Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/Archive 18

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Wikipedia Policy on Ownership of Articles

Tom,

I and other editors have pointed out that the SAQ article does not meet Wikipedia policy and guidelines because it is not neutral, contains original research, and cites otherwise reliable sources for points which the sources do not support. Numerous examples have been offered, both here and on the Peer Review page, of specific problems with the article in those areas. You have refused to do anything to correct the problems yourself, and have reverted every substantive edit I've made to try to correct them. You now insist that I and other editors provide you with a concise list of the problems which have already been mentioned. You are clearly of the view that you own the page, in contravention of WP:OWN. You will not correct problems which have been identified yourself, you will not allow other editors to correct them, and you are trying to control the manner in which other editors work and to waste their time by demanding that they provide you with a concise list of problems which have already been identified on this Discussion Page and on the Peer Review page, and which you ignored when they were identified.

In addition, you have now crossed a line by calling me obsessive, and a 'fanatic'. You wrote:

This is astonishing. You are complaining about original research and you think this is a reliable source proving that the SAQ is an acceptable academic topic and not a fringe theory? And I specifically created this subsection to list specific NPOV violations in the article so we could all take a look at them, not to revisit your assertion that the SAQ is a minority rather than a fringe view. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

This is unacceptable.NinaGreen (talk) 17:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree I crossed the line of civil discourse and apologise for the fanatic comment and retract it, and also refractor my other comment. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum’s objections

I found some specific objections buried in the pile of type above and I’m bringing them down to address them point-by-point. I ask that you PLEASE don’t crap this section up with the generalised complaints that this page is full of. Either start a new section or keep to the same section.

1. non-neutral language, such as that non-Stratfordians "claim" and "assert" and "declare", rather than the more neutral "state". Add to that that Stratfordians "hold" and "consider" rather than "say" or "believe". This is a clear violation of WP:WORDS.

Listed below are the instances of those words you say are non-neutral.

CLAIM

All of these uses are consistent with the definitions of "claim" as a noun and a verb:

Claim, noun: an assertion of something as a fact; an unproven assertion.

Claim, verb: to assert or maintain as a fact; to assert in the face of possible contradiction

Nevertheless, according to WP:WORDS, “To write that someone claimed or asserted something can call their statement's credibility into question, by emphasizing any potential contradiction or implying a disregard for evidence.” I have added my comments to the examples below.

Proponents argue that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court they claim is apparent in the works.

I have no objections to changing that to “say”.

No attendance records of the period survive, so if Shakespeare attended the school it could not have been documented, nor did anyone who taught or attended the school ever claim to have been his teacher or classmate.

I see nothing wrong with that use, nor do I see any neutrality issues.

Anti-Stratfordians claim that if the name on the plays and poems and literary references, "William Shakespeare", is assumed to be a pseudonym, then nothing in the documentary record left behind by William Shakespeare of Stratford explicitly names him as an author.

I have no objections to changing that to “say”.

In 1923 Archie Webster published "Was Marlowe the Man?" in The National Review, claiming that Marlowe wrote the works of Shakespeare and that the Sonnets were an autobiographical account of his survival and banishment.

I think this is a fair term to use in this instance and I don’t see any neutrality problems; perhaps you could point them out or tell me what would be more accurate.

Copious archival research had failed to turn up the expected confirmation of Oxford or anyone else as the true author, and publishers lost interest in repetitious books containing the same claims, based on what anti-Stratfordians asserted to be overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

I think this is a fair term to use in this instance and I don’t see any neutrality problems; perhaps you could point them out or tell me what would be more accurate.

The Ogburns found many parallels between Oxford's life and the works, claiming that the "play Hamlet is straight biography."

I think this is the right word in this instance, and I don’t see any neutrality problems; perhaps you could point them out or tell me what word would be more accurate.

Another theory for Oxford's use of the pen-name is the so-called "Prince Tudor" theory first advanced by Percy Allen in 1933 and promulgated by Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn Sr in their 1,300-page This Star of England, which claims that Oxford became Queen Elizabeth's lover and dedicated the Sonnets to their son, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.

I have no objections to using “says” in this case.

This theory has deeply divided Oxfordians, and even more so its variation, "Prince Tudor Part II", which claims that not only was Southampton the illegitimate son of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth, but Oxford himself was the Queen's son by Thomas Seymour.

Nor do I have any objections to changing this to “says”.

ASSERT:

Reasons for the assertion that "Shakespeare" is a pseudonym vary, . . .

I would be interested in what would substitute for the word in this case, “claim”?

Copious archival research had failed to turn up the expected confirmation of Oxford or anyone else as the true author, and publishers lost interest in repetitious books containing the same claims, based on what anti-Stratfordians asserted to be overwhelming circumstantial evidence.

"said"? "claimed"?

DECLARE:

Simonton, who declared his Oxfordian sympathies in the article and had expected the results to support Oxford’s authorship, concluded that "that expectation was proven wrong."

There is nothing objectionable to this usage.

HOLD:

Mainstream Shakespeare scholars hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship

I have modified the subset of Shakespeare scholars to address this, and added more refs.

CONSIDER: this word is used more for anti-Strats than Strats.

all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory with no hard evidence

I see nothing wrong with this use. The word “believe” implies faith, the word “consider” implies based on reasoning, which it is.

The Shakespeare canon is universally considered to be of the highest artistic and literary quality.

If you want to change this to "believed", I have no objections.

American cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman won the Folger Shakespeare Library Literary Prize of $1000 in 1955 for a definitive study that is considered to have disproven the long-standing claims that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers that disclose Bacon's or any other candidate's secret authorship.

The use of the word here is to insert some scholarly caution in lieu of saying "a definitive study that disproved the long-standing claims".

Freelance writer Charlton Ogburn, Jr., elected president of the society in 1976, promptly began a campaign to bypass the academic establishment, which he considered to be an "entrenched authority" that aimed to "outlaw and silence dissent in a supposedly free society," a situation that he termed "an intellectual Watergate".

I see no valid reason to change this, but feel free.

Ogburn, Jr., considered that academics were best challenged by recourse to law …

Same here.

But Looney considered the most critical part of the case to be the close affinity he found between the poetry of Oxford and that of Shakespeare in the use of motifs and subjects, phrasing, and rhetorical devices.

Would you change this to “believe”? Fine with me.

His (Marlowe’s) candidacy was revived in 1955 and has gained popularity so that he is considered the nearest rival to Oxford."

I see no neutrality issues here, but "thought to be" would be fine.

2. change "argument" to "debate"

The definition of "argument" is closer to the actual case than "debate", which implies a more formal process. From Merriam-Webster

ARGUMENT: (first definition is obsolete: an outward sign) 2. a: a reason given in proof or rebuttal; b: discourse intended to persuade. 3. a: the act or process of arguing: argumentation; b: a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion; c: quarrel, disagreement

DEBATE: a contention by words or arguments: as a: the formal discussion of a motion before a deliberative body according to the rules of parliamentary procedure; b: a regulated discussion of a proposition between two matched sides.

There are many anti-Stratfordian arguments, but few debates. There have been four or five debates that I know of between anti-Strats and Strats, bit to say the part is the whole is misleading and not true. Most academics won’t even talk to anti-Strats about authorship, much less debate them.

3. Paragraph 2, final line - change "argue" to "believe", and "arguing" to "proposing".

The first is reasonable and fine with me, the second does not square with the accepted definition of the word “propose”.

4. Paragraph 3 - change "Mainstream Shakespeare scholars hold" to : "Many mainstream Shakespeare scholars believe" (this change address both WP:WORDS and WP:RELIABLE , specifically – ". . . any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors."

I have addressed this by changing the subset of Shakespear scholars referred to in order to comply more closely with the citations.

5. Paragraph 4 - change "Despite the scholastic consensus" to "Despite the traditional view" - same WP:RELIABLE and "Academic consensus" issue as above.

This has been addressed with the reference I added this morning from Stephen Greenblatt: “The idea that William Shakespeare's authorship of his plays and poems is a matter of conjecture and the idea that the ‘authorship controversy’ be taught in the classroom are the exact equivalent of current arguments that ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside evolution. In both cases an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on a serious assessment of hard evidence, is challenged by passionately held fantasies whose adherents demand equal time."

6. Paragraph 4 - the final line is a mess, and there are multiple issue involved. As written, it appears to be more about the "supporters" than the theory itself, which is odd and does not contribute to explication of the subject matter.

The final graf is a general statement about the proponents and their activities, which certainly contributes to the “explication of the subject matter”. The theories do not exist in a vacuum.

It may express your view of Oxfordians but that is not the purpose of the article, correct me if I have this wrong. The subject of the article is the theory itself, is it not? If you are attempting to show the current state of the debate, then this final line should instead say something like "In recent years, two universities began offering courses related to the issue, and a Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre has opened, an online list of doubters includes over 1800 signatories, and a major feature film Anonymous has been announced with the authorship question as a key element.' (At this point I have to mention that the present article is hopelessly out of date. Altrocchi, Whittemore, and Roe have made recent significant contributions to knowledge in the subject matter, not even mentioning dozens of articles in the Society and Fellowship journals. Part of the source of conflict is that Mr. Reedy has not availed himself of the numerous high-quality peer-reviewed works that comprise the Oxfordian position on Shakespeare authorship. That may involve a good deal of at first distasteful effort, then shocking surprise, but it is the responsible editor's duty if he means to write a balanced article.)

This is a general article written in summary style, and is not meant to be a detailed point-by-point explication of the several theories, of which you seem to think the Oxfordian one is the only one that should be covered. There’s an entire article to which those can be added. The history section covers much of what you complain about is missing.

7. WP:LEAD states that the lead is to summarize the article. Specifically "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first few sentences."

This lede does a good job of that, and there does not have to be a strict point-by-point correspondence as long as the material is covered in a coherent manner. The first graf defines the topic, summarises the arguments it is based upon, and gives the academic view. The second summarises the origin and history and names the major claimants, and the third summarises the main points brought up by academics against the theory. The final graf summarises the present-day activities of anti-Stratfordians. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have made those changes discussed above in this section. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Good, now we're getting somewhere. I would recommend for your first entry: "Proponents of the Oxfordian contention have presented data and reasoning to say that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford is the more appropriate author in terms of classical education, life experience in the aristocracy and abroad, and rank at the highest level of English society, whereas the man born Gulielmus Shakspere of Stratford could barely sign his name on his will, and he had no known association with either nobles or royalty, both prominent features of the works of Shakespeare."

Instead of: "Proponents argue that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court they claim is apparent in the works."

Your saying "lacked...familiarity with the royal court that >>they claim is apparent in the works"<< is a disparagement and historically inaccurate, since such as Bismarck, Whitman, Chaplin, and Trevor-Roper have stated the same lacks, and you do not accuse them of claiming it. You simply ignore that they are documented as having done so and deprecate the element you consider a fringe group. It is indisputable that the setting of numerous works was court-life and royalty. I also have no objection to the use of say in that paragraph, except that in my suggested version the tone is noticably less partisan,e.g., "they say."

The sentence about the education of your protagonist might be better stated as: "The young Stratfordian is not known to have been educated at the local grammar school. There are no records in any case. Any claims one way or the other are conjectural. Oxfordians point to 'Titus Andronicus', Act IV, wherein a student named William is ridiculed for not understanding his Latin grammar, whose first sentence is 'Edwardus is my propre name.' Edwardus was Edward de Vere's proper Latin name. They posit that if Shakspere did attend grammar school, he would have been able to adequately sign his name on his will."

instead of what you have:

No attendance records of the period survive, so if Shakespeare attended the school it could not have been documented, nor did anyone who taught or attended the school ever claim to have been his teacher or classmate.

This removes the temptation to use a claim word with reference to a teacher or pupil in a totally conjectural case. Your statement that no records survive so that if he did attend the school it wasn't documented, is a non sequitur. There were records. They were burned. Before that they were documents. They are not extant. It is a poor sentence if what you mean is we don't know what the burned documents contained.

Your next example, about the pen name Shakespeare:

"Anti-Stratfordians claim that if the name on the plays and poems and literary references, "William Shakespeare", is assumed to be a pseudonym, then nothing in the documentary record left behind by William Shakespeare of Stratford explicitly names him as an author."

has the verb claim followed by a hypothesis. Why not just say: "Non-Stratfordians/or Oxfordians more specifically, hypothesize that William Shakespeare was a pen name/stage name, based on its frequent printing with a hyphen, a tell-tale indication of pseudonymity. Their conclusion is that Shakspere of Stratford had nothing in his documentary record that might tie him to the allonymous stage-name. The title pages with Shakespeare on them are not themselves proof of his particular involvement. The doubt forces the question of the authorship to be answered elsewhere or in a more definitive manner, according to Oxfordians."

Regarding the Marlowe follower, I have not read his book, but I think it uncharitable to say he claimed that Marlowe wrote the works, if he presented reasons for his view, though weak to our thinking. Propose would be a neutral form of description. It does not weaken your case to be fair.

"The Ogburns found many parallels between Oxford's life and the works, claiming that the "play Hamlet is straight biography."

Since the Ogburns put about 110 pages in whole or part into backing this claim, it wasn't just a claim, it was a thesis, in my view of great power and scope. The problem with using the word claim is that it is a flag-term, communicating I don't believe this for one second, would you? A fairer means of expressing the point might be:

"The Ogburns found many parallels between Oxford's life and the works, in particular in the masterpiece 'Hamlet', which they considered a 'straight biography' of Oxford's traumatic early years."

The next sentence:

"Copious archival research had failed to turn up the expected confirmation of Oxford or anyone else as the true author, and publishers lost interest in repetitious books containing the same claims, based on what anti-Stratfordians asserted to be overwhelming circumstantial evidence."

has no backing for anything it states. If archival research had turned in anything at all confirming the Stradfordian idea, we wouldn't be wasting our time here. Eva Turner Clark did copious archival research into the court plays and found that numerous plays in the 1570's and '80's at court had the same plots, characters, and similar titles to what later became "Shakespearean" plays. This and other "circumstantial" arguments of similarity too close to discount contained in 'Shakespeare by Another Name', 'Alias Shakespeare', 'The Monument', 'Great Oxford', 'Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom', 'Shakespeare's Guide to Italy', and 'Oxfordian Vistas' have all been published, regardless of the publishers you might know as finding them repetitious. If you mean to say that the Oxfordian contention has not swept academia like a firestorm, perhaps the way to say it is:

"A recent thrust of scholarly interest, mainly by lawyers, judges, and non-academics, has produced frequent arguments supporting the Oxfordian contention. But to date this has not changed the general disposition of either academics, who know little of the authorship history since they were trained to teach the texts, or the general reader, since Shakespeare has become a cultural icon, almost a secular saint, representing English-American values. Thus neither constituency is susceptible to swift re-thinking away from deeply ingrained beliefs."

In general your paragraph is too loose in its reasoning and condemning in its evaluations, without persuasive power of data to redeem these weaknesses. Also I recommend you drop the anti-Stratfordian cliche. A positive identification for the Oxfordian persuasion is probably closer to neutral than that. Derby, Rutland, and the rest offer little or nothing in the way of a comprehensive explanation regarding the authorship controversy. Characterizing all together is a way of minimizing the threat of research done by Oxfordian proponents.

Your next example:

"Another theory for Oxford's use of the pen-name is the so-called "Prince Tudor" theory first advanced by Percy Allen in 1933 and promulgated by Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn Sr in their 1,300-page This Star of England, which claims that Oxford became Queen Elizabeth's lover and dedicated the Sonnets to their son, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton."

can benefit from the following additional wording in the interests of neutrality:

"Another motivation for Oxford's putative use of the pen-name Shakespeare, other than the general ban on aristocrats publishing in their life-times, was the politically explosive circumstance recently labelled the "Prince Tudor" theory. It was first advanced by Percy Allen in 1933 and later promulgated by Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn, Sr. in their 1,300 page tome 'This Star of England' and then in numerous subsequent studies. The theory is that the youthful Oxford became Queen Elizabeth's lover, hence later as a literary magus dedicating 'Venus and Adonis', 'Lucrece',and 'The Sonnets' to their son and England's rightful Tudor Prince, who was raised Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton."

The next contribution is:

"This theory has deeply divided Oxfordians, and even more so its variation, "Prince Tudor Part II", which claims that not only was Southampton the illegitimate son of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth, but Oxford himself was the Queen's son by Thomas Seymour."

Again, as in 'Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom', more than a simple claim is involved here. The whole book with considerable scholarship elucidates the real possibility that the theory was fact. Therefore, to be brief, the terms might be:

"...Prince Tudor theory, Part II, which simply stated is that not only was Southampton Oxford's and Elizabeth's bastard, he was Oxford's brother, because Oxford himself was the Queen's son, for according to this theory at age fourteen Elizabeth was raped by Thomas Seymour, then Lord Protector of the Realm, and the child was placed with the House of Oxford."

Your frequent use of the word claim advertises skepticism, and becomes a barrier to the objectivity of the summary work. Above all claim is an inadequate usually disapproving description. It is dishonest to insist you must be brief, if that brevity is always to short the neutrality/parity requirement of the article. The reader will read a few more lines to gain the truth.

Next, "Reasons for the assertion that "Shakespeare" is a pseudonym vary, . . ."

This is a contradiction in terms since if you present reasons it is not an assertion. It is a proposal, thesis, or argument. Moreover, this is a tee-up sentence that says nothing, except that you are about to say something that does say something. If you are interested in what would substitute for the word claim, I recommend dropping the whole sentence and saying something declarative to begin with. Absence is better than ugliness.

"Copious archival research had failed to turn up the expected confirmation of Oxford or anyone else as the true author, and publishers lost interest in repetitious books containing the same claims, based on what anti-Stratfordians asserted to be overwhelming circumstantial evidence."

This is a repetition of a previous example, and I refer you back to my comments above. You are under the impression that you can change one word and buy off the opposition, whereas the essential unfairness of your approach makes that a vain result.

"Simonton, who declared his Oxfordian sympathies in the article and had expected the results to support Oxford’s authorship, concluded that "that expectation was proven wrong."

If Simonton actually did make such a declaration, quote it and your statement has some veracity. You have a way of slanting what people are supposed to have said. Quoting eliminates the possibility that they did not. You're short of credibility already. And who in hell is Simonton to fall on his sword, when he knows virtually nothing about the Shakespeare play chronology that he uses for a standard of Shakespearean stylisms? That he assumes an accepted chronology indicates his ignorance of the issue, and invalidates his conclusions, but since he said something you could turn to advantage, that does not count in the reckoning. The choice of sources is somewhat biased. Cairncross said more in one paragraph about the Shakespeare chronology than Simonton has in a lifetime, and Cairncross paid for it with his career.

Your statement, "Mainstream Shakespeare scholars hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship."

has only one problem, believing it. The entire critical study of literature has successfully established that biography and art align very closely, as does biography and political achievement, biography and military achievement,etc. It has been only very recently that Shapiro propagandized the bifurcation of a life and its artistic work in order to cut off the weakest aspect of the Stratfordian hypothesis, a tattered one at this point. He even took himself to task for trying to make reasonable sense out of Shakspere and now tries to discard the entire methodology rather than face that nothing fits between his subject and the works attributed to him. Therefore, I suggest this modification:

"Those mainstream Shakespeare scholars who have followed the lead of James Shapiro in holding to the concept that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship have to this point provided no persuasive studies that artistic creation and biographical character and motivation are unconnected."

If you have any such studies, cite them; otherwise it stands as a non sequitur. if you have no evidence, don't make the statement.

"all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory with no hard evidence"

Similarly if you are going to make this broad dictum, then add the clause, as 1,2,3 have shown,... Or else to be fair you must add,"The English establishment is deeply invested in the Stratford narrative of a commoner rising from nowhere and by individual character writing universal works on subjects and with detail known only to the ruling class. Thus it will not easily re-appraise the traditional view and generally expresses hostility toward the contrary scholars by insisting that the alternative movement is marginal and the supporters few. Despite no university funding, the Oxfordian movement is a thriving cottage industry of book production.

"The Shakespeare canon is universally considered to be of the highest artistic and literary quality."

People who are reading about the Shakespeare authorship controversy don't need to be instructed about the literary value of the works. They want to know how so colossal an error could have occurred or if it is all a lot of hot air. But it's a harmless sentence if you want to use it.

"American cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman won the Folger Shakespeare Library Literary Prize of $1000 in 1955 for a definitive study that is considered to have disproven the long-standing claims that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers that disclose Bacon's or any other candidate's secret authorship."

To be precise, the proper term is 'widely thought to have disproven'. By the terms of a study the Folger Shakespeare Library would endorse, the Oxfordian ciphers were not to be examined. None was. The Cardano Grille was not listed in the index. The Peacham and Meres puzzles were not discussed. The First Folio introductory verse and the Southampton dedications were ignored. Therefore, to be fair, you should add the sentences, "The bulk of the study discredited the Baconian hypothesis and ciphers. No other possible writer received attention at that time."

"Freelance writer Charlton Ogburn, Jr., elected president of the society in 1976, promptly began a campaign to bypass the academic establishment, which he considered to be an "entrenched authority" that aimed to "outlaw and silence dissent in a supposedly free society," a situation that he termed "an intellectual Watergate".

"Professional writer, intelligence officer, and son of the elder Ogburns', who wrote 'This Star of England', Charlton Ogburn, Jr...."

What in you must minimize the achievement and character of this heroic figure in American intellectual circles? Harvard didn't.

"Ogburn, Jr., considered that academics were best challenged by recourse to law …"

This is harmless, but where did you get this, inside his head or from something he said?

"But Looney considered the most critical part of the case to be the close affinity he found between the poetry of Oxford and that of Shakespeare in the use of motifs and subjects, phrasing, and rhetorical devices."

Looney's own language exceeds this colorless verb by thousands. "No one will deny that each line above is Shakespearean; the former is hardly entitled to be called even a paraphrase, so nearly a copy is it; personally I find it utterly impossible to read this poem of De Vere's without an overwhelming sense of there being but one mind behind the two utterances."

Have you ever felt that kind of joy in discovering the works of a heretofore hidden personality in the writing of supposedly another person entirely? Someone reputed to be a supernal genius?

"But Looney [Loh'nee] was astonished at the close affinity he found between the language of Oxford...." might be more apt. It doesn't cost you anything.

Your next offering: "His (Marlowe’s) candidacy was revived in 1955 and has gained popularity so that he is considered the nearest rival to Oxford."

Considered by whom? Is this a fringe theory that you are padding a reputation about that doesn't exist objectively and that I haven't heard referenced for fifty years or more? How many studies? At what conferences?

'There are many anti-Stratfordian arguments, but few debates. There have been four or five debates that I know of between anti-Strats and Strats, bit to say the part is the whole is misleading and not true. Most academics won’t even talk to anti-Strats about authorship, much less debate them."

WHO SAID THIS? If it is you, to what purpose? There are no debates because the "mainstream" scholars don't know enough about the historical issues to stand up and talk on equal terms. Of course they won't seek to debate when likely to lose. Which calls the bluff of 'every scrap of evidence confirms Shakspere's authorship'.

5. Paragraph 4: In the longer statement you have excerpted, shown below, which originally appeared in the New Yorker Greenblatt compared the Shakespeare authorship debaters to Holocaust deniers. At that point he passed beyond rational exchange into disgusting polemic. And Greenblatt is a Jew. As a Jew who lost 82 relatives in Europe during that horror I am ashamed of his cheapness as an intellectual. I would withdraw this statement as an academic reference. It is not factual and the speaker has no moral authority:

“The idea that William Shakespeare's authorship of his plays and poems is a matter of conjecture and the idea that the ‘authorship controversy’ be taught in the classroom are the exact equivalent of current arguments that ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside evolution. In both cases an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on a serious assessment of hard evidence, is challenged by passionately held fantasies whose adherents demand equal time." --Stephen Greenblatt

6. Paragraph 4: This is the summary. You state that this is not a point by point discussion. That is an evasion. You must be accurate in everything you state. If that takes more sentences in the summary write more. If you get your summary wrong, it is because you have gotten the facts leading to it wrong. I would recommend that you give up this article as it stands now. You don't appear to have the scope and distance to write a true sentence on the topic. Perhaps someone in your cohort can. The bibliographical references are an atrocity of one-sidedness. I'm sorry, because evidently a lot of work went into the effort. Zweigenbaum (talk) 13:09, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Man, I hate that you went to all that trouble. You obviously think this is the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship article or The Shakespeare Fellowship. Sorry to disappoint. I will adopt a few of your wordings, though, which is one reason I think it valuable to get input from others, no matter how extreme their partisanship. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I just read a bit of this rambling screed. It's clear, Zweigenbaum, that you have no idea what NPOV is. If you reallty think this sentence is accptable "Non-Stratfordians/or Oxfordians more specifically, hypothesize that William Shakespeare was a pen name/stage name, based on its frequent printing with a hyphen, a tell-tale indication of pseudonymity." It's difficult to understand why the clumsy and ugly slahes are considered desirable and why the simple "anti-Statfordians" has to be replaced by "Non-Stratfordians/or Oxfordians". Also, the assertion that a hyphen is a "tell-tale indication of pseudonymity" is pure nonsense. It can, of course, be presented as an anti-Statfordian argument, but not as fact. It is rejected by orthodox scholars as without foundation. Paul B (talk) 15:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Hey what's up Doc? Yes, I "reallty think this sentence is accptable", as neither I nor others oppose Stratford, poor innocent burg, and labelling the Oxfordian point of view as anti-Stratfordian is like saying it is anti-FlatEarthian. I haven't seen anybody who maintains a shrine to Derby or Mary Sidney chime in against Stratford. But the label is hardly the main point. The facts don't support the point of view relying on the present narrative, and a balanced statement includes points from both sides of a discussion, or else it is a "screed" as you characterize my edits and comments. If you don't like the "clumsy and ugly slahes", re-word them and let's deal. And the hyphen in Shake-Speare (The Sonnets) like the hyphen in "Tom Tell-Truth" can indeed be cited as fact of pseudonymity because both are in the historical and literary record without correspondence to any individual using that nomenclature. If "rejected by orthodox scholars as without foundation", kindly cite and we'll see what objective evidence for the charge "lack of foundation" got presented and why.

To Tom Reedy: inserting verb changes here and there do not a neutral point of view make. Like the other participants acquainted with the Oxfordian perspective, I am aiming for fairness, and fairness requires an adequate presentation of the interpretations involved in the discussion. You are at a severe disadvantage if you resist even exposing your mind to the opposing interpretation. Contrary to charge, I do not think this is the "Oxfordian theory to Shakespeare authorship", but a publically geared discussion about the truth of the matter. I will seek that latter purpose, despite the whines and spits that consider it a consummation devoutly not to be wished. Which brings us to the neutrality tag once again having been removed, even though the on-going dispute is evident. Why are you afraid of readers seeing upfront that the issue is not resolved in Wikipedia? That simply reflects the fact of the matter in reality. Correct me if I'm wrong. Catch you in the next round. Zweigenbaum (talk) 19:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I have made further changes based on your suggestions, some of which were on point and helped make the article more neutral. As to Simonton, I'm surprised that a person so conversant with Oxfordian theories hasn't heard about him, but then again he's a scholar and not an amateur, so maybe it's not all that surprising.

Re: your comments about the biographical fallacy, you misunderstand Shapiro's point. Gleaning biographical details and attempting to identify an author from them has no academic support. Yes, critics do speculate about what events in literary works are autobiographical, and for other authors about whom more is known it is often interesting and provides an avenue for criticism, but no scholar would attempt to identify an author based on such speculations. I'm sure if you write plays and poems one could instantly identify you as the author based on all sorts of biographical clues they found in the work, but sadly we don't know enough about Shakespeare's biography to do that, and the problem is not unique with most writers of his period. We know very little about Thomas Middleton, Francis Beaumont, and John Webster, for example.

Stephen Greenblatt is recognised as a Shakespeare expert; you are not. I believe we'll go along with the prevailing view for this article.

And no, this is not a "a publically (sic) geared discussion about the truth of the matter"; this is a talkpage about editing the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum [Zweigenbaum]] I am quite aware of Simonton, the work and the person, who was so unfamiliar with the Oxford/Shakspere subject matter, he had to ask some basic informational questions, even though he may be a "scholar" in his niche, genius and how it happens. He is over his head trying to posit a theory based on a play chronology about which there is on-going disagreement. In an exchange with him, I bested him every time. Greenblatt is recognized as a Shakespeare expert, and as the great scholar Alastair Fowler pointed out he is marvelously free of elementary English history and a lot else. Greenblatt is about to give a Morgan Library presentation on the only portrait of Shakespeare made in his lifetime, but it has already been discredited in England as that, instead recognized by Duncan-Jones and others as Sir Thomas Overbury. Good one Stephen. He is a plagiarist too, but never mind isolated detail. Shapiro takes him to task for fictionalizing, not because that is dishonest, but because Shapiro thinks it encourages the biographical treatment of 'Shakespeare', whereas the biography and writing understood as Oxford’s fit together so well, the thesis won't be ignored for long. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, James, that'll do it. Shapiro thinks that by fiat and repetition he can stop scholars or anyone else from seeing those obvious parallels and enormous numbers of correspondences. Didn’t we use to call his approach propaganda? But he is earning his pay as the visible aspect of the Shakespeare establishment line.

To comment here about something you flipped off as a parting comment, "Greenblatt is recognized as a Shakespeare expert; you are not", so you believe you'll stay with the "prevailing view". Of course Greenblatt is recognized as a scholar, but is he reliable if he has it wrong on both facts and methods? Clearly he is of your persuasion making him an acceptable reference to you. You eliminate the opposing view I have articulated on grounds I am not an academic? But there are many published and respected works that say what I have. Those are also ignored, indicating an endemic bias against them. Thus it is not about Zweigenbaum the presently dismissable scholar. It is about the threat I represent, one that will not retreat no matter how much you slant the selection of scholarship. No intellectual cowards here I trust? Name a play or poem and we'll see which approach produces more technical and substantive understanding of it.

Citing my use of "publically" [sic] gets you nowhere, because the Wikipedia article is publically geared, my understanding of Wikipedia if not yours, as information read by those in the cultural public who wish to know. It isn't a good thing to play obtuse. This editing page has no other goal but neutrality of approach and clarity of exposition. Your narrow perspective is hampering you from seeing the main point: responsible editors try in every way to be faithful to the truth and its children, the verifiable facts, so that those public readers will benefit in a brief space of time. I don't think you're up to it. The silly attempts to squelch my objections are evidence towards that fact. William S. Niederkorn is not an Oxfordian; neither is he a follower of the prevailing narrative and its proponents, because the latter is so weak and they so behind in research and so deluded that they believe a ruse is the truth if people told them so. But he can present facts and arguments in a disinterested way, relying on logic and again a basic sense of journalistic fairness. To your group of thinkers, he is anathema. Not everything anyone writes on this topic has to be partisan, yet this article as written stinks of it. Sorry I am getting annoyed but this has gone pretty far into a sneering attack on me, what you think I know and don't, etc. instead of the article itself, which satisfies no standards of thoroughness or fairness.

Your single salient point above is that for example my prose and poetry is instantly recognizable in terms of my life, but you err when you say, ("sadly"), we don't know enough about Shakspere to show his personal and artistic parallels. (Remember, you just said gleaning biographical details is NOT a means of identifying an author and here you are implying someone's work and life could correspond--if only we knew more about Shakspere! Faulty logic there. Call biographical correspondence 'speculation' if you insist on bad-mouthing the construction of a theory; but if inductive biographical inquiry makes sense and does not present contradictions, it illuminates the work.) Contrary to your assertion that not enough is known, Shakspere's life and documented record tell us plenty: he was a property owner, investor, broker, money-lender, and speculator. So that being quite documented, eighteen aristocratic plays and two epic poems between 1593 and 1604 are a complete departure. No basis for both money-trade and literary career together in the biography. Francis Beaumont, whose biography you mention as like Shakspere not sufficiently known, is by contrast and contrary to your assertion not a literary blank. We know he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, that he was recognized in his youth and got a scholarship to university education, and after a literary career and upon his death, he was copiously mourned in London and Stratford by peers and citizens alike. He died a month before Shakspere. What happened to Shakspere's prodigiously greater literary fame and honor, the hysterical hosannahs rising all over England? Only one literary remembrance a year in Stratford, so sorry Will?

It is a critical contradiction in your argument. Your error is simple: you are looking in the wrong life. One of your other examples is quite interesting, John Webster, of an upwardly mobile middle-class family, who reputably made good in literature. How came it that his plays all feature fully dimensional female leads with the exact sources shown in Mary Sidney Pembroke's writing? That 'The White Devil' is so allegorical of the Howard-Overbury assassination incident of which the Pembrokes were interested parties? And Webster happened to be her coach-maker's son, educated in Latin and literate in English. Hmmm. Check Stephanie Hopkins Hughes in The Oxfordian/6. See how very much is known about Webster, the proxy, of whom you say little is known. Your argument is taking on water and thimbles are so minute.

This should be enough for now. That you picked up a few phrasings from me, the better writer, is no indication of your accepting or comprehending what it is to be fair on the subject matter. You may feel it is worthwhile to hold the line for the establishment. But using this medium for it may not be the way to go for you. Editing is not "my way or the highway but here I'll flip you a dime." It is being conscientiously fair. That will take more work. Happy holidays. Zweigenbaum (talk) 23:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Is The Mainstream View Which Must Be Represented In The SAQ Article Carroll's 20,000?

I'm re-posting this in a new section because it concerns agreement on the very foundation of the editing of the SAQ article. Once there's agreement on this point, we can move forward, and in fact since Carroll's view by definition, according to Wikipedia policy, has to prevail over original research by hamiltonstone and Paul Barlow, there can't be any dispute as to the fact that Carroll's view must prevail.

Here's what I wrote above:

The President of the SAA has advised that:

Mr. Reedy is in error. The SAA does not have 'an opinion' on the authorship question. Moreover, there is no ban on speaking or writing about that topic at our annual conference. Several so-called Oxfordians are members of the organization and have presented papers at that meeting.

Now that we've gotten Tom's erroneous claim about the SAA out of the way, let's get back to the interesting point raised by hamiltonstone, which is contradicted by D. Allen Carroll, who is quoted in footnote 3 in the SAQ article as follows:

Carroll 2004, pp. 278–9: "I am an academic, a member of what is called the 'Shakespeare Establishment,' one of perhaps 20,000 in our land, professors mostly, who make their living, more or less, by teaching, reading, and writing about Shakespeare . . . ."

Hamiltonstone (and Paul Barlow) beg to differ with Professor Carroll (thus engaging in original research, contrary to one of Wikipedia's pillar policies). Hamiltonstone wrote:

First, "those who teach Shakespeare in U.S. universities" is not the same group as "Shakespeare scholars". Shakespeare scholars are those who conduct and publish peer reviewed research in relation to Shakespeare and his works. They are likely to be a minority of those who are teaching the material.

So whose definition of those who make up the majority view which must be fairly represented, according to Wikipedia policy, in the SAQ article is correct? Is it Carroll, who says the mainstream view (the Shakespeare establishment) is that of the 20,000 professors who make their living by teaching, reading and writing about Shakespeare, or is it hamiltonstone and Paul Barlow, who say the mainstream view is that of a very small and ill-defined subset of the 20,000? Clearly, according to Wikipedia policy, there can be only one answer to that. For Hamiltonstone and Paul Barlow to substitute their own view for the view of the mainstream scholar whom they are citing as their source (no less!), constitutes original research, which is expressly forbidden to Wikipedia editors by Wikipedia policy.

So can we now move on, accepting as the basis of the SAQ article that the mainstream view which is to be represented in the article is Carroll's 20,000?

There, now wasn't that easy? And it didn't require going through contentious dispute resolution. We merely argued the point among ourselves to its logical conclusion.NinaGreen (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, this is the Caroll who says "I have never met anyone in an academic position like mine, in the Establishment, who entertained the slightest doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship of the general body of plays attributed to him"?? And you are saying that because Carroll mentions 20,000 unspecified Shakespeare scholars then that he obviously refers to the unspecified and unnumbered teachers in the NYT survey, and that therefore we can use someone who says that "I have never met anyone" in a relevant academic job "who entertained the slightest doubt" to justify a claim that there is a sigfnificant percentage of doubt. This is WP:SYN beyond any Syn in the history of Synning. O tempora OMG. As Bob Dylan said, "I happen to be a Swede myself". Paul B (talk) 00:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You're engaging in original research, Paul. The SAQ article cites Carroll for the very thing you're arguing with him about.NinaGreen (talk) 01:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Hahahahahaha! This is pretty funny. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I hope Wikipedia administrators are watching your performance of late on this page - calling fellow editors 'fanatics', making false allegations about the position of the Shakespeare Authorship Association, instructing people to 'Call 911', indulging in Hahahas. It's getting pretty bizarre.NinaGreen (talk) 08:12, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. They understand when editors express despair when confronted by irrationality and utter disregard of policy as epitomised by your claim that I am engaging in original research while conducting an spectacular performance of WP:SYN. Carroll is not commenting on WP policy is he? His numbers have no relevance to us with regard to how we determine academic consensus. That's determined by WP:RS. If you wish to debate who is conducting original research take this to the Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard‎. Paul B (talk) 11:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong with hahahas? Lighten up. It's funny that you don't understand what Paul's point was and called it OR and then said he was arguing with Carroll, especially after all the OR you tried to ram through on the Edward de Vere article because you didn't like what the published sources said. You may not be able to appreciate the irony but that doesn't mean anybody else can't. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom and Paul's skewed idea of what's funny aside, the neutrality and original research issues remain. Wikipedia policy states that an article on an alternative view must fairly represent the majority view as the majority view. That Wikipedia policy by definition mandates that the majority must be clearly defined, so that its view can be accurately represented. The majority is defined by Carroll, who states that the Shakespeare establishment consists of 20,000 professors at U.S. universities who teach, write about and research Shakespeare. Tom and Paul refuse to accept Carroll's definition of the majority. They wish to confine the definition of the majority to an ill-defined and very small group of individuals cherry-picked by themselves, including individuals like David Kathman who does not teach Shakespeare at a university. The entire SAQ article is written from this perspective. Naturally Tom and Paul do not want this issue clearly debated on this Discussion page because it exposes the fact that they have engaged in original research in defining their own 'majority' whose views the SAQ article must represent (just as they've engaged in original research in defining the term 'literary historian' to suit their own purposes). And having engaged in original research in defining the 'majority' whose views the SAQ article must represent, and in the process engaging in original research in arguing against the very source they themselves have cited (Carroll), Tom and Paul have written the entire SAQ article from that biased and non-neutral point of view. Hence the determination with which Tom and Paul seek to disparage with Hahahas any discussion of the real problem which lies at the root of the non-neutrality of the SAQ article.NinaGreen (talk) 16:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing in Wikipedia rules that states that we have to take as gospel every phrase or passing remark in a reliable source, especially when those are not even presented as assertions of fact; Carroll himself says "perhaps" . However, WP:SYN is about taking one idea from one source, combining it with another from another source and then coming up with a new argument based on the conflation of the two. That is what you are doing. Neither Tom nor I are arguing against Carroll. You are. You are ignoring the plain meaning of what he says to twist it to make a point to suit your POV. You take Carroll's vague reference to "perhaps" 20,000 individuals and argue that this somehow validates a wholly unrelated questionaire. It was this utterly perverse logic at which Tom laughed. By this argument Stanley Wells could be disqualified as a Shakespeare expert because he is not American, since Carroll only refers to Americans! Or at least he seems to. He refers to "our land", which is a somewhat vague phrase. Your whole argument is pure Syn. As for the phrase "literary historian", it means what it says: someone who is a historian of literature. Style guidelines mean we should write concisely. There would be no point giving the exact job titles of each individual, producing hugely unweildy prose. You know this. You have not answered the question of why you think the phrase is inappropriate or what would be a more appropriate phrase. I can therefore only conclude that your sole aim is to obstruct. Paul B (talk) 13:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford (or Harvard) comma

The Oxford or Harvard comma, the practice of inserting a comma before the conjunction in a series, is standard for the Oxford University Press style manual but not for British newspapers. The article as it is now written uses it, mainly because I had to go through the text of a history book I was co-writing about a year ago and insert commas that I left out because I was writing AP style but the publisher wanted the Chicago style. Since I conformed the page spans to the Oxford style, I think we should leave the commas in. Does anybody have any opinion on that point? Tom Reedy (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree. There must be something suspect about an 'Oxford' comma. :-)NinaGreen (talk) 21:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't matter, as long as usage in the article is consistent and Sinéad O'Connor is your mother.[1] Bishonen | talk 22:08, 22 December 2010 (UTC).

Curly quotes and ellipsis

WP:Manual of Style says straight quotes should be used (WP:MOSQUOTE), and three periods should be used instead of an ellipsis (WP:ELLIPSIS). However I don't want to blunder around in this excellent article if there is some local custom, so I'm asking whether there would be any problem if I were to apply the MOS rules (e.g. "Shakespeare’s" would become "Shakespeare's" with a straight apostrophe). Johnuniq (talk) 10:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I suspect those instances of deviation are caused by importing text from a word processing program instead of composing on-screen. My screen can't see the difference until I go into edit mode, but we need to comply with house style. Any help would be much appreciated.

I also notice you changed "labouriously" to the American spelling. My understanding of WP style is that articles about British subjects are to use British spelling, although I can't quote the policy. What a Spanish topic is written in Spanish is a mystery, but I suspect WP policy is a holdover from the Encyclopedia Britannica, which uses British spelling even though it was published in Chicago. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I am sensitive to WP:ENGVAR, however, I think "labouriously" is wrong in any variation? I agree with the principles of ENGVAR, but also like it for the excellent educational service it provides for those who have not yet grasped that the world is full of wonderfully different people, as demonstrated by this talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 00:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Anti-Stratfordian Arguments Share Several Characteristics

I've added a 'citation needed' tag to the first sentence in this section:

Anti-Stratfordian arguments share several characteristics.[citation needed] They all attempt to disqualify William Shakespeare as the author due to perceived inadequacies in his education or biography;[21] they all offer supporting arguments for a more acceptable substitute candidate; and they all postulate some type of conspiracy to protect the author's true identity, a conspiracy that also explains why no documentary evidence exists for any other candidate and why the historical records confirm Shakespeare's authorship.[22]

The sources cited don't adequately support the statement that 'all' Shakespeare authorship theories share these characteristics. Here's the footnote:

Love 2002, p. 198; Wadsworth 1958, p. 6: "Paradoxically, the sceptics invariably substitute for the easily explained lack of evidence concerning William Shakespeare, the more troublesome picture of a vast conspiracy of silence about the 'real author', with a total lack of historical evidence for the existence of this 'real author' explained on the grounds of a secret pact, kept inviolate by a numerous and varied group of collaborators."; Shapiro 2010, p. 255 (225): "Some suppose that only Shakespeare and the real author were in the know. At the other extreme are those who believe that it was an open secret, so widely shared that it wasn't worth mentioning."

There are more than 50 authorship candidates according to the SAQ article. A significant number of them had never even been proposed when Wadsworth wrote his book in 1958, so by definition his statement can't cover them. Tom's usual refuge in such a case would be to cite Wikipedia policy, which states that the truth of what's stated in a reliable source doesn't matter so long as the source is a reliable source. But surely there's something in Wikipedia policy which prevents a biased editor (by his own admission, the authorship controversy is a 'crank theory') from citing an obviously seriously out-of-date source on a particular point and then hiding behind the Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. What is the Wikipedia policy on citing sources on points on which they are clearly out of date?

Shapiro is also cited as a source for a point on which he says nothing, as is clear from the quotation from Shapiro in the footnote.NinaGreen (talk) 15:50, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's the appropriate policy on cites from WP:V, which I suggest you "take refuge" in as well:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

To show that it is not original research, all material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source. But in practice not everything need actually be attributed. This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation, and that the source directly support the material in question.

So I take it you're challenging this statement?

Anti-Stratfordian arguments share several characteristics. They all attempt to disqualify William Shakespeare as the author due to perceived inadequacies in his education or biography; they all offer supporting arguments for a more acceptable substitute candidate; and they all postulate some type of conspiracy to protect the author's true identity, a conspiracy that also explains why no documentary evidence exists for any other candidate and why the historical records confirm Shakespeare's authorship.

Would you mind explaining which element you think is wrong or misleading, or are you just engaging in obstructive behaviour again? (Not that I can't find the cites; it's just that it's the holidays and I'm planning to ignore cut back on Wikipedia for a few days.) Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, more rudeness on your part. Whenever I raise a valid objection concerning the lack of neutrality in the article, you categorize it as 'obstructive behaviour' or some such disparaging nonsense. I've raised a valid point above, and you've avoided it by taking refuge (as I predicted above you would) in the Wikipedia policy of verifiability. But given the practical good sense of Wikipedia policy generally, I feel certain that somewhere in Wikipedia policy there is something against an admittedly biased editor (the authorship controversy is a 'crank theory') citing an otherwise reliable source when the source is obviously out of date on the point for which the editor is citing it. Perhaps some other editor of this page can help out, and locate that Wikipedia policy.

Just to make the point absolutely clear since Tom appears to be deliberately failing to understand it, Wadsworth is cited as the principal source for the categorical statement that ALL authorship theories share the same characteristics, yet Wadsworth wrote in 1958 before a significant number of the 50 plus authorship candidates had even been proposed, so how can Wadsworth know whether or not those later authorship theories ALL share those characteristics when they didn't even exist in 1958? Obviously a much more recent source is mandated for a categorical statement in the SAQ article that ALL authorship theories share the same characteristics.NinaGreen (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

NinaGreen (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Happy Birthday to me! One year ago today I made my first edit to this page. Here's what the article looked like just before the adventure began: This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Smatprt (talk | contribs) at 20:52, 22 December 2009. And here's an interesting comparison between the page as it was and how it is now: Current revision diff. It's not and never will be perfect, but the article has come a long way. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy Birthday Tom, and thanks for all the hard work! Now we just need to get a few more people to read it. Johnuniq (talk) 00:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

List of Neutrality issues

Having looked over the talk page and that at peer review, and having been rebuked for not supplying specifics (although I and others have), here is list of Neutrality issues that remained unresolved:

1) Instances of WP:WORDS that have not been addressed;

2) Multiple claims of "scholarly" or "academic" consensus when none exists, and where references do not support the claim, with disregard of [2].

By "multiple" you mean three, as there is one claim of scholarly consensus about the attribution in the lede (see below), one of chronology, and one of dating. The word "consensus" is defined as "General agreement among the members of a given group or community", not unanimity, and that is accurate in the case of attribution, chronology, and dating, the said group being academic Shakespeareans.

3) Claim in lead that "all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory with no hard evidence" when none of the references support "all but a few",

Nelson 2004, p. 149-51: "… virtually all anti-Stratfordians are outsiders to the profession of English Literature. I do not know of a single professor of the 1,300-member Shakespeare Association of America who questions the identity of Shakespeare nor more than a handful of non-member professors of English in North America, nor a single professor of English in all of Great Britain or the European Continent. Among editors of Shakespeare in the major publishing houses, none that I know questions the authorship of the Shakespeare canon …"

"literary historians"

Nelson 2004, p. 149-51:: "I attribute the paucity of doubters among professional literary historians to a culture in which mistakes of fact or argument bring shame on the perpetrator. Literary historians, like scientists, tend to share a common understanding of what kind of evidence counts, and what does not."

nor the "fringe theory" label.

Kathman 2003, p. 621: "...in fact, antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence."

4) WP:RELIABLE issues involving inaccurate sourcing, WP:OR and WP:SYN, especially with regard to "fringe"

Kathman, David (2003), "The Question of Authorship", in Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena C., Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide, Oxford University Press, pp. 620–32,

and "consensus" labels.

Nelson, Alan H. (2004), "Stratford Si! Essex No!", Tennessee Law Review (University of Tennessee) 72 (1): 149–71

5) Extended footnotes that disparage theory proponents;

Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Words_to_watch: "Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, disparaging, vague, or clichéd, or that endorse a particular point of view (unless those expressions are part of a quote from a noteworthy source)."

For the rest, see below or ask somebody else. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

6) Extended footnotes that only represent one point of view;

7) Incomplete histories, including the absence of current U.S. Supreme Court justices opinions in the "Trials section", which is currently very misleading;

8) Citations and references represent only one viewpoint. The alternate theories are described by only one POV, and never in their own words; Cites and references to proponents views have been removed from the article.

9) Overall tone of disparagement and ad hominem attacks aimed at the minority viewpoint or those who hold it.

There are additional issues, but these are the ones that have been repeatedly mentioned by editors who have some knowledge of the debate. I wanted to get these on record anticipating claims by the orthodox contingent that the neutrality point of view problems were not stated specifically and clearly. Zweigenbaum (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

5) Extended footnotes that disparage theory proponents;

The reason for extended footnotes is that every statement in this article has been questioned repeatedly long before you got here, and for much the same reason (i. e. reality hurts). When support was demanded over and over for a particular statement, it became easier to quote the entire passage in an effort to avoid a prolonged edit war. It didn't work, of course, because neutrality is not what was really wanted. Your Nos. 2, 3, and 4 above are rebutted by those same extended footnotes, which you characterise as "disparaging" because to do so would be reason to remove them, and then with them gone there would be no support for the statements, which then could be removed. The alternate theories are described from secondary sources as per WP:FRINGE guidelines. If you want to contend that you should team up with Nina and I'll discuss it at WP:FRINGE/N; I'm done talking about it here.

It's also apparent that you have the same definition of ad hominem as all anti-strats, i.e. name-calling. You should really look up the term. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum No need to get huffy and defensive old pard. The extensive footnotes are fine, only one in a thousand will open the closet to find them in the dark anyway. The issue here is their one-sided nature. If your authorities have been getting it warped and wrong for generations you will obviously have a plentiful corpus of statements on the wrong side of the analysis. Where are the other studies that question the academic tradition--which has done so poorly to reach a coherent arrangement of the facts? I don't know what has gone on before, but I have no strategy to get footnotes removed. Keep them until the end of time. But show the other perspective fairly and capably, not begrudgingly and myopically. I realize you are constitutionally opposed to explicating a point of view you detest, so that would be an achievement. But the responsible editor achieves it. If you can't do it, another editor may have to. Or restore the status quo ante, whatever it was. Finally, on ad hominem reasoning, I believe I understand it from the law. If you have the facts, pound the facts. If you have the law, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table and rail at the guy who does. You may be good at it, but as the song goes, "The same thing that makes you strong will kill you in the end." Well, that's footnotes and ad hominem, what about the rest of the rather voluminous good-faith review I made of your article? --Zweigenbaum Zweigenbaum (talk) 06:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

'Where are the other studies that question the academic tradition--which has done so poorly to reach a coherent arrangement of the facts?'

That's your problem, not ours. If generations of assiduous students from a family flunk the same exam consistently over 160 years, perhaps their cribsheets need rewriting. Perhaps they should try mastering the techniques of the literary-historical method rather than grinding away with the same tried-and-false bricoleur, do-it-yourself in-house guides to gaming the system. It is widely admitted that you have no evidence, only a 'theory' which is a polished euphemistic way of admitting that, as you yourself put it, sans facts and sans law (method), you chaps must perforce 'pound the wiki table and rail at the guy who does,' who, here, happens to be Mr Reedy. Almost nothing in these extensive and extenuating threads, as far as I can manage to read the drivel of challenging 'academics', warrants notice, except perhaps for administrators concerned with efficient editing and textually relevant argument towards article-building, as opposed to tendentiously disruptive meanderings from the conspiratorial whinge-fringe. Nishidani (talk) 08:14, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum, if you can furnish any such studies we would be glad to take a look at them. As far as I know, every study to determine authorship has eliminated Oxford or any other claimant. We include several of those, Ward Elliott's clinic and Simonton's studies, both of whom were sympathetic to Oxford as the author going in, only one of which kept his faith in the teeth of the conclusions he reached.

As to the rest of your voluminous review, I have incorporated a lot of your observations; those in which I found no merit I passed by, and I take it my explanations for those above in this section were sufficient for you. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Easy there. Studies presenting data and reasoning that discredit the academic view that Shakspere of Stratford was the author of the works: Alias Shakespeare, Shakespeare by Another Name, Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom, Shakespeare Who Was He?, Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters, and Shakespeare's Guide to Italy (forthcoming in 2011). When you get through those, get back to me. Zweigenbaum (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Back to work. No I do not take as sufficient that you made a few stylistic changes you lifted from my objections and so claim co-operative editing. Your rude abrupt expressions both to Nina Green and to me--probably to smrtprt as well in the past--are indicative of a drive to steam-roll this entire site into an extreme version of the conventional theory, which is exactly what is in question. This is not neutrality. Your changes, whatever they are, will likely show up to be cosmetic rather than one of balanced perspective. In order that I can see just what you are claiming as improved through co-operation with me, list the exact changes you made, just as I made specific changes and listed them. You won't get off advertising yourself as co-operative with proving it. I'm sorry, you don't have that kind of credibility.

Regarding my supposed misreading of Shapiro and everything he is trying to do to squelch the progress of biographical inquiry in this field, I recommend an alternative and properly credentialed commentator. It is obvious you regard my remarks as inferior because I am not credentialed as a conventional thinker and scholar. Consult the following article and try to follow that reasoning pattern: http://brooklynrail.org/2010/04/books/absolute-will. You will find hopeless contradictions and dishonesties of the author you extol and whose theories you take as fact.

Until then please do not assume you have put one over on me or anyone else because I write well and you can see that much. Thee has got to be a better way to present a capable article. Have a good day. Zweigenbaum (talk) 21:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Who Are The Literary Historians?

I didn't get an answer to my question, so I'll start a separate section in the hope of getting one. In a section above on this Discussion page I wrote:

Since hamiltonstone is seeking to define terms, I have another pertinent question. The lede in the SAQ article states:

all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims

Who among the sources cited in footnote 3 for that statement in the lede paragraph is a 'literary historian'?

If none of the sources cited in footnote 3 is a 'literary historian', shouldn't the words 'literary historian' be deleted from the lede?

NinaGreen (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

D. Allen Carroll for one; Harold Love for another. Sam Schoenbaum certainly, as he uncovered previously unrecorded manuscripts and biographical records pertaining not only to Shakespeare but also to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth and was the director of the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies at the University of Maryland. Alan Nelson certainly qualifies as literary historian, as evidenced by his webpage and his works. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:34, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Please cite a reliable source in which each of these individuals -- Carroll, Love, Schoenbaum or Nelson -- is referred to as a literary historian. Otherwise, this is merely another example of original research by a Wikipedia editor.NinaGreen (talk) 08:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

They - certainly most of them - are historians of literature. Therefore they are literary historians. We don't need a source for every exact phrase that is used in the article. You repeat the phrase "original research" like a mantra to no purpose other than to create gridlock. This is pure wikilawyering. As far as I can see your edits here are no longer engaging in useful debate, just in endless obfuscation a la Smatprt. Paul B (talk) 12:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Paul, the statement in the lede is a broad generalization about the views of literary historians, and as such it definitely does require a source. I suspect the reason you and Tom are stonewalling with respect to citing a reliable source for the statement in the lede to the SAQ article for your generalization concerning the views of literary historians is that you are unable to find a reliable source which identifies any of the individuals you've named as a literary historian. Making up your own definitions as to what in your view qualifies these individuals as literary historians when you cannot cite a single reliable source which identifies them as such does indeed constitute original research, which is forbidden to Wikipedia editors.NinaGreen (talk) 16:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't need a reliable source stating the blindingly obvious. The NOR policy is clear that it is not restricting the use of ordinary descriptive terms in English. Why do you think they are not literary historians? If they are not, then what are they? Be productive. Is there some more accurate way to describe these scholars? What exactly do you want, some scholarly source that use the exact phrase "literary historian" for each and every one of these people? That is creating useless work to no purpose. Take it to the WP:NOR board if you think this is a real issue. Otherwise you are just being disruptive. Paul B (talk) 11:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Paul, you have a Ph.D. in Victorian Art History, and doubtless have access to excellent library facilities. If it's so 'blindingly obvious', what's stopping you from providing the names of a half dozen or so of the literary historians who have addressed the authorship issue and who are referred to as literary historians in reliable sources? Should be easy to back up both the statement in the lede paragraph of the article, and Alan Nelson's statement which Tom has recently cited as a 'reliable source', even though Alan himself doesn't bother to back it up. Or maybe it isn't so easy to back it up, and that's why you prefer to talk around the subject rather than produce the reliable sources which would end the debate. I'm sure if I asked you to provide reliable sources citing the names of art historians who have addressed a particular issue involving art of the Tudor period, and who are referred to as art historians in reliable sources, you could do so with ease. Why is it so difficult to do so for the alleged literary historians who have allegedly addressed the authorship issue?NinaGreen (talk) 21:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Nelson is a reliable source according to Wikipedia's rules. You know that. Why do you keep challenging what is undeniable? The reason it is difficult to find these people being referred to as "literary historians" is simple. Scholars do not use phrases like that to refer to eachother ecaept rarely and by chance. It's not how scholarly referencing works. There is no such official title, like a military rank. It would be nigh-on impossible to find the exact phrase "literary historian" being used for each individual, and it would mean almost nothing. I notice you have not suggested an alternative. So your whole aim seems to be obstruction. Paul B (talk) 18:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh really? Even other anti-Strats disagree with you. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Your comment above is obscure. Are you advising readers of this Discussion page that this is a reliable source and that you intend to cite it as such in the SAQ article?NinaGreen (talk) 16:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm advising you that I'm tired of your bullshit accusations of dishonesty and bad faith. If you think this article has original research or violates WP:POV, go to the appropriate noticeboards and make your case. Looking over your talk board edits it appears to me that you are looking for any type of advantage you can muster up rather than trying to improve the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

My goodness, now profanity has to be added to the list of bizarre behaviour, not to mention more unfounded allegations, that I'm accusing you of 'dishonesty' and 'bad faith'. Anything to avoid dealing with the point at issue, right? The point at issue being that you have made a generalization concerning the views of 'literary historians' in the lede paragraph of the SAQ article which you apparently cannot support with the citation of a reliable source, and which you should therefore delete from the SAQ article.NinaGreen (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the lede paragraph of the SAQ article just now, and the 'literary historians' are no longer there. Tom has deleted them. Well done!NinaGreen (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

My use of profanity was not to swear "at" you; it aptly sums up your accusations of dishonesty and bad faith, which you turned on yourself, not I, along with yet more. Your verbal tactics and slippery way of phrasing seem vaguely familiar, for some strange reason.

There's another of your unsupported allegations. Hardly a day goes by without you making some unsupported allegation or other, either against me or against the Shakespeare Association of America. 'Vaguely familiar'? In what way? Please specify. And I want to make it very clear that I have never accused you of either dishonesty or bad faith. You are highly partisan, having been one of the foremost advocates against the authorship controversy outside academia for more than a decade. Your name pops up everywhere. Partisan? Yes. That doesn't equate to dishonesty or bad faith. But partisanship has a way of blinding people.NinaGreen (talk) 18:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I have deleted the phrase for now, but have no fear, it will be back. I don't have the book containing the cite to hand, but I will in a few days when I find the time to retrieve it. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the lede paragraph of the SAQ article just now, and the 'literary historians' are restored. Tom has provided a reliable cite. Well done! Tom Reedy (talk) 18:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I obviously spoke too soon. However the expanded Nelson citation fails to do the job. Here's the relevant portion of the expanded citation from Nelson which Tom has added:

I attribute the paucity of doubters among professional literary historians to a culture in which mistakes of fact or argument bring shame on the perpetrator. Literary historians, like scientists, tend to share a common understanding of what kind of evidence counts, and what does not.

Nelson doesn't cite a single literary historian as a source for his generalizations. He merely makes the unsupported and implied claim that literary historians have addressed the authorship controversy. Having then implied that literary historians have addressed the authorship controversy (without naming a single literary historian who has done so), Nelson then draws, from absence of evidence, the unwarranted conclusion that the 'paucity of doubters' among a group which he hasn't established has even addressed the issue, proves something. This is precisely the kind of partisan cherry-picking of evidence to which I drew attention today on another section of this discussion page. Nelson implies that an issue has been addressed by a group without in any way establishing that any identifiable member of that group has so much as considered the issue, and then draws a conclusion from the absence of any evidence on the point whatsoever. I seem to recall someone mentioning the drawing conclusions from absence of evidence earlier. Can someone refresh my memory on that point?NinaGreen (talk) 18:46, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Nelson's statement is WP:RS for this article or any. If it doesn't meet your personal standards, see WP:RS/N. We've already spent too much time explaining to you what a reliable source is and how they are used, both here and on the Edward de Vere talk page. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, it says a lot about your partisanship that you are relying on Nelson to establish something when any reader of Nelson's statement can clearly see that Nelson proves nothing, and that he is drawing a false generalization from absence of evidence. How do we know that Nelson is drawing a false generalization from absence of evidence? From the fact that so far no editor of this page, including you, has been able to name a single identifiable individual who has been cited in a reliable source as a literary historian who has actually addressed the authorship issue. If you had been able to cite such a reliable source, you would have, and so would other editors of this page. Because you cannot, you cite Nelson drawing a false generalization from absence of evidence, and then take refuge behind Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. Interesting.NinaGreen (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The person you are disparaging, Alan Nelson, is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley specialising in paleography, bibliography, and the reconstruction of the literary life and times of medieval and Renaissance England from documentary sources. He has written 7 books and more than 30 articles published in peer-reviewed journals. How many have you written? You believe in a crank theory that Oxford wrote Shakespeare based on no evidence whatsoever except your imagination. Your bizarre logic is evident in that you attribute to this conversation on a talk page your judgement that Nelson drew a false generalisation in 2004. But of course with Oxfordians, I suppose anything is possible.

For some strange reason, not only Wikipedia, but the world at large, considers Alan Nelson a more reliable judge of literary history than you. I think I'll stick with their opinion instead of yours. I'm just funny that way. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I imagine that would be the same Alan Nelson whose translation of the Latin on Anne Cecil's tomb at Westminster says she had 'several sons', contrary to everyone else who has ever translated the Latin on the monument and contrary to everyone else who has ever written about Oxford's life (and who has admitted his translation error on the Errata page of his website). And that would be the same Alan Nelson whose many factual errors in Monstrous Adversary are explicated in detail on the Discussion page to the Edward de Vere article, although many more could have been added.

If you can prove Alan Nelson's generalization about literary historians is true, why don't you or some other editor of this page go ahead and prove it. I'd be happy to retract my statement if you can prove that Alan's generalization is accurate. And really, it should be a snap to do it. All you have to do is identify all the literary historians (named as such in reliable sources) who have addressed the authorship issue. Why is it such a problem for you to name even one, and to have to cite Alan Nelson arguing second-hand from absence of evidence? Absence of evidence is one thing if you're Sherlock Holmes arguing about the dog that didn't bark. It's quite another when you could name people, and don't, preferring to argue in a vacuum.

Your reference to the authorship controversy as a 'crank theory' demonstrates in spades the extreme partisanship which should disqualify you from editing this article. You're working on a page which Wikipedia has sanctioned in order to provide fair and balanced coverage of an alternative theory, and you call it a 'crank theory', and refuse to let anyone edit the article but yourself. And you rely for the statement that it's a 'fringe theory' on your close associate, David Kathman, who not only does not have a degree in English literature but doesn't work in academia. Very strange. I can hardly imagine this is what Wikipedia policy envisages.NinaGreen (talk) 20:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

NinaGreen (talk) 20:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Your energies could be spent more productively in other ways beside raillery, one being the addition of Oxford's Geneva Bible to the Oxfordian section. It is thoroughly covered in reliable sources such as Shapiro and Nelson. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, your energies could be better spent more productively in being polite, as per Wikipedia policy. I've been frankly astonished at your rudeness to me on this Discussion page. Now it's 'raillery' I'm accused of when I have merely stated the fact that your obvious bias in calling the authorship controversy a 'crank theory' clearly disqualifies you from editing an article which Wikipedia intends to be fair and balanced.

Just out of curiosity, what do you want me to add to the Oxfordian section concerning the Geneva Bible? Do you know my views on that Geneva Bible?NinaGreen (talk) 21:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that unfortunately there has been an evolution in my tone over the past month and a half since I have been trying to work with you, although I try (try being the operative word) to stay on this side of the boundary. Curious, that; must be my vitamins aren't working. As to the Geneva Bible material, no, I don't know what your opinion is, but that's irrelevant. The point is to present the material in a neutral manner using Wikipedia summary style. Since we're not including rebuttals in the individual candidate sections, two or three sentences should do it. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, my view is that there is no reason to include the Geneva Bible material in the SAQ article. The Geneva Bible material is already included in the article on the Oxfordian hypothesis. Why do you feel it's necessary to include it in the SAQ article as well? And incidentally, this idea that you can hand out work assignments to other editors is another example of your attitude that you own the SAQ article. If you feel it's necessary to include something on the Geneva Bible material in the SAQ article, by all means get on with it. Don't be telling me to do it.NinaGreen (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought it would be worth mentioning since it is in the lede of the Oxfordian article as an important rationale. As to my "handing out work", I was merely suggesting you do something useful instead of your usual cavilling. And Template:Citation needed suggests that "If you have the time and ability to find an authoritative reference, please do so. Then add the citation yourself, or correct the article text. After all, the ultimate goal is not to merely identify problems, but to fix them." You should meditate on that last sentence. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, in case you haven't noticed, I've completely revised the Edward de Vere article in the past couple of weeks, so I hardly need you suggesting that I 'do something useful', or handing out things for me to do. Once again your rudeness is shocking.

You wrote:

I thought it would be worth mentioning since it is in the lede of the Oxfordian article as an important rationale.

I didn't put it there, and I don't consider it an important rationale, and never have. If you think it's an important rationale, you're the obvious person to deal with it.NinaGreen (talk) 17:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Article protected

All right, that's enough edit warring about the POV tag; I have protected the article for the holidays (=one week). This is the season for fighting with our families, not our co-editors. Zweigenbaum, as the principal edit warrior, you're lucky not to be blocked. I notice that you apparently had no interest in defending your belligerent editing on ANI, either, which was discouraging. The standard admin comment when protecting a page is an admonishment to the editors to work out their differences on Talk. I don't say that in this case, in view of the miserable state of this talkpage: the WP:TLDR arguing, the personal attacks, the repetitiousness, even on a few hands the trolling. You will no doubt do as you wish in any case, but my advice FWIW is to let the whole mess alone for a week. Imagine it, day after day without Shakespeare, Oxford, the mutual recriminations... nice, huh? Then you can come back rested, possibly even with a new perspective. Merry holidays. Bishonen | talk 09:56, 25 December 2010 (UTC).

Thank you Bish, much needed. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to all editors and administrators working on or watching this page! Bishonen, could you clarify your role as a Wikipedia administrator for me? I've raised a number of specific issues on this page concerning Tom's avowed bias ('a crank theory'), his ownership of the article (of which what better evidence could there be than his 'Happy Birthday to Me' section on this Talk page?), the lack of neutrality in the article, the use of synthesis and original research, the citation of reliable sources for points which the sources don't support, citation of out of date sources for generalizations about the current state of an issue, etc. None of these points has been specifically addressed on this Talk page, although they have been talked around, stonewalled, and eventually just left without a response. Can a Wikipedia administrator require that specific issues be addressed when they have been legitimately raised, such as an editor's avowed bias, ownership of an article, etc.?NinaGreen (talk) 17:35, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as content is concerned, an admin is merely another editor. They'll be a trusted and usually experienced editor, which is a better reason to listen to their advice than the adminship per se. Tom and Paul are experienced contributors too, and you could learn a lot from them, if you were willing. To take your question from another angle: no, an admin can't do that, but mediation or an article RFC can. I can only agree with Tom's often repeated advice to you to use the dispute resolution process.[3]

Frankly, even if it were up to me to make the demands you propose, I wouldn't be doing it at this time; both because I see them as unwarranted, and because my purpose with protecting SAQ wasn't to encourage continued quarrelling on this talkpage, but to lower the overall heat. I hope that anybody who needs a Christmas break from Shakespeare and Oxford takes one from Talk, too; some of the editors are beginning to sound a little frazzled. Personally, I'm taking the whole caboodle off my watchlist (so further pokes at me will be a waste of time) as of.. three.. two.. one.. NOW! Bishonen | talk 20:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC).

Bishonen, it would be helpful if you would spell out exactly what you think I could learn from Tom and Paul since that's at least the second time you've made the comment.

Re mediation. Perhaps at some stage it will be the route to go, but until the basic issue is identified, mediation strikes me as merely another way of ratcheting up the level of conflict. I'm new to this page, and although I've heard from time to time that there were serious disputes, I've never understood why things were so heated over here. But as I've learned more about the SAQ article in the past few weeks, it's become apparent to me that although the SAQ article is part of Wikiproject Alternative Views, it doesn't at all conform to the Wikipedia policy statement which governs Wikiproject Alternative Views, a link to which is found at the top of this Discussion page. The SAQ article doesn't look like any other article I've ever seen on Wikipedia in that it is filled with very lengthy vitriolic footnotes slamming the alternative theory. The root of the neutrality issue thus seems to be this: as part of Wikiproject Alternative Views, the SAQ article must present the majority view as the majority view, and must present the alternative view in a fair and balanced manner. Instead, the SAQ article tries to PROVE the majority view, and DESTROY the alternative view. That's the problem, pure and simple. Ergo, nothing will ever tone down the heat on this page until editors of this page revise their views to conform to the Wikipedia policy as set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views. Tom Reedy can PROVE that the majority view is the right one and attempt to DESTROY the alternative view on the website he works on with David Kathman, but he can't do that on Wikipedia. Similarly, I can't attempt to PROVE the Oxfordian hypothesis or attempt in any way to DESTROY the majority view in the SAQ article because that doesn't conform to the Wikipedia policy statement either. I have no intention of attempting either of those things, and never have had any such intention. I merely want to improve the article so that it conforms to the Wikipedia policy statement set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views. At present the POV of the article doesn't conform to that policy. It is written from the POV of PROVING the majority position, not merely PRESENTING it as the majority position. There's a vast difference between the two. And it is also written from the POV of DESTROYING the alternative view, rather than presenting it in a fair and balanced way. That's why there's a neutrality dispute. I personally feel confident that if editors and administrators of this page could conform to the Wikipedia policy set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views, we could get the job done. Something to think about during the week-long hiatus.NinaGreen (talk) 15:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, I think this article would really benefit from you saying this sort of thing as part of a mediation request. Wrad (talk) 16:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrad, if editors can't agree, I'll probably resort to mediation in the end. However my hope is that editors will mutually agree that the POV dispute is really about whether the SAQ article conforms to the policy statement set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views, and that we can use that policy as a basis for mutually agreed upon revisions to the article to conform to the policy.

Incidentally, I clicked on the Discussion link for Wikiproject Alternative Views just now, and found a very interesting and very long section which begins:

WP:RS#Extremist_and_fringe_sources

It seems to me this whole project can be shut down by the reliable source policy on "Extremist and fringe sources". It says "Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudo-academic, or extremist may only be used as sources of information about those organisations or individuals." In my experience, a source in the minority is barred completely because editors will revert it saying the source is "extremist or fringe". I have tried to cite a tenured professor who was hired to research for the US Senate and was unable to do so on the grounds the source was "fringe". The policy does not appear to allow any counter-arguments. If it is "fringe" (or, more accurately, subject to the possibility of being deemed "fringe" by other Wiki users) it is out! I suggest working to change that reliable source policy before going down this road of trying to ensure that "alternative" views get a hearing.Bdell555 (talk) 20:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is exactly what has happened with the SAQ article. Tom Reedy has used the reliable source policy to essentially shut down balanced development of the article, and not on the basis that the alternative view is 'widely acknowledged' as 'fringe', but solely on the basis that one individual whose degree is not in the specialist area and who does not teach or work in the specialist area has termed it 'fringe' -- David Kathman.NinaGreen (talk) 16:45, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Although I said I won't respond to your complaints anymore until you take them to dispute resolution, I will spend a few hours today composing a point-by-point explanation of your message above (the one with all the CAPITAL LETTERS). You might want to spend a few minutes pointing out exactly how this article violates the "policy statement set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views", and by that I mean furnish specific examples quoting the SAQ article. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Part of the problem with sources is that the Shakespeare project has it's own (very strict) "reliable source" culture. Tom is pretty much following project trends when it comes to that. On other articles, we have tried to stick to only scholarly, peer-reviewed sources unless it is absolutely impossible. Even more than that, we have to stick mainly to sources expressing the current, mainstream view because there is simply so much out there that scholars have written. We can't have it all. This article, however, is a bit different from the ones I'm talking about. The question is, do we want to change the Shakespeare project's standards for this article? Wrad (talk) 16:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrad, I'm not suggesting that we 'change the Shakespeare project's standards for this article', that is, I'm not suggesting that any Wikipedia standard be changed for this article alone. Bdell555, whom I quoted above from the Talk page for the Wikiproject Alternative Views, has pointed out a conflict between Wikipedia's reliable source policy and the Wikiproject Alternative Views policy. I'll repeat it here for clarity:

It seems to me this whole project can be shut down by the reliable source policy on "Extremist and fringe sources". It says "Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudo-academic, or extremist may only be used as sources of information about those organisations or individuals."

This is a general problem, with ramifications for the entire Wikiproject Alternative Views, and somewhere along the way it will doubtless be resolved.

My point is a more specific one, although it relates to Bdell555's general point. My point is that only one individual is cited for the claim that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory, and that is David Kathman, one of the most active partisans on the Stratfordian side, a close associate of Tom Reedy, and someone whose degree is not in the specialist area (his degree is in linguistics), and who does not work in the specialist area (David Kathman works as a stock analyst). How has it come about that someone who is not part of the academic community has become the spokesman for the academic community in the Wikipedia article to the extent that his statement that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory has become the opening statement in the lede to the article, and has therefore determined everything which can be said in the article and every source which can be cited in the article? There is clearly something wrong here. And it is wrong for at least two very specific reasons in addition to the fact that someone who is not a member of academia is being presented in the Wikipedia article as the primary spokesman for academia. The first reason is Bdell555's statement above that Wikipedia policy is that before something can be declared a fringe theory in a Wikipedia article it must be 'widely acknowledged by reliable sources' that it is a fringe theory. A single statement by David Kathman that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory does not constitute 'wide acknowledgement by reliable sources'. Secondly, Shapiro (2010) clearly contradicts David Kathman. On p. 4 Shapiro writes:

Over time, and for all sorts of reasons, leading artists and intellectuals from all walks of life joined the ranks of the skeptics. I can think of little else that unites Henry James and Malcolm X, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller and Orson Welles, or Mark Twain and Sir Derek Jacobi.

Shapiro might also have mentioned U.S. Supreme Court justices in this sentence, which he does later in his book.

This statement puts the authorship controversy in perspective historically, and demonstrates that it is anything but a fringe theory unless Wikipedia, on the sole authority of David Kathman, is going to take the position that Freud, James, Twain et al and U.S. Supreme Court justices are 'fringe theorists', or that 'leading artists and intellectuals from all walks of life' are fringe theorists.

David Kathman's statement should be deleted from the lede paragraph of the article. It represents Kathman's view, and Tom Reedy's view, but it does not represent the view of the 'leading artists and intellectuals from all walks of life' mentioned by Shapiro. Shapiro's view is obviously that the authorship controversy is a centuries-old alternative view. That puts it squarely within the context of Wikiproject Alternative Views, which means that the majority position must be clearly presented as the majority view of those in academia and in the public at large, and that the alternative view must be presented in a fair and balanced manner.NinaGreen (talk) 17:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, Carroll clearly states that it is a fringe theory. Of course he does not use the actual word "fringe", but we do not require that. Fringe is a term of art within Wikipedia. The crtieria are outlined in Wikipedia:Fringe theories. At no point does it say we need an RS using the exact word "fringe". Indeed, many fringe theories are so far beyond the mainstream that they are not discussed at all within scholarly literature. Wikipedia still considers them to be fringe according to the relevant criteria. In this case we have several reliable sources which state that the theory is not taken seriously within academia. That is more than we require to say it is fringe within our usage. If you do not accept that, take it up on the NOR board or another appropriate forum. Paul B (talk) 17:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Paul, you're right. Carroll does NOT use the actual word 'fringe'. Only David Kathman uses that word, and David Kathman cannot represent the consensus of academia for all the reasons which have been so many times cited on this Talk page. For you to read into Carroll's words that he MEANS 'fringe' is synthesis and original research on your part, and I can just as easily read into Shapiro's book, from his comments about Supreme Court justices having given the authorship controversy 'legitimacy' (see quotation elsewhere on this page), that Shapiro's view is that the authorship controversy is not a fringe theory, but rather a theory which has legitimacy, which would equally be synthesis and original research on my part. Why should you and Tom Reedy get away with synthesis and original research in the SAQ article, and I not be able to get away with it? Merely to ask the question is to answer it. You and Tom Reedy get away with synthesis and original research in the SAQ article because Tom Reedy controls the article, and no-one gets to edit it without Tom's blessing. But Wikipedia policy is that no-one should get away with synthesis and original research in a Wikipedia article. So Tom should either recuse himself from editing because he is biased and in violation of Wikipedia policy, or he should change his editing style to conform to Wikipedia policy.

Re your comment that'"fringe is a term of art within Wikipedia", I'm well aware of that, and that's the reason you and Tom are so desperate to hang onto David Kathman's use of the phrase 'fringe theory'. Once you delete David Kathman's use of the phrase from the lede paragraph of the article, you will have to confront the fact that although Carroll says one thing, Shapiro and the New York Times survey say quite another, and the task of Wikipedia editors according to Wikipedia policy is to present both views from academia in a fair and balanced way. But you and Tom don't want to do that. You want to hang onto David Kathman's term 'fringe theory', found nowhere else in the academic literature, because you want the SAQ article to reflect the biased view of the authorship theory which you, Tom Reedy and David Kathman hold, and which you want to present as the consensus of the academic establishment in that specialist field even though none of the three of you work in academia in that specialist field, and of the three of you, only Tom holds an advanced academic degree in that specialist field. Bias, pure and simple.

You wrote:

In this case we have several reliable sources which state that the theory is not taken seriously within academia. That is more than we require to say it is fringe within our usage.

You have now raised an entirely different point, which is this. If you delete David Kathman's statement that it is a 'fringe theory', and the corresponding citation by Kathman, can you and Tom Reedy then determine on your own on the basis of 'several reliable sources' that the authorship controversy falls within the Wikipedia term of art known as a 'fringe theory'. No, you cannot, because the task of Wikipedia editors is to present the consensus of academia in a fair and balanced way, and although Carroll says one thing, Shapiro and the New York Times survey say another, and for you to present Carroll's view as the academic consensus (particularly when he himself has said that he is perhaps not the best representative of the academic consensus; see quote elsewhere on this page!) while ignoring the much more balanced view of the academic consensus represented by Shapiro and the New York Times survey is bias on your part.NinaGreen (talk) 20:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The article clearly states that it has attracted some prominent public figures, and if you wish we can include Shapiro's quote as a reference, but listing the names in the article is not in keeping with summary style, unless you think we should list the names of those celebrities who think that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, which is ridiculous. I have all sorts of quotes saying it is a fringe theory; however, they all precede the word "fringe" with the word "lunatic". If you insist I add those I will acquiesce, but I thought it was too harsh, myself. As for Kathman speaking for the academic community, he clearly does so, and since his article is in the Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide, published by the Oxford University Press and edited by no less an authority than Stanley Wells, I doubt you'll get much traction appealing its inclusion at any Wikipedia noticeboard, but as has been reiterated ad infinitum, you are certainly welcome to try.

I suggest you read the entire page of the WikiProject Alternative Views you have been quoting, especially the Policies and guidelines section, which states, "Proper implementation of the project's goals hinges on a good understanding of Wikipedia's notability guidelines as applying to minority views or hypotheses, a point addressed in detail at Wikipedia:Fringe theories." To say that the SAQ is not a fringe theory while insisting it comply with the policies and guidelines of WP:FRINGE (which it does anyway) is ludicrous, to say the least, although I will say it is consistent with other anti-Stratfordian arguments in its lack of logic.

And will you please learn to add only one more colon to indent? They're not like exclamation marks where adding more means more emphasis. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you wrote:

I have all sorts of quotes saying it is a fringe theory; however, they all precede the word "fringe" with the word "lunatic".

Bring them on. I'd like to see them. If they're recent, and reflect academic consensus, maybe we can agree on the substitution of one of them for your cherry-picked source of your associate David Kathman.

You also wrote:

"Proper implementation of the project's goals hinges on a good understanding of Wikipedia's notability guidelines as applying to minority views or hypotheses, a point addressed in detail at Wikipedia:Fringe theories." To say that the SAQ is not a fringe theory while insisting it comply with the policies and guidelines of WP:FRINGE (which it does anyway) is ludicrous, to say the least, although I will say it is consistent with other anti-Stratfordian arguments in its lack of logic.

It's your logic which is faulty. Did you not see the phrase 'minority views' in the Wikipedia policy you just quoted? The coverage in a Wikipedia article of a MINORITY VIEW under Wikiproject Alternative Views may be governed in some respects by Wikipedia's policy regarding fringe theories, but Wikipedia still terms it a MINORITY VIEW, and you and Paul have misinterpreted that as licence to engage in your own synthesis and original research, and designate the authorship controversy a fringe theory.

And speaking of illogic, you wrote:

As for Kathman speaking for the academic community, he clearly does so, and since his article is in the Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide, published by the Oxford University Press and edited by no less an authority than Stanley Wells, I doubt you'll get much traction appealing its inclusion at any Wikipedia noticeboard

The claim that because David Kathman was allowed to include an article on the authorship controversy in a book edited by Stanley Wells means that every word and phrase written by David Kathman in that article represents the consensus of academia is illogic carried to a new extreme.NinaGreen (talk) 21:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

NinaGreen (talk) 21:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC) Zweigenbaum

in response to Bishonen's charge above that I did not defend my last correction of (your?) improper reversion of the neutrality template, please look at the "Modifying Argument to Hypothesis or Proposal" section and you will see my reasoning. It amounts to the following. If we can't agree on a grammatical substitution for the "Shakespeare authorship question is the argument" fiasco in the very first sentence, we have a neutrality issue. No need to be 'disappointed' Bishonen; simply realize that this peer review exchange is a shambles if the Stratfordian contingent harbors no bona fide intention of taking a neutral approach to the article. It is patently obvious that the neutrality tag is appropriate, given the convincing demonstration of Reedy's unfair descriptions, arrogant defenses, and slanted sourcing regarding the conflicting theory, problems outlined by Nina Green. An impartial observer would so rule. I applied the neutrality dispute tag simultaneously with my comments on December 23 and nothing since then that has originated with the Stratfordian group indicates it was inappropriate. That you reverted it contrary to rule is part and parcel of the injustice at hand. Of course you (generically) will not make strides towards a properly neutral attitude, as that gives legitimacy to a theory about which you are experiencing denial; nor will you admit that an issue exists concerning neutrality violations. Hence the necessity for a third party decision. Where's that Schweigenbalm when you need him, Nishidani? Not hanging out with Shakspere the poetic Ubermensch mit Schlag auf dem Kopfen? I hope. Take care over the holidays. ---Zweigenbaum Zweigenbaum (talk) 03:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Response to Nina's complaints about the article

Nina's message in bold italics, my response follows.

Re mediation. Perhaps at some stage it will be the route to go, but until the basic issue is identified,

I thought you had the basic issue already identified: (from below) “The root of the neutrality issue thus seems to be this … That's the problem, pure and simple.” (from above) “Tom and Paul have written the entire SAQ article from that biased and non-neutral point of view …” “Not only is the SAQ article not neutral, it engages in original research.” And so on.

mediation strikes me as merely another way of ratcheting up the level of conflict. I'm new to this page, and although I've heard from time to time that there were serious disputes, I've never understood why things were so heated over here.

Yes, you are relatively new to the page, having appeared here during the middle of a request for peer review and making the exact same arguments that another editor rehearsed before he was topic-banned, and using remarkably similar reasoning and apparently with a remarkable talent in finding all the old arguments and dispute resolution discussions.

I am really tired of you making that allegation. My arguments are entirely my own, and my analysis of what is wrong with the SAQ page is entirely my own. It pleases you to think otherwise and to try to persuade other editors and administrators on this page to think otherwise, but you are utterly and completely wrong. Are you perhaps being a bit sexist in implying that a female might not be able to come up with the critique of the SAQ article I've put forward? I'm not one to use that sort of argument (in fact I can't recall having used it before in my life), but you are beginning to sound sexist in continually implying that I'm unable to think for myself.NinaGreen (talk) 21:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

But as I've learned more about the SAQ article in the past few weeks, it's become apparent to me that although the SAQ article is part of Wikiproject Alternative Views, it doesn't at all conform to the Wikipedia policy statement which governs Wikiproject Alternative Views, a link to which is found at the top of this Discussion page.

First, the Wikipedia Alternative Views project is not a policy. Second, the project’s page itself says that its goals “should all be done while following our basic content principles. It should not be an excuse to correct supposed suppression from the mainstream orthodoxy, to engage in original research, or to use sources that aren't verifiable and reliable. We are not here to correct real-world coverage. We are here to report real-world coverage. We are not here to counterbalance real-world sources. We are here to balance according to real-world sources.” (Bolded phrases are particularly apt to your complaints.)

Nothing in this article contradicts the scope and goals outlined on that page. That you think the page is not neutral and contains original research does not make it so. Except for the statement that Shakespeare academics regard the SAQ as a fringe belief, you have yet to give any concrete examples of your charges of non-neutrality.

The SAQ article doesn't look like any other article I've ever seen on Wikipedia in that it is filled with very lengthy vitriolic footnotes slamming the alternative theory.

As I have stated more than once, the quotations in the footnotes are there because they back up statements that were challenged and their sources demanded. They quote sources explicitly, and those quotations are not in the article nor are they presented as anything but the opinions of academics. Their opinions are not stated as facts in the article, except for the fact that the academy holds those opinions.

The root of the neutrality issue thus seems to be this: as part of Wikiproject Alternative Views, the SAQ article must present the majority view as the majority view, and must present the alternative view in a fair and balanced manner.

The language used to describe each side is neutral and as free as possible of any sarcasm, cant, or disparagement, which is one reason why I have asked for and accepted suggestions on how to make the language more neutral. That academics disparage all alternative authorship theories is a fact, and it is stated as baldly as possible. The alternative view is an overview of the anti-Stratfordian case, and is not nor is it meant to be an exhaustive rehearsal of any particular anti-Stratfordian theory.

Instead, the SAQ article tries to PROVE the majority view, and DESTROY the alternative view.

No, the article gives the anti-Stratfordian case in summary form using language that is as palin, unvarnished, and neutral as possible, and does not even include any rebuttals, neither in the general anti-Stratfordian case nor in the individual candidate summaries. The summary of the Stratfordian case is written in plain, neutral language, and does not overstate any of its arguments nor use any sly or misleading language.

That you perceive that the article is trying to prove the Stratfordian view and destroy the anti-Stratfordian view is because of the strength of the orthodox case and the weakness of the alternative arguments against it. Those relative strengths are intrinsic to each side, not a result of non-neutrality or original research. There is a reason, after all, why the SAQ remains a fringe theory, and why the orthodox scenario has remained in place after 150 years of anti-Stratfordian assaults.

That's the problem, pure and simple. Ergo, nothing will ever tone down the heat on this page until editors of this page revise their views to conform to the Wikipedia policy as set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views.

There is no heat from this side; it is all from yours. And the article does conform to Wikipedia policy; it’s just that you don’t like the policy, nor is your interpretation of those policies accurate. I have more than once suggested you use the dispute resolution mechanisms Wikipedia provides to determine whose interpretation is closest to consensus among Wikipedia editors and admins, but you seem to be reluctant to discover that.

Tom Reedy can PROVE that the majority view is the right one and attempt to DESTROY the alternative view on the website he works on with David Kathman, but he can't do that on Wikipedia.

I’m not trying to prove anything, nor do I need to, having already done so on the page that you reference, but I do have to prove that my sources say what I attribute to them, and that is what you have been complaining about since you got here. And this article is not solely authored by me, nor do I claim to “own” it, as you have accused me several times. Anybody can edit the article, but anybody who does so is subject to the same collaborative give-and-take as any other editor, as well as any administrative sanctions their edits might instigate.

Similarly, I can't attempt to PROVE the Oxfordian hypothesis or attempt in any way to DESTROY the majority view in the SAQ article because that doesn't conform to the Wikipedia policy statement either.

The article as it stands contains neutral summaries of the orthodox and alternative views on Shakespeare’s authorship. It is not my fault that all the documentary evidence is on one side and all the strained speculation is on the other(s). Wikipedia articles should describe the real world coverage of a topic and reflect real-world balance, and this article does so on both counts. You have yet to offer a specific example of how this article violates neutrality or weight, except for your fixation on Dave Kathman’s description of the SAQ as a fringe belief. That statement is attributed and worded neutrally, and furthermore it accurately describes the academic consensus of the topic. Your beef is with the academy, not with me or Wikipedia.

I have no intention of attempting either of those things, and never have had any such intention. I merely want to improve the article so that it conforms to the Wikipedia policy statement set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views. At present the POV of the article doesn't conform to that policy. It is written from the POV of PROVING the majority position, not merely PRESENTING it as the majority position. There's a vast difference between the two. And it is also written from the POV of DESTROYING the alternative view, rather than presenting it in a fair and balanced way. That's why there's a neutrality dispute.

So how many times do you have to repeat it before it comes true? More than you’ve done so, I can tell you that. Why not list specific examples of how the article violates neutrality and demonstrate why they do so? So far all we’ve had is Kathman’s description.

I personally feel confident that if editors and administrators of this page could conform to the Wikipedia policy set out in Wikiproject Alternative Views, we could get the job done. Something to think about during the week-long hiatus.

Allow me to make a suggestion. Go to this sandbox page and write what you think is the perfect, neutrally-worded, reliably-sourced, non-original-researched page you want. Change any and every thing you want, and then we’ll all have a better idea of what you have in mind. I doubt you’ve got the patience to do so, but if the improvement of the article is indeed your goal, that would be one way to demonstrate that.

Tom Reedy has used the reliable source policy to essentially shut down balanced development of the article, and not on the basis that the alternative view is 'widely acknowledged' as 'fringe', but solely on the basis that one individual whose degree is not in the specialist area and who does not teach or work in the specialist area has termed it 'fringe' -- David Kathman.

WP:RS states that Academic consensus: "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view."

The statement is "... all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims."

The citation given (one of several) reads: "...in fact, antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence. Professional Shakespeare scholars mostly pay little attention to it, much as evolutionary biologists ignore creationists and astronomers dismiss UFO sightings." The statement appears in Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide, Oxford University Press, pp. 620–32, a publication that meets WP:RS, which states "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable." As far as I can discern, your complaint that the statement is original research is based on the fact that Kathman writes "antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence" instead of "all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief", which in my opinion is a distinction without a difference. If you feel differently, I suggest you go to WP:OR/N and make your case.

For some reason this morning I thought your comments had more substance to them and would take a few hours to answer, but on closer examination it appears that your only mantra is neutrality. I await your list of specific examples of violations of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Scholars of the stature of Arthur Quiller-Couch and Samuel Schoenbaum, who were very particular about language, have dismissed the various alternative theories as a form of 'lunacy' or 'madness'. This judgement, which could be documented and underscored from several other quality mainstream sources, has been withheld from the SAQ page as both a gesture of civility and to best reflect wikipedia policies on neutrality, though it is eminently sourceable. Given this tacit perception in mainstream sources, the SAQ issue is not 'alternative' but 'fringe'. Insistent reiteration of a grievance by true believers does not qualify as an argument, though it seems to be the only tactic left in the strategy manual of the de Vereans. Further generic complaining, and, especially, further baiting of practiced and trusted longterm editors to exhaustion with insinuations about their attitude in the face of the patience and attention they have shown in repeating points already exhaustively explained in the archives, is not only pointless but probably actionable. We are not here to push personal beliefs and fudge the sources, but to write neutrally. It is perfectly compatible with the objective of neutrality to reflect the fact that this 'theory' (or, rather, 'argument', for theories of value are not circular while this kind of reasoning is, and arguments go one forever, like wiki threads, whereas 'theories' rise and fall on the strength of verifiable data) has no standing, historically or today, as a 'minority' opinion, or 'alternative theory' in academia or among Shakespearean or Elizabethan-Jacobean era specialists. Nishidani (talk) 05:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you wrote:

Scholars of the stature of Arthur Quiller-Couch and Samuel Schoenbaum, who were very particular about language, have dismissed the various alternative theories as a form of 'lunacy' or 'madness'. This judgement, which could be documented and underscored from several other quality mainstream sources, has been withheld from the SAQ page as both a gesture of civility and to best reflect wikipedia policies on neutrality, though it is eminently sourceable.

Your comments give rise to another problem with the SAQ article, its failure to distinguish between sources which present the views of critics of the authorship controversy at various historical points in time, and the current view of the authorship controversy among academics and the public at large. Quiller-Couch wrote about Shakespeare in the 1930s and died in 1944. Is the real reason his comments are not included in the article because they are too harsh, and have been 'withheld' as a 'gesture of civility and to reflect Wikipedia policies of neutrality', or because they reflect an opinion of one critic in the 1930s and thus may be seriously out of date in terms of portraying the current view of the SAQ? Obviously the latter. There is no room for either 'withholding' reliable sources or 'gestures of civility' in the Wikipedia policy of neutrality. The Wikipedia policy of neutrality mandates that all relevant information be presented in a neutral manner, and that a historical opinion be presented as such, not as representative of the current state of the controversy. There is a historical section to the article, and if Quiller-Couch's comments are relevant to that section, you should present them there, and most definitely should not withhold them, but for obvious reasons they should not be presented in the lede to the article as an indication of the current state of the authorship controversy.

As for your comments concerning Schoenbaum, Shapiro's comments suggest you are being disingenuous in claiming that you and Tom Reedy have withheld them from the SAQ article as a 'gesture of civility' or in accordance with the Wikipedia policy of neutrality. Shapiro's states on p. 208 that Schoenbaum himself toned down his earlier comments when he revised Shakespeare's Lives in 1991. On p. 202, Shapiro writes:

And in 1970, the leading Shakespeare biographer, Samuel Schoenbaum, his patience sorely tested by having to slog through so many books that questioned Shakespeare's authorship, administered what must have seemed a death stroke in his Shakespeare's Lives. The "sheer volume of heretical publication appalls," Schoenbaum writes, its "voluminousness . . . matched only by its intrinsic worthlessness." It was "lunatic rubbish," the product of "mania."

On pp. 207-8 Shapiro writes:

The moot court proved to be a turning point in the decades-long struggle to promote Oxford's cause. More than anything else, the Supreme Court justices had provided legitimacy; the Oxfordians were no longer the "deviants' vilified by Schoenbaum (and one immediate effect of the moot court was that this harsh language was considerably toned down when Schoenbaum revised his Shakespeare's Lives in 1991). If Supreme Court justices could take the Oxfordians seriously and deem them the only serious rivals to Shakespeare, so could others.

Shapiro's review of this historical development indicates clearly that views of the authorship controversy have changed over time, and that you and Tom Reedy did not 'withhold' Schoenbaum's earlier comments from the SAQ article as a 'gesture of civility' or in accordance with the Wikipedia policy of neutrality, but because Schoenbaum himself toned them down. Schoenbaum's revision of his earlier views belongs in the historical section of the article, not as a source in the lede paragraph of the article. Schoenbaum died in 1996, and even his toned-down comments cannot be fairly claimed to represent current views on the authorship controversy.NinaGreen (talk) 18:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, grammatically, what you write is nonsense. 'Shapiro's review of this historical development indicates clearly that .... you and Tom Reedy did not 'withhold' Schoenbaum's earlier comments from the SAQ article as a 'gesture of civility'.

Repetition is not an argument. Excessive posting of repetitious points fully answered does not impress, and your grammar shows that this harping is causing you to make incoherent statements.

Focusing on Shapiro is pointless. Much of what Shapiro has to say has been said before, a century ago. There has been almost no substantial change in the content of material churned out by conspiracy theorists over the last century. Read Brian Vickers, here. He's one of the foremost literary specialists of the Elizabethan period, whose perspective is that what you deny to be a fringe theory is not a theory at all, but a delusion, and the word 'delusion' is used precisely, in its technical sense, of the state that results from being prey to a system of belief which distorts one's perception of the real state of affairs, esp. here of the current state of scholarship. I could bring up dozens of quotes by academic authorities which use variations on 'lunacy' 'madness,' 'delusion', 'folly' to describe the SAQ controversy, from the deep past to the present day, and no amount of beating the Tom Tom to single out Reedy as some malign manipulator of the record will change that, or the fact that the article we have is the result of intensive collaborative work and wikipedia's process of neutral peer review by independent technicians with expertise in what is required of articles. Compare our article with what Vickers says, and you will see that, rather than being 'biased', it is even-handed.Nishidani (talk) 23:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, if you think that the academic consensus is that the SAQ is merely a minority opinion, you need to find a reliable source that states that. Shapiro does not. WP:RS states that Academic consensus: "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." I have provided that source to the effect that it is considered a fringe belief by academic Shakespeareans. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you state:

I have provided that source to the effect that it is considered a fringe belief by academic Shakespeareans.

No, you have not. You have cited only David Kathman for the specific phrase 'fringe theory', and besides being an extremely partisan close associate of yours (which should immediately call into question your bias in citing David Kathman and David Kathman alone for the phrase 'fringe theory'), David Kathman has a degree in linguistics and works as a stock analyst. However much you may want to make him the SOLE representative of academic consensus on this point, David Kathman is not in any way qualified to represent academia on this point. Once we get that straightened out, and David Kathman's phrase 'fringe theory' is removed from the lede paragraph, we'll be well on our way to writing a neutral article. It's your biased citation of Kathman as the representative of academia on this point which is the chief roadblock to a neutral SAQ article.NinaGreen (talk) 18:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Just go to dispute resolution and quit wasting everybody's time. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you are the one who is wasting everyone's time. This does not require dispute resolution. You have cherry-picked a very partisan source, a source with whom you are closely associated in partisanship in the authorship controversy on a non-peer-reviewed website which you cite several times in the article, a source who does not have a degree in the specialist field, a source who does not work in academia -- David Kathman. And having cherry-picked this source for a phrase which cannot be found anywhere in the academic literature other than an avowal by David Kathman, you have inserted it in a biased manner in the lede to the article, thereby hoping to control, through the use of the phrase 'fringe theory', every statement which is made in the article and every source which is cited in the article. You know full well that there is not a single statement in Shapiro's book, which is the latest academic word on the authorship controversy, which even comes close to the phrase 'fringe theory', yet you have cherry-picked a biased source because it's your personal view of the authorship controversy that it's a fringe theory. How could it NOT be your view when you're associated with David Kathman on his website and when you have called it a 'crank theory' yourself on this Talk page? You should recuse yourself from editing the SAQ article until you can bring yourself to eliminate this sort of bias on your part.NinaGreen (talk) 20:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You have edited this talk page twenty times in the last 24 hours. Are you aware that this is not a forum where endless discussion is tolerated? Per WP:TPG all discussion here should be focused on efforts to improve the article, so you need to make specific suggestions and not just express your thoughts. Re "fringe": Above, Paul B (timestamp 17:52, 27 December 2010 UTC), carefully explained what "fringe" means here; please digest that information before continuing to talk about "fringe" because you seem to have failed to understand WP:FRINGE. Also, your comments re Tom Reedy are too strident: this is not the place to allege that a particular editor has violated policies such as no original research. If you have a claim, give a precise example of text in the article and explain the problem. If you want assistance, go to the no original research noticeboard. However, you must stop your attacks on other editors (see WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA). Finally, your claims that Tom Reedy controls this article are completely without foundation as I have previously explained. Most experienced editors would avoid getting involved in an article like this because there are hundreds of places where people try to push their POV on Wikipedia, and people have to ration their time. Experienced editors can see at a glance that this article is in good shape, and can quickly recognize that the walls-of-text on the talk page involve misunderstandings of Wikipedia's procedures; that's why you see only a few editors commenting here (the others can see that their involvement is not required). Johnuniq (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Johnuniq, there is only one reason why this discussion goes on endlessly, and that reason is that a biased editor (by his own admission he thinks the authorship controversy is a 'crank theory'), Tom Reedy, has taken ownership of this page, partly because, as you yourself admitted earlier and have admitted again now, you and others have turned over editing of this page to him. After actively assisting Tom to acquire ownership of the page, you now want to shut down any challenge to Tom's ownership of the page.

You wrote:

you need to make specific suggestions and not just express your thoughts

I am most emphatically not merely 'expressing my thoughts'. I have made all kinds of specific suggestions, and as I mentioned to Bishonen above, they have all been talked around, stonewalled, and eventually just left lying without a response. The most recent specific suggestion is that David Kathman's statement that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory, and the citation of David Kathman as a source for it, need to be removed from the lede paragraph of the article. I've explained all the cogent reasons according to Wikipedia policy why this needs to be done, and those reasons are being totally ignored by Tom Reedy, Paul Barlow, and now by you.

You wrote:

Re "fringe": Above, Paul B (timestamp 17:52, 27 December 2010 UTC), carefully explained what "fringe" means here; please digest that information before continuing to talk about "fringe" because you seem to have failed to understand

Read my recent replies to Paul Barlow and Tom Reedy. It is not I who does not understand Wikipedia's policy re fringe theories. It is Paul and Tom and you. Wikipedia editors cannot ON THEIR OWN INITIATIVE call something a fringe theory which Wikipedia policy itself terms a MINORITY VIEW and an ALTERNATIVE THEORY, and Wikipedia editors cannot call something a fringe theory which Shapiro states in a book published in 2010 was given 'legitimacy' by U.S. Supreme Court Justices and has attracted adherents among 'leading artists and adherents from all walks of life', and which a New York Times Survey says 17% of English professors in the U.S. consider might have something to it. You might PREFER to call it a fringe theory in the face of Shapiro and the New York Times survey, but you would be engaging in original research and ignoring the Wikipedia policy of neutrality in doing so.NinaGreen (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, you write "For you to read into Carroll's words that he MEANS 'fringe' is synthesis and original research on your part". This is an outright falsehood. I'm inclined to call it an outright lie. WRP:FRINGE is clear that we do not need the actual word Fringe in a source. I will very soon raise your behaviour in an approproiate forum, since I can no logner assume any good faith. Paul B (talk) 11:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Your replies are not ex cathedra. Tom is not biased in speaking of a crank theory. That is what scholarship has determined. If you wish to change the determination of fringe to minority or alternative views, argue the case in the appropriate forum here. The consensus of editors is that the scholarship adduced shows this is a fringe argument, and no amount of niggling Tom Reedy, or singling him out, will change that consensus. You have to challenge it elsewhere not here. Nishidani (talk) 00:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you've made my point. It is most certainly not the case that my replies are 'ex cathedra'. Nor are yours, or Tom's, or Paul's, or David Kathman's. None of us is in academia in the specialist area. Therefore what we all face, and must report neutrally in the SAQ article, is the fact that academia neither terms it a 'crank theory' nor a 'fringe theory', and in fact Shapiro's entire book and the New York Times survey indicate that academia considers it something other than a 'crank theory' or a 'fringe theory'. Wikipedia policy states that Wikipedia is not a democracy, and your claim that a 'consensus' reached among a number of admittedly partisan and wholly biased editors of this page that it is a 'fringe theory' allows Wikipedia policies concerning original research and neutrality to be openly flouted is just plain wrong and misguided. If editors aren't willing to follow Wikipedia policy, they should recuse themselves from editing. A Wikipedia article is not any small biased group's particular fiefdom.NinaGreen (talk) 00:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Again you fail to understand the most elementary points, and try to turn the obvious reply to your advantage by saying it confirms what you believe. You singled out Reedy and made a lot of serious charges against him, and kept up a repetitive nagging barrage to that effect. One administrator, and several other practiced wikipedians, Hamiltonstone, Wrad, myself, Reedy, Barlow, Jonuniq, etc., in their various comments appear to think that the balance of these absurdly ouroboric arguments lies with the positions Reedy has steadily clarified. He has been receptive to several points. On the other hand, there is no evidence that you or Schweigenbalm show any understanding of what he, and most of us, are saying. The editorial consensus here is as I said earlier.

About not being 'in academia'. Some of us are, or have been, and are published in respectable university presses, after intensive peer review. You haven't been.

Before Reedy came to this article it was a 'small biased group's particular fiefdom', ruled by Smatprt, with assistance, whenever needed, from almost a dozen de Verean true believers, who invariably popped in to outvote any outsider. The page was unreadable, unscholarly, bore no resemblance to what wiki protocols require of articles, and had stagnated for several years to the despair of many good editors who abandoned it out of frustration. Reedy has established his bona fides by taking 8 months out of his life and leisure to fix it into a shape that approximates to what the encyclopedia requires of articles, and his contribution is, I think, widely acknowledged in the wikipedia community that has glanced at, over or into this article and related matters. Compare my version with Reedy's, or Wrad's perspective, or Hamiltonstone's comments, and you will see that we have decidedly different perspectives.

It may be coincidence, but nearly everything you say has been rebutted in the archives. Read them. Nishidani (talk) 01:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you wrote:

Before Reedy came to this article it was a 'small biased group's particular fiefdom', ruled by Smatprt, with assistance, whenever needed, from almost a dozen de Verean true believers, who invariably popped in to outvote any outsider.

Thanks for the history lesson, but it's irrelevant because the situation is now completely reversed. Now the SAQ article is a 'small biased group's particular fiefdom' ruled by Tom Reedy, 'with assistance, whenever needed, from almost a dozen anti-Oxfordian true believers and partisans, who invariably pop in to outvote any outsider'. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Look at what's happened in the section immediately below this one where Tom Reedy in desperation has cited an author who writes books on SOCCER as someone who should be cited in the SAQ article as representing the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment on the authorship controversy. With that citation the points being put forward by Tom Reedy in order to maintain his own personal belief, in the face of Shapiro's book and the New York Times survey, that the authorship controversy is a 'fringe theory' have entered the realm of the truly ludicrous.NinaGreen (talk)

And I would conclude, take to heart David Chandler's summary point about one of the problems in the Oxfordian attitude, printed in an anti-Stratfordian on-line journal:

"while Oxfordians have sometimes attacked the academy for ignoring them, the fact is, on the whole, that 'mainstream' Shakespeare scholarship has shown more interest in Oxfordianism than Oxfordians have shown in 'mainstream' Shakespearean scholarship." Chandler, David (Spring 2001), "Historicizing Difference: Anti-Stratfordians and the Academy", in Elizabethan Review.

I.e., if this needs to be construed, academia has listened,often intently, to the conspiracy rumour-mill. But those who, in Milton's words, sit 'grinding at the mill' of antiestablishmentarian arguments all day, appear unable to reciprocate the courtesy, which consists in listening closely to what scholarship says, rather than half-hearing it through the dissonant noise of wheels and quern, and then thinking one has grasped the gist of what is, however, a message distorted by poor reception.Nishidani (talk) 01:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Excuse me Nashidani, who is this Schweigenbalm you referred to above? I feel like I should know him. But Schweigenbalm means silent medicine, and Zweigenbaum means strong tree. You may have an identification problem you haven't worked out rationally. Freud could be helpful on mistakes like that. I'm Zweigenbaum.

Say that I'm posturing (the charge is back there in the verbal debris) or say that I'm Albert Hall, you are obligated to prove your allegations that these instances of "lunatic fringe" remarks are credible and considered, rather than being just what they appear to be, simple invective, the inherent nature of such language. That trained scholars indulged themselves in it is shame in itself. That you all rely upon it as bearing the gravity of "Authority" is perhaps childish? Your remarks (Nashidani) to Nina Green are to use a neutral-leaning euphemism intemperate. I assumed ad hominem aggressions went out with playground recess. I understand but cannot approve that in an adult. It appears the issue is headed for arbitration before a third party, since the traditionalist cohort has problems actually encountering the hard work of reading someone else's insight and scholarship, and your responses have devolved into spit and sputter.

Though skeptical, I have read the academic as well as alternative studies and after having done so (over the course of five years) agree with Ramon Jimenez, a published classical scholar who wrote, "The accumulation of evidence for Oxford,...is the most comprehensive and detailed solution to the 'problem'. It is hard to believe that it will not eventually result in the acceptance of Edward de Vere as the genuine Shakespeare.

"When this occurs, all the biographies of the Stratford man, and at least one of Oxford ['Monstrous Adversary'] will become comical literary curiosities." (The Oxfordian/9)

For the sake of further perspective, I quote a summation by David L. Roper, a published English scholar:

"When confronted by perfectly valid reasons for considering an alternative..., the need to save face governs intellectual honesty, and refuge is sought in censorship, ridicule, and a blatant disregard for conflicting evidence.

"In [Stradfordians'] own personal realities, the Stratfordian thesis contains everything they wish for, and they protect their creation against disbelievers with the only armaments available--invective and ridicule.

"[Quoting Alan Nelson,] 'I agree that antagonism to the ...debate from within the profession is so great that it would be as difficult for a professed Oxfordian to be hired in the first place, much less gain tenure, as for a professed Creationist to be hired to gain tenure in a graduate-level Department of Biology.' Truth, it would seem, is sometimes barred from the universities when it threatens to replace the dominant paradigm." --Roper, 'Proving Shakespeare' (2010)

Or Tolstoy: "I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life."

Or Saint Ignatius of Loyola: "We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides." In this case, if the hierarchy of doctrine so decides.

Do these comments on any orthodoxy's blind subjectivity describe familiar elements behind the present impasse? Appealing to your sense of rectitude and fairness in re-evaluating the present proposed article, Tom Reedy, let's get back on topic by listing the changes you made based on my suggestions, with the objective being results rather than put-downs. --Zweigenbaum ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zweigenbaum (talk • contribs) 16:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Lunatic fringe" quotations from Shakespearean academics and critics, all from reliable sources

Michael Billington, the Guardian's theatre critic: “James Shapiro's Contested Will concentrates on the lunatic fringe of Shakespeare authorship theories – a fascinating topic, to be sure, if you admire snobbery, philistinism and ignorance.” (2010)

Sarah Wadsworth, academic, critic: “Delia Bacon, whose theory that Francis Bacon and others secretly authored Shakespeare's plays consigned her to the lunatic fringe” (2009)

Peter Milward, priest, academic, critic: “But what they are really asking is not, 'Who is Shakespeare?' in the present, but, 'Who was Shakespeare?' in the past. So most scholars relegate these questioners to "the lunatic fringe," and they will have nothing more to do with them.” (2008)

Will Sharpe, editor: “[Stanley] Wells, over the past five decades, has become one of the most distinguished Shakespeareans to have walked the earth, and has been called upon to weigh in against the lunatic fringe of Shakespeare commentators more times, I’m sure, than he’d care to remember.” (2007)

Lisa Hopkins, academic, critic: “Freud in his later years espoused the lunatic fringe view that the works of Shakespeare were in fact written by Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.” (2005)

K.K. Ruthven, academic, critic: “Most Stratfordians regard the authorship controversy as a pseudo-problem invented by the lunatic fringe of Shakespeare studies.” (2005)

Anthony Fowles, writer: “Every few years I find myself revisiting Literature's all time, Number One mystery: who wrote 'Shakespeare'? I don't do this with any passionate axe to grind. Indeed, for years I resolutely avoided all the lunatic fringe theories circling the wagon train of orthodox Shakespearean studies.” (2001)

Robert Maslen, academic, critic: “… some scholars have attributed parts of Shakespeare's early plays to Marlowe (and on scholarship's lunatic fringe, contributors to the authorship controversy have attributed the late ones to him too: see Marlovian theory” (2001)

Tom Dulack, academic and playwright: “… the ancient lunatic fringe of conspiracy crazies who persist in their fanatical belief that Shakespeare was not the author of the play to begin with.” (2001)

Charles Garfield Nauert, academic, critic: “… his [Shakespeare’s] ability to attract great gentlemen as patrons of his theatrical company (and as the true authors of his poems and plays, if one believes a lunatic fringe of self-styled experts)” (1995)

William Ingram, academic, critic: “…she [Anne Whatley], like the authorship claimants, becomes a kind of shibboleth for the identification of members of the lunatic fringe.” (1992)

William C. Carroll, academic, critic: “the play [LLL] has always been the darling of the Shakespearean lunatic fringe.” (1976)

Patrick Cruttwell, academic, critic: “Goodness knows I have never felt the smallest temptation to join the lunatic fringe of Shakespearean criticism which proclaims that he wasn't Shakespeare.” (1975)

Kenneth Muir, academic, critic: “Professor Schoenbaum has cast his net widely. He includes amateur antiquarians, professional scholars, forgers, Baconians, Derbyites and the rest of the lunatic fringe, even some writers of fiction.” (1971)

These comments are mild compared to some, nor are these exhaustive. Which ones should we use in place of Kathman? (We'll of course have to change the wording of the article text to read "lunatic fringe" instead of "fringe belief".) Tom Reedy (talk) 04:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Great, Tom, let's start whittling them down. First of all, let's eliminate from consideration any source that's more than a decade old since the lede paragraph is supposed to represent the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment as it exists today. Next, let's eliminate from consideration any source who isn't a member of the Shakespeare establishment according to Carroll's definition cited by you in footnote 3 of the lede paragraph:

the Shakespeare Establishment,' one of perhaps 20,000 in our land, professors mostly, who make their living, more or less, by teaching, reading, and writing about Shakespeare

Who does that leave us with? I can't tell because you've used the vague term 'academic' as an identifier for virtually all of them, and I can't tell from that term what their field of academic specialty is. If they're to represent the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment as defined by Carroll, their field of academic specialty, i.e. the field in which they have a Ph.D., has to be the literature of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. When you let us know who's left, we'll have our short list.NinaGreen (talk) 05:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

My goodness, Tom, I just googled Anthony Fowles, whom you indicate you would like to quote, as you indicate above, as representing the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment on the authorship controversy. This is what turned up:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/Meadow/Essays/Shakespeare.html

Llamagraphics supposes that Anthony Fowles is possibly Shakespeare, and at the very least a regular contributor to the Meadow. He is a reknowned author of books about soccer written with Garry Nelson, including Left Foot Forward.

Your inclusion of Anthony Fowles as a suggested reliable source for the SAQ article suggests the absurdity to which your bias has driven you.NinaGreen (talk) 06:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Some holiday rest, how do you manage to relax so well? Sorry Tom Reedy, your "lunatic fringe" quotations, like the term itself, are scholastically meaningless except as evidence of a threatened priesthood's reflexive polemicizing, for each and every use lacks reasons for the term, no matter if Jesus Christ had said it. Impressive list of schlock though. If only they had turned that energy into scholarly inquiry. You can't responsibly evaluate the studies of the contending Oxfordian scholarship unless you read its work. Such is the bias in the field and obviously the bias of the Wikipedia article writer and supporters. Nothing like inert belief to perpetuate willful ignorance. Happy New Year. Zweigenbaum (talk) 05:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum. Posturing is not an argument. Nina, I can myself add to the list - as I said earlier - courtesy has left us withholding a lot of information that makes this ideological mania look far more queer than our text lets on - and I could make it easier for you with links, but you apparently think Tom and I have to work over this vacation while you harangue us with lazy equivocations just to 'whittle down' everything to the Oxfordian default promotional image. Still, in the Christmas spirit, explain to us why Peter Milward, writing in 2008, doesn't fit.Nishidani (talk) 06:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you wrote:

Nina, I can myself add to the list - as I said earlier - courtesy has left us withholding a lot of information that makes this ideological mania look far more queer than our text lets on

Fiddlesticks. As I said before (and you're forcing me to repeat myself), it's not courtesy at all. The real reason you haven't cited these 'sources' in the article is that they cannot by any stretch of Wikipedia policy be made to represent the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment as defined by Carroll in the passage quoted by you and Tom Reedy in footnote 3 of the SAQ article. Name even one of the 'sources' cited above by Tom Reedy who has a Ph.D. in the literature of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period and for whom the quotation cited by Tom is recent enough that it can be said to accurately represent the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment (as defined by Carroll, whose definition you yourselves quote), and whose quotation carries sufficient weight to wipe out the contradictory evidence in Shapiro's book and the New York Times survey on the current consensus in the Shakespeare establishment (as defined by Carroll).

Incidentally, you said above that some of the editors on this page themselves have Ph.Ds in the literature of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period and have published in peer-reviewed journals dealing with the literature of those periods. Who are they? You don't have to 'out' them. Just refer to them by their Wikipedia aliases. If you're going to claim specialist qualifications for editors of this page, you need to at least identify which editors have those specialist qualifications so that their opinions can be given the requisite weight.NinaGreen (talk) 06:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, you are engaged in systematic misreading of everything both your interlocutors, and the text, and, I might add, the sources used for the text, states. I'll give you just two examples.

Example 1. (a) Tom provides you with a large list of academics who dismiss this argument as lunatic fringe.

(b) You reply:'Great, Tom, let's eliminate from consideration any source that's more than a decade old since the lede paragraph is supposed to represent the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment as it exists today. Next, let's eliminate from consideration any source who isn't a member of the Shakespeare establishment according to Carroll's definition.'

(c)I respond, naming Peter Milward as fitting your criteria. He is a Shakespearean scholar, has a chair in Renaissance studies, and has trained many Japanese scholars in this area. I provide a link to his wiki biography. The quote is from 2008. He has the requisite background Carroll speaks of.

(d)Your reply? Your reply is to ignore the evidence of Milward, and to repeat the question.

'Name even one of the 'sources' cited above by Tom Reedy who has a Ph.D. in the literature of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period and for whom the quotation cited by Tom is recent enough that it can be said to accurately represent the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment (as defined by Carroll, whose definition you yourselves quote)'

Verdict. You ask questions. When answered with precision, you continue repeating the question, ignoring the answer, and complain then of stonewalling. Worse still, you who lack any academic qualifications at all in this, keep challenging the credentials of scholars who do have them in that field.Nishidani (talk) 08:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Example 2(a)You stated:'None of us is in academia in the specialist area.'

(b)I remark: 'About not being 'in academia'. Some of us are, or have been, and are published in respectable university presses, after intensive peer review. You haven't been.'

Note I ignore the point, which is irrelevant, about 'the specialist area'.

(c)You reply.'you said above that some of the editors on this page themselves have Ph.Ds in the literature of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period and have published in peer-reviewed journals dealing with the literature of those periods.'

That is how your mind appears to work. Disattention, misrepresentation, and then challenging editors to explain what they never said. If you are so disconcerted about bias in wikipedia, and poor sourcing for statements, I suggest you just move over to Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship which is in a hopeless state of disrepair, needs drastic editing and may be a good proving ground, undisturbed, for showing that you know what wiki policy requires. It's all in an area you understand, de Verean studies, and is untroubled by the area you show scarce familiarity with, i.e. historical and literary scholarship. Nishidani (talk) 08:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I fully expected Nina's reaction to be exactly what it is, because that's the way anti-Stratfordians argue: ask for a particular piece of evidence and when it's presented dismiss it by moving the goalposts and demanding that it comply with even more strictures in order to disqualify it, so you really can't blame her for arguing like an anti-Stratfordian, because that's her stock in trade. Her reaction to your statement about our agreement to tone down the language of the article was also predictable, because she refuses to read the appropriate Wikipedia policies and guidelines, which states that "restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations." Instead she searches through Wikipedia for phrases she can cherry-pick to use for her objections. Again, this is a standard anti-Stratfordian debating tactic, and it is no surprise that she uses them here also, since it's a habit of mind, as evidenced by this entire page. Yet another example is her picking out one critic from the list and disqualify him because he wrote a book about soccer (although he has written several books of literary criticism, which she would have learnt had she continued her scholarly quest on Google) while simultaneously claiming that I "would like to quote" him. In any other editor that would be evidence of blatant dishonesty, but for anti-Stratfordians you must make allowances because their minds really do work that way. That's why they can claim that there's no evidence for William Shakespeare as a writer while simultaneously claiming there is overwhelming evidence for their favourite candidate, keeping a straight face while doing so and demanding that their assertions be taken seriously by the academic establishment. Since Paul, you, and I have acted in good faith and tried to answer her objections with evidence that would have satisfied any other person long ago, after much consideration I think the best thing to do is to just ignore her from now on and let others deal with her. If she makes any good points that are usable we can silently note them when (and if) the article opens up for editing again. Life is too short to continually repeat oneself. I regret that this discussion has become about an editor's behaviour instead of the content of the article, but since I seem to be her main topic of discussion I felt I should be able to speak my mind about this. Tom Reedy (talk) 14:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Yesterday she posted 21 times to this talk page. Will she beat that record today? She's got a good start. Tom Reedy (talk) 14:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It really is amazing how Tom Reedy and Nishidani can get off topic and post reams of prose which have nothing to do with the issue at hand, which is whittling down Tom's 'lunatic fringe' quotes to those which can legitimately be considered to represent the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment. So far, after threats by both Tom Reedy and Nishidani of being able to produce countless numbers of such quotes, and with Tom having produced a list of quotes which includes someone who writes about SOCCER and whose comments were posted on a blog, we have one name put forward, that of the Jesuit Peter Milward. Is that it? Can Tom Reedy and Nishidani stay on topic long enough to clarify that point for the rest of us? Is Peter Milward the only name they are putting forward as representing the Shakespeare establishment in terms of the use of the phrase 'lunatic fringe'?NinaGreen (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No. 11. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Nashidani, who is this Schweigenbalm you refer to above? I feel like I should know him. But Schweigenbalm means silent medicine and Zweigenbaum means strong tree. You may have an identification problem not yet brought to rational examination. Freud was good on problems like that. I'm Zweigenbaum.

Call it posturing or call it Albert Hall, you are obligated to prove your allegations that these instances of "lunatic fringe" remarks are credible and considered, rather than what they appear to be, simple invective, which is the inherent nature of such language. That trained scholars indulged themselves in it is shame in itself. That you all resort to it as bearing the gravity of "Authority" is perhaps childish? Your remarks (Nashidani) to Nina Green are to use a neutral-leaning euphemism intemperate. I assumed ad hominem aggressions went out with playground recess. I understand but cannot approve. It appears the issue is headed for arbitration before a third party, since the traditionalist cohort has problems actually encountering the hard work of reading someone else's insight and scholarship.

Though skeptical, I have read the academic as well as alternative studies and after having done so agree with Ramon Jimenez, a classical scholar who wrote, "The accumulation of evidence for Oxford,...is the most comprehensive and detailed solution to the 'problem'. It is hard to believe that it will not eventually result in the acceptance of Edward de Vere as the genuine Shakespeare.

"When this occurs, all the biographies of the Stratford man, and at least one of Oxford ['Monstrous Adversary'] will become comical literary curiosities." (The Oxfordian/9)

For the sake of further perspective, I quote a summation by David L. Roper, an English scholar:

"When confronted by perfectly valid reasons for considering an alternative..., the need to save face governs intellectual honesty, and refuge is sought in censorship, ridicule, and a blatant disregard for conflicting evidence.

"In [Stradfordians'] own personal realities, the Stratfordian thesis contains everything they wish for, and they protect their creation against disbelievers with the only armaments available--invective and ridicule.

"[Quoting Alan Nelson,] 'I agree that antagonism to the ...debate from within the profession is so great that it would be as difficult for a professed Oxfordian to be hired in the first place, much less gain tenure, as for a professed Creationist to be hired to gain tenure in a graduate-level Department of Biology.' Truth, it would seem, is sometimes barred from the universities when it threatens to replace the dominant paradigm." --Roper, 'Proving Shakespeare' (2010)

Or Tolstoy: "I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life."

Or Saint Ignatius of Loyola: ""We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides." In this case, the hierarchy of doctrine.

Do these descriptions of any orthodoxy's blind subjectivity resemble elements behind the present impasse? Appealing to your sense of rectitude and fairness in re-evaluating the present proposed article, maybe by Tom Reedy showing us the changes he made after reading my suggestions. It's productive to discuss specifics. --Zweigenbaum ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zweigenbaum (talk • contribs) 16:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Presenting The Majority View In Accordance With Wikipedia Policy

Tom has called the authorship controversy a 'crank theory' and Nishidani has called it 'this ideological mania'. With that kind of bias on the part of two prominent editors of the SAQ article, it's small wonder that the lede paragraph strays from Wikipedia policy, and frames the issue in biased terms. The lede paragraph reads:

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him, and that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for reasons such as social rank, state security or gender could not safely take public credit. Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims.

Wikipedia policy states that the majority view must be presented as the majority view, and that the minority view must be presented in a fair and balanced manner. It goes without saying that the majority view must be defined as the view held by the Shakespeare establishment. It also goes without saying that the view of the Shakespeare establishment presented in the lede paragraph must be the current view held by the Shakespeare establishment (historical versions of it belong in the historical section of the SAQ article), so any sources cited in support in the lede paragraph must be less than a decade old.

Where is the presentation of the majority view in the lede paragraph? It's not there. The view of the Shakespeare establishment is that the true author of the Shakespeare canon is William Shakespeare of Stratford. That's it, pure and simple. And that is what should appear in the lede paragraph according to Wikipedia policy. Instead, the majority view is presented in terms of what the majority allegedly thinks of the minority view. Instead of presenting the majority view in terms of who the Shakespeare establishment thinks wrote the plays, the majority view is presented in terms of what Tom Reedy, David Kathman, Nishidani, Paul Barlow et al claim the Shakespeare establishment thinks of the minority view. But so far, Tom et al have not been able to substantiate their biased claim. They have threatened to produce countless numbers of statements from members of the Shakespeare establishment which support the way they have framed the issue in the lede paragraph, but they have been unable to cite members of the Shakespeare establishment as sources. Thus, the lede paragraph needs to be entirely rewritten so that it contains, in accordance with Wikipedia policy, a clear statement of the majority view, which is that the Shakespeare establishment thinks William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays. Their unsubstantiated claim concerning what the Shakespeare establishment allegedly thinks of the minority view needs to be entirely eliminated from the lede paragraph.NinaGreen (talk) 16:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Example 3 'but they have been unable to cite members of the Shakespeare establishment as sources.'

For the third time now, Nina. You asked us to whittle the list down, and produce a ranking Shakespearean scholar writing in the last decade on record as regarding your position as 'fringe'. I did so, with Peter Milward.

most scholars relegate these questioners to the lunatic fringe, and they will have nothing more to do with them.' (2008)' Peter Milward.

Now, with the evidence you requested produced, you repeat the accusation of 'inability to cite' and quietly sweep the evidence from Milward under the carpet. It's called shifting the goalposts, or stonewalling, or WP:IDONTLIKEIT. There is no point in continuing this conversation, since you refuse to collaborate intelligibly, stonewall or pretend not to notice when evidence you asked for is given, and twist policy in the face of several editors who have exercised considerable patience in trying to set your misapprehensions straight. Take it elsewhere. Nishidani (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, no goalposts are being moved, and no-one is being swept under the carpet, although there's definitely some stonewalling going on on your and Tom's part. As you mention above, I asked that you and Tom whittle the list down so that it didn't include sources more than a decade old and sources who aren't members of the Shakespeare establishment. Tom has stonewalled, and hasn't done anything. You've come up with Peter Milward, but haven't indicated whether that's the sole name left on the list as far as you're concerned. And so far neither of you has even identified the work by Milward which you're citing, nor produced the context of the citation so that it can be confirmed that Milward is endorsing that view and speaking for the Shakespeare establishment. I'm guessing that the quotation is perhaps from the chapter entitled "Catholic Shakespeare" in Milward's unpublished (and unfinished?) online autobiography, Genesis of an Octogenarian, but I have no way of confirming that, or of seeing the quotation in context, because the "Catholic Shakespeare" chapter can't be read online. There's a link to it through the Wikipedia article on Peter Milward, but the "Catholic Shakespeare" chapter appears in white type, and I can't find the quotation Tom has cited.NinaGreen (talk) 00:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

And nobody's going to give it to you either, you'll just have to find it for yourself, because those quotes were furnished merely to demonstrate that the depiction of the academic consensus about the SAQ was accurate and extremely mild compared to what is available to use from reliable sources. Indeed, plenty of academics have compared it to a mental illness, but as Nishidani informed you, in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines for WP:FRINGE we agreed to be less harsh in our description than most academics are. And there is no stonewalling; you're just not calling the shots about how I choose to spend my time. I figure that answering the same question four or five times should be enough. Where I come from we don't call that stonewalling. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, the point is that I don't need to find it. None of the quotes you've supplied indicates that 'the academic consensus about the SAQ was accurate and extremely mild compared to what is available to use from reliable sources'. Your quotes indicate exactly the opposite. Many of them are extremely out of date. Many of them are from people who are not academics at all. Many of them are from academics who are specialists in completely unrelated fields, and who cannot represent the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment. Some of them, when read in context, are actually critical of the way in which the Shakespeare establishment chokes off discussion of the authorship controversy (you haven't pointed that out, but it's true). The only quote Nishidani singled out as possibly proving your point, the one from the Jesuit Peter Milward, now turns out to be from an unpublished (and unfinished?) autobiography in which the relevant quotation cannot be found because some of the chapters, including the chapter "Catholic Shakespeare" in which it is likely to be found, are not currently online in a readable form. I also suspect that in context the quotation from Milward does not support your contention, which is why I think every editor of this page should read it for himself if he can find it. But I don't think anyone can find it. The end result is that you've disproved your contention in spades by citing all these examples of the use of the phrase 'lunatic fringe' which don't support your point in the slightest, because not a single one of them represents the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment on the authorship issue.NinaGreen (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" See if you can find that one. I doubt it, after reading over your above message. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Review of talkpage interactions, and article editing

Following a request at my talkpage I have been looking over this page, and also the edit history of the article. My first impressions is that the clean break I had hoped would result in the RfC relating to Smatprt (talk · contribs) and Nishidani (talk · contribs) and Tom Reedy (talk · contribs) preferred variant of the article content has failed to materialise.
There are still clear misunderstanding of the meanings of Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and its application to Wikipedia:Fringe, and seeming systematic Wikipedia:Disruptive editing and Wikipedia:Tendentious editing in an apparent effort to Wikipedia:Exhaust editors who hold views contrary to those advocating the adoption of a particular point of view as the NPOV position.

The WP:NPOV regarding the SAQ is that William of Stratford is the author of those works commonly attributed to Shakespeare - this is the consensus of not only the literary experts, but also that of the general literature world. There is some acknowledgement that there are some who question that consensus, including a very few well regarded opinionators on the subject, but that mostly these theories on who might otherwise been the author are disregarded or dismissed by mainstream academia. This results in a dearth of specific rebuttal (as against the proliferation of sources advocating a preferred candidate for the authorship, and those finding fault in the accredition for the Merchant of Avon). The lack of a wide ranging rebuttal or counter argument for those advocating a different individual as the "true Bard" does not give Oxfordian, Baconite, etc, advocates an enhanced standing but rather the opposite - as does the almost complete silence by world authorities on the premise that Atlantis really exists,and as a way station for UFO's; the mainstream does not respond because they see no reason to.

Another issue, not unrelated, is the constant demand for cites or sources for generalisations (I wonder how many people have placed cite tags in the preceding paragraph, and how many are now removing them...) regarding the NPOV/Consensus. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources" dictates that where there are theories that are either fringe or simply are the opposite of the majority or consensus viewpoint that they need to be well sourced - but commonly accepted theories or statements do not. Requiring a cite for every mention that William of Stratford is the true author is mendacious editing, and if it continues after a polite warning is grounds for sanction against persistent offenders.
Yet another apparent issue is the sheer volume of text that is generated, often by those who are attempting to change the article POV. Repeating a question because a previous answer was found not to be sufficient is poor form, repeating a question as an addendum to other questions that are being repeated might constitute tendentious editing. Repeating another editors question when (re)asking your own is simply disruptive. That sort of behaviour needs to stop. If the questions asked do not get the response the asker hopes for, and does not advance the change in consensus desired, then the problem lays with the question not addressing the status quo. Either drop the question, or reformulate it (shorter would be better, too) - and try to indicate that you understand the answers given; it is not necessary for either party to agree, but it is to acknowledge that a response has been made. Lastly, in among these blocks of texts are allegations upon the motivations and bias' of other editors, of actions made (or not made) by respondents. This needs to cease. Baiting comments, here or anywhere else, should be regarded as vandalism and treated accordingly. Accusations, without evidence, of contributors acting in any regard except for the betterment of the project will be treated as Wikipedia:No personal attacks violations, and again should be dealt with accordingly. The presumption of Wikipedia:Assume good faith does not permit a never ending cycle of challenge and reconfirmation - there comes a point when it should be noted that concerns have been noted and, where possible, addressed and the matter closed.

I had hoped that with the closure of the RfC involving Smatprt, Nishdani and Tom Reedy that that line had been drawn. The NPOV regarding Shakespeare and his authorship is that William of Stratford upon Avon is held as the writer. The premise of the Shakespeare Authorship Question is that there continues to be a fringe opinion that another individual is the author, that this is advanced both on suggested inadequacies for William of Stratford's assignment and potential better candidates for the title - but that mainstream and scholarly consensus rejects these theories. Under that understanding, it is possible to examine the claims against the Stratfordian consensus and those for the different alternatives within the article. Per NPOV it is not permissible to give the impression that any proposed alternative author has any standing in the wider world, or that the claim for William of Stratford is in any way compromised.

I really hope that people can get on with improving the article under that basis. If they cannot, then I will consider using the remedies available to ensure that those people are no longer able to disrupt these pages. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

LessHeard, thanks for your comments. I agree completely with what you have said above concerning the majority position, i.e. that the consensus in the Shakespeare establishment is that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare canon. If you read my comments in the section I added just above this one, that was precisely my point as well. In accordance with Wikipedia policy in Wikiproject Alternative Views, the majority position must be clearly presented as the majority position. But that is not what the lede paragraph does. Instead of stating the majority position as you have stated it, the lede paragraph presents the majority position in terms of what the majority allegedly thinks of the minority position. If the majority position were presented clearly, according to Wikipedia policy, as what the majority actually thinks of the issue itself, not in terms of what the majority thinks of the minority view, that would go a very long way towards clearing up the confused thinking which runs throughout the entire article.NinaGreen (talk) 16:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Oops. Nina, I just realised you have many times referred to "Wikipedia policy in WikiProject Alternative views", and quoting that project's self-description as "policy". Pity nobody enlightened you about that (or did they perhaps try?)*(see note below); I suppose it just seemed too far-fetched to register with people, as it was for me. Now, with the clue in my hand, I can see this notion of policy in relation to WikiProject Alternative views all over your posts above, for instance here, where you reverently quote a big chunk out of the project's statement and refer to it as what "Wikipedia itself" says. The distinction between policy and project (and between both of them and "Wikipedia itself") is a mile wide. I would note that carefully if I were you. WikiProjects, their self-introductions, and their choice of articles to put their template on, have no authority of any kind outside the WikiProject itself. None. Anybody can start a WikiProject, regardless of their qualifications and standing, and incorporate any article as being "within the scope" of them. What WikiProjects do is grade articles, according to more or less credible criteria (not a particularly useful activity IMO, but your mileage may vary). Some projects, mostly the big ones, have a good reputation; most projects do not. And they sure don't have any authority. There is nothing there that you can use to thwack Tom and others with, as you have attempted so many times to do with WikiProject Alternative views.

You're a new user, so of course I don't blame you for not being aware of the distinction between a project and a policy. But I find it hair-raising that you set yourself up as an authority on it, and on policy altogether. How can you suppose it remotely likely that you either know or understand policy better than people who have been editing here for years, digesting and practising the policies, learning to understand the spirit of them? That from the moment you arrived on this page, you have been ordained to lecture Tom, Paul, and Nishidani on Wikipedia policy? It's absurd on the face of it. Bishonen | talk 18:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC).

• Actually, just for the record, Tom did try, without success, to inform Nina of this crucial distinction, in his long reply on the 27th:'the Wikipedia Alternative Views project is not a policy.'Nishidani (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Bishonen, perhaps it was the word 'policy' in the statement which appeared when I clicked on Wikiproject Alternative Views' which mislead me:

Wikipedia's policy is to write articles from a neutral point of view describing not just the dominant view, but significant alternative views as well, fairly, proportionately, and without bias.

In any event, it makes no difference to the point I've made in the section above this one, or to my complete agreement with LessHeard that the majority view must be clearly presented as the majority view, which means that the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment must be clearly presented in the lede paragraph. As LessHeard clearly stated, the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment is (and always has been) that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays. That's what needs to be in the lede paragraph instead of the current statement, which pretends to put forward what the Shakespeare establishment currently and historically thinks of the minority view.

And I'm most emphatically not 'lecturing' anyone on policy (although I've been lectured and criticized and harped at on policy by virtually every administrator and editor of this page since I came on board as an editor, with no praise from anyone for the fact that I almost single-handedly edited the entire Edward de Vere article to the point that it could easily be put forward for peer review to be accorded FA status). I'm merely pointing out (and apologies for having to repeat myself, but you're forcing me to do it) that the lede paragraph does not present the majority view in terms of what the Shakespeare establishment actually thinks (as LessHeard said, that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare canon). Instead, it presents the majority view in terms of what editors on this page allege the Shakespeare establishment currently thinks of the alternative view. The allegation has not been substantiated, and cannot be substantiated in the face of Shapiro's Contested Will, the New York Times survey, Shapiro's statement in the LA Times interview that the authorship controversy has 'gone mainstream', the graduate program in authorship studies at Brunel University, the statement by Professor Russ McDonald, President of the Shakespeare Association of America, ('The SAA does not have 'an opinion' on the authorship question. Moreover, there is no ban on speaking or writing about that topic at our annual conference. Several so-called Oxfordians are members of the organization and have presented papers at that meeting') etc. That's the long and the short of it. Now all that remains is for someone to take the initiative and rewrite the lede paragraph to eliminate the confused thinking which permeates it, and which because of it extends to the rest of the article.NinaGreen (talk) 19:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

You may get a better understanding of how WP:FRINGE is applied by looking at Objections to evolution which discusses the scientific acceptance of evolution vs. the objectors. As you can see, the creationists get a pretty raw deal in that article, although their views are described. That is the standard treatment on Wikipedia for hundreds of topics like 9/11 conspiracy theories and Moon landing conspiracy theories and Bigfoot. If you still think there is a problem with the lead in this article, you should propose a change so something concrete can be discussed. As previously suggested, you could write a draft in this sandbox. Johnuniq (talk) 22:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Lede

Johnuniq, thanks for the comments, and for the suggestion that I write something up. How about this for the first paragraph, leading directly into the first sentence of the second paragraph:

The consensus of the Shakespeare establishment and the public at large is that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of the works traditionally attributed to him. However during the past 150 years a number of alternative authorship candidates have been put forward, and it is contended by some that Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for reasons such as social rank, state security or gender could not take public credit.

Scholars suggest that the controversy has its origins in Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare in the 18th century as the greatest writer of all time etc.

NinaGreen (talk) 23:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The last two sentences of the first paragraph need to stay as they are in order to provide context, otherwise I think it's good. Without those two sentences, the article risks sounding something like "Most people think x, but there's this new, brilliant theory that's quickly gaining ground that thinks y!" I think the mainstream view should have the final say in the first paragraph. Wrad (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrad, thanks for the suggestions. You wrote:

The last two sentences of the first paragraph need to stay as they are in order to provide context, otherwise I think it's good.

The last sentence in the current version of the SAQ article reads:

Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims.

The SAQ article can't say that 'all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a 'fringe belief' when Professor Russ McDonald, President of the Shakespeare Association of America, one of the largest organizations of Shakespeare scholars in the world, says that the SAA has 'no opinion' on the authorship controversy. Nor can the SAQ article say that Shakespeare scholars do nothing but rebut or disparage the authorship controversy when the President of the SAA says Oxfordians are members of the SAA and have presented papers at SAA meetings. The last sentence has to go.

You also wrote:

Without those two sentences, the article risks sounding something like "Most people think x, but there's this new, brilliant theory that's quickly gaining ground that thinks y!" I think the mainstream view should have the final say in the first paragraph.

How about this version? I've put the first sentence from the current online version back in, and reinforced the majority view again at the end, and for good measure, added the word 'true' in front of 'author'.

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him. During the past 150 years a number of alternative authorship candidates have been put forward. Proponents of these candidates contend that Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for reasons such as social rank, state security or gender could not take public credit. However the consensus view in the Shakespeare establishment and among the public at large is that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the true author of the works traditionally attributed to him.

The paragraph doesn't need any citations. No-one's going to challenge 'motherhood' statements of that nature.NinaGreen (talk) 05:22, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm reproducing the first three paragraphs of WP:LEDE here for comparison purposes:

The lead section (also known as the introduction, lead, or lede[1]) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of its most important aspects.

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first few sentences.

While consideration should be given to creating interest in reading more of the article, the lead nonetheless should not "tease" the reader by hinting at—but not explaining—important facts that will appear later in the article. The lead should contain no more than four paragraphs, must be carefully sourced as appropriate, and should be written in a clear, accessible style to invite a reading of the full article.

I've carefully reviewed my draft above to see whether it fully complies with WP:LEDE. I think it does, with one exception. It doesn't explain why the subject is 'interesting or notable'. The word 'notable' appears twice, and 'notability' once in the first three paragraphs of WP:LEDE. It thus seems that there should be something in my draft which would reflect Shapiro's comments on p. 4 of Contested Will:

Over time, and for all sorts of reasons, leading artists and intellectuals from all walks of life joined the ranks of the skeptics. I can think of little else that unites Henry James and Malcolm X, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller and Orson Welles, or Mark Twain and Sir Derek Jacobi.

How about this version, which now incorporates a statement as to 'why the subject is interesting or notable'?

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him. During the past 150 years a number of alternative authorship candidates have been put forward. Proponents of these candidates contend that Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for reasons such as social rank, state security or gender could not take public credit. Over time the controversy has attracted support from leading artists and intellectuals from all walks of life. [CITATION: SHAPIRO, P.4] However the consensus view in the Shakespeare establishment and among the public at large remains that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the true author of the works traditionally attributed to him.

NinaGreen (talk) 16:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have added that I would leave it at that, and delete the remaining three paragraphs of the current version of the lede in the SAQ article. The suggested paragraph above covers all the points which WP:LEDE requires be covered in a lede, and the remaining three paragraphs of the current lede all properly belong in the body of the article. The second paragraph of the current version belongs in the historical section, and the third and fourth paragraphs are comprised in the lede and already covered in extenso in the body of the article.NinaGreen (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that this version you have posted above is neutral and comprehensive and is a concise overview of the article?

In the current version "the idea has attracted much public interest" sufficiently establishes notability for the purpose of the lede. Tom Reedy (talk) 08:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The SAQ article can't say that 'all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a 'fringe belief' when Professor Russ McDonald, President of the Shakespeare Association of America, one of the largest organizations of Shakespeare scholars in the world, says that the SAA has 'no opinion' on the authorship controversy. Nor can the SAQ article say that Shakespeare scholars do nothing but rebut or disparage the authorship controversy when the President of the SAA says Oxfordians are members of the SAA and have presented papers at SAA meetings. The last sentence has to go.

You still haven't digested WP:RS. The lede can say whatever reliable sources tell us about the reception of the SAQ among Shakespeare scholars, regardless of your leap of logic from what McDonald told you. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:LEDE, WP:FRINGE, and WP:WEIGHT. Also Strunk and White: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." Tom Reedy (talk) 02:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Agree with Nina Green's formulation of the majority/minority issue. Zweigenbaum (talk) 03:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The correct terminology is academic/fringe. the SAQ is not a minority position, like Shakespeare's supposed Catholicism. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Academic and majority in this field amount to the same constituency. Minority and fringe are not identical terms, the first representational and the second derogatory toward its object. I consider this Green formulation an advance in neutral presentation of the issue, whatever the arcana utilized by the editors in favor of the traditional view. Zweigenbaum (talk) 07:26, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course you would think that the idea that Oxford was the son and lover of Queen Elizabeth was a "minority" view, just like the idea that Oxford wrote most of Elizabethan literature as Nina believes. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

[Zweigenbaum]] No way of telling if those notions are the minority view, until such a view is documented. The minority view referenced above is that someone other than Shakspere of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare canon; that can be documented, if not in quantitative number, in qualified scholarship and by statements from a range of informed and educated individuals over time. The theory, repeat theory, that Oxford was the lover to Elizabeth at one point has some, repeat some, inferential and textual support. The other notion is less developed as theory, the subject being culturally taboo as one factor why. What I or anyone 'believe(s)' has little to do with the probity of theories to be developed and evaluated. Theory is not fact. Theory is useful in gaining knowledge. Theory can lead to proof beyond a reasonable doubt when tested against available evidence. Charges about someone else's belief, like provisional theories, are subject to standards of proof. Lacking proof, the/your charges fail. Relax. Nobody's trying to put one over on you. Zweigenbaum (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)