Talk:Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits

July 2020

I really do believe it's important, in terms of context and information, to factually demonstrate (as I have done by citing a book with the proper pagination) that scholars such as Hutton actively attempt to gaslight works that draw conclusions that portrays history differently than he. And, I say this as a personal fan of Wilby's work! What surprised me was that Hutton based this only on his own personal opinion, with no substantiation. If, in fact, it is a statement that Wilby actually agrees with one would expect to cite a personal communication with Wilby or something she had written where she made a comment to that effect. But, because he hadn't, it is in fact accurate to describe this behavior as gaslighting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.39.20.64 (talk) 01:16, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to write out a response here. I'm not going to comment on the merit of your argument about Hutton, which very well may be true, but it is unfortunately not allowed on Wikipedia. There is a policy here called No Original Research, which "includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources". When you cite Hutton's book and call it gaslighting, that's an example of personal analysis because you are interpreting it to be that. If you find an article or book from a reliable source that makes the same claim about Hutton, that would certainly be acceptable in this article (although I would argue that it should go in the "Reviews and reception" section along with Hutton's other criticisms). I say all this also as a fan of Wilby's work! I hope that explanation makes sense, and feel free to reply here or on my talk page if you have any other questions! --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 01:54, 18 July 2020 (UTC)