Talk:Ian Fleming/Archive 3

Failure to reach consensus on Mincemeat
As per the very long and unpleasant conversation above, SchroCat and I have an outstanding disgreement on a sentence in this article, and we have failed to reach consensus, with SchroCat withdrawing from the conversation. However, the sentence still stands in the article and I don't think it's fair that simply on SchroCat's say-so it remains there, especially as they have withdrawn from trying to reach a consensus in a discussion they demanded I have on this, and because this is a simple edit to an inaccuracy. I tried to ask for a way forward on consensus on their own Talk page, but they were spectacularly unhelpful and then deleted the conversation.

The contentious statement in the article is in the second paragraph:

'While working in British naval intelligence during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in the planning stages of Operation Mincemeat and Operation Golden Eye.'

I removed Operation Mincemeat in this sentence, and SchroCat reverted it. Their sources for believing Fleming was involved are:

Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett, 1996, which states: 'Ian assisted in one of the Navy's most elaborate hoaxes ever, The Man Who Never Was.' And James Bond: The Man And His World by Henry Chancellor, 2005, which states: 'This operation, in which Ian assisted, involved floating a corpse with a briefcase containing misleading intelligence documents off a submarine near the Spanish coast.'

Ordinarily, I would agree that on matters of Ian Fleming these two books are excellent sources. But nobody is perfect, and on this particular point I think both were wrong, and they have been superceded. Neither author gave any details for how Fleming assisted this operation, or a source for the claim. But there are several full-length books about the operation, and none of them mention Ian Fleming as being involved in the planning or assisting of it. There are two books about the operation that are widely considered authoritative, and both are fully sourced and go into extraordinary detail about how it was devised, planned and carried out. These are Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat by Denis Smyth (OUP Oxford, 2010) and Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre (Bloomsbury, 2010). There have also been several documentaries about the operation, including The Man Who Hoodwinked Hitler, made by the BBC in 2004. I think the level of detail in all these accounts suggests that if Ian Fleming had been involved in assisting or planning this operation, at least one of them would mention it. But none of them do.

So I think in weighing these sources, it is common sense that the better sources on this very precise question are the full-length accounts of the operation, not passing mentions in two books about Fleming's life.

I've spent an absurd amount of time on this already thanks to SchroCat challenging me on this, but I'm not comfortable with having edited out this inaccuracy only for it to remain there because another editor feels these sources outweigh several full-length accounts. SchroCat has withdrawn from the conversation, but this statement is still in the article. So I will now remove the reference to Operation Mincemeat from the second paragraph - if anyone who has not withdrawn from the discussion has any objections, please do not just revert it, but first explain why you think it should be in the article here. Thank you. Jeremy Duns (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Schrocat has now reverted this, stating I need to get consensus first. And yet, they have withdrawn from the conversation about consensus. So how can I get consensus from someone who has withdrawn from the conversation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremy Duns (talk • contribs) 16:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

'Mister Shiney' has reverted it, too, sayign it is a 'questionable change' while the discussion is ongoing. Where is the discussion ongoing? ShcroCat has withdrawn from it so I cannot possibly get their agreement, can I? How is it a questionable edit? That's a bad faith judgement. There is no citation for this sentence. Please provide evidence from a single credible full-length source about Operation Mincemeat that Ian Fleming was involved in planning it. Jeremy Duns (talk) 17:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Betty! The article currently has no source cited for the claim that Ian Fleming was involved in the planning of Operation Mincemeat. I removed it because not a single credible long-form account of the operation mentions him as being involved in it. SchroCat reverted and did indeed say that he would come up with some sources. But later in the conversation he did find them, and they are the two I quote above, Henry Chancellor and Andrew Lycett. They say what I quoted them above as saying. If you want the fullest citations, Lycett states, on page 147: 'In a related ruse later in the year, Ian assisted in one of the Navy's most elaborate hoaxes ever, The Man Who Never Was. Brilliantly executed by Ian's Room 39 colleague Ewen Montagu, this exploit, which was later filmed, required the Germans to believe that the body of a sailor washed up on the Spanish shore carried valuable operation infiormaton about an impending Allied invasion in the eastern Mediterranen' Chancellor states (p29), after a pre-amble about the (unnamed) Trout Memo from 1939: 'This operation, in which Ian assisted, involved floating a corpse with a briefcase containing misleading intelligence documents off a submarine near the Spanish coast.' It seems likely to me that Chancellor's source was Lycett, incidentally, but that's by the by.
 * It is not unusual for accounts of historical fact to contradict each other, especially when dealing with intelligence work. If Fleming's involvement in Mincemeat is not conclusive, then perhaps the wording should reflect that, but it would be helpful to know exactly what the article sources say about Mincemeat. I see SchroCat has made the offer above to dig them out, so let's just give him some breathing space and see what he comes up with, and in the meantime hold off from on the reverting, which will only lead to the article being locked up. Betty Logan (talk) 17:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

But these are two books about Fleming. There have been numerous books about Operation Mincemeat, and common sense says that a full-length account of Mincemeat is a better source for what happened in the operation than a full-length account of Ian Fleming's life. Deathly Deception by Smyth, Operation Mincemeat by Macintyre, The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu and several documentaries have explored Operation Mincemeat in enormous detail - much more than Lycett or Chancellor. Not a single credible full-length account of the operation mentions Ian Fleming as assisting in it or planning it. Surely you can agree that they are unlikely all to have missed this rather famous writer being involved in planning it if he really was? Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Close! The article originally stated as fact the following three things:
 * This is way outside my knowledge area, and I am neither an expert on Fleming or intelligence history but let me see if I have got this straight. There are several Fleming sources that claim he assisted in Operation Mincemeat, but the more in-depth accounts of the operation don't touch on his participation? Mincemeat was organized by Fleming's colleague, Ewen Montague, and the plan bore a resemblance to an idea that was put forward in Trout memo, which historian Ben McIntyre believes was written by Fleming? So it's a reasonable assumption he may have inspired the operation or even made suggestions given his proximity to the operation, but no substantive analyis does comfirm his participation? Betty Logan (talk) 18:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

1. Ian Fleming was involved in planning Mincemeat. 2. Fleming wrote most of the Trout Memo. 3. The Trout Memo inspired Mincemeat.

I changed all of these. The source for 2 and 3 was given as Macintyre's book, and that is the source - but he doesn't quite say that. He says that the memo was signed by Godfrey and speculates from the style - without offering proof - that it was written by Fleming. He then spends the rest of the chapter showing how that broad idea of a deception operation using planted documents on a corpse was very well known in intelligence circles at the time, and had been used before. It was known as the 'haversack ruse'. He also explains how Cholmondoley was inspired to come up with the precise idea of the operation after a genuine seaplane crash near Cadiz. So I changed the article to reflect all this. I also removed the reference to Fleming being involved in planning Mincemeat, because there's no credible evidence for it in accounts on the operation.

ShroCat reverted all this and insisted we have a consensus discussion here. He eventually conceded on points 2 and 3 and reverted them so they read as they are now. But he refused to back down on point 1, and withdrew from the conversation. It's not quite that 'several Fleming sources' claim he assisted in the operation. Two do, and they do in a very passing way, in a single sentence in each case, with no elaboration as to what his role might have been or what the source for this assertion is. And yes, of coruse it is plausible that Ian Fleming could have been involved in such an operation. But that doesn't mean he was, or that we state he was. Macintyre's book was published in 2010, so after the other sources, but Macintyre is himself a Fleming expert, having written For Your Eyes Only in 2008. In that 2008 book he speculated, in passing, that Fleming could have been involved in the operation tangentially. Two years later he published a full-length book devoted to the operation, and it is widely considered the definitive account - he used the intelligence documents in the UK National Archives, Montagu's private papers, interviews, and he goes through in enormous detail how the operation was devised, planned and carried out, including the very minor roles played by people such as secretaries in Whitehall and so on. He doesn't state anywhere that Ian Fleming was involved in assisting or planning it. Logic says that he realized in researching the matter deeply that his 2008 assumption about Fleming being involved was wrong, or he would have included it in his 2010 book devoted to the operation. Also in 2010, another book was published, Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat by Denis Smyth, which is a somewhat drier but also scrupulously researched book-length account of this operation. Again, it makes no mention of Fleming being involved. Neither have several documentaries. Neither did Montagu in his book. Neither did Ian Fleming, ever! But he was perfectly happy to claim the credit for Golden Eye.

So I don't think this is all that complicated. Considering the authoritative and detailed accounts about Mincemeat that we now have, I don't think it is a reasonable assumption that Ian Fleming inspired this operation - and SchroCat agrees and that is now not in the article. As for the idea Fleming was involved in planning this operation, no full-length account of the operation mentions him at all in that context, despite going in great detail into all the ins and outs of it. I think we can safely conclude that it is an attractive idea, but all these historians who have written and researched Mincemeat in detail can't have all missed this. So I would like to remove this from the article. Can I? Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:05, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Here's my proposed change. The article currently reads:

'While working in British naval intelligence during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in the planning stages of Operation Mincemeat and Operation Golden Eye. He was also involved in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force.'

I would like to change this to:

'While working in British naval intelligence during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Golden Eye, as well as the planning and oversight of two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force.'

Do I have consensus on this? I can't get ShroCat's because he has withdrawn from the conversation, but is there anyone else who objects to this change, and if so why? Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not really for us to second-guess sources, just to summarise what they say, but at the moment the claim in the lede doesn't match up to the claim in main body so that is going to have to be addressed at some point. For what it's worth, I think we are overstating his participation at the expense of elaborating on the context. Ignoring the lede for the time being, I think we should concentrate on the body. I would write something along these lines:
 * ''Some biographies of Fleming state he was partially involved in the planning of Operation Mincemeat, although no accounts of the operation authenticate his participation. The operation was planned by Fleming's colleague, Ewen Montagu, at Room 39; historian Ben Macintyre has speculated that the plan may have been inspired by the Trout memo, which was possibly written by Fleming.
 * Would something like that fly with both parties? Betty Logan (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Betty, we have reached consensus on the body, and it took a ludicrously long time to do! I think your suggested change muddles what is already perfectly clear, and I would say that it second-guesses and somewhat misrepresents what the sources say in a rather confusing way - it isn't that accounts of the operation don't 'authenticate his participation'. None of them mention him being involved in it, full stop. It's not in their remit to authenticate Fleming's career. And as these are full-length accounts by respected historians, it seems a little bizarre not to take their word for it over single vague unsourced sentences in two Fleming bios. Their combined weight makes clear that these two sources were mistaken. I think this would be a more accurate summary of what the sources say:

''Two biographies of Fleming mention in passing with no further elaboration that he assisted in Operation Mincemeat, but none of the authoritative full-length accounts of the operation corroborate this suggestion, as none mention him in this context at all. The operation was planned by a colleague of Fleming's, Ewen Montagu, at Room 39; historian Ben Macintyre has speculated that the plan may have been partially inspired by an idea outlined in the 1939 Trout memo, which he feels was probably written by Fleming, but he also states that such an idea was common currency in intelligence circles at the time and quotes a private letter from Montagu to Admiral Godfrey denying that the operation was in any way influenced by this three-year-old memo.''

I guess that would work. But this is really about weighing sources. You have to think of a plausible reason why not a single one of the multiple accounts of this operation mention Fleming being involved in it. The common sense answer is surely because he wasn't. Jeremy Duns (talk) 20:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you have to bear in mind this is an article about Fleming rather than Operation Mincemeat: speculation about Fleming's involvement may not be notable in an account of Operation Mincemeat, but it is reasonable for an article about Ian Fleming to explore the legitimacy of such speculation. If two published biographies speculate—even in passing—then the article should probably also cover it in passing, but there needs to be a clear divide between the speculation and the factual basis for that speculation. Betty Logan (talk) 20:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Chancellor's book isn't really a biography - it's a coffee-table book about Bond and Fleming, albeit a good one. He gives no endnotes but his bibliography lists Lycett and there are several pieces of information in the book that were only previously in Lycett, including this, so his source was Lycett, I suspect. But by the by. I suggest we say 'Two published biographies have stated in passing that Fleming assisted in Operation Mincemeat, but none of the numerous accounts of the operation mention any such involvement so common sense says they were mistaken.' Can we have a consensus on that? Jeremy Duns (talk) 21:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The commonsense part would have to be dropped because we shouldn't "think" for the reader, but you need a consensus with SchroCat, not me. He may be ok with the proposed change, let's wait and see what he says. Betty Logan (talk) 21:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * He has withdrawn from the conversation so how long do we wait? A week, a year, forever? This is a small error in the article, clearly contradicted by numerous authoritative sources on the operation. What does *your* common sense tell you as an editor? Not a single account of Operation Mincemeat mentions that Ian Fleming was involved. Why not? Some conspiracy between these historians? They all missed it? Or... he wasn't involved, and so therefore we should apply common sense and some responsibilty and simply drop the claim he did. If this is controversial, and takes so long to reach consensus on, I'm amazed that any articles get written at all. But am not all that surprised that errors abound on Wikipedia! Why don't we be bold... and just apply common sense? Jeremy Duns (talk) 21:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * He withdrew because your discussions seemed to be going around in circles, but now you've put forward compromise wording he may choose to comment. It's probably best to call a night and see what happens tomorrow. Betty Logan (talk) 22:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've already spent the best part of *two entire days* arguing these incredibly minor points. Amazing the amount of time and effort this takes, and incredibly frustrating, especially for a new editor. I'm suggesting removing *two words* from the article, for very good reason. How controverisal is this, really? The article currently states that Ian Fleming was involved in planning Operation Mincemeat. Not a single account of the operation mentions this. Why not, do you think? Jeremy Duns (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The reference that I added clearly states that he was involved. You have removed references AND accused ME of edit warring! Please assume good faithTheroadislong (talk) 22:36, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What good faith did you extend me when you removed my edits and accused me of edit-warring? You wrote 'Please gain consensus and stop edit warring.' So I am trying to do that. You didn't. You added two references to the very sentence we are trying but have still not gained consensus on. You could have come here first and raised them, asking if they perhaps answered the problem and provided a source? We are in fact looking for sources to substantiate this sentence - that's the entire point. And if you had done that, I'd have pointed you to the conversation above, where I already explained in detail why these two sources do *not* substantiate the idea that Ian Fleming was involved in planning Operation Mincemeat. You have mentioned one reference now, the Telegraph one, so I take it you admit the other one doesn't substantiate this (so was justifiably removed). As already explained *on this Talk page in trying to reach the consensus you told me to reach*, that Telegraph article is a secondary and arguably even tertiary source. It is a newspaper review of a BBC documentary by Ben Macintyre based on his book. The Telegraph review of the programme does *not* state that Fleming was involved in planning Operation Mincemeat. It does claim that he wrote the Trout Memo and that that inspired the operation. But Macintyre did not claim that in his book, and SchroCat, another user and I already reached consensus on this, so the claims that Fleming wrote the Trout Memo and that it inspired the operation have already been removed from this article. Please take your own advice to me and try to gain consensus on this issue - the one we are now discussing, not the one already resolved that you didn't bother to check - before letting go your trigger-finger again and adding anything else on the topic to the article. Jeremy Duns (talk) 22:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Seeking consensus on Jenkins
My, but you are a difficult lot. I think the first sentence in here is not quite right:

'Between 1957 and 1964, Fleming worked intermittently with the author Geoffrey Jenkins on a Bond story idea. After Fleming's death, Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to write a Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, but it was never published.'

The source given for this is Lane and Simpson, but they don't state that Fleming 'worked intermittently' with Jenkins between 1957 and 1964. They say Fleming's estate commissioned Jenkins to write Per Fine Ounce after he convinced them 'he had worked on a smuggling plot with Ian Fleming in 1957, not long after publication of Diamonds are Forever'. I also know this is wrong because I wrote an article about Per Fine Ounce in 2005, having spent about two years researching it with Jenkins' family. I know, original research. So what are we saying - we don't want expertise in the article? My article is already cited on the page for Per Fine Ounce, so it is clearly a citable source for information on this. But I can't cite it because I wrote it? This is a bit silly, surely. Based on this sentence not accurately reflecting the source it cited and my own knowledge of this - which is cited on the Wiki page about it - I edited this sentence to the following:

'In the late 1950s, the author Geoffrey Jenkins had suggested to Fleming that he write a Bond novel set in South Africa, and sent him his own idea for a plot outline which, according to Jenkins, Fleming felt had great potential. After Fleming's death, Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to write a Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, but it was never published.'

Can we get consensus on this simple change before I tear all my hair out? (By the way, on a more general point, how does anything get done to this page if you have to discuss simple points like this for days on end to get them made? None of the other articles I've edited have insisted on reverting my changes, without checking them, within two minutes of my making them. I find it incredibly frustrating - it is taking literally hours to make simple changes. Is it going to take a week to make this simple edit? A month? Never? Extraordinary.) Jeremy Duns (talk) 21:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As there don't, after all, appear to be any objections to my edit whatsoever, I'll revert it back and cite my article as the source. Incidentally, you can read the full text of my article on my website, where I republished it a few years ago, including the scans from the magazine: http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2010/03/james-bond-in-south-africa.html This particular information is in the section marked 'Post-Fleming odyssey'. Jeremy Duns (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Please ensure it carries a reliable source, properly formatted. - SchroCat (talk) 17:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Currently improperly formatted and from a questionable fanzine, rather than a reliable source. - SchroCat (talk) 17:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. The source is very questionable and it should be removed from the article. SonOfThornhill (talk) 17:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, good: you're edit warring again. I have no doubt another editor will revert it on the same grounds. Unfortunately you are not listening to the very good advice other people are trying to tell you. - SchroCat (talk) 18:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, others are edit-warring without having even read the edit. I already indicated the source and you had no objections. When I added, you did! What an enormous coincidence. What is 'questionable' and 'very questionable' about the fanzine, please? Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Of course, my mistake, you are entirely without any blame: it is always other people edit warring and not you, isn't it? How strange: I must learn what your definition of not edit warring is, I'd love to try it out with an admin when a situation arises in the future. - SchroCat (talk) 18:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course, my mistake, you are entirely without blame: you've just tied me up for two days arguing the toss over some basic facts you didn't even look up, then eventually had to revert every single one of them because you were wrong on every count.
 * I have made a tiny and very nuanced change. The article as it stands now reads as though Fleming went out of his way to work with Jenkins. This isn't the case. Lane and Simpson don't say it's the case, either. The article also gets the dates wrong. See Lane and Simpson. My article is much more in-depth on this history than theirs, and corrects some of their assumptions. If you do me the courtesy you didn't last time, and go and read the article in questions, which I linked to already http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2010/03/james-bond-in-south-africa.html you will discover this. Perhaps if you read the page on Per Fine Ounce you'll see that large chunks of the information in it are from my article, which is cited, and has been for seven years. So once again, what is 'very questionable' about this source? And if it is questionable, why is a large amount of the Wikipedia article on the book taking the information from it, and why has it remained cited there for seven years? Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Self-published blogs are not considered reliable sources. - SchroCat (talk) 18:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't cite a self-published blog, though. Please actually *read* the edit, and my reasoning above. Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have made an extraordinarily small and uncontroversial edit here, and would love not to spend the next two days of my life arguing about it with people who haven't even looked at it. So once again, can I ask what the basis is for claiming that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the magazine of the James Bond International Fan Club, is a 'questionable' and 'very questionable' fanzine? As a contributor to it, I'd appreciate an answer to that. Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Once again, when asked for concrete reasons for objecting to this citation, everyone goes quiet! Can I take it this means I can add it back in again now? Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I, for one, am about to put my daughter to bed. After that I will prepare supper. Although others may not be following the same routine, have you considered that they may have lives and commitments away from Wiki? Again, there is no rush: people will read and discuss when they can. - SchroCat (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why the rush to remove edits? Why not read what I wrote first, then remove them? Just a thought. Crazy, I know. Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can give a concrete reason. Please refer to WP:ELNO #11, which recommends that blogs and fansites should be generally avoided. SonOfThornhill (talk) 19:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Generally, yes. But in this particular instance, as explained several times now, the article is a major source for the Wikipedia entry on the book in question, Per Fine Ounce, and it has been cited there for six years. So please explain to me why it's seen as reliable enough for the article on Per Fine Ounce and not a reference to Per Fine Ounce in this article? While you're at it, please also explain why KKBB is in your view a 'very questionable' fanzine. In addition, the statement as it now stands is both inaccurate and misrepresents the currently cited source. Hence this tiny, miniscule, sensible change, based on something that is already stated in the Per Fine Ounce article. Here is the relevant bit in the PFO article:


 * 'Geoffrey Jenkins was given a job in the Foreign Department of Kemsley Newspapers, an organisation owned by the London Sunday Times, by Viscount Kemsley. There he worked with Ian Fleming, who was the Foreign Manager of the department, and the two men became friends. In a letter to John Pearson in 1965 when he was researching his biography on Ian Fleming, The Life of Ian Fleming, Jenkins revealed that in the late 1950s he had discussed the idea of a James Bond novel set in South Africa with Fleming, and even written a synopsis of it, which Fleming had very much liked.'


 * And here is my edit for this article:


 * 'In the late 1950s, the author Geoffrey Jenkins had suggested to Fleming that he write a Bond novel set in South Africa, and sent him his own idea for a plot outline which, according to Jenkins, Fleming felt had great potential. After Fleming's death, Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to write a Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, but it was never published.'


 * The source for this, as with the Per Fine Ounce page, is my article in KKBB, which is cited on that page and which I cited on this one. Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hard to comment on an article I'm unfamilar with. But if the article on Per Fine Ounce cites this as a source, maybe that needs to reviewed and possibly removed from the article since it clearly doesn't meet guidelines. SonOfThornhill (talk) 19:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Why are you commenting, then? The article is there - go and read it and then come back and comment! My article is the main source for it, and has been for six years. That's clear if, instead of jumping in to shout that my research is questionable, you actually read it. I am replicating a *tiny* and nuanced bit of that article into the bit in this article about the same thing! The guidelines are just that, guide lines. Not set in stone, and there are exceptions. In this case, my fanzine article written for the James Bond International Fan Club in 2005 is the best source for information on Per Fine Ounce. What is the source for the current contention in the article that ' Between 1957 and 1964, Fleming worked intermittently with the author Geoffrey Jenkins on a Bond story idea.' It is currently cited to Lane and Simpson, but they didn't say that. It is inaccurate. I have made a small, sensible edit based on my existing knowledge of Per Fine Ounce, which is the main source for the article on Wikipedia already, and which already contains this information. Are you suggesting that, in a fit of pique that I am right about this, you want to vandalize the Per Fine Ounce article to remove the fact that most of it draws on my research? Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Fleming, Mincemeat and Macintyre
I have now had a response from Ben Macintyre about the differences between the various sources. The germane part of the conversation reads:


 * The truth is that there is no evidence that Fleming was involved operationally in Mincemeat: but there is no doubt that he was privy to the plan, and strong evidence that he (with John Godfrey) came up with the original ruse; a copy of the Basil Thompson book in which the idea was first mooted was in his library, according to Lycett. In later life, he liked to claim that he had played a significant part in the operation, but I have never seen any hard evidence of direct involvement.

Although this does cast considerable doubt on Fleming being involved in the planning stage, it does confirm that he was probably one of the sources of the idea. - SchroCat (talk) 14:35, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Not quite. But interesting! Let's please separate out these two issues. The first, which is the one under current discussion, is the sentence in the article stating that Ian Fleming was involved in planning Operation Mincemeat. This email Macintyre has sent you clearly backs what I have been saying all along, and as his book and others already made clear, which is that 'there is no evidence that Fleming was involved operationally in Mincemeat'. I hope you can agree now that we remove ths from the article?


 * The second point is about whether he 'came up with the original ruse', which as the reference to Basil Thomson indicates is a reference to the Trout Memo and whether or not 1. Fleming wrote it and 2. It inspired Mincemeat. This is something you have already reached consensus with me on, again based on Mcintyre's book, which is the original source for this. I think the current wording in the article on this, which you wrote on the basis of my original edit, makes this issue sufficiently clear:


 * 'On 29 September 1939, soon after the start of the war, Godfrey circulated a memorandum that, "bore all the hallmarks of ... Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming", according to historian Ben Macintyre.[28] It was called the Trout Memo and compared the deception of an enemy in wartime to fly fishing.[28] The memo contained a number of schemes to be considered for use against the Axis powers to lure U-boats and German surface ships towards minefields.[29] Number 28 on the list was an idea to plant misleading papers on a corpse that would be found by the enemy; this suggestion is similar to Operation Mincemeat, the successful 1943 plan to conceal the intended invasion of Italy from North Africa, although that idea was developed by Charles Cholmondoley in October 1942 [30]'


 * In his email to you, Macintyre has not separated the two points above, ie Fleming writing the memo and whether or not the memo inspired Mincemeat. In his book, he did, over an entire chapter. I would agree that it is a pretty good guess that Fleming wrote the Trout Memo, or was certainly heavily involved in it - but it's not proven, and the current wording reflects this fine. I don't agree that this response to you offers any more evidence than in Macintyre's own book that the memo inspired the operation. Macintyre makes it clear in his book that this broad idea of using a corpse with a havserack was 'deeply embedded in intelligence folklore' (p18) and had been used several times before. Macintyre also explains at length Cholmondoley's inspiration, the 1942 seaplane crash, and quotes Montagu saying he had no recollection whatsoever of this memo from three years later. So I think this is fine as it already is, and as you have already agreed by consensus, based on Macintyre's book. There's barely a hair's breadth in difference between his response to you and his book anyway, but his book has a whole chapter about this and is therefore much more nuanced.


 * Anyway, unless there are any objections, I will revert my edit on the first part, ie removing the claim that Fleming was involved in planning Mincemeat. Jeremy Duns (talk) 14:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Not to be rude to the esteemed Mr SchroCat, but is an unpublished/unconfirmed email from someone considered reliable enough for here? Without a reliable source saying he wasn't involved then the sources that say he was should take priority. On a side note, how on EARTH has JD not been blocked given the amount of reverts across multiple edits? -- MisterShiney    ✉    16:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is very difficult to prove a negative: sources may state that Fleming was involved if they believe he was, but if they don't believe that they are unlikely to state that he wasn't involved. Neither Schro or Jeremy are the problem here, the problem is that two Fleming biographies contain what is likely inaccurate information. Technically you are right, a private email shouldn't determine what we include, but it is situations like this that WP:IAR was made for. Betty Logan (talk) 16:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that note of common sense, Betty! There are numerous full-length accounts of Operation Mincemeat. These include:


 * 1954: The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu (Philadelphia: Lippincott) - a full-length book about the operation from the man who planned it. It was made into a famous film. It's full of holes, partly because of the Official Secrets Act, but in a later edition he named the man who thought up the operation, Charles Cholmondoley.
 * 1996: An amateur historian found a file in the UK Public Records Office (now called the National Archives) that confirmed the identity of the corpse: http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A3031949#footnote24 The PRO then declassified documents confirming this and about the operation in general, file ADM 223/794: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/details?Uri=C4123684 The release was widely covered in the British media
 * 2004: The Man Who Hoodwinked Hitler (BBC) - a 25-minute documentary about the operation that tells a fuller picture of it: http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/scc8/heroes-of-world-war-two--episode-7-the-man-who-hoodwinked-hitler You can watch it online in various places.
 * 2009: The National Archives produced a podcast on the operation: http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/the-man-who-never-was/
 * February 2010: Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre (Bloomsbury). A full-length book on the operation by one of the most acclaimed war historians around, this was a critical and commercial success. Working from the National Archives files, papers Montagu had kept about the operation, letters and interviews, it is widely considered the definitive account.
 * June 2010: Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat by Denis Smyth (Oxford University Press): another full-length book about the operation by a respected military historian, also working from the PRO's records and various other primary sources. It was well-reviewed, receiving a starred review from Booklist, and is authoritative. Much of it overlaps with Macintyre's book - they were written, as the publication dates suggest, at the same time.


 * Not a single one of these detailed accounts of Mincemeat mentions that Ian Fleming was involved in planning it. So if he did, they have *all* missed it. That isn't plausible. I quite agree that an unpublished source is not a very strong one, but there was no reason for SchroCat to try to get a response from Macintyre in this way when this is already clear from Macintyre's *400-page book* about the operation, as well as all the other sources listed. There was, in fact, no need for SchroCat to ask for a consensus discussion on this at all, because you seek consensus when you have reason to believe something is false, *having first looked into it*. Instead of wasting a lot of my time and energy on this very simple change by demanding this discussion, ShroCat could simply have looked this up in Macintyre's book, which he claims he has read. This would have taken about ten minutes. He would have then seen that Macintrye's book in fact offers no proof that Fleming wrote the Trout Memo, as I edited the article to show; offers no proof that the Trout Memo inspired Mincemeat, as I edited the article to show; and offers no evidence whatsoever that Ian Fleming was involved in planning this operation. Common sense would then have told him that I was right on all these counts, as he's now had to admit, after about two days of needless discussion on it. Instead, he reverted the lot and I have had to wait while he does the research *I had already done*. A pretty big clue that I had done this research was my response to another user removing my edits within moments of them going up on the grounds that sources were already cited: 'Inaccurately! See pp9-18 on Turner, wide knowledge & use of haversack ruses, CC's Trojan Horse. No evidence Trout Memo inspired Mincemeat.' Common sense should tell you I had read the cited source *closely* and it would be a good idea to do the same before disputing it for no reason.


 * The reason I haven't been blocked is because I've made small, sensible edits in good faith to improve this article, having done my research. Can we stop with all this 'reverting' and 'edit-warring' jargon just for a moment? I made some small edits. Someone else has then come along, within moments, and *undid* these edits, with no reason. In at least two cases when you have done this, you didn't even read the edits I had made, let alone research them! So in all these cases, I have *undone* that. Someone else has then *undone* that. There is no difference between you undoing my edit and me undoing yours, apart from the fact that I'd done my research and was right. I understand that it's not nice when you jump the gun and someone then points out how wrong you are, but there you are - this wasn't a fight I picked.


 * I do hope now we have reached consensus on this that you can see that in future the best way forward would not be to tie me up in lengthy discussions on small edits unless you have a very good reason to do that - in other words, please just spend ten minutes or so checking first. If you then have good reason to believe I am wrong, by all means seek consensus. Please don't do it *before you have even bothered to look up the sources*! Jeremy Duns (talk) 16:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's a very good point, but it goes to the crux of what the talk here is about: the primacy of which source should be used here. It was my contention that Fleming had a tangential involvement in Mincemeat (such as sitting in a minor role on an oversight committee or similar), which would have been notable enough to mention in a biography of Fleming, but would have been too trivial to mention in a study on the Operation. Macintyre is the one person who has written books from both perspectives, and would therefore know the true background of the matter. What we now have is something that is justifiable in terms of the publically available sources, and one that we as editors can be satisfied is as close to the truth as we can make it, given those sources. As to the side note, I suspect that as no-one reported the activity in the appropriate forum, no-one with the power of blocking was aware of the situation. - SchroCat (talk) 16:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Your contention that Fleming might have sat in a minor role on an oversight committee or something else is a good one - but it isn't in fact one you've contended anywhere in this discussion. That's the first you've mentioned it. I agree that Macintyre probably would be the best person to know this. I disagree that this would have been too trivial to mention in his 400-page book about the operation, which goes into an enormous amount of detail about every single aspect of it, including this 1939 memo, which he speculated Fleming wrote but which he provided no plausible evidence at all had an influence on the operation - quite the contrary. If Fleming had been on an oversight committee, Bond expert Macintyre would have definitely included that! It would also be very peculiar that this isn't mentioned in a single other account. We don't now have something that is simply justifiable in terms of the pubicly available sources - it also reflects what he told you privately: 'The truth is that there is no evidence that Fleming was involved operationally in Mincemeat'. The idea that Fleming knew of the operation's existence is clearly not worth adding to an article about him! Macintyte offered you one further piece of evidence that Fleming wrote the Trout Memo, that Basil Thomson's book was in his memoir. But the Trout Memo is only relevant at all if it can be shown that it influenced Operation Mincemeat. There's no evidence that it did, either in any public source, or in Macintyre's private (now public) response to you. That is pure speculation raised by Macintyre in his book - he then goes on to spend several pages explaining why it is exceedingly unlikely, as the broad concept of a 'haversack ruse', as such an idea was known, was already 'deeply embedded in intelligence folklore', had been used several times before, there was no evidence it worked, Cholomondoley was inspired by a specific event in 1942, and Montagu had no recollection of this memo from three years earlier. Please just stop this. You were wrong. Next time, please do your research first before challenging mine. If you'd done that, you would have realized you were wrong on every single one of these points and saved both of us a lot of time and aggravation. Jeremy Duns (talk) 16:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * "Please just stop this. You were wrong": Jeremy, I was answering Mr Shiney's point about why the email. I am not continuing an argument and there really is no need for another long-winded essay from you. In future I will advise that in order to remove much of the aggravation from discussions do not start an edit war. It's as simple as that. You're a very new editor who hasn't learnt how things work, but the problem is that you don't seem to want to learn either. People have been astonishingly lenient in not reporting your behaviour here because you are new; their patience is finite and the next time you enter a discussion with a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality I suspect you'll end up in trouble. - SchroCat (talk) 17:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You started an edit-war, not me. You removed perfectly sensible small edits before you had even spent a minute looking into the topic. You presumed I was wrong without checking. Bad faith. When I made it clear I knew perfectly well what I was talking about you repeatedly reverted me - edit-warring. I am on deadline for a book and yet have spent nearly two whole days arguing with you about these tiny changes. There was no need to seek consensus on this - if you had spent just ten minutes *checking first* you'd have seen I was right. You were wrong on every point and have now, finally, admitted it. I don't expect an apology for your wasting my time in this way - though it would have been welcome! - but I'm not going to take another officious lecture from you on this. You were wrong on *every single point* you challenged, and you challenged for no good reason. All were easily checked. You didn't bother. Please check first in future. Thanks. Jeremy Duns (talk) 17:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Jeremy, numerous people have already explained to you that you were the one who started edit warring. If you cannot accept the advice of others in how Wikipedia works, then you will have a rather uncomfortable time here, spent arguing, battling and being blocked at every turn. It will be your loss, not the project's. - SchroCat (talk) 17:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Numerous people connected with this particular article have argued that I was edit-warring while themselves edit-warring, yes. The fact is that you and several others instantaneously reverted my edits in bad faith without even checking, or in most cases even reading my edits! You have insisted I have this argument. It's not one I sought. In spending over two days in arguing black is white on basic sources, the loss is the project's, and both of ours in the time and aggravation spent on it. It was your choice to take these *very* simple and uncontroversial edits to consensus instead of checking first, not mine. And others' choice to revert within minutes, even seconds, without even reading them. I've improved the article. You've wasted everyone's time arguing about what you could have checked in the first place. The same happened with the Jenkins bit I added. If you move every small change on this article to a consensus discussion you make editing this like sludge. You have also needlessly kept false information in this article, running around in circles desperately trying to find ways to catch me out long after it was perfectly obvious to you, me and the dog next door I was right on every basic, uncontroversial point. As you have now, finally, admitted. There was no need for me to have to shepherd you along to read the source that was already cited. You were wrong, on every point, and *it should have been obvious to anyone with any common sense within minutes*. If you had less pride you'd admit you jumped the gun, and apologise for wasting my time. I won't be waiting for it, though. Please try to apply some common sense next time. Jeremy Duns (talk) 17:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Jenkins Part 2

 * Jeremy, with respect, you cannot just add information and then use an article you have written as a reference. It would help adding the primary source as a reference and then you would not get all of this resistance.  I wrote an essay at law school, but I am not citing it on any law articles.  If I was to, then I would revert to the primary source as I would be considered unreliable.  --  Cassianto Talk   17:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Cassianto, with respect, which edit of mine are you referring to? Do you even know? Did you even read my edit before removing it? Have you seen that I have already opened a discussion on this page, as indicated in the edit note, and that nobody has stepped forward to dispute it? What is your dispute? My article is cited as a source on the page for this topic already, so is seen as a reliable source. (It's actually the best source, but shh...) I've given a link to the article directly so you can see where I got it from - as already explained to you on my Talk page, the source is the author's private papers, quoted and cited fully in the article. Please don't revert this again until you have read the discussion on this and contributed to it. In the right place, please! Jeremy Duns (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * C'mon, you know which one, the one I am reverting! You say: " As nobody has challenged on Talk, I am reinstating my small uncontroverial edit to the bit on Jenkins, sourcing my article. Please discuss on the talk page if you have doubts about. Please do not just kneejerk revert.)" -- The bit that says "Sourcing my article" is the problem I have got. The information *already* had a source.  Like I said before, an author can come on here and cite his or her article as much as they please. However, there are some (me) that thinks that this behaviour stinks a bit and would be kind of conflicting.  Sorry, I am not disputing you as a writer and I'm sure your much more knowledgable on Fleming than me, but to blow ones own trumpet from the tops of the hills about how good one is, comes accross as a bit vacuous and self back-slapping.  The article had a spot check of its sources at FAC and SchroCat who I co-nominated it with, is a reputable and sound authority on everything Bond.  I have no reason to doubt him or his research, and so I think the source should stay until it can be proved otherwise. --   Cassianto Talk   18:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Would you mind just moving this to the appropriate part of the discussion, and then I'll reply? It seems a bit silly to continue it here. We are trying to reach consensus on it, so it makes sense to have it in the right place.Thanks. Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it's the section about Geoffrey Jenkins above. Would you mind moving your comments there, where they are relevant? We already have consensus on Mincemeat. Jeremy Duns (talk) 18:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * C'mon, you know which one, the one I am reverting! You say: " As nobody has challenged on Talk, I am reinstating my small uncontroverial edit to the bit on Jenkins, sourcing my article. Please discuss on the talk page if you have doubts about. Please do not just kneejerk revert.)" -- The bit that says "Sourcing my article" is the problem I have got. The information *already* had a source. Like I said before, an author can come on here and cite his or her article as much as they please. However, there are some (me) that thinks that this behaviour stinks a bit and would be kind of conflicting. Sorry, I am not disputing you as a writer and I'm sure your much more knowledgable on Fleming than me, but to blow ones own trumpet from the tops of the hills about how good one is, comes accross as a bit vacuous and self back-slapping. The article had a spot check of its sources at FAC and SchroCat who I co-nominated it with, is a reputable and sound authority on everything Bond. I have no reason to doubt him or his research, and so I think the source should stay until it can be proved otherwise. -- CassiantoTalk 18:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I can’t be bothered to wait for you to move this to the proper section, so will answer. ‘The bit that says "Sourcing my article" is the problem I have got. The information *already* had a source.’ The next sentence had a source attached, Lane and Simpson – this one didn’t. But I agree that that is ambiguous. It makes no odds: if we take it to mean that this sentence was also cited to Lane and Simpson, well, yes, it had a source – but it misrepresented the source. And I explained this above on this page before making the edit, and asked anyone reverting to read the Talk discussion. You obviously didn’t. The article as it stands suggests that Fleming chose to work with Jenkins, which isn’t really what happened – and it’s not in Lane and Simpson. I happen to know what happened, because I wrote a very in-depth article about this very topic. Jenkins wrote to Fleming with a plot idea. The date is wrong, too – it wasn’t from 57 to 64, and Lane and Simpson don’t say that, either. It was in fact ‘a few years’ before 1961, according to Jenkins’ letter to Pearson. All of this is already in the Per Fine Ounce Wikipedia article, so it is hardly controversial. And a large amount of the material on that page is from my article, as you can see from reading it and my article, and from the Talk page. My article has also been cited as one of the three sources on the page for the last six years. So it has already been deemed a reliable source by Wikipedia. ‘Like I said before, an author can come on here and cite his or her article as much as they please. However, there are some (me) that thinks that this behaviour stinks a bit and would be kind of conflicting. Sorry, I am not disputing you as a writer and I'm sure your much more knowledgable on Fleming than me, but to blow ones own trumpet from the tops of the hills about how good one is, comes accross as a bit vacuous and self back-slapping.’ But I have already made it clear multiple times that my article is already cited on the page for Per Fine Ounce. I’ve given the same citation. I’ve even provided a link where you can read the whole article. It’s hardly the most amazing claim to fame, to be an expert on this obscure book. I’m more proud of other achievements. But I’m not going to lie to you about it. It’s the case that I know more about this book than anyone else alive. So when I saw a small inaccuracy about it in the article on the Ian Fleming page, which misrepresents the current source to boot, what would you have me do? Ignore my knowledge of it because it’s my knowledge? Or constructively try to use my knowledge to improve the article, pointing out that my article is not just me pulling something out of thin air but is already cited at the page for this book? ‘The article had a spot check of its sources at FAC and SchroCat who I co-nominated it with, is a reputable and sound authority on everything Bond. I have no reason to doubt him or his research, and so I think the source should stay until it can be proved otherwise.’ It is already proven otherwise – this isn’t in Lane and Simpson’s book, and if you read either my article or the Per Fine Ounce Wikipedia page you will see the real facts. As for SchroCat being a reputable and sound authority and you have no reason to doubt his research… well, he’s just spent two days arguing basic facts with me and had to revert all of my changes because he was wrong on every one. And he hasn’t researched this. In fact, his latest comment on this makes it clear that he didn’t even tread my edit, let alone my explanation for it on Talk, before objecting to it, because he thinks I have cited my own blog, when I haven’t. I don’t think you read my edit, either – you just saw read at me citing my own source. But I’ve already taken the trouble and time to explain, three times on the edit history page and at greater length in the discussion I initiated on this page, that my source is already cited as an authority on this. I hope that clarifies matters for you. Do you still have any objections to me making this tiny, uncontroversial edit that cites an article already cited on the page about the book? If so, I’m all ears. Otherwise, I’d love not to spend the next year of my life arguing about tiny changes and revert this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremy Duns (talk • contribs) 19:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The article Per Fine Ounce includes your article for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang magazine in it's list of sources, but readers have no way of knowing what is being cited as there are no inline citations.Theroadislong (talk) 19:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems a bit silly of us to be discussing this here – is there any way we can move this stuff up to the Jenkins section? People will miss it here, I think.
 * To answer you: Yes, you’re right, the Wikipedia Per Fine Ounce article doesn’t have inline citations, and that article would be improved by them. Would I be able to make those changes, do you think? Not on the strength of this discussion! I am trying to change a tiny, nuanced thing to this article, and I can’t. But anyway, the lack of inline citations on the Per Fine Ounce article is a problem for that article, and doesn't make a difference to this edit, as I’ve not only given the citation, but also in this discussion above provided a link to a webpage where you can read the article in full, as I republished it on my own site in 2010: http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2010/03/james-bond-in-south-africa.html And I also indicated above that if you read the section in the article titled 'Post-Fleming odyssey' you will find where I wrote this, which is the source for the near-identical bit in the Per Fine Ounce page as the tiny, uncontroversial edit I have made about the same thing to this page. Do you have any concrete objections to me making this change now? Jeremy Duns (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Jeremy, can I ask you paragraph your responses? It makes for difficult reading. Right you say "The date is wrong, too – it wasn’t from 57 to 64, and Lane and Simpson don’t say that, either. It was in fact ‘a few years’ before 1961" Is this not the same thing? Remember, we cannot paraphrase on WP. Saying a few years before is the same essentially in giving year ranges, as long as we can prove that the dates don't go over the former and the latter.


 * Secondly, you say: ". I happen to know what happened, because I wrote a very in-depth article about this very topic." You might yes, but the reader doesn't. Add the source (if reliable and not something you have written yourself), and I am sure nobody will have a problem. But this and this alone if everybody agrees.


 * Thirdly, "It’s the case that I know more about this book than anyone else alive. So when I saw a small inaccuracy about it in the article on the Ian Fleming page, which misrepresents the current source to boot, what would you have me do? Ignore my knowledge of it because it’s my knowledge? Or constructively try to use my knowledge to improve the article, pointing out that my article is not just me pulling something out of thin air but is already cited at the page for this book?" -- Then discuss it rather than add it and have it reverted.


 * You have this all wrong. You should have initially approached the subject on the talk page (which you have but after a lot of reverting), calmly discussed it there first and then made changes after a consensus has been reached.  You didn't. You went ahead regardless and changed a bit of information to a featured article and then complain when it's reverted.  Your behaviour has not endeared you to the articles many watchers, including,  and .  You also don't assume good faith when you talk to people, and you come across as quite, quite hostile. You wrongly assume that we are all out to get you.  We are not.  We are just as passionate as you are, and if you think we have made a mistake then you can either leave a talk page message, or email us directly.  SchroCat, I have known and worked with for a long time now, and I trust every word he writes down.  OK, it could be argued that he is only human, and humans inadvertently make errors.  However, he spends an awfully long time (of his time) writing and researching articles for the benefit of the non-knower. He is (or was) happy to receive emails privately, so off the record discussions can take place. If I know him, he has now taken a brief step back from all this, as just recently he has had a skinful of uncivil, drive-by editors rocking up and claiming he knows nothing, and they know everything.


 * I have no question of your authority having researched you privately (the wonders of Google), and in the light of wanting to appear civil, and appreciative of your time invested thus far, I would be happy to see you make this small change 'if others agree. --   Cassianto Talk   20:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, sorry, I thought I had paragraphed that response, but I did it in Word. Point taken.


 * To your points. 'Right you say "The date is wrong, too – it wasn’t from 57 to 64, and Lane and Simpson don’t say that, either. It was in fact ‘a few years’ before 1961" Is this not the same thing?'


 * Well, no, of course, it isn't. Jenkins met Fleming for lunch at the Caprice in 1961, and revealed that a few years before that he had sent him an outline. That means at some point in the late 50s, he did this. He didn't work with him between 1957 and 1964, which is a span of seven years. He sent him an outline in the late 50s. 'Saying a few years before is the same essentially in giving year ranges, as long as we can prove that the dates don't go over the former and the latter.' Which they do! Fleming died in 1964, which is not 'a few years' before 1961. Please read this again! This is why I made a very small edit to it so it says 'In the late 1950s...' Are we agreed?


 * 'Secondly, you say: ". I happen to know what happened, because I wrote a very in-depth article about this very topic." You might yes, but the reader doesn't. Add the source (if reliable and not something you have written yourself), and I am sure nobody will have a problem. But this and this alone if everybody agrees.' I don't understand you. I have added the source. I can't change that I did the research on this - what do you want me to do, hire someone to write an article? My article is the souece on the Wiki entry for Per Fine Ounce, so I added it, after making it clear here why. You removed it. I have quoted the letters in my article, and cited them fully in it. I have provided you a link to the whole article. This information is all already in the Per Fine Ounce Wiki entry.


 * Thirdly, '"It’s the case that I know more about this book than anyone else alive. So when I saw a small inaccuracy about it in the article on the Ian Fleming page, which misrepresents the current source to boot, what would you have me do? Ignore my knowledge of it because it’s my knowledge? Or constructively try to use my knowledge to improve the article, pointing out that my article is not just me pulling something out of thin air but is already cited at the page for this book?" -- Then discuss it rather than add it and have it reverted.' I have. I started the discussion here when it was reverted, and laid out my reasoming. Nobody replied. So I said, fine, as nobody has any objections I will add it back. Then you reverted - without reading the discussion. It's above, in the box marked 'Jenkins'!


 * 'You have this all wrong. You should have initially approached the subject on the talk page (which you have but after a lot of reverting), calmly discussed it there first and then made changes after a consensus has been reached. You didn't. You went ahead regardless and changed a bit of information to a featured article and then complain when it's reverted. Your behaviour has not endeared you to the articles many watchers, including, and . You also don't assume good faith when you talk to people, and you come across as quite, quite hostile. You wrongly assume that we are all out to get you. We are not. We are just as passionate as you are, and if you think we have made a mistake then you can either leave a talk page message, or email us directly. SchroCat, I have known and worked with for a long time now, and I trust every word he writes down. OK, it could be argued that he is only human, and humans inadvertently make errors. However, he spends an awfully long time (of his time) writing and researching articles for the benefit of the non-knower. He is (or was) happy to receive emails privately, so off the record discussions can take place. If I know him, he has now taken a brief step back from all this, as just recently he has had a skinful of uncivil, drive-by editors rocking up and claiming he knows nothing, and they know everything.' I understand, but the fact is that you have simpyl made reversions to my changes without even looking at them. You reverted my first edits on Mincemeat within two minutes, and didn't even read them. I have spent a ludicrous amount of time arguing tiny edits because several of you can't look it up. I did discuss my Jenkins edit here, and gave people plenty of time to comment. Nobody did. This was a tiny, tiny edit. And you still haven't looked into it. You didn't read my discussion on this page, you didn't respond to it before reverting me, you didn't read my edit, my article, or the Wiki article on Per Fine Ounce. Have you, hand on heart, done all those things now?


 * 'I have no question of your authority having researched you privately (the wonders of Google), and in the light of wanting to appear civil, and appreciative of your time invested thus far, I would be happy to see you make this small change 'if others agree.'Thank you for that! Let's hope others do, because while I understand the irritation I am also mightily irritated. I have long found it annpoying that Wikipedia contains errors, and wanted to do a bit to ty to help based on some small limited areas of expertise I have. I have made edits to a number of articles recently, not just the one on Ian Fleming. And I hope they've all improved the articles in question - none have been sent to consensus or caused any controversy at all. Yet with this article, I have literally had to spend days arguing for extremely small, uncontroversial edits that a few minutes of research and some common sense beforehand would have avoided. I wonder if I could add *anything* to it, no mater how small, without going through the wars for it. I've been accused of being impatient, but frankly I think I have been immensely patient, and most people would have abandoned Wikipedia entirely as a result of this. You must surely see that you and others have reverted a series of small, sensible, uncontroversial improvements to this article *without even doing any research first*, and that I have had to spend hours just to get them back in. That is immensely frustrating. Jeremy Duns (talk) 20:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Jeremy, where has the information been published, apart from on your blog? Is it only to be found in a fanzine? - SchroCat (talk) 20:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Only'. Please don't be so condescending. It was published in the magazine of the James Bond International Fan Club. To use one of your recent techniques, an email from John Cork to me on July 9 2010 reads 'Your expertise on Jenkins and Per Fine Ounce, I feel, stands paramount'.
 * The information can also be found in the *Wikipedia entry* for Per Fine Ounce, if you spend five minutes to look, where it has been cited as a source for the last six years. It is in fact the main source for the majority of the information in that article, along with Nick Kincaid's piece from 007 Forever, which someone should add (perhaps not me, as life is too short to deal with constant conversations like this). Are you suggesting we remove all the information from the Wikipedia Per Fine Ounce entry that is from my article? If that is your suggestion, go for it - you will be removing valuable, accurate information from Wikipedia that has been there for six years just to spite me, though. Not desperately impressive, this attempt to belittle my research. Rather childish, in fact.
 * I spotted that the following sentence in the Ian Fleming article was both inaccurate and misrepresents the current cited source, Lane and Simpson: ' Between 1957 and 1964, Fleming worked intermittently with the author Geoffrey Jenkins on a Bond story idea.' So I made a *tiny* edit to clean it up, based on informaton that is already in the Wikipedia entry for Per Fine Ounce - take a look - and which I happen to have discovered. My edit read: 'In the late 1950s, the author Geoffrey Jenkins had suggested to Fleming that he write a Bond novel set in South Africa, and sent him his own idea for a plot outline which, according to Jenkins, Fleming felt had great potential.' It's very similar to what is in the Per Fine Ounce article. It's accurate. It is sourced. Cassianto has just reached consensus with me on this. Will you put aside your desire to one-up me on Fleming knowledge and stop wasting both our time yet again, by allowing me to make this tiny, miniscule edit to the article? It would warm the cockles of my heart not to grow old having this argument. It seems utterly absurd. Jeremy Duns (talk) 20:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * FFS, I'm not being condescending - I asked you a straightforward question, so please try not to act like a bloody schoolboy when you answer. Of course I looked at Per Fine Ounce, but it's not an FA-rated article (it's not even a GA rated article) and on FA articles the standards of sources required are high. So, I'm not wasting time, I'm trying to ensure that this article isn't dragged into an FA review on the basis of shoddy sources. I'll ask again - and this time try and answer properly: is this published anywhere apart from a fanzine? - SchroCat (talk) 20:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Apart from being the chief source on the Wikipedia entry for the book this edit is about and also on my blog, no. But you really are being absurd, and I think rather obstructive. The current sentence in the article is wrong. Look at Lane and Simpson! Just, 'FFS', look at my own Wikipedia entry or my blog for a couple of minutes. I published this article in 2005. In the very tiny circle of hardcore Bond fandom, it was a scoop, because I discovered draft pages of a lost 60s Bond novel. My article went into a lot more detail than Lane and Simpson and even Kincaid, corrected several things they got wrong, and gave the whole history of this, including quoting from those pages. Despite being published in a fanzine, it remains the most in-depth article on Per Fine Ounce there is.
 * There is a tiny part about Per Fine Ounce in this article. It's wrong, and it contradicts the same bit on it in the entry for the book, which is essentially what I have changed it to. Cite the Per Fine Ounce Wiki article if you want. Or find a way to include this without citing me, I don't care. But the way it is written now is both wrong and misrepresents the given source. I tried, in good faith, using common sense, to apply some small but very specific knowledge I have to improve this article and make that sentence read better. It is a *tiny* change. Really miniscule. I've been a professional journalist since the 90s and a full-time author since 2008 (though not, thanks to you, for the last two days!). Since publishing the Per Fine Ounce article in 2005 I've published several other articles about Ian Fleming and James Bond, including digging up screenplays for The Diamond Smugglers, which I wrote about for the Sunday Times, and Ben Hecht's Casino Royale, which I wrote about for the Sunday Telegraph. I seriously doubt that someone other than you could claim with a straight face that my article is a 'shoddy source' on Per Fine Ounce, but if they do how extremely depressing, and counter-productive. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but it is not rigid and also operates on good faith and common sense. The idea, above all, is to be accurate. This information - a tiny, nuanced edit - is about Per Fine Ounce. And it is already in the Per Fine Ounce Wikipedia article.
 * This is *far* from controversial. How long do you want to spend on this? Please try to use common sense, be bold, be constructive, and work with me to improve this article instead of constantly blocking tiny changes and tying them up in arguments for days. For my sins, I know more about Per Fine Ounce than Ben Macintyre does about Operation Mincemeat! Sad, but true. But fine, if it makes you happy to have an inaccurate article, go for it. I thought the idea was to extend good faith, apply common sense, and try to improve the information. Up to you. Jeremy Duns (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Jeremy, I am being neither absurd nor obstructive: I asked a question, and your reading of dark motives into that question is poor judgment. I'll remind you that I have not reverted this edit at any point, but have instead asked you about the reliability of the source. I appreciate where you are coming from, but you have to understand that Wikipedia has rules about where information comes from and the sources we use. I am trying to help to see if there is a reliable source that we can use, which is why I asked the question, so please get off the high horse and stop the lecture. If there is no other source than the fanzine—which are always subject to scrutiny at FA level—then it is something we will have to go with for the time being. If you do not know how to insert the citation in the format used in this article (which you did not do properly last time), feel free to post the full information in this thread and it will be put into the article in the appropriate format. The full information will need to include date, issue number, full publisher name, page numbers etc. - SchroCat (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Apolgies for the formatting issue - I simply copy-pasted the citation that is on the Per Fine Ounce page:


 * Duns, Jeremy. "Gold Dust", Kiss Kiss Bang Bang magazine, Issue 2 (Winter 2005), pp. 39–47.


 * That includes the date, issue number, page numbers, title of the magazine, title of the article, and author of the article. If you want the name of the publisher as well, that is the James Bond Internatonal Fan Club.


 * A question for you. The current version of the article states 'Between 1957 and 1964, Fleming worked intermittently with the author Geoffrey Jenkins on a Bond story idea.' What is the source for this? There currently isn't one. The next sentence cites Lane and Simpson, but they don't say this, if you check. So the article is currently wrong. I don't care if you cite my article - note I didn't cite it originally, simply changed the information to make it accurate. This isn't about me getting a citation. But the article is currently wrong. So it needs to be corrected. If you're so very worried that someone is going to come along and call my article on Per Fine Ounce 'shoddy', I suggest you simply cite Lane and Simpson - but alter the information so it actually reflects what they say. That would mean missing out the bit where I said (accurately) that Jenkins sent Fleming a plot outline, and you'd have to go with what they have, which is that Jenkins 'had worked on a smuggling plot with Ian Fleming in 1957'. The specific year 1957 is in fact nowhere in Jenkins' papers, he didn't really work on the plot with Fleming but just sent him an outline, and it doesn't appear to have been about smuggling, or at least not diamond-smuggling as they allege. But hey, they're not shoddy. It's in a book and all, so must be better than the article I spent two years on! Is that really how Wikipedia works? If so, this article will remain inaccurate, and contradict the Wikipedia article on Per Fine Ounce to boot. How depressing. Jeremy Duns (talk) 21:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I should correct one bit, which has been mis-read: I did not call your article shoddy. What I do not want to happen is that the article goes through an FA review because of shoddy sources, in this case the inclusion of a fanzine, which will be seen by some as questionable because it is a fanzine. More generally, yes, there is a bias towards books in Wiki sourcing (both in general terms and certainly in when viewed against fanzines), and it will mean that errors in books are repeated in articles; normally this is on relatively minor points, as the major points in subjects will be picked up by other books and sources to counter the errors. It is an area of weakness, that these errors are perpetuated, but at least there is also the effect of bringing them to the surface for others to counter and amend. - SchroCat (talk) 21:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Except they can't amend for fear of losing some Very Important Acronym Status! I would think that if I were judging the merit of this article, I might be interested in the fact that the short section on Per Fine Ounce contradicts... the Wikipedia entry on Per Fine Ounce. That seems rather shoddy to me. Do correct that one bit, by all means. Best of luck - I tried to once and got shouted down by some Orwellian editors. I fear whatever you do to this will still be inaccurate, however - Lane and Simpson wrote very little about Per Fine Ounce, and most of it is, in one way or another, inaccurate. The best source on that book happens to have been published in a fanzine, by a published author who has reasonable credentials on research into James Bond and Ian Fleming... Oh, sorry, my head seems to have filled the room! I'll retreat to my stack of shoddy fanzines like the poor unreliable peon I am and allow you to continue to edit this Wikipedia article constructively by introducing inaccurate information into it that is from Books. You seem to know what you're doing.
 * Sorry to remain snippy, but this really was about the tiniest edit imaginable, from someone, sorry, who knows more than anyone else in the world about this esoteric topic. And Wikipedia wonders why it is struggling to attract editors. I just can't imagine. Jeremy Duns (talk) 22:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Hold on Jeremy, I am not with you just yet. I said "If others agree". Obviously, that is subject of it being a reliable source of course, which blogs and fanzines aren't. I absolutely agree with SchroCat that you cannot compare the Per Fine Ounce article to Flemings. You cannot cite wiki articles, as Wikipedia would be considered unreliable anyway as it is user generated. FA differ, inasmuch that they are fully and reliably sourced. They exhibit the best work that Wikipedia has to offer. -- Cassianto Talk   22:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Really? Hard to see that when the consensus is to have accurate information about Per Fine Ounce on the Per Fine Ounce page, citing my accurate article on it, but keep inaccurate information about Per Fine Ounce on the Ian Fleming page because it is too high and mighty to have accurate information from the same source. Common sense, be bold, strive for accuracy... None of this actually seems to apply in practice, judging from the last couple of days. But well done, you have an 'FA' article. Nobody else can correct anything inaccurate in it unless they have the patience of ten lions and a lifespan of a millennium to battle constant reversions from you all, but who cares about inaccuracy? It's Wikipedia. Everyone knows it's riddled with inaccuracies. Almost as bad as those fanzine things.
 * Enjoy your victory, chaps. And the inaccurate article. Very well done all round! Jeremy Duns (talk) 22:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Jeremy, if you'd bothered to look, instead of thinking up the nicely sarcastic reply, you may have noticed that I'd changed the article. I'm still not happy at all about having a fanzine as a source, as it does invite comment and a possible review. If push comes to shove I'll rip out the offending sentences and go with only what I can get from Lycett. As to drawing a parallel between this and the Per Fine Ounce article: damned bloody right they have different standards. Have you seen Per Fine Ounce? It's not a good article under any stretch of the imagination. - SchroCat (talk) 22:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not - but it is more accurate about Per Fine Ounce than this article was until a moment ago. You made the edit about two minutes ago, while I was writing a response to someone else, so I didn't see it. Thanks, I guess. I'm honoured that my article on Per Fine Ounce might be a citable source in this Wikipedia article! But note that you're not 'happy at all about it' as a source (who cares about the actual article?). Oh dear. I'll have to lick my wounds and not frame that just yet. Sorry, but this really is a very minor edit indeed, correcting an inaccuracy. And I do happen to know rather a lot about this topic. As I think I have actually shown. You have now replaced every single edit I have made, most of which you removed. But you might still remove this, because heaven forbid an actual person with actual expertise corrects an inaccuracy to your beloved article! *Far better* to cite 'reliable' but actually inaccurate sources. Far better to consider that a passing line in Lycett is more reliable than every book and documentary on Mincemeat. Far better to email Macintyre than look at his book. Far better to constantly argue with someone who has published several articles about Fleming and can contibute to improving this article that they are wrong when they are in fact right, and to do so for so long, and so insistently, and using so many acronyms, that they eventually get fed up and decide to leave you to it. Well done! You've driven me away from your beloved article. Celebrate. Long may Wikipedia continue to be inaccurate and you slap officious statements about GRDs and BFOs and AMBs on people's Talk pages. Long may you undo everyone else's edits and then accuse them of edit-warring. Long may you reign over this wonderful, wonderful article, tha despite your very best efforts and many many hours of bitter arguing, I have somehow managed to improve. Albeit for a very short time before you revert it all back again. Take a bow, 'SchroCat' and friends - you have single-handledly depressed the hell out of me. Jeremy Duns (talk) 22:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

PFO & Jenkins (again!): Simpson & Lane - The Bond Files; the number of continuation authors
I can barely bring myself to read in full the relevant threads on this talk page. So please excuse me if I discuss matters that have since been resolved.

Simpson & Lane's book The Bond Files is not an entirely reliable source which should come as no surprise. I have often expressed my displeasure - and contempt - with and for the poor quality of fan-based research, even when it appears between hardcovers (or in this case soft cover). The first edition of the Lane-Simpson book claims that PFO is from 1971. I strongly suspect that they picked a date at random. This won't be the first - or last - time fanboys have perpetrated this sort of error in the name of "research". A subsequent edition corrects this "error". If I remember properly, I believe both editions claim the plot involved diamond smuggling. Co-author Simpson's book The Rough Guide to James Bond (2002, sans Lane) claims that Jenkins wrote his Bond novel before Gardner assumed the Bond author mantle. See here. In my opinion author Simpson implies that Jenkins wrote his manuscript in the late 1970s. The Hart-Davis and Lycett books clearly dispute this and I have no problem dismissing Simpson's shoddy research. Simpson again claims that the plot involved diamond smuggling.

I have no problem using Duns' PFO article to cite relevant wikipedia pages, though would prefer that others do the writing and sourcing. I explain why at the bottom of this paragraph. In his favour, Duns did interview the Jenkins family and also Peter Janson-Smith (Fleming's agent and Glidrose chairman) who it appears rejected the manuscript. As Peter Janson-Smith is still alive, if he had been misquoted or even not interviewed in the first place, he would have said so by now. The article has garnered considerable attention from the fan community, including those who are in contact with the Fleming estate. Moreover Jenkins' correspondence appears on the Mi6 website. Although we would not normally consider this or any other fansite "reliable", I have no reason to believe the documents are in any way fraudulent. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of Duns' PFO research. I do note that he removed sourced claims from The Diamond Smugglers which apparently disputed his own excellent and informative article. Duns also removed a hidden comment that I had - perhaps clumsily - inserted in the article that contained further sources of information about the project that I still haven't found the time to read, let alone properly insert in the wikipedia page. In fairness, his edit summary did say ''My article on this was cited here, but a few details were a bit jumbled, so I've tried to clean it up a bit. Let me know if this is a problem, of course.''

I agree with Duns' decision to remove the specific number of continuation authors ("five"). This has always struck me as a matter of personal opinion. SchroCat and I removed the previous/next Bond book/author infoboxes last year precisely because there is no consensus what constitutes an official/real/true Bond novel/author. I can't bring myself to read the article's history to see if this was subject to reverts or if there is agreement on this particular issue. - Fantr (talk) 23:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all this. How refeshing! Amazing, even. I feel almost... thrilled.


 * The authors bit was not reverted, though it was slightly reworded and that was fine.


 * It is a little tricky to see, but if you scroll down here http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2010/03/james-bond-in-south-africa.html you will find the scans of my article in KKBB. If you look closely at page 43 of the article (although, sorry, the number 3 is obscured in the scan!), you will see three excerpts from the draft pages of Per Fine Ounce I found reproduced. The article also quotes liberally from them, as well as the letters. In fact, I don't think there's anything in MI6's 'exclusive' five years after my article was published that hadn't either been reproduced directly in my article or been quoted in it. Rather, I think I quoted more. But Dave Jenkins' agent wanted to drum up some publicity, I guess, as did MI6. It slightly irritates me that the Per Fine Ounce page here on Wikipedia doesn't have inline citation and so suggests that I am one of a few equal sources, along with Lane and Simpson and MI6's exclusive, when in fact most of the meat of the content is from my research and from an earlier, superb, article by 'Nick Kincaid' at the site 007 Forever (I put his name in quotes because I think, from emails he sent me, that was a pseudonym). If someone were to clean up that article and provide sources for it, I would hope that they would edit from the passive voice to the active to reflect that I found the draft pages! As well as the various other pieces of information I uncovered. But that would have to be someone other than me, clearly. Life is too short.


 * Thanks very much for the kind comments about my Diamond Smugglers piece. Which sources in the article disputed mine? From memory, and looking at it again (at 2 in the morning here), I removed a few sources that both seemed pretty peculiar and were not available to consult: 'Film and Filming, 1966', 'Illustrated weekly of Pakistan - Volume 18 - Page 35' and 'Motion picture herald - Volume 235 - Page ix'. I've never heard of any of these - have you? Perhaps you have, as you located them! But how easily consulted are they, do you think? Or reliable? Many of the reports on this film project were contradictory or absurdly inaccurate, I found, often Chinese whispers expanding on earlier stories. I seem to remember one newspaper claimed Connery might hang up being Bond to play Blaize - there was quite a lot of that sort of nonsense, and I sifted through tons of them for my article to try to quote the ones that genuinely seemed to reflect what Willoughby was doing, even if they were also partly him trying to drum up interest. And I can't find the edit, but yes, I think I removed one or two that seemed very scant in the endnotes where it actually said in the text on the page that they hadn't been checked, which I guess is what you mean - well, why have endnotes that haven't been checked as a source? But if you want, fine. I edited for flow, clarity and the most relevant pieces of information. As far as I'm aware, nothing I removed disputed my article and in fact all those elements are in it: Levine as co-producer, Amis as script consultant (which I moved down). It was just a rather difficult passage to read and the way the information was presented gave a somewhat jumbled impression, because it is all in an odd order. By all means restore those sources if you want - as I said in the edit, if you have problems with it by all means do. I think my article on this is probably more accurate and easily accessed than the Illustrated weekly of Pakistan, though!


 * Thanks for the refreshingly sensible contribution. I'll leave SchroCat and his cabal to jump on editors making tiny changes from now on, though. I have pretty much been chained to my keyboard arguing black is black for three days, and am worn out by it. Jeremy Duns (talk) 00:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My comments weren't meant to be a blanket endorsement of you or your edits. I frequently collaborate with SchroCat and often defer to him since 99% of his edits are beyond reproach. I entirely understand why he and other editors reverted your edits if you were relying on your own original research even if said original research appeared in reliable newspapers. Such edits are a clear wp:conflict of interest. I've not made a study of every single edit so I don't know the precise history here nor do I want to. I know little about Fleming's wartime activities as they do not interest me. - Fantr (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Understood. Actually only this Jenkins edit - which was miniscule, have a look - involved any original research at all on my part, and I made that crystal-clear from the start. All the other reversions were about very small but completely uncontroversial points in readily available and authoritative sources, and nothing to do with my own articles on Fleming or Bond. They were added back in, but it took me days of arguing about them.
 * I see your reversion of my last CR67 edit - that is indeed my speculation, but fair point, it is not fact, and that makes sense. I take the point about not editing something you have found out, but then that is also rather frustrating. While I can see the purpose of that very small reversion you made, if I hadn't made the other edits to that particular passage it would probably have just remained frustratingly nearly-right for years. People often misread things slightly, or get things just slightly wrong. And Wikipedia is rather influential. A journalist consults it, sees it is cited, doesn't check the cite, sexes it up slightly. Someone else sexes that up along the line. And so on. Hence the type of Chinese whispers that existed about Per Fine Ounce which you mentioned above. The bit I edited here is hardly a major error, but it just gives the wrong impression, that Fleming was actively involved over a period of years working with Jenkins on a Bond novel. That's really not the case. Jenkins sent him the plot outline and claimed later Fleming had liked it. Rather a different dynamic.
 * Anyway, I see you are also doing sterling work both editing the Jenkins entry and that of Peter Fleming, surely one of the most under-rated of writers. Great stuff! I'll leave you to it, though. I'm sure SchroCat is a wonderful person, but as far as I can tell this particular article is, in all but name, locked from all but a very small group of editors, and even the smallest of corrections to obvious inaccuracies leads to days-long heated arguments. I'll leave you all to it! Jeremy Duns (talk) 00:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Anything on his son?
We hear nothing about his only son Caspar, except his fatal overdose aged 23. Anything of interest, perhaps including motives for suicide? Valetude (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * As this is an article about Ian, not Caspar, the focus is in the right place here. The major biographies do not dwell on the reasons or circumstances, so there is not much more to say anyway. - SchroCat (talk) 15:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Is the collapsed box needed
A couple of IPs have recently removed the collapsible feature from the box at the top (and for rather spurious reasons too). It raises the question of whether the box is needed at all. All the necessary facts are in the lead, and all the metadata needs (not that they are required) are dealt with by the hidden persondata box. I'd like to get a consensus to remove the box please. - SchroCat (talk) 10:03, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * With no objections since 31 August, I'll remove on that basis. - SchroCat (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

POV edits
IP, As I've asked on your talk page, please stop putting your opinions into the article. See WP:POV. - SchroCat (talk) 16:29, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

US comma use
I have reverted you a couple of times now, leaving a message on your talk page, and indicating the reason in the edit summaries. This article is in British English: you are trying to force US commas into it, which is inappropriate. Please stop. - SchroCat (talk) 22:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * > > Wiki-link: the Comma : Differences between American and British usage --Laurencebeck (talk) 22:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)