Talk:Massacre at Ywahoo Falls

Massacre at Ywahoo Falls

This page was written using every piece of information available. Only Three pieces of written and published works are avaliable and only a handfull of websites, all of which repeat themseves. To get more revelent external links will not happen and as far as cited text or what not, the story of the Ywahoo falls is of "oral" Cherokee history. Mo'onahe (talk) 02:12, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Inline citations means that at the end of most paragraphs, or at the end of a controversial sentence, you say which reference you used for it. As for more info, try the Encyclopedia of Kentucky, available at Google's Books section.--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 02:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Ywahoo Falls

Problem being this whole article can be viewed as controversial. Being Cherokee I view it as true and my history. I have tried to write this piece with not "being personnal" and adding to the Native American Pieces. Not alot of information is available, only one book, a view websites, mostly Cherokee native's and one written manuscript derived from a story I myself was told as a child. Doing the best I can, let me know about the citations I have added. Mo'onahe (talk) 02:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Total fabrication

The "incident" in this "article" is a total fabrication dreamed up by Dan Troxell in the 1990's. Doublehead never lived in Kentucky--he is well-known to have lived in his town at the head of the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River--and Blackburn never had a mission in Sequatchie Valley; the furthest west any of his missions came was the one at Sale Creek in Hamilton County. Also, Doublehead was assassinated in 1807 and John Sevier and his men were in their 60's and 70's, a little too old for massacring, raping, and plundering Indians. There is no reference of any kind to such an incident prior to Troxell's fictional piece for the Kentucky Historical Society. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 19:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Agreed. I removed the bit about the State of Franklin as it was also anachronistic to the piece. The veracity of this story must be looked at here with an eye towards the Wikipedia 'no original research' rule —there is "little" documentation of this incident for a reason —and with deletion as a possible outcome. Template marked for POV and Citation. GenQuest (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
  • This issue was discussed at extreme length in September 2010, and the consensus was to keep the article. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Massacre at Ywahoo Falls. The editor who proposed deletion ultimately agreed with that consensus. The article does not assert that the story is factual but rather that it is notable, whether or not it is a legend. I don't think that this article, in its current state, is POV at all; that tag should be deleted. As for the "additional sources" tag, additional sources are always welcome, but I don't think that this article has such a lack of sources to support what it says that this tag is appropriate either.--Arxiloxos (talk) 16:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

To those who keep restoring deleted sources

You clearly have no idea what a "reliable" or credible source is if you consider anything that I have deleted reliable to any degree. Dan Troxell invented this story and offers no other proof than his claims of a story handed down thru his family from 1810 without any outside observer noticing what would have been would have been the equivalent of Wounded Knee at the time. The countless glaring mistakes of historical fact in his account alone would be enough to discount it as a source. The "article" by Ken Tankersley is sourced on Troxell's account, Thomas Troxell's story (which he never claimed to be other than fiction), and personal communication with both Troxells. Hiking books, expecially ones not sourced, are NOT credible sources for Wikipedia purposes. Wikipedia is not a place where everyone can comes and say whatever they like without credible substantiation. None of the "sources" I deleted are at all credible, and the reliance of this article upon them should be enough to any objective judge to warrant the end of the disgraceful, embarassing article's existence here. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 21:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

@SarekofVulcan: The sources I deleted were self-published sources, which without question are not valid sources for Wikipedia purposes, and the link to Kunesh's article was dead. Oh, yes, and the hiking book, not really a valid source by Wikipedia criteria either. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 23:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, the link to the history of women and warfare on Google Books supposedly retrieved on whatever date was to a section not part of the free online viewing and could therefore not have been retrieved by anyone. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 00:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

When Google Books is being cited, the point is that IT'S A BOOK. It's fairly irrelevant whether it can be accessed through Google (ETA:which I just did, incidentally) -- that's just a convenience link. Restoring.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, restoring _everything_. "Sole source" is original research. Scare-quoting "book in progress" is POV pushing. Adding blank lines to a ref template makes it harder to use. "'supposed' Cornblossom" is redundant, it already says it's a story. Editorializing over where Sevier comes from is confusing and uncited. The Kunesh article is still available in Google cache, so it hasn't been a deadlink very long -- it might just be down for a day or two. See also http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.moccasinbend.net/cita/yahoofalls/index.html. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Sarek's restoration of the prior version of this article. We had reached a reasonably stable, neutral description of the subject. I don't know what provoked the sudden rash of changes from Chuck Hamilton, but the result was a much less neutral version of the article, and one that (as Sarek has noted) included some significant POV and OR problems. If Chuck Hamilton (or any other editor) believes that major changes are needed, it would be better to discuss them here, on the talk page, first and reach consensus for any such major changes, so that we can avoid any relapse into the contentious editing that we had on this article last year.--Arxiloxos (talk) 06:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

"Book in Progress" is what Tankersley calls it; check his website. I changed it to "upcoming book". THERE HAVE BEEN NO OTHER SOURCES FOR THE STORY WHICH CITED BY ANY CONTRIBUTOR OTHER THAN TROXELL'S ACCOUNT. Therefore, referring to it as the "sole source" is not "original research", Mr. SarekOfVulcan, especially since several authors of articles linked to this article have said exactly that, and is quite accurate. The changes I've, at least at first before Mr. SarekOfVulcan unilaterally reverted them all without discussion, were to remove material which had been placed there without discussion and restore it to the form which it had when the discussion to delete it decided to let it stay. Had such changes not been made, they would not have been there for me to undo. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 20:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

You were bold, I reverted, now discuss, don't just revert claiming "no reason to revert". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

You clearly do not care much about accuracy of information. You reverted first without giving sufficient reason to revert, and you deleted wholesale indiscriminantly several changes I had made, even ones for which I gave sources not only verifiable by Wikipedia standards but credible in any academic forum. Therefore, I am making one last revision back to what the most recent changes I made, then I quit. If you are more concerned with Wikipedia editorial games than accuracy of information, have at it. I'm out. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

And by quit, I mean quit editting Wikipedia articles entirely, save those I myself have originated. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment on Debate

This is the first time I've read the article or heard of the alleged massacre. It seems to me that although the article may have been biased in the past, it appears very neutral now. If this massacre is indeed part of Cherokee oral history, it may have entered their cultural consciousness in the same way that urban legends sometimes gather a significant following of believers. In recent years, however, the American public, more educated than in the past, has become skeptical of alligators in city sewers, etc., and many agencies have systematically evaluated the accuracy of some of these tales, and help consolidate public consensus on the verifiability of the stories; but the whole process can take decades. The Cherokee may or may not care to question the validity of the massacre. As for this article, I recommend that to round out coverage of the debate, an anthropology source should be found and used to comment on the accuracy and problems associated with oral history. Boneyard90 (talk) 02:39, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless it was an analysis of oral history problems related to the transmission of this story, I think that would violate WP:SYNTHESIS. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 06:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)