Talk:Black Diaries

Word to watch
From Manual of Style/Words to watch: "There are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia, but certain expressions should be used with care, because they may introduce bias." I used the word "purported" with care, because although it can imply that the fact of the authorship is inaccurate, it is the least biased wording for a sentence that cannot avoid some sort of bias. To say they "were written" would be POV, because it disregards the possibility that they were forged. To say they are "purported to have been written" is potentially POV, but not as blatantly POV as "claimed to have been written" which, as the MOS says, "calls the statement's credibility into question, by emphasizing any potential contradiction or implying a disregard for evidence." To say they were written "according to the British Government" is a particularly silly POV, which implies that nobody other than the British Government (which British Government - Cameron's or Asquith's?) holds that view. "Purported" is the least contentious word in the circumstances. It is a "word to watch", but due regard has been given to that fact. Scolaire (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I for one would not accept that the "purported" approach is less tendentious than the "claimed" formulation. As to "silliness" in purportedly suggesting that perhaps "only" the British government took this view, you pass over the point that I included (and you removed) a statement that some scholars had taken the same view and others had not.  Regarding Asquith versus Cameron, if you fear that other users might share your conceptual difficulty here, I suppose we could insert a phrase like "at the time".   But rather than get into an edit war with you over this, which I fear would be a singularly joyless exercise, I would be happy to let other users take a crack at alternative formulations.  Nandt1 (talk) 03:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I am happy to do that too. Scolaire (talk) 06:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Alleged
The intro refers to the "diaries purported to have been written by the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement". There is no real doubt. The lede should omit the "purported to have been".203.80.61.102 (talk) 21:43, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a 100-year-old controversy about whether the diaries are genuine. Angus Mitchell threw serious doubt on the question in History Ireland in July/August 2016. "Purported" is still correct. Scolaire (talk) 12:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Looking at this page, there are other academics who have argued for and against the diaries, and they should all be mentioned here. The matter first arose in 1936, so it's not quite a "100-year-old controversy". I've added the initial offer of entering the diaries as evidence in Casement's trial, as this is proof both of his repudiation of them, and of the prosecution's effort to avoid hanging him.78.16.49.62 (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Timing of the diaries, if forged
Casement was arrested on 21 April, and his trial started on 8 June, when the diaries were offered to the defence to allow a charge of "guilty but insane". This left a putative forger about 50 days to plan, prepare and forge fakes that even included up-country Congolese native-language terms. This was either deeply impressive or highly unlikely.78.16.57.224 (talk) 09:53, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Casement himself, who was in a position to know, did not disown the diaries or dispute their authenticity, even though it would very much have been in his interests to do so. He evidently felt he could not deny that they were his. The forgery theory was invented twenty years later by Dr William Maloney, who was something of a crank and just made it up. His bizarre claim was that Casement had laboriously copied out another man's diary in his own hand. It's not a theory worth bothering with, and nor is the idea that anyone at Scotland Yard or MI5 could have created the text to order, obscure Congolese slang and all, in handwriting indistinguishable from Casement's, or that they would even have thought of doing so. The diaries were only publicised because they were genuine and Casement couldn't plausibly deny it, as Casement seems to have recognised. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:46, 6 March 2022 (UTC)