Talk:Benson, Vermont

Untitled
Hey all, I'm the WikiProject Cities assessor of this article. If feedback is what you want and need, come to my talk page and give me a holler! --Starstriker7(Dime algoor see my works) 03:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

citations?
With a quick bit of research I could find no reference to these men, either as individuals or as people notable for these reasons. Please include citations if you'd like to put them back in the Benson article. Thanks. Jessamyn (talk) 09:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * John Trutor, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army; inventor of the Flitch-Arie and the Fork-O.
 * Kenyon King, notorious Swordsmith.

Jessamyn: I don't mean to be impolite but you obviously are not from Benson and you haven't done your homework. To eliminate these people and the hundred more we intend on adding to Notables will likely further demonstrate my two points above. For example, please view the newly erected Veterans of War monument in front of the Town Offices to find the already mentioned Notables. More to follow. Babybazzer

Dear Jessamyn: I have to side with Babybazzer. You are clearly not a Bensonite. If you were a member of the community you would know these figures in the same way a native of Massachusetts would know the Kennedys. Sincerely, Bensonite


 * I don't mean to be impolite either. Is there some sort of reference either in print or online that indicates who these men are? I am sure you have the best of intentions, but information need to be in some way verifiable so that we can separate solid information from vandalism and jokes. If you want to take a photo of the monument, please do so. Jessamyn (talk) 20:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

We? Who is we? You are certainly not we. Quit taking yourself so seriously with your pretenses of Jimbo Wales above-the-fray objectivity. Who says we "need" to do anything; this is wiki-fucking-pedia not the Talmud. Sincerely, Bensonite


 * Citing sources is official policy. You're welcome to add information without citation, but it may be challenged and/or removed. It's got nothing to do with me one way or the other, I've just been helping maintain most of the Vermont town pages; trying to make sure that information is sourced and cited is one of the things I do. Jessamyn (talk) 03:26, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Jessamyn, you are doing nothing to maintain this site. Your Buchenwald-style objectivity is a menace. Wikipedia sucks because of people like you. Wikipedia is purported to be a democratic institution. The self-appointed Guardian Class which has come to rule this website has turned it into a Junior Varsity Encyclopedia Britannica. Sincerely, Bensonite

Notable People
Hi guys - I've reverted a couple of edits, and it's time for me chime in. I added the sections on "notable residents" for all of the VT towns, and it's been really interesting to find out that a cartoonist or a musician comes from my town, not to mention listing all of the interesting people that have passed through Burlington. I'm glad that you want to add more people from Benson, but until you have sources, or explanation, your contributions will keep being deleted, so come on! Add someone interesting - better yet, add someone real :-) H0n0r 21:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

You are typical out-of-stater, a Redfield Proctor or a Richard Snelling, who comes to the Green Mountain State and tries to enforce his cosmopolitan will, his sense of fairness and objectivity upon the communities of Vermont. Every real Vermonter detests the arrogance of people like you. You do not own Vermont and you do not own Wikipedia. I am going to keep putting these people back in as long as you keep taking them out. Sincerely, Bensonite.

Vermont Historical Society
We have no Wiki account, but here at the Vermont Historical Society we were laughing at the inaccuracies of this page. We've deleted the entire article in hopes someone will rebuild it with cited sources.

Michaelcuddyer, et al.
The edits made to this page by User:Michaelcuddyer and several other users are intentional vandalism by someone with whom I have spoken. I am reverting to the first version of the article before he contributed. He has also made use of sock puppet accounts to achieve supposed consensus.

It also appears he is intentionally citing obscure sources (e.g., Time Magazine, April 20, 1962 -- | its archive page doesn't mention Benson, VT; The "June 1956" issue of Variety, which is a weekly publication; and seemingly unobtainable books like "The Natural and Political History of the State of Vermont, Vermont Historical Society, Collections"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Llamapalooza87 (talk • contribs) 06:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Clean-up based on sources
Someone recently reinstated the aforementioned edits on the grounds that they are not "entirely" vandalism; however, I believe that most or all of the edits in question are fallacious and based on fake citations. However, I will only remove the parts whose sources are clearly faulty.

Source 3: The Vermont Encyclopedia's entry on Benson (|Available on Google Book Search) appears to support the first paragraph of the History section, but not the second––it makes no mention of the hotel in question. Thus, I am removing Paragraph 2.

Source 4: I am unable to find the text of this Flexner's The Traitor and the Spy. It may or may not be a legitimate source, but judging from the many other sources in question, I rather doubt it. In any case, I'll add a verify source tag for now.

Source 5: This book is only 179 pages long. Therefore, the pages cited––in the 400s––don't exist, and I'm removing this section.

There are then 3 uncited paragraphs; I am moving them here until verifiable sources can be provided:
 * During the 1780s, Germans were forcibly removed from their surrounding farms and forced into the town center. Here, they prospered, turning Benson into a center of culture and learning for Western Rutland County. By the end of the 19th century, Benson's public schooling system was among the finest in the nation, according to Harper's Weekly's June 12, 1895 edition.
 * Benson was a center of local brewing from the Gilded Age to Prohibition. German inhabitants grew barley and hops thanks to sharecropping arrangements with local farmers. What started out as home brewing evolved into a vibrant culture of craft brewing, operating out of a makeshift brewery high on the town hill. People from the surrounding communities as well as travelers often stopped in town at the local taverns to sample a variety of beers ranging from simple Lager to more exotic beers like Hefeweizen, Doppelbock and Märzen. With the passage of the 19th Amendment, riotous teetotalers from the countryside burned the brewery to the ground, killing a small child that attempted to hide from the flames in a horse stall.
 * The First World War stirred up the old resentments and rivalries between the Germans and other Bensonites, and several incidents of violence marred an otherwise peaceful decade.

Source 6: The Benson Town Museum, which conveniently is located far away from most editors, has no website, and doesn't even have an email address. I highly doubt that they even have an exhibit on Ulrich Spiegel, if he's even a real person. But in the interest of fairness, I'll mark it as needing verification rather than deleting it outright.

The town of Benson website is www.benson-vt.com, there is also a page for the museum. The curator is the elderly wife of John Trutor, Ms Genevieve Willamson Trutor.

I would be happy to try and find validation for any questions you may have. I serve as webmaster for the town's website, and I'm also a member of the Selectboard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Farquarh (talk • contribs) 19:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Then there's another uncited paragraph:
 * With the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Germany in 1941, hundreds of Germans were removed from their houses, which were then occupied by Bensonites, and continue to be used to this day by non-German families.

Source 7: I mentioned this above; Variety is a weekly publication; there is no "June" issue. Removing this section.

Source 8: Time Magazine's archives are viewable online. For the issue in question, | its archive page doesn't mention Benson, VT. Removing this section.

That should pretty much clean up the history section. Because so much of this is clear vandalism/unverifiable once you take a look at the sources, I'm going to remove the ones tagged "verification needed" in a week or so unless someone can verify them.

--llamapalooza87 (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Tagged this and a related article created by the same user (Benson Volunteer Fire Department) as a possible hoax. Added citation needed tags to other sketchy parts of the article. --llamapalooza87 (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * When I read "vandalism", I don't generally think of addition of not-necessarily-obviously fallacious material. I don't (obviously :-) want to see wrong or unreferenced bits included, but I restored it because it appeared to have sources and because I didn't understand what was meant by "vandal edits". Sorry for the confusion. Nyttend (talk) 22:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, I see. Yeah, the way he seems to be using fake sources, it seems like he's intentionally putting misinformation in, but it's not really obviously vandalism. I tagged it as a hoax later, which seems like a more appropriate tag. --llamapalooza87 (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed Harry Snyder from list of people from Benson, see discussion on Talk:Harry Snyder for reasoning.--llamapalooza87 (talk) 03:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

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