographic citations, including ISBNs, ISSNs, WorldCat OCLC Numbers, and other identification numbers as appropriate. " Doug Weller talk 13:48, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Cltjames, I have no idea what you were doing or trying to do. Doug Weller, haha I often remove WorldCat URLs from citation templates, but I leave the OCLCs, no matter how useless I think they are. Drmies (talk) 13:50, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I simply changed a book from e.g. book name,title,isbn,etc; to i.e. Madog's travel- Anne Lee. It's more aesthetically pleasing, I didn't removed the ISBN, I created a text displaying the book name and author and left a reference at the bottom of the page and not in full view in the article, it just seemed a more professional presentation. Cltjames (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

No, Cltjames, you added a silly "advert" tag and you made edits like this. Both are great ways to cut your career short. Drmies (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies the advert tag has been misconstrued based on my thoughts that the ISBN tag made section look like a bookshelf or an advertisement, that can be understood. As a neutral editor, could you tell me if the standard was high enough to be published regarding the structure, grammar and overall copyedit, please ?? Cltjames (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, Cltjames, your lead has problems: it has a cn tag, it has punctuation errors (needs comma after "Alabama", "19th century" and "12th century" need a hyphen since they are used adjectivally, there's a period missing after "Myth of Madoc"), "retrospective painting" is weird and the caption doesn't indicate how old the image is and what the source is (and it's not a "painting"), "'Madoc story' legend" makes no sense to me, "later development" in "later centuries" is odd, etc. There's plenty more in the rest: "Voyages story" is an odd heading. The "Gavran" section has odd sources: Wikisource=primary, the "Lee" source is ancient and questionable and doesn't mention "Gavran" (so it's OR), who knows what "intertraditions.com" is--ah OK, it's a link to a bookseller, so for that citation an "advert" tag would have been valid, but Graham Phillips (writer) is NOT an acceptable source. Also the numbers for the footnotes are out of order. I could go on but I think the point is made. Drmies (talk) 15:21, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your input. If you're sure it's close, but not close enough, could you please add the edits yourself ?? As for Gavran, he is in the Wiki source reference, there are 2 of them, Lee and the the Triads, so like I said, the work is paraphrased correctly, otherwise, I appreciate the peer review, maybe a basic copyedit was needed, but nothing drastic, like I said I added very minimal, only make a tidyup of a generally messy article. Cltjames (talk) 15:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You completely misunderstand what I'm saying. I am not "sure it's close"--I'm sure it's not close. The many errors, that's one thing, but the misunderstanding of what sources can be used for what, that's quite another. Please do not think that you can say "is connected to and closely resembles" when all the source has is "three disappearances by loss". The rest is OR, and on top of that, the source is ancient and not acceptable, it is not a source you can cite as if it presented clear facts. The best think you could make of it is "according to the medieval Welsh Triads, Madoc's journey evidences a 'disappearance by loss in the Isle of Britain', along with Gavran and Merdin"--and that is really nothing at all. Drmies (talk) 15:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies some of the Welsh Triads were invented by Iolo Morganwg. Doug Weller talk 15:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Author (date) Title location: publisher - as we have it - is the more professional presentation. Personally I am not too fussed about ISBN, because we are not citing from these, and because the ISBN is the number of a specific edition, whereas a further reading list doesn't need to specify an edition. But inclusion of ISBN also looks professional. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:04, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The best solution is what I did... Circle of Stones- Anna Lee Waldo, 1999.

References

It shows the ISBN, but it is hidden, therefore the article has been tidied up. That's all I did, grammar, restructuring and the missing link in the article being the connection to the Moon-eyed people article. Instead of being aggressive in condemning me, has someone actually done a peer review of my work in the article and found a fault (my guess is no) ? Would someone please stop wasting time arguing with me and actually tell me if my copyedit was successful or not !?? Cltjames (talk) 14:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

If you want a WP:Peer review you can request one, I suggest you do. Doug Weller talk 14:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice, I have requested a peer review of the current article, and my work conducted until 10/17. Cltjames (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Per Doug Weller, you could indeed request peer review. The problem here is you have added quite a lot in one go, and it all would take quite a bit of sorting through. But here is one example sentence that may show why this was reverted:

Madog was appointed the Admiral of the fleet of ships by his Dad, the king, with Gwynedd's Navy withstanding an invasion by Stephen, King of England at Abermenai in 1142.

We don't really know anything about Madoc at all - he may well have existed, and if he did, he would appear to have been the son of Owain Gwynedd, but we certainly cannot say in wikivoice that he was admiral of Owain Gwynedd's fleet. And what are the sources for the 1142 invasion (a time where Stephen was quite busy elsewhere, suggesting this is overstated). And then "by his Dad" - er... well, dad there is not a proper noun so don't capitalise, but also we would generally prefer "father". So there are indeed grammar and prose issues as has been mentioned. Navy, also should be lower case. So basically it is unsourced, needs copy editing, makes claims in wikivoice for things we cannot know and may even be counterfactual. And that is just that sentence, chosen at random. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:48, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The reference is included, pages 80-81, Angharad Llwyd book, 'A History of the Island of Mona'. Honestly, I am guaranteeing you that my work was done with careful consideration and there is no original research, as every single sentence I added was paraphrased correctly from correct sources. The source is also double checked by the La Times source. Otherwise, I wouldn't add in factually incorrect statements. Cltjames (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cltjames That's a work of fiction. Eg claiming "William Penn, when he settled in America, was accompanied by several intelligent and well educated Welshmen, who recognised among the Indians (from their language and customs) a tribe of Madogians residing on the banks of the Missouri." Its use of "Dr. Plott’t Account of an Ancient Diacovery of America, Ac.', etc. No way is it a reliable source. Doug Weller talk 15:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The William Penn entry is still in the article, all I did was used the existing text and expanded with another reference. I'm sorry to complain again, but I don't know why I'm being made a scapegoat here. The article was complete but a mess, all I did was a copyedit, tidyup and added the section 'American settlement' from the LA Times. Anyway, I've requested a peer review, and we'll take it from there I guess, but I do reiterate something like bullet points was a better idea like the copyedit I conducted. Cltjames (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

His deputy is mentioned, not Penn, and it's made clear it was a hoax. Llwyd's still not an RS. Doug Weller talk 16:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller the problem is, if the primary sources were 14th century poems and 16th century texts recopied for centuries, then what is a reliable source. Then, this isn't a class A article, nor is a B right now, probably a C, and a reliable source from 1832 still hasn't been debunked and isn't necessary unreliable, so I don't see why the source can't be included. Cltjames (talk) 17:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

We don't write articles badly just because they are not already up to scratch. Write every article as well as you can, as though you are striving for it to be a Good Article. But on the sources, we have discussed this before, I am sure of it. The antiquity of the source is a problem too. What is a good source? Something written by an actual historian. Something that includes later scholarship. For instance, the linguistic link between the Mandan language and Welsh is thoroughly debunked by linguists, using research that Llwyd would certainly not have been privy to. But what are not good sources are a prize winning essay about Anglesey from 1833 and a newspaper. And, for the record, I do not see where the LA Times even does verify anything in that sentence above. Even if it did, that tertiary source would no doubt be relying on Llwyd. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:21, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The article currently sources books from 1811, 1842, 1908. I don't see the difference, this double standards not allowing me to use the Llwyd 1832 book, which has a very useful section to do with Madoc. Cltjames (talk) 17:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Look what those sources are supporting: they support the prominence of the legend, not the legend itself. But nothing wrong with improving the article and replacing those with better secondary sources. Because, for instance, the text:

... a fact that too was cited by Reuben T. Durrett in his work Traditions of the earliest visits of foreigners to north America,

and cited to Durrett (1908) is a primary source for that claim. No one is saying the article can't be improved. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Cltjames - Multiple editors on multiple occasions have advised you not to use 19th/18th/17th-century sources as the basis for articles. The genealogical histories you favour do not represent reliable, modern scholarship, see Wikipedia:AGE MATTERS. I've just gone through the Anwyl of Tywyn family article, which is almost entirely sourced to histories dating from 1799, 1846 and 1872. I'm really struggling to understand why you continue to ignore this advice. KJP1 (talk) 08:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@KJP1 with Madoc, I simply added 1 older sourced filling in gaps for text that was already there and lacking in material. I just feel the article won't make an A grade rating, so settling on older sourced and a C or potentially B isn't an issue. Otherwise, I didn't add anything older to Anwyl of Tywyn, I added DWB and just reformatted coding. Cltjames (talk) 14:04, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Source “ Touring the Backroads of North and South Georgia. Native American”

Is a tourist guide, ot an rs. Doug Weller talk 17:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)