Draft talk:Pen (Jamaican cattle farm)

I have moved this to draft as the only source is a master thesis, not a reliable source (a master thesis is basically self-published, by someone who isn't yet an authority; I haven't found evidence that the author is an established historian, or that the thesis has been used as an authoritative text afterwards. Fram (talk) 14:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thesis approved in 1985, with three signatures from Department of History, College of William and Mary in Virginia, see "Approval Sheet, p.ii. It is a valid source, with academic oversight. See "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The  author wishes to thank Professor Philip Morgan, who guided this research from start to finish, for his many helpful comments and  especially for allowing me to use the Thistlewood diary. The  author is  also  indebted to Professor Judith Ewell and Professor James P. Whittenburg for their reading and  criticism of the manuscript". We had an edit conflict, I posted further text to the original page after you had moved it to draft, so it's looking a bit messy now. Reliable sources states: "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people". I think the source meets "published materials with a reliable publication process". Reliable sources states: "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence", "significant scholarly influence" I suggest includes "Professor Judith Ewell and Professor James P. Whittenburg ... for their reading and  criticism of the manuscript .....Professor Philip Morgan, who guided this research from start to finish, for his many helpful comments", that is certainly "scholarly" (a successful candidate for MA is certainly a "scholar") and not insignificant. A single source is not ideal, but surely does not disbar publication in mainspace? This is effectively a stub article, we have to start somewhere.Lobsterthermidor (talk) 15:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:SCHOLARSHIP, which states "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." (and contrasts it to doctoral theses, which are more accepted). Like I said, I haven't seen any indication that this thesis had ay (never mind significant) cholarly influence, e.g. it is not, as far as I know, ever used as a reference in scholarly journal articles, history books, ... Fram (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not clear what "scholarly influence" demands. The work was submitted by a "scholar" and was overseen by 3 professors. "Guided this research from start to finish" surely qualifies as "influence" and is "significant". That is surely "scholarly influence"?Lobsterthermidor (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, no. That it was influenced by anything or anyone is not really relevant for us. A thesis which has not been picked up by any authoritative source afterwards is not considered a reliable source by anyone else (perhaps because they simply don't know it, I'm not trying to slam the actual contents or writer here), and then not by us. We can ask for clarification at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources about this point if you prefer. Fram (talk) 16:44, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * OK I think what the guideline means is "shown to have exerted significant scholarly influence". That might be hard to prove. This is possibly not a mainstream topic which will generate many academic spin-offs. But is the text really controversial enough to be worrying too much about "reliability" - i.e beyond a basic level? I would suggest it's more "reliable" than many books published by non-academics, with zero academic oversight, which are usually accepted by wikipedia. It's a published piece of work overseen by 3 professors. It's really just background material, not propounding anything ground-breaking. I'm guessing the guideline is there to resolve a dispute where a really controversial theory is proposed.Lobsterthermidor (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm deleting the disputed text and starting from scratch with new sources, which I hope will be more acceptable, in the article Pen (Jamaican cattle farm) which I added to during the edit conflict as I mentioned above. Hope that's OK.Lobsterthermidor (talk) 17:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)