Talk:1794 Treason Trials

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

AE vs. BE
American spellings should not be used in an article such as this.


 * Please see WP:ENGVAR. The primary editor's spelling should remain in an article. Since I am the primary editor (I created the page, wrote all of the text and cited all of the reliable sources), I would appreciate it if we could leave the page as it is. I plan to continue expanding it and I write in AE, therefore any attempts to change the dialect would only hinder my expansion of the article. Please also realize that the logic for writing pages in BE or AE is flawed. I don't see anyone making arguments for Chaucer's page being in Middle English. To argue that it should be in BE because Chaucer spoke BE or was British is fallacious. He didn't speak modern BE (it didn't exist then) and he wasn't British (there was no Britain). If you want to see all of my arguments regarding this issue, please see the Wollstonecraft talk page and the Barbauld talk page. I also suggest that the dialect enforcers stop this nonsensical campaign. If these articles had to be written in BE, I would never have written them and they would still be miserable stubs or even non-existent. Thanks. (Please sign your post with four tildas ~ .) Awadewit | talk  09:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Whether the logic is flawed or not, the use of American spellings in this case does appear to be counter to Wikipedia's policy in that the article has strong ties to Britain.


 * It is not counter to wikipedia's policies:
 * From WP:ENGVAR: "In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic."


 * "...unless there is reason to change it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic."

seems to be the operative part of the sentence in this case, so the article as it stands would appear to be contrary to the rules.


 * The article shows strong ties to eighteenth-century Birmingham. I welcome you to change the dialect to an eighteenth-century Birmingham dialect. Awadewit | talk  11:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oy cun dow thees if yow want but it moyt be a beet toyersome for yow to read loike.
 * I have no trouble following it. Do you think the article should reflect the speech of the lower-class rioters or the middle-class victims, though? Dialects in BE, as you know, are class markers. Which one should the article use? Awadewit | talk  12:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * To do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, the article should be written in Standard English, which is of course the language that all native English-speakers recognise as such and readily understand. This article, despite a few errors here and there, was clearly written with that objective in mind.

Having said that, the spelling system employed should reflect the cultural sensitivities of the country to which the events described relate. Or to put it another way, if I were to write a Wikipedia article about colonial New York or the music of Chicago, I would not be surprised to see my spellings converted to the American standard in very short order, nor would I be inclined to complain about it.


 * If you wrote the bulk of the article, I would respect your dialect and expect my own additions to be changed. I am sorry that this attitude is not more common. Awadewit | talk  02:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as dialects are concerned, I am not sure whether you mean regional variations in vocabulary and grammar, or accent. Possibly you mean all of those things. I can tell you that regional accents are generally no longer considered to be class indicators in this country. You only need to listen to a BBC broadcast to hear announcers, interviewees and personalities speaking with every type of British regional accent and with accents from all over the world, including North America. But what these people have in common is the ability to speak in Standard English, the lingua franca of the Anglophone world. However, variations in vocabulary and grammar and an inability to converse in Standard English might be a basis on which to classify people as uneducated.


 * I do mean all of those things. That is precisely the problem. The idea of the policy is to respect linguistic differences, but it doesn't really do that (as I pointed out in my Chaucer example). The class issue is another good example. I am not going to debate whether dialect marks Britons now (although there are strong arguments in favor of that claim), but it certainly did in the eighteenth century. If the article were really to respect the actors in this article, it should be written in both middle-class eighteenth-century Birmingham English and lower-class eighteenth-century Birmingham English. Unfortunately, that is not possible as it would only confuse readers. That is why I feel that the most practical solution should be applied: editors should write in their own dialect. If another editor came along and substantially expanded and rewrote this article in BE, I would accept that, but to insist on a change simply for the sake of change is not practical. Awadewit | talk  02:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative venture so you can expect that people will edit your work.
 * I would welcome both substantive contributions to the page as well as copy editing. I welcome you to research the topic and help me out. (Please sign your posts as a courtesy to other editors.) Awadewit | talk  11:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

See Also/Radicalism link
Wouldn't it be better to link directly from the lead to Radicalism (historical) (from some part of "the British radical movement of the 1790s" for example), rather than relegating it to a "See also". Doesn't the manual of Style suggest such sections should generally be avoided in favour of integrating the links into the article content? David Underdown 15:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. I just stumbled across the page while I was posting sections today and I wanted to remind myself of it. I haven't even thought about where to link it yet since much of this article is so new. Do you have a suggestion? Awadewit | talk  15:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well as I said, something like the British radical movement of the 1790s, depending just how much of that bit of text you feel needs to be in the link. I just wanted to make sure you didn't haev some definite reason for not linking really, or I'd have done it straight away.  Could even go straight to the UK section of the (radicalism) article, but the background would probably be useful to people, and the UK bit's the first thing after the lead anyway.  Now I'll leave you to it before this Brit is tempted to dive into the spelling question... David Underdown 16:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize that exact phrase was in the article - I will go find it now. Do you want to work on this article with me? I just added a lot of texts to the bibliography and I despair of having time to read them all since I am busy writing my dissertation and writing other wikipedia pages. I would gladly capitulate on the BE question if it meant I had another editor to work with~ :) Awadewit | talk  16:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really have the knowledge, I think I only came here because I saw your comments to Geogre on his talkpage, and I've read a few novels set in the period and thought I'd pick up a bit of background knowledge. Besides, with The Proms about to kick off, I'll be a bit short of time for the next couple of months.  David Underdown 16:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds wonderful. Awadewit | talk  16:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Gillray print date
As far as I know, there were meetings in Copenhagen Fields in October and in November 1795. For John Gale Jones, I'd be interested to know of anything dating this print more accurately. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:29, 17 January 2012 (UTC)