Talk:Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship/GA1

GA Review
This review is transcluded from Talk:Baconian theory/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Will review the article in detail in due course. (Bodleyman (talk) 13:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC))

Here is my review, based on the six GA criteria:


 * It is well written: Yes
 * (a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; Yes
 * (b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation. Yes, there are a few instances of WTA, though
 * It is factually accurate and verifiable: Yes
 * (a) it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout; Yes
 * (b) at minimum, it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons; Yes
 * (c) it contains no original research. For the most part.
 * It is broad in its coverage: Yes
 * (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; Yes
 * (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). For the most part
 * It is neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias. '''Favors the theory too much, provides supporting commentary of presented evidence. "Criticism" section reads to much like a rebuttal.
 * It is stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Yes
 * It is illustrated, if possible, by images: Yes
 * (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; Yes
 * (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. Yes

I would not give this article GA status right now, but I would definitely after a little tidying up. Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 15:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The section on Tempest implied certainty as to the dependency of Strachey as a source. I softened the language a bit on this, and added in a counter argument used by other researchers who have argued for an earlier dating that was not Strachey related. Smatprt (talk) 01:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I also added one of the main Oxfordian arguments against Bacon (and Stratfordianism) into the criticism section. Again, this should help any balance issues being raised.Smatprt (talk) 01:13, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Finally,(also addressing the balance issue) I added a section after the lead describing the mainstream view about Shakespeare of Stratford.Smatprt (talk) 05:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Support After the revisions by Smatprt, the article is now balance and thus addresses my main concern. Any other of my concerns with hindsight are really to nit-picky, every article has a spelling/punctuation/grammar error slipped in there somewhere, no reason to not give it GA because of it. I'll see if I can find any minor errors. Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 14:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Review of Bodleyman

Well, I was going to suggest cutting the Criticisms section, a section which seems to me like an afterthought, expanding the lead, and adding some opposing views to the Baconian theory. But all this seems to have been done quite recently with a new Mainstream section giving the Stratfordian view, and one or two other alternative viewpoints. The article is well written, clear, and fully referenced. So, not being able to find significant objections, for me, this article ticks all the boxes for GA status. Being the nominee, I record these comments to assist in the development of the article and recognise that they do not contribute to the final decision on GA status. Bodleyman (talk) 13:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "Anyone who believes that Shakespeare of Stratford didn't write the work is a crank." These are the words of Professor Stanley Wells, Editor Oxford Shakespeare, and he should know better than any of us. The day a crank theory gets GA status is the day Wikipedia ceases to be a serious encyclopedia. This article should NOT get GA status. Felsommerfeld (talk) 15:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * GA status is based on how well th article is written, not whether or not you personally believe it to be a "crank theory". Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 15:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, that just confirms my view that Wikipedia is not a serious encyclopedia and, judging by some of the comments here, never will be. It's just a plaything for left-wing wannabees. Felsommerfeld (talk) 15:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you so despise un-serious, crank-theory promoting Wikipedia and its left-wing wannabe editors, you probably should either leave or try to make improvements instead of whining about how bad it is here. Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 16:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with us left-wing wallabies, then? Left Wing Wallaby (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of criticism section
I think it's a serious mistake to delete the criticism section, an omission that opens the article up to attack on various fronts. I know if I tried to delete the criticism section from Oxfordian theory, for example, that there would be serious objections - and I would agree. It seems to me that there should be 2 sections for proper balance: 1 on the mainstream Stratfordian theory (which I added) and one for critical reception to the Bacon Theory itself (which is now completely lacking). Without both sections, I would have a hard time seeing this article being taken seriously.Smatprt (talk) 05:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you read through this page, Bodleyman, Xover, Erik the Red, and myself oppose the Criticism section, at least two of us favouring replacement. Bodleyman sees it as a condition of gaining GA status. I'm afraid you do not have consensus. You and I both know that the only reason you want the Criticism section in, is to get your Oxfordian propaganda into the article, and perhaps to stop the Baconian article being rated above your Oxfordian one. I find you extremely controlling the way you've done this with the Shakespeare Authorship article and now the Baconian theory article. In case any editor here thinks I'm being harsh I invite them to take a look at the history of complaints against your methods. [] Puzzle Master (talk) 09:39, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah well, it appears Barry woke up with his happy face on :) . It's unfortunate that you are in attack mode once again. Let me respond briefly.  First, yes everyone, do look at the history of complaints, but please notice that over 2 dozen administrators were dragged into a silly attack and NOT ONE administrator found anything amiss in my edits.   Just because Barry the Baconian, a few of his friends and a couple of over-the-top Stratfordians disagreed with my support and participation of the Oxfordian and Authorship articles, they mounted an (unsuccssful) attack, repete with unfounded accusations of Sock Puppetry and the like.  Needless to say, there was no substance, thus no action taken. And the chief complainer ultimately apologized for making the initial complaint. Enough said on that...
 * Now to the subject at hand - Barry - please don't put words into the mouths of other editors. Xover did not oppose the criticism section, and Erik approved the article AFTER balance was achieved with the addition of Mainsteam and other criticisms. (For balance, I also added the Mainstream section to both the Oxfordian and Marlowvian articles). Now you and Bodleyman (both Baconians, I believe?) don't want any criticism of the Baconian Theory at all. Don't you see how this compromises the article you have worked so hard to create? Deleting criticism may be a handy way of making the Baconian Theory more acceptable, but at what cost? I will finish by saying that there is no consensus to remove that material and doing so gives credence to the charges of "conflict of interest" that currently appear on Barry's talk page. I imagine some ownership issues are also at play.Smatprt (talk) 15:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Normally I don't get involved in mud-slinging but inaccurate statements have been made against me which I have to respond to. I don't care who supports what theory. I'm not interested in war games. I think this is a good article and I think it deserves GA status. AndyJones first proposed the idea here. Does that make him a Baconian? Also I think the idea that I wanted the Criticisms removed because I don't like the Baconian theory criticised is not how I'd usually think about it. I just happen to agree with Erik's view that "the Criticisms section reads too much like a rebuttal". So I want to see the Stratfordian material elsewhere, and it ended up under "Mainstream", actually nearer the top of the article which is hardly hiding it! One thing I want to say to you Smatprt and I want you to go away and reflect on it. I see that you usually get agitated when your Oxfordian material is deleted or someone won't let you include it. I notice that you had put some of this in the Criticisms section before it got deleted. So I'd suggest that this is what you are really annoyed about. The rest of your points have nothing to do with me. Bodleyman (talk) 16:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I mis-identified you as a Baconian. My apologies. No AndyJones is not and I never implied he was. I agree that the criticism section needed work, but did you really mean that it needed to be deleted in whole? do you really think that makes the article better? Your suggestion is well taken, although inaccurate regarding my motivations (which really have nothing to do with the argument at hand, does it?). A side note - 2 independent reviewers easily understood the reasons behind my edits (balance and honest criticism) and thought it made the article better. Smatprt (talk) 19:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I'm sorry, but I don't recall having expressed an opinion on this particular point. Could you perhaps point me at the comment I've made that seems pertinent so I can see if I've perhaps expressed myself poorly or misunderstood the question?
 * As a general comment, since you brought up my name on the GA review, I'm superficially skeptical that this article currently meets the GA criteria (mainly due to the lede not being a summary of the article, and an impression that it has balance and NPOV issues); but I've refrained from comment since I haven't as yet thoroughly reviewed the article. --Xover (talk) 11:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't meet GA criteria and I'm glad there's someone here who knows the rules well enough to prove that it doesn't. Be careful not to base your review on the fact that it's a crank article or they won't take you seriously. Felsommerfeld (talk) 14:13, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I also believe the article needs more balance. A lot of people think these theories are absolutely nuts. Enough that I think they deserve a voice in articles like this. Wrad (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, if you think that then I suppose it's best we all think that. Felsommerfeld (talk) 13:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

PuzzleMaster/Barryispuzzled violations
It appears Barry is in attack mode once again and in violation of numerous rules. I added in several sections to the Bacon theory article, got thanked by Barry on my talk page, then attacked here and elsewhere. I'm not sure but is this the definition of passive/aggressive? :) The good news is that he and other editors actually thanked me for making the Bacon theory article more balanced and more eligible for GA. Regarding Barry's accusations on the Shakespeare authorship talk page, Barry is misleading everyone by saying my edits were against the recommendations of the reviewers. The independent reviewers are not part of Barry's 2-man consensus. Just check the talk page above see for yourself. And his attempt at banning me for daring to touch his article resulted in a quick and immediate "NO" from the first administrator he whined to. Dredging up similar attacks that resulted in numerous administrators denying action and chastising the complainers about deleting properly referenced material (my pet peev) is just a smokescreen and a method of bullying other editors away from "his" article. Same old... Smatprt (talk) 19:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Stephen, I don't need to be passive/aggressive. I have enough respect for others to tell them directly what problem I have with their behaviour. Please read below. Puzzle Master (talk) 20:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's called WP:Canvassing and it's a no-no. :) Wrad (talk) 19:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Puzzle Master Response to Criticisms
The first thing I wanted to say is that I could have chosen not to write this article. I didn't, and people can now get a reasonable idea why some people think Bacon did it, instead of believing that any opposition to Stratfordianism is the result of an oppressed childhood and a consequent desire to kick authority in the teeth!

I defy anyone to attempt to write this article by use of the internet alone because I found less than 5% of Baconian sites gave the sources for their "facts". It would have been easy to accept some of these claims without question, especially the one which maintained that Bacon had sent a letter to a friend mentioning the play Measure for Measure. I have never been able to trace the letter so I have never taken this "fact" seriously. Of course there were Baconian books but most of these were written 100 years ago and were so esoterically inclined that no sources were quoted in these either. So I've spent years searching through libraries in a desperate attempt to verify sources. The result is a body of research which I have called The Shakespeare Puzzle and without it the article would have been impossible to write.

The Shakespeare Puzzle
Over the lifetime of this article, some editors have been happy to believe that in some way, this article helps me profit from this book. This is sometimes framed as "Conflict of Interest". What interest? It's a free download and the cost of the paperback copy generates not a cent in profit. In fact, I've lost on the deal because I've spent hundreds of pounds of my own money on research and image copyright fees. Has it increased my personal fame? Certainly not on Wikipedia, and apart from a small facebook group, it hasn't anywhere else either. In fact, I can hereby declare that I had one agenda in writing the book and that is to save people the work that I went through. My agenda in writing the article is to save people downloading the book! For a long time I tried to get this book into the article as an external link for further research but it was repeatedly deleted. I gave up and took a break. But then months later I came back and someone had added it ... it wasn't me.
 * In the interest of full disclosure, I've brought up the Conflict of Interest and Self-Published Sources policies in regards to Barry's book (on his Talk page). The fact that he's the author creates a conflict of interest if he himself adds it as an external link or cites it in the article, and the fact that it's self-published means it isn't a Reliable Source under Wikipedia guidelines. It also falls afoul of the No Original Research policy. Which is a pity because it seems to be a comprehensively researched book, and being easily available would make it extremely convenient to cite (and for readers to look up further information in). Without having read it in detail I won't endorse it without qualifications — and I certainly won't be taken to favour the theory it presents! — but it is a substantial and relevant piece of work which I think would be a valuable addition to the relevant articles if someone without a Conflict of Interest were to add it (to the External Links section; WP:SPS prevents it being used as a WP:RS).
 * And to clarify: my bringing it up was not meant as an accusation of CoI Editing. --Xover (talk) 22:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Original research
Over the last two years, I've been accused of putting OR into the article. Well, it's true that I researched the issue myself. Do the arguments originate with me? There is no way of knowing and I'll explain why. At first glance, the Baconian theory appears as a series of unrelated but interesting coincidences which appear in various books and on particular websites. It's no theory at all, because no one has bothered to coordinate the facts. So in one constructive leap, I posited the idea that some of them pointed to Bacon's motive for writing the plays as being to complete the moral philosophy component of his Great Instauration project. Original research on my part? Yes! At least I thought it was ... but Michell had suggested this before me in 1998. So there lies the difficulty: to construct arguments worthy of an article one needs to bind facts together but in doing so it is difficult to verify whether or not someone has reached the same conclusion.

Criticisms section of article
I stated above that User:Xover was one of four people who "opposed" the Criticisms section. This was based on his statement "better present the Stratfordian view (because it is the mainstream view) in the general text, rather than focus it in the Criticisms section". Now there are two ways of interpreting "oppose" here: (1) part of the content of the Criticisms section is being opposed; (b) the existence of the Criticisms section is being opposed. I must have meant the former because if I had meant the latter then there would have been no point adding "at least two of us favouring replacement" which evidently refers to its existence. However, I'm willing to confess that I could have been clearer.


 * Ah, my bad. I didn't understand that was what you were referring to and worried I'd somehow given the impression I specifically wanted the section deleted with no qualification. --Xover (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

A humble suggestion...
Hi all,

The GA review process is supposed to be a way to recognize the good articles produced by the many tireless editors on Wikipedia, and an excellent opportunity to further improve and refine already substantial quality articles. Yet somehow we seem to have got off to a bad start and taken a side track into critique of other Editors and their actions rather than the article itself. I'm sure I'm as much to blame for this as anyone so I don't want anyone to take this as an accusation!

This current bickering (if I can phrase it thus without implying insult to anyone here) doesn't seem to be furthering the goal of improving the article, nor of getting it to GA. In fact, the ongoing debate and tendencies to edit warring are of themselves cause to fail the article under the Good Article Criteria (see Criteria #5)!

So I would like to propose that we 1) ask the reviewer to fail the article, 2) take a short break to cool off, 3) pick up the ball on the main Talk page with the defined goal of making the article the best we can make it (within the constraints of our abilities and Wikipedia's policies), and 4) put it up for GA again when we've resolved all the points of contention (possibly by some of us swallowing a camel here and there).

In particular, I think if we approach point #3 with a determination to treat each other with respect, assume good faith, and be prepared to both compromise when compromise is needed as well as backing our point of view up with good, objective, reasoning; then we can have an article that will pass GA with flying colors in no time.

So far only one editor has suggested the article be deleted, and since he has so far not followed Wikipedia's procedures for getting an article deleted this suggestion can be taken as exactly that: one editor's suggestion. Everyone else involved genuinely want to improve the article, they only differ in their opinions on how best to do that. If we approach the task with the assumption that everyone genuinely wants to improve the article and the will to discuss how best to do that, not to mention the fortitude to bow to consensus even when it doesn't suit us, I'm quite convinced we can have an article on Baconian theory that everyone finds acceptable and ready for GA. --Xover (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Let's fail it. Puzzle Master (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Baconian theory rewrite
Following Felsommerfeld's suggestion I tried unsuccessfully to delete the article FOUR times. Didn't work. I think some administrator kept restoring it. I had to apologise to him for keeping him away from his computer game. OK, then, one of you dudes has got to rewrite it. Few guidelines to help.


 * (1) Don't take any material from The Shakespeare Puzzle which is an unreliable source. I'm afraid that means cutting 90% of the previous version but we all know it's nonsense anyway. Xover is best placed to advise when you've inadvertently lifted something from it.
 * (2) Try to put near the top of the article "The Oxfordian theory is the most popular theory so you might as well go straight there instead of wasting any more time reading this one." Smatprt will advise on exact location.
 * (3) It needs a decent selection of Baconian anagrams in it. I've come up with one. ID? TO SIX RAW FOOD, NA (couldn't think what to do with NA). I'll let you in on the secret - it translates as OXFORD WAS AN IDIOT. There might be other interpretations but don't worry, people are only interested in the amusing ones. See AndyJones if you get stuck for ideas.
 * (4) If someone tries to edit war on the article see Wrad. He'll blame you for the problem but that's OK. It's just his way of making the aggressor think that he's got a friend so that he'll stop. It nearly worked when Neville Chamberlaine met Hitler ("Peace in our time") but Chamberlaine made the error of commenting that the Volkswagen looked like a tin can on wheels.

As for me, I'm on holiday for the next 10 days so I won't be around to scoff at your efforts but I promise I'll join in on the collective bashing when I return. Enjoy! Puzzle Master (talk) 07:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Four times?! I knew you'd see sense in the end. No hard feelings. Actually, it's not a bad article now that I've read it. Sir, let me buy you a beer! Felsommerfeld (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Last Will and Testament
Right, Xover has almost succeeded in getting me banned so I'm typing this fast before I'm history. I think this is a first class article. I spent years researching it and I defy ANYONE to do a better job writing it. But I know there are people waiting in the wings with hidden agendas to shape it their way. Smatprt (see history) who couldn't wait after I'd announced I was going on holiday to get his Oxfordian links in the article. Xover who came here when it went to GA nomination pretending he wanted to help but (I believe) wants a substantial Stratfordian contribution. I went to the Wiki administrator's noticeboard for help. NO ONE responded. There's no way in all this anarchy that this article can be defended (and I'm the ONLY Baconian here!) without other users. So I invented Felsommerfeld and Bodleyman. The GA nomination was the biggest mistake I made here. It really created a focus of attention that was never going to be favourable. Right, so what options are left because I know the article is basically finished as a quality article. I attack it myself hoping they'll lock it down. Partial success, but that's it for me here ... no more ideas left ... exhausted every avenue to protect the quality of this article. As someone said on the William Shakespeare forum "there are no academic standards here, the bad chase away the good". See ya! P.S. Watch Smatprt, he's itching to move in with his Oxfordian links and slants. Puzzle Master (talk) 17:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)