Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/Archive 12

Coleridge
The Coleridge remark needs a citation from a mainstream RS, not from the conspiracy school's literature, which, for direct citations from major writers, is not reliable. It should be in R. A. Foakes's Coleridge on Shakespeare The Text of the Lectures 1811-12, but so far I cannot find it there.Nishidani (talk) 11:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The Poacher from Stratford is a mainstream RS. Its title is ironic; it is a very well written history and refutation of anti-Stratfordism published by the U of California P. The writer, an English professor specialising in English Renaissance literature, was the 1961 winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Humanities and English Lit.Tom Reedy (talk) 17:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I wish to account by author and cited page for each piece of information. I saw no citation for Coleridge, but now I see that the ref must be to the text supporting Emerson, hence 'The Poacher'. No problem with that.
 * The problem is, did Coleridge in his 1811 lecture doubt Shakespeare's identity? No. Is the paragraph framed as though Coleridge had begun to worry over the dissonance between the few biographical facts and the achievement of the man, with a tinge of suspicion (as did Emerson much later)?, and not simply, marvelling at the romantic genius of nature (which a Germanophile like Coleridge was probably doing). The text describes Coleridge as though he were an earlier doubter. He is being cited as if he embraced the theory RS say arose in America in 1848. The text runs him together with what RW Emerson wrote decades later, after 1848. This kind of throwing in names in disorder, ripped out of context, is part of the cancer infecting the article.Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Shakesper etc.
"In addition, they do not believe Shakespeare of Stratford and the author shared the exact same name,"

Well I'm not an expert on the complex fluxes in the fringe sect movements, but I thought, esp. after Altrocchi and Nelson showed that the Shakespeare of Stratford was identifiable with the actor, that Ogburn's suspicions about the link had been overcome? yet the text says as general subject 'Shakespeare doubters' or something like that. Surely there are a large number of sceptics who accept that Stratford Will and the London actor are the same, but deny that the actor businessman wrote the works. If so, this is again deceptive synthesis, and unjustified generalization at work. Comments from insiders would be appreciated to enlighten me on this.Nishidani (talk) 18:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

McMichael/Glenn
''' NOTE: Just moved this conversation down to it's own section. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)'''
 * "mainstream researchers George McMichael and Edward Glenn"


 * What does 'mainstream researchers' mean here (apparently 'qualified scholars'?), other than that the two were professors of literature, as far as I can see, specializing in continental biographies and American literature, but not in Elizabethan or Renaissance studies. Again, if they are not trained scholars of the literature of the period, they are not RS, or representatives of mainstream Shakespearean scholarship. I'd appreciate it if anyone who has access to that source might do us the courtesy of transcribing the relevant page section of their book.Nishidani (talk) 18:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the perfect example of Nishidani defining RS according to his terms. Professor's McMichael/Glenn's "Shakespeare and his Rivals, A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy" (which comes down squarely on the side of the traditional attribution) is beyond question a reliable source on this issue and their compilation of historic documents relating to the debate has never been challenged. Smatprt(talk) 19:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Right. Nishidani, what is your problem, anyway? It has been repeatedly pointed out to you that you can no longer in good faith continue to insist that orthodox or mainstream = qualified scholar. It just doesn't work anymore, except perhaps on this wikipedia talk page. A significant minority of scholars, fully qualified by any reasonable definition of this phrase, either think that 1) There is ground for serious doubt over the attribution of the works or 2) They were written by de Vere.--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Not at all. I am asking for you to clarify what McMichael and Glenn's background is as scholars of the Elizabethan period, or as Shakespearean experts. As far as I checked, all I saw was one specialist in American literature, and I forgot what the other's area of expertise was. This page must distinguish between quality RS for all statements regarding the facts of Shakespeare and his times, and RS written from a fringe-theoretical perspective which harvest, twist, spin and comment on these matters. So I await clarification. Can you tell me precisely the material they refer to, and the words they use to introduce it, and their sources. I would appreciate the courtesy.Nishidani (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * McMichael and Glenn's background is irrelevant, because nowhere in their book do they make such a statement. Shakespeare and His Rivalsis a collection of materials associated with the authorship question, such as contemporary references to Shakespeare, excerpts from anti-Stratfordian books, reviews of those books, etc. This particular reference is from the first chapter of William and Elizabeth Freeman'sThe Shakespearean Ciphers Examined, so his statement that he has "two mainstream refs" is just another lie, and nowhere do they say what Smatprt wants them to say. They use such language as "the first man to question Shakespeare's sole authorship ', "he hinted at one of the anti-Stratfordian arguments" (An Essay Against Too Much Reading, 1728); "a curious little allegory . . . . contains what has been considered to be one of the first references to Bacon as Shakespeare" (Life and Adventures of Common Sense 1769); "Another allegorical work referred to the authorship of the plays in 1786 . . .The Story of a Learned Pig . . . .It is a small step from a learned pig to that of the learned Bacon; some readers have been willing to make it." They then write about The Romance of Yachting''. They also include the Wilmot story, which has been declared a forgery by anti-Stratfordians and Stratfordians alike, and is not admissible as a reference. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Tom, if you have the book, and it says what you paraphrase it as saying, by all means review that particular section to remove the tendentiousness of Smatprt's manipulations. I cannot because I am not familiar with those sources.Nishidani (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nishidani, Since you and Tom continue to Harp on this question of qualifications, let me again ask what yours are?  More to the point, since you seem to think that no one except for a very select group of individuals, which apparently only includes certain individuals who are "scholars of the Elizabethan period," have a right to an informed opinion on this matter, just how do you go about determining that? What is your methodology for establishing who does, or does not have a right to express a credible opinion on this topic?  And what is are the long term social and intellectual implications of your cult of expertise. A little humility and self-awareness on your part would go a long way.--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, Tom - I have stated that before. But what can be more strong than one researcher verifying the work of another??

Your reading skills are deficient. McMichael and Glenn are compilers; nowhere do they make any arguments or offer any conclusions. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom - do you have this book??? They make several conclusions, prepare a prose history, and offer several opinions. Are you sure you have the same copy I am looking at? I admit, it's very light on opinions and conclusions, but -again- that is not the point, is it? I said I wasn't quoting their opinions for this line, I was quoting their accounting of when the first signs of doubt were. For their own prose, see pages 1-3, 63-64, 102, 144, 154 and 159. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, they offer no opinions or conclusions. I did not say they didn't write any prose; I said they make no arguments or offer any conclusions. They dispassionately outline the major events of the authorship question without any bias, and their introductions to each section should serve as a model for this article. They offer selections from anti-Stratfordian and Stratfordian sources with no commentary. Your belief that they do might be at the heart of your problem with other editors' contributions to this article. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * They are all certainly in agreement that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. And I have noted any deviations, such as Vickers's monument belief, in this very article. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * But you only note certain deviations. There's the rub. More often than not, you imply that all Shakespeare scholars are in consensus - yet have no data to support what is an "extraordinary" claim. Sure, I agree that there is general consensus about the overall issue - the mainstream attribution is that the plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford. But to say there is general consensus on each and every rebuttal is outlandish. There is no valid way to source such an "extraordinary" claim. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You haven't quoted their opinions because they offer none. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You know Tom, you are a little right on this pointless point you raise. But you are still (basically) wrong. I erred when I said they dismissed each candidate - they actually let a bunch of their complied data do that! BUT... They DO offer opinions, they just don't offer many of them, which (again) has no impact on this discussion:


 * Page 1 - "The controversy over who was Shakespeare exists because many people have feel that the works themselves indicate one kind of individual - a genius - whereas the facts actually known about William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon suggest someone entirely different. (Are they not offering their unbiased opinion as to why the argument exists?)


 * Page 63 - "Barely one hundred years after Shakespeare died, the suggestion was being made that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of the Shakespeare works." (are they not offering their opinion as to when the first suggestion was made about Bacon?)


 * Page 102 - "How Hoffman has met the objection is one of the reasons for the great interest his theory has aroused."


 * Page 145 - "One of the most interesting theories..." (direct personal opinion, right?)


 * Page 154 - "The most popular general theory of the anti-Stratfordians is that the works of Shakespeare were composed by a group of collaborators."
 * Page 159 - "The most popular anti-Stratfordian theory of the twentieth century is that "Shakespeare" was written by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford". (That is their opinion, right? I know plenty of Baconians who have a different opinion!).


 * Page 159 - "The most effective - and longest- of the arguments for Oxford is Dorothy and Chrrlton Ogburn's This Start of England" (citing one book as "the most effective" - sure sounds like an opinion to me).Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it appears that I am correct. You really can't tell the difference between opinion and dispassionate reporting. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * And anytime a "mainstream scholar" rebuts an anti-Stratfordian point, they speak for the scholarly consensus, which accepts Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of his works, so this argument that they have to be individually named as if they are expressing some type of personal individual belief is specious and just another anti-Stratfordian delaying tactic. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's just crazy. You act as if all Shakespeare scholars are in agreement about everything, which is hardly the case. Just look at Vickers and the Stratford monument for an easy example. "Whenever a mainstream scholar rebuts... they speak for the scholarly consensus?" That's about as weaselly as you can get! It's just so odd that you don't want to attribute anything when that is exactly what the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia say you must do.Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, there is no "scholarly consensus." There is a dominant view. That is not the same thing. Do you know what "consensus" means?--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

To get back to the question Nishidani asked of me, first, you must admit this is strange - you ask for a courtesy, in spite of the uncourteous and insulting language you have used to describe me (and anyone else on these pages who disagrees with you). I have been accused of passive/aggressive behavior, so it is reassuring that I am in good company! To fulfill your request, I ask you to note the following:


 * First, McMichael and Glenn, as I have mentioned, come down squarely on your side of the fence. After examining each claim, they dismiss them, and reassure the reader that Shakespeare of Stratford is the guy.


 * Perhpas you'd like to quote an example of this. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of their specific Elizabethan qualifications, they are published academics who took a thorough approach to their task. And please note that I have not quoted their opinions in any way in the wiki article.

In their 4th chapter "Signs of Doubt and Their History" they compile historical documents into chronological order. To quote their process "Unless otherwise indicated, each selection in the text has been transcribed as it appeared in its source. Where translation, explanation, or digest is offered, the fact is so indicated."


 * Turning to chapter 4, they cite the Friedman's The Great Controversy - The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined(Cambridge University Press), pages 1-4, and quote, at length, the 1728 book "An Essay Against Too much Reading" as representing the "first" sign of doubt.


 * Now if we turn to the Friedman's work we find in the preface (page vii):

and a good many writers, in contesting the attribution, have made specific claims for someone else as author."
 * "FOR almost two hundred years the authorship of the plays commonly attributed to Shakespeare has been disputed;

Obviously, 200 years puts us squarely in the 18th century, but to be more specific, turning to page xvi they state:


 * "Anyone interested in English literature must know of the dispute, but few know anything of its history; it is therefore useful to summarize it before going on to the cryptographic arguments themselves. Our first chapter touches on the chief stages, the chief writers and the most important publications since 1728, and a selection of the arguments advanced by anti-Stratfordians. "


 * They say they are summarizing the history, not writing the history. There's a difference. They do not say that anyone in 1728 disputed Shakespeare's authorship. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Finally, on page 1, they assign the 1728 date to "An Essay against Too Much Reading" where they not only state the work is the "first" to assign doubt, but say:


 * "In a small book called An Essay against Too Much Reading, published in 1728, he hinted at one of the anti-Stratfordian arguments. The plays, he said, are so superlative that ' Shakexpear has frighten'd three parts of the World from attempting to write; and he was no Scholar, no Grammarian, no Historian, and in all probability cou'd not write English'. "


 * Hint to Smatprt: they say "he hinted." They don't say that he suggested that Shakespeare didn't write his works. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Although his Plays were historical . . . the History Part was given him in concise and short, by one of those Chuckles that could give him nothing else. . . . I will give you a short Account of Mr. Shake- spear's Proceeding; and that I had from one of his intimate Acquaint- ance. His being imperfect in some Things, was owing to his not being a Scholar, which obliged him to have one of those chuckle- pated Historians for his particular Associate . . . and he maintain'd him, or he might have starv'd upon his History. And when he wanted anything in his Way . . . he sent to him. . . . Then with his natural flowing Wit, he work'd it into all Shapes and Forms, as his beautiful Thoughts directed. The other put it into Grammar. . ..

So it appears the "first" doubt was also the first signs of a (small) "group theory". True, I am editorializing, but what I think is certainly not the point. It's the assignment of first doubt/skepticism/whatever that we are discussing.


 * A "small group theory" that Shakespeare headed? Where does it say that anyone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays? Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Both McMichael/Glen, and the Friedman's, then move on to 1769, with:


 * "In 1769 -- some forty years later -- there was published in England a curious little allegory with a historical framework, called The Life and Adventures of Common Sense. It is anonymous [and] contains what has been considered to be one of the first references to Bacon as Shakespeare."


 * "What has been considered to be" is hardly assent. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

So to summarize, Glenn and McMichael, while also presenting evidence and opinions on each candidate, also provide a chronological accounting of the history of the debate, quoting, among other researchers, the Friedmans. He has, in essence, verified their work and published it independently.


 * Unbelievable. You really and truly don't understand how it works? How can you say they "verified their work and published it independently?" Read yourself above quoting their method: "Unless otherwise indicated, each selection in the text has been transcribed as it appeared in its source." Do you consider that "verifying their work?" Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The Friedman's provided the source material, reprinted in their original form.


 * A third reference can also be supplied to "The Shakespeare Controversy - An Analysis of the Claimants to Authorship, and their Champions and Detractors, 1992. In Part II, Chapter 1, it provides a "Chronological Annotated Bibliography" of the issue, beginning on page 149, saying:


 * "The following bibliography contains the seminal works, much of the periodical literature of the past several decades, and a selection from the vast literature on the question that has appeared since 1728."

They, too, begin with the 1728 Essay against Too Much Reading, followed by the 1769 Common Sense tracts, followed by the 1786 "Notes on a Tour of English Country Seats".

So there you have it, with a 1992 reference that also confirms the 18th century information. I hope you find this information useful and will agree that to simply state that the issue was never in question/theorized/speculated on/whatever until the 19th century would not be accurate.


 * None of these sources say that the publications in question suggested that anyone other than Shakespeare wrote the works (except for the transmigrating soul Pimping Billy, who entered a bear after P.B. died (little joke there)), which is what we are discussing. Hints, innuendos--maybe, but those are all interpretations and are presented as such in this article, as they should be. there is no recorded mention of the Shakespeare authorship theory until 1848. Them's the facks. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

One final point - even though there are mainstream academics that have verified this information, in documenting a theory, including its history, it is well within the guidelines to look to the proponents of that theory. Otherwise, you would be saying that only people who say there is no theory should be allowed to discuss it. That is not what the fringe policy says. But I expect, as an experienced Wikipedian, you know that.Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

More on Pseudonymous section
I noticed that Tom deleted the following passage, which I have restored. The testimony of Hall and Marston is an important element of the early tradition of veiled discourse on authorship. I noticed that there wasn't a footnote, however -- perhaps that was Tom's objection, since I do not see that he stated one before removing the content-- so I've provided one:


 * Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1597 and John Marston in 1598 have been interpreted to imply that Francis Bacon was the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece,[58] although such references might also allude to another concealed author of the same works.

I also provided internal links about Hall and Marston. The more we can anchor this page in the relevant context of such early modern critics, the stronger we make it. I would appreciate if before he simply cuts this out again, Tom would justify his edit first. If anyone wants to know the relevant passages, I can supply them. Thanks.--BenJonson (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I notice it's not so important that you're specific about what Hall and Marston wrote and how that is interpreted to imply what you say it does. If you want it to stay you need to furnish that information. Otherwise it's just an assertion flapping in the wind, and it will soon fly off the page again. And BTW I've asked for clarification on that and other items quite some time ago, but no explanations have been forthcoming. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure where you get that impression. I'm merely citing published positions. If I were to cite the actual passages, you would rightly insist that I was padding the article with material which properly belongs on another page. Nothing requires you to accept that the interpretation that has been made of these passages is correct. But to my knowledge the passages in question have not been interpreted in ways other than those cited. If they have, then you should point us to those references and we can include them in the article. However, I will again repeat my request that you stop your abusive tone. I have read the works in question, and there are more of them which are not yet cited in the article. They may or may not mean what they have been interpreted to mean, but if you think that they don't mean that, then there is an equal responsibility on you to explain why. My goal is to provide the reader with a broad exposure to the arguments which have been made on both sides in this debate, Tom. What's yours?--BenJonson (talk) 03:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What passages? You're not making sense. Although you say you've cited them, I can't find them, and if I can't find them I believe it highly unlikely anybody else can, either. "Citing published positions" is not enough. If it were we'd just list all the people who have published on the topic under two opposing columns and be done with it. You need to provide enough detail so the reader can know what it is you're talking about. No reference source in the world mentions an item and then leaves it up to the reader to go chase down the reference, unless it's a bibliography. You're not providing "the reader with a broad exposure to the arguments", you're confusing him. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tom, I'm sorry you found my use of the term "passages" to be confusing. I was, of course, referring to the passages in Hall and Marston which the original sentence referred to, albeit not very clearly. The Gibson book is difficult to find, but I traced an excellent discussion of the issue in John Michell's book, which I added to the references for the quote. Surely you have a copy of that book and can look up the passages in question, which refer to someone called "Labeo" as the author of Venus and Adonis. Interestingly, both authors use the same name, so they appear to be participating in a public but veiled conversation. The cite is 126-29, Michell. Gibson himself, writing on behalf of the orthodoxy, seems to concede that the references are to a concealed author, and that the author is Bacon, but argues that even if "it may prove that Hall and Marston were the first exponents of the Baconian theory...it does not, and cannot, prove that the Baconian theory is true." My own view is that the passages clearly are referring to the author of V&A under that sobriquet. I suppose that could in fact be the Stratford William, but you have to admit it raises the question of why they would be discussing him under a pseudonym. If you can't lay your hands on a copy of the Michell book, just let me know and I'd be happy to type out the offending "passages."--BenJonson (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll look up the references. I'm not saying the passages are offensive; I'm saying that leaving the reader hanging about the main points of the argument is unnecessary and begs for explanation. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What Happened to Nishidani?
He seems to have "retired."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nishidani

Its a pity, too. I just figured out who he is.--BenJonson (talk) 13:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Cockburn Book
In the External links section for the Baconian part, the Cockburn book link (first one) must be removed because the copyright is held by the Francis Bacon Society who have not given permission. Can someone do this? Thanks. Temperance007 (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The second link was "dead" anyway. The first link merely provides a summary of the contents, which is not, as far as I am aware, subject to copyright. What is the problem? Paul B (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

History of authorship doubts
I have restored my edit to the first paragraph that Smatprt reverted. I said on Feb. 21 that I was going to edit that section and even gave the first line here. After an orgy of undiscussed edits by BenJonson and Smatprt over the weekend, I don't think it is Smatprt's place to tell me that I have to get every word approved by the same process that has slowed the lead revision to a standstill. The edits I made are all referenced and accurate, and get rid of the frothy, newsletter style of reporting every up-to-the-minute anti-Stratforidan minutia that has no place in an encyclopedia entry. Nor am I aware of any "guideline" that says we have to present the minority view first followed by the academic consensus.Tom Reedy (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, I repeat my request that you refrain from using phrases like "an orgy of undiscussed edits." None of the "fringe theorists" here uses that kind of language about you, except possibly in response to your abuse. I'm sorry you lack the self control to be more respectful,but your use of such phrases tends to confirm my negative opinion of you. You have made numerous undiscussed edits to the page. Do you not see the hypocrisy in accusing others not only of doing what you have done, but also throwing in vicarious insults of this kind. Cut it out. Thanks.--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I cannot understand how you can not be aware of the very guideline you keep talking about: WP:FRINGE. To assist you further here is the link to section 3, Evaluating Claims: []. You need to look at the whole section, as it touches on many of the areas I keep mentioning. Presently, it is this sentence you have asked about:


 * " This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations."


 * And how exactly is my edit a violation of that? Is not the anti-Stratfordian idea clearly described in the article before the history section? Are you saying that each separate detail of anti-Stratfordism is a fringe belief unto itself?


 * No, and you are making up your own definition. Each section should start with the minority viewpoint, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas.
 * This quotation does not mean that a section within an article must begin with the particular fringe idea detailed, and then be followed by a "Stratfordians respond . . ." This is quite evident from reading the entire section from which you quoted:


 * No it is not. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical, scientific, and cultural prominence. Claims that are uncontroversial and uncontested within reliable sources should be presented as simple statements of fact — e.g. "An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton." Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind." Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles [not every section in an article! TR] should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations. It is also best to avoid hiding all disputations in an end criticism section, but instead work for integrated, easy to read, and accurate article prose."
 * In my edit, I presented an uncontroversial and uncontested claim as a simple statement of fact: "During the life of William Shakespeare and for more than 200 years after his death, no one seriously suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym," which is sourced with three different reliable sources. I followed that with a neutral and accurate description of the anti-Stratfordian interpretations of hints being present in contemporary allusions to Shakespeare. I did not include any type of rebuttal or response, and in fact my first statement is not a rebuttal to what follows.


 * Yes, every section. Or, Tom, point out to me where it says "not every section" as you claim above. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * These are worth quoting, as well:


 * "Fringe theories that oppose reliably sourced research — denialist histories, for example — should be described clearly within their own articles, but should not be given undue weight in more general discussions of the topic."


 * "Clearly" is definitely where you fail in execution.


 * Your contention is that by cutting a majority of examples you make the history more clear? That's laughable. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, my point is that your writing is not very good. You should probably take a composition course at your local junior college. As for the rest of your responses, I won't bother, because it appears to me that you actually believe your confused ad hoc replies--or at least I can't tell the difference between when you do and when you are cynically feigning belief in order to promote your obsession. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom I have to suppress the urge to laugh here, after your wholly undiscussed edit to the Mosher and Taylor passage. Is misrepresenting the context of Taylor and Mosher's remark, garbling up a perfectly legible and accurate signal phrase introducing a bunch of qualifying phrases that were not merely irrelevant but profoundly misleading, your definition of "good writing"?--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind."


 * Are you serious? Please don't tell me that you believe that this article begins with Halbronn's view. (The section does, but it is not in a WP:FRINGE article espousing Halbronn's belief as true.)


 * Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. " Smatprt (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I also changed the format from the he-said-she-said debate style to a style more in line with an encyclopedia article. I stated the facts, and then neutrally outlined the anti-Stratforidian assertions with a sufficient example. We don't need to pile on every little detail; this is not an exercise in persuasion, but a dispassionate description of the topic. More edits to the section are being written, and they will be written in a neutral manner with references that comply with Wikipedia requirements. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Which gives you no right to delete material, existing or added, by other editors. Or to choose from the anti-Strat arguments, which stay and which go. How is that an example of the Good Faith you keep espousing? Smatprt (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Read this: "Conjectures that have not received critical review from the scientific community or that have been rejected should be excluded from articles about scientific subjects. . . . The same holds true for conjectures and theories in other academic disciplines."


 * This is not an article about the mainstream subject. This is an article about a minority subject. You keep mixing the two. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies aren't suspended for fringe subjects. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And this: "Efforts of fringe-theory inventors to shill on behalf of their theories, such as the offering of self-published material as references, are unacceptable."


 * What you deleted was not self-published, so your example goes out the window.Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe those two statements from WP:FRINGE give not only me, but anyone else, the right to remove material that violates them. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Smatprt, you have a serious WP:OWN problem. You write of another editor that he has 'no right to delete material, existing or added, by other editors', while that is what you consistently do in a manic fashion with everyone else's work you disagree with. Consensus is requires when mainstream scholarship is introduced, but no consensus is required with the tendentious POVing trash you throw insistently into the article. You're an WP:SPA, and show no interest in the goals of wikipedia other than running about to edit a fringe whacko ideological slant into serious pages. I suggest you lay back a while, take a break and reflect on what you want to do here. Most edits of yours I have observed here will, by the natural logic of events, and by reference to WP:NPOV rules, be challenged and eventually elided by committed general editors, no matter how much time you dedicate to showcasing this stuff. Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nishi you clearly don't even look at the edits. There is one major difference in the edits to this section that Tom and I made. I tightened up the paragraph without deleting the referenced examples added by various editors over the history of this article. I did not delete one example (and you lie when you say I did). Tom deleted the majority of examples in their entirety, leaving one overly detailed example in its place. Next time, examine the edit before you criticize it, lest you end up looking foolish.Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you have a problem with reading English. I made a general observation using just the last of many instances. I was told on joining not to edit the lead until consensus was reached. I stopped doing so, and you kept editing it, for example (WP:OWN), and my edit this morning aimed to restore one line to a semblance of the form it had before edit-creep made it the mess it is.  So your answer is empty of content, since you are not addressing the point, and indeed weren't obliged to. It was just a preliminary warning, to stick to the same restrictions you ask others to observe.Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Tom, your edit was deceiving and you know it. Saying "no one seriously questioned....", when I have supplied you two references from mainstream RS that says otherwise, is simply ignoring any source that you disagree with, and only quoting sources that further you agenda here. It's you saying there is a consensus again, when obviously there isn't. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

(a)'your editing was deceiving' = was 'deceptive' (b)'you agenda' = your agenda' (c) 'consensus'means a majority, it does not mean unanimity. Check a dictionary. There can be a consensus of mainstream sources on an issue, and one or two mainstream sources that disagree with that consensus. The existence of that disagreement does not mean a general consensus does not prevail in a given field. But, ah, explain this to schoolchildren. Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, stop making unjustified inferences about other people's "agenda." It merely illustrates your unwillingness to debate in good faith. Thanks--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Whatever consensus may emerge, you simply cannot allow lousy lines to stick round like a bad smell in the lead: I.e. after saying that the debate or theory arose in the id 19th century one had:-
 * "Since that time, the issue has attracted increased public attention and a thriving following, but is dismissed by the majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.<"
 * A moment's reflection would tell any normal person that is limp summation of what occurred over 1 and a half centuries, that it is vitiated by tactical POV priming, with its tacit suggestion that since 1848 public attention has been increasing incrementally (were that so, millions around the world would now be openly nodding as doubts were raised from time to time in the media). Thirdly, the source says 'vast majority' and to elide that from the text, which is written by a pro de Verean, is pure bad faith. I've therefore replaced it with a minimal reconstrual which sticks to what the facts are (public interest, in so far as it existed, waxed and waned according to zone and time, and did not incrementally increase etc.) and the source states.Nishidani (talk) 17:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nishidani, please note that the language you're complaining about is no longer on the table. I just proposed new wording accepting most of Tom's latest version (see above under section titled "289 wrods"). I suggest you focus your attention on that rather than dredging up wording that's no longer in play. Thanks. Schoenbaum (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Courtesy note. Please note that the language I complained of, and removed, was sitting on the article page in the lead. I was told the lead was not to be tampered with, but it has been, and I have, once more, followed suit to remove this clunky phrasing. Having done so, I explained my reason above. It's called 'good manners' to explain what one has done. So, I didn't 'dredge up language that is no longer in play'. I removed question-begging language from the lead that I think you, and I, and a few others, would regard as silly. The alternatives proposed here are another issue.Nishidani (talk) 23:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I note that overnight Smatprt has reverted en masse again, eliding every edit during the day people other than himself made. The lead is under consensual adjudication, as Schoenbaum says, and the lead we have is not the one we shall have when a line-by-line consensus has been reached. The other edits were perfectly legitimate additions of detail, from reliable sources, certainly subject to challenge, but not mass cancellation by one editor with a patent WP:OWN insistence that every main text adjustment must receive his own assent before being made. Your behaviour is becoming very problematic, Smatprt. In reverting you I am not endorsing the edits made. I am opposing your bossy attempt to impose a veto on everything on this page. If you dislike additions, reason on the talk page and do not make wholesale reversions to your favoured text.Nishidani (talk) 09:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I thought I undid it, but see Tom Reedy came up first, and my revert was cancelled simultaneously by his. I stand by everything else.Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In addition to reverting my edits, he also took that opportunity to delete some of the other long-standing material that he disagrees with, even though it also is accurate and reliably sourced. And as you can read in the first discussion in this section, he is being unresponsive to my points and ignoring the larger context of Wikipedia policy, instead blindly insisting that his interpretations of policy are correct and demanding that I prove a negative. The history section is inaccurate and very sparse and needs to be mended so that the topic can be viewed in an historic context. Every important fact about anti-Stratfordism was not discovered by Ogburn nor published in Brief Chronicles.Tom Reedy (talk) 10:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Technically the history section should follow the lead, with the 1848 to 2010 sequence, (Baconians dominated the 19th century, as did Americans: of the 255 titles published between 1856 and 1884, two thirds were American), finishing with the new theory that indeed there was a secret debate going on before 1848, and finally the 2007 declaration. As it is, like the rest of the article, it is all round the place like the proverbial manic dowager's excrement.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Punctuation
Roger, there's probably no sense in correcting all the punctuation until the page is stable, which I estimate will be sometime in 2029 or so at the rate it's going. Wikipedia uses British style punctuation, WP:LP, which I admit I don't fully understand because a lot of what I read in British books and journals doesn't really comply with what I understand the rules to be. Same way with my spelling; it varies between American and English seemingly without any guidance from me. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Punctuaton is not a big deal, as long as it's not outright illiterate. We only need to concern ourselves with that if and when (oh when...) we are going to put this forward for GA or FA status. As for spelling, we'd probably be better off using British spelling, but it's debatable since this subject was essentially "invented" by Americans. UK publishers have their own house styles, which often use "American" 'ize' rather than 'ise' endings. Older UK publications can use other apparently American spellings (color/honor spellings rather than colour/honour spellings were not uncommon in the 19th century). We should use the spellings in the original publications, though updated spelling of Elizabethan texts can be used if they have been published in that form.
 * BTW, yesterday I created an article on Joseph C. Hart, an American. I've tried to use US spelling, but may have inadvertantly used some UK spellings, so please check. Paul B (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Are we using UK or American standards; you are right, Tom, they're not the same. And I make any corrections required. We should agree on the conventions and continue to improve the article in all ways possible. And I beg to differ, Paul, for anyone with any training in editing, the punctuation alone frequently makes the page look like the work of a gaggle of incompetents. I'm fine with any conventions, as long as we all know what they are and agree that they *are* in factor important.--BenJonson (talk) 12:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Taylor and Mosher
Ok, I have to admit I'm a bit pissed. I don't know who made the edits to the citation of Taylor and Mosher, but The book most definitely is NOT just about continental writers. It is a comprehensive survey of the history of anonymous and pseudonymous publication, and there is absolutely no justification in the cited chapter, or anywhere else in the book that I can see, for implying that their generalizations do not include England during the period in question. The chapter is called "Anonyma and Pseudonyma," and it starts off talking about Plutarch and Xenophon, for crying out loud. A footnote on page 87 mentions the Shakespearean authorship question! And the same footnote refers to a book on modern American attribution controversies. The qualifications are tendentious and will not stand.--BenJonson (talk) 03:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I made the edit and I've got the book, too. The context is certainly correct. Taylor was a specialist in German literature of the 15th and 16th centuries. I suppose their generalizations include Egyptian literature of the 16th and 17th centuries too, since they nowhere say it doesn't. You might want to give us a reference on the part about English playwrights. For the peanut gallery, here's the mention of the Shakespeare question verbatim:
 * "The Bacon-Shakespeare controversy needs only to be mentioned; it seems to be irrepressible." The note is for the sentence in the text, "Interest in discovering the secret of a cryptogram is by no means extinct, and excellent studies are still being made." Tom Reedy (talk) 04:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, the problem with your edit is that it quite incorrectly implies that the statement was intended to be limited to those examples cited in the chapter. It is quite clear from the context of the entire book that this is not so. Taylor and Mosher are surveying the entire history of the use of pseudonyms and their chronological analysis in the cited passage is intended to cover the entire European context. The fact that most of their examples in the chapter are continental doesn't change that. And the evidence from England justifies the implication completely that there, as on the continent, these were the "golden ages" of the used of concealed authorship. Earlier you were arguing for editorial economy. Why are you padding the article with irrelevant, and indeed misleading, qualifications? --BenJonson (talk) 04:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So they mention Bacon by name, but Tom is excluding discussion of possibly concealed English authors, is that what you are saying,Tom?? Again, you are taking your "he is a specialist in this, so can't be discussing that" argument way too far and really abusing the RS policy. At the RS noticeboard, did you not take note of the fact that for RS purposes we accept "expert" status fairly broadly? And this isn't even broad - it's pretty darn specific. An expert in 16th century anonymous and pseudonymous publication isn't restricted to just one country, for goodness sake! Smatprt (talk) 04:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Smatprt, it appears to me that you are becoming overwrought and your memory is failing. You attribute to me things I've never written, and your accusation of dishonesty is noted. Taylor and Mosher are hardly experts in anonymous and pseudonymous publication; they're bibliographers whose main purpose is to identify such usage, not explain it or seek out the reasons individual authors would use it. And without checking, I don't recall that they even mention the "stigma of print". Half the book is a bibliography of publications on pseudonyms, as the study of pseudonyms is mostly a branch of library science (Mosher's specialization) for book classification. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Dude - I must be losing my mind. Where exactly did I discuss "stigma of print" and what did I say? Smatprt (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The stigma of print is the standard explanation for Oxford's veiled authorship of the Shakespeare works. If Taylor and Mosher were actual specialists in anonymous and pseudonymous publication instead of bibliographers, one would expect them to mention it, no? Tom Reedy (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Didn't think I did. Now what did I attribute to you that you didn't write? Smatprt (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It was pretty clear when I compared the simplicity of my original wording with Tom's baroque modifications, which involved long qualifications implying that the authors had no knowledge of English literary history, and his specific qualification about the chapter in question, that Tom was playing the Nishidani game of trying to imply that somehow 1) the authors had no authority to make the claims that they did; 2) their claims did not even cover England during the period in question. It is possible that if one is not a very skilled reader, one could think that the second point is valid, since the chapter in question mainly draws its examples from continental European sources (and that is in general true of the book, no doubt because those were the examples with which the authors were most familiar). However, it the implied conclusion of the reworded version is wholly false: It is clear enough, to anyone who reads the book with any care, that Taylor and Mosher intend their remark to include the entire European theater. This is so because the sweep of their inquiry is in fact global and broadly historical; they comment on ancient, medieval, and modern materials as well as those from the Renaissance, and on Latin, English, and American materials as well as those from the countries Tom mentioned in his edits; their bibliography includes works written in Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, English, Latin,Polish, Hebrew, and Norwegian, among others; works in it refer to the use of pseudonyms in South Africa, Mexico, and China, in addition to the countries in which the previous languages are spoken. Tom's edits give a wholly false impression of what the book is really about and therefore what the quotation in question signifies for Shakespearean studies.--BenJonson (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * IIRC I made the edit after one of Smatprt's editing frenzies to whip the wording of the article into the shape he thought it needed to be in, but I can't recall my motivation at the time. Using Smatprt's guidelines (as opposed to Wikipedia's), shouldn't the passage read this way? "Archer Taylor and Frederic J. Mosher believe that the 16th and 17th centuries as the "golden age" of pseudonymous authorship and believe that during this period “almost every writer used a pseudonym at some time during his career." Tom Reedy (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, I agree with Ben Jonson and Smatprt on this issue. You are abusing Wikipedia policies re: RS and NPOV with these kinds of edits. You appear to be pushing an agenda to minimize or delete the minority viewpoint whenever possible. It's time for you to stop making such edits and start behaving like a neutral and responsible editor. Schoenbaum (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schoenbaum (talk • contribs)


 * Ha ha ha! You're funny, Schoenbaum. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:PCTKBNishidani (talk) 15:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit justifications.

 * (1) Say = maintain. Scholars write books, they don’t chat.
 * (2) ‘point out’ replaced by ‘assert’. Restored ‘point out’, since it happens to be true that more is known about Shakespeare than most other playwrights and actors of the period.


 * Now you know that you can only use "point out" is a fact is undisputed. This is in dispute so "assert" or "claim" or "believe" would be more appropriate. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Point out' is what mainstream scholarship says. Fringe kibitzers at least here haven't 'explain'ed anything. They 'assert' or 'claim'. As I showed below in a brief excursus anyone could grub up in a couple of minutes among books, this wild 'claim' or 'assertion' has nothing to do with the verb 'explain'.


 * (3)Ogburn asserted that there is no ‘direct evidence’ in 1982 linking Shakespeare of Stratford to the theatre. Since then a de Verean and a mainstream scholar have written a paper that adduces evidence for the equation, and many deVereans now accept this evidence.
 * "The Huntington Library copy of the third edition of William Camden's Britannia (1590) contains a manuscript notation in Latin referring to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon as 'our Roscius.' The authors conclude that the annotation was written by Richard Hunt, vicar of Bishops Itchington, Warwickshire, probably during his tenure as vicar (1621–61). Hunt was an Oxford graduate whose family, properties, and social acquaintances link him to towns and villages in the vicinity of Stratford. By employing the term 'our Roscius,' Hunt apparently meant to characterize Shakespeare as a great actor; since 'Roscian' was sometimes used in a broader sense, Hunt may also have meant to characterize Shakespeare as a playwright or, more generally, as a man of the theater. See here and here, where Nelson writes that Altrocchi ‘accepts that this new document proves that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was considered by his contemporaries to be or to have been the Roscius of his age, that is, an important actor on the public stage."

I have adjusted to the historic ‘have asserted’ The point of this manipulation of the text is to prepare the reader for the disclaimer. (5 below), later, when it is argued we know more about the claimants to authorship than we do about William Shakespeare. (‘Commenting on this lack of a literary paper trail’), But the argument is false. There is no literary paper trail leading to any of the claimants, according to mainstream RS as opposed to the imaginary trail conjured up by the variety of fringe hypotheses, according to fringe RS. We know more about Shakespeare than most playwrights (understood as practicing writers for the theatre). We know less about Shakespeare than about Lord Bacon or deVere, but this does not mean that, if we hypothesize both the latter as writers for theatre, the mainstream statement is nothing more than a misleading assertion. The mainstream view here hews to the known facts: the fringe view undercuts the known facts with hypotheses.

Repeating the name, in two sentences one following the other, andintroducing the full title into the text of his second book, mentioned in the notes, is ridiculously poor style-
 * (4) ‘Critics of the mainstream view, such as Charlton Ogburn Jr . .Further, anti-Stratfordian Charlton Ogburn Jr, in ‘The Mysterious WS: the Myth and the Reality, states his belief.

I have adjusted to Ogburn and uncluttered the repetitition. And made ‘states’ into ‘stated’. The man is dead.


 * (5) Diana Price is a ‘researcher’. What’s that mean? She is an ‘independent researcher’ meaning not attached to any school of serious Shakespearean studies.


 * (6) shortly before is death = his death


 * (7) ‘Commenting on this lack of a literary paper trail’. Removed. There is no literary paper trail leading to any of the claimants. It is untrue to assert that there is no literary trail leading to Shakespeare. The mainstream view is that there is. The way the text has been manipulated makes it appear as if there were a parity between the mainstream and fringe view secondary sources.

Question-begging. Trevor-Roper’s essay is on the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare. ‘The external records show that William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, the son of a local tradesman whose business declined and who was fined for keeping an unauthorized dungheap.’ Note ‘show’, not ‘indicate’, ‘suggest’ etc.
 * (8) ‘Regarding the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare of Stratford


 * (9) I have given the proper ref to Trevor-Roper’s essay and provided a link to the site which hosts it.


 * (10) Authorship researchers explain that the phrase "Swan of Avon". Deliberate misleading of the readership. They do not ‘explain’ (clarify what is unclear),. They ‘argue’. ‘Can’ = ‘might’. ‘Can’ refers to a real and definite possibility. This is disputed. Hence ‘might’.


 * Constant accusations of "deliberately misleading" is a form of personal attack. Can you please refrain from this behavior?Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (11) The hammering effect of ‘anti-Stratfordian’ is disastrous stylistically. It is understood from context that we are dealing here, and elsewhere with the doubters’ case. So just ‘Mark Anderson’, unless you can come up with multi fringe sources supporting him.


 * (12) ‘many contemporary Elizabethan scholars knew of Terence as, in reality, an actor who was a front man for one or more Roman aristocratic playwrights.’

Again patent and flagrant abuse of protocols. This is not proven or shown. We have Roger Ascham for the view that two of the 6 plays ascribed to Terence were written by Laelius and Scipio. I’ve had to adjust to make the text, which is in the neutral voice, correspond to the known facts.


 * QUESTION: I know the Ascham quotation includes Scipio, but where did he get that? The translation of Cicero's letter that I've read mentions only Gaius Laelius. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry I'm late on this, just had to give a tutorial on Shamela. Suetonius.
 * "'Non obscura fama est adiutum Terentium in scriptis a Laelio et Scipione eamque ipse auxit numquam nisi leviter refutare conatus, . .Videtur autem levius (se) defendisse, quia sciebat et Laelio et Scipioni non ingratam esse hanc opinionem, quae tum magis et usque ad posteriora tempora valuit.' Suetonius, de Poetis, ed. Augusto Rostagni, Loescher, Rome 1956 p.35"
 * Actually there are, in the literature, six different names cited for this. Ascham used only one or two sources, while many more classical remarks on this were available, much like Montaigne when he wrote:-
 * Et, si la perfection du bien parler pouvoit apporter quelque gloire sortable à un grand personage, certainement Scipion et Laelius n’eussent pas resigné l’honneur de leur comedies et toutes les mignardises de delices du langage Latin à un serf Africain. Car, que cet ouvrage soit leur, sa beauté et son excellence le maintient assez, et Terence l’advouë luy mesme. On me feroit desplaisir de me desloger de cette creance.’’ Albert Thibaudet (ed.) Essais de Montaigne, Bk 1 ch.XI p.250-1


 * (13) Price argues, or asserts, she does not ‘state’, a word that tends to pass off as an objective fact what is nothing more than a cloudcuckooland suspicion.


 * "argues" is not neutral. You and Tom keep adding "argue" to anti-strats claims, while using "point out" "note", etc. for strat claims. Can you try to be neutral in your phrasing, please? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You argue a position or a speculation; you state a fact. Stating a speculation as a fact is not neutral. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (14) removed the repetition ‘that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times.’ One must not, (I repeat) hammer away at a thesis by hypnotic repetitions of the same phrasing, esp. in two successive lines.

I have adjusted to make clear that this is the cited ‘researchers’ view. ‘Taken’ on its own, suggests that scholarship would underwrite what these various ‘researchers’ assert.
 * (15) ‘taken to be an allusion to the mythical Adonis in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and therefore a nickname for Shakespeare’


 * POINT: I'm pretty sure the allusion is taken to be to Adonis, and by extension meaning Shakespeare, by everyone, not just anti-Strats. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That Adon points to Adonis, a mythical subject of a huge amount of poetry, is not doubted. That Shakespeare is therefore intended, since he wrote a 'Venus and Adonis', Tom? I'll check my books, but I'd like some RS confirmation of this.Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This part is overwritten anyhow. Excessive detail for one example is kind of ridiculous. This is supposed to be a summary of the history. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, fa Chrissake. The Earl of Oxford posses the honorary office, indeed he may have been ‘prepossessed’ by the office, but he was not ‘possessed with’, i.e. invaded by the spirit of, the office of Lord Chamberlain of England.
 * (16) ‘the Earl of Oxford was possessed with his honorary office of Lord Chamberlain of England.’


 * Sorry. It's all first-draft stuff is my only excuse! Same for all the other errors in that section. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That is extremely clumsy, suggesting an article argues, and not its author. I have put Roger Stritmatter as the subject of the sentence. ‘But’ must go.
 * (17) But a subsequent article argues.
 * This is now questioned by the Dodger (rhyming slang, don't fret!). Why 'Roger Stritmatter' instead of the earlier 'But a subsequent article argues that a passage from the next verse,' is obvious, on stylistic grounds, and because an ambiguity arises if 'subsequent article' is used as the subject.
 * The preceding sentence has a reference to James and Rubenstein's interpretation of this passage. If their view, as appears to be the case, is challenged, then the name of the author challenging their view should be given ('James and Rubenstein' on the one hand, 'Stritmatter' on the other, two personal subjects in two successive sentences dealing with the same point. Change 'Stritmatter' to 'But a subsequent article' only creates the possible misprision that James and Rubenstein had altered their earlier view, and this change was registered in Stritmatter's paper. 'Subsequent' in context implies the authors of the previous sentence wrote the article. But such an article is not sourced. Instead we are given an article by the deVerean Stritmatter.The result? Confusion and lack of prose balance.Nishidani (talk) 14:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * again - argues? Please find a more neutral word. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (18) Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1598 and John Marston in 1598 apparently refer to the author of Venus and Adonis


 * (19) ‘another concealed author of the same work’ is impossible. What is a ‘concealed author’, someone whom others hid?


 * Kind of nit-picky on this. I think everyone knows the context in which "concealed author" is being used. It's an article about hidden authorship, isn't it? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This is stated as a fact, one which contradicts the other fact earlier, of mainstream scholarship. This is fraudulent. It is a theory, not a fact.
 * (20) ‘The first unorthodox views of Shakespeare's authorship were expressed in 18th century satirical and allegorical works’


 * Again - fraudulent? Can you stop attacking editors this way? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not attacking editors. I am saying that what I find on the page stated as a fact, despite repeated reminders it is a theory, is the result of a deliberately fraudulent method. There are other hypotheses for why anyone persists in unreason, but I won't mention them.Nishidani (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I have placed this after Coleridge, who subscribed indeed to the Romantic Shakespeare myths. Placed before Coleridge, the line suggested Coleridge was ‘uneasy’ about the difference. I have seen no evidence of this, and checked three bios of him without finding anything to corroborate the innuendo. I’d be happy to be enlightened. Postpositioning in the meantime relieves the text of this tactical ambiguity.
 * (21) ‘Uneasiness about the difference between Shakespeare's reputation and the humdrum facts of his biography began to emerge.’


 * (22) ‘tells how’ suggests narration of an event or fact. The work properly ‘portrays’ Shakespeare in that light, it does not ‘tell how’ Shakespeare was.


 * (23) Added date for Emerson’s remark on Shakespeare. As put earlier it was crammed together with Coleridge 1811. In fact it came 2 years after 1848 and Hart’s pamphlet, a key date, and reflects Emerson’s reaction to the first public polemic. I have also added the direct source in Emerson’s works.


 * (24) Stylistic adjustment for Delia Bacon

Oh come now! He published his theory that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare within the compass of a privately-circulated letter. Must have been the biggest letter in the history of the epistolary art.
 * (25) ‘published his theory that Bacon wrote the works in a privately-circulated letter’

‘Enlarged a letter int(o) a book? The device used to effect the transformation sounds like one of those things sold in seedy stores for the enlargement of an underendowed gentleman’s marital tackle. Have adjusted, eheu.
 * (26) A year later he enlarged the letter int (sic)a book.


 * (27) Baconian craze. Craze is not neutral, esp. in a text predominantly edited by deVereans. Perhaps ‘fad’. But Schoenbaum’s language is neutral, and thus it is best elided.


 * (28) ‘Anti-Stratfordian scholars’. Why scholars? 99% of them are not.


 * you have data to support that 99% figure? Didn't think so. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (29) Link ‘Oxfordian’ to the wiki ‘Oxfordian theory’ article, to avoid the lamentable possibility of readers confusing OT with the intellectual rigourism of the University of Oxford.


 * (30) the prevailing "stigma of print = ‘a’ prevailing stigma of print. ‘The’ insinuates this is a fact, which it isn’t.Nishidani (talk) 14:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (31)The Swan of Avon section has this:
 * ", as the distinguishing characteristic of the swan was its silence — hence the name 'Mute Swan'."
 * This is a WP:OR violation, in the sense that an editor is drawing on his own research and citing a source, which turns out to be just a wiki page, without the support of a reliable secondary source, and makes his own deductions from this to the Swan of Avon theory. So if you want it in, find one of the fringe-sources that argues this, and asserts that the distinguishing characteristic of the swan was its silence. That too is neither here nor there, since one has to find a source that says the silent swan was a literary topos known to this period. Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Addressed this with ref. Not OR, as you can see. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As expressed the edit is fraudulent if it keeps reintroducing 'the distinguishing characteristic of the swan'. This is not what any Elizabethan would have thought, though deVerean hardscrabble kibitzers might like to think it so.Nishidani (talk) 19:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (32) I don't know why, out of the blue, Smatprt just reverted to the Feb 25th version. I am not underwriting the text I restored. It is simply closer to the emerging consensual version, and has more of the language, if I recall, that Schoenbaum has accepted. There is no way in the wide world that 'public' or 'recorded' will ever be accepted as a legitimate epithet by myself, and I think Tom Reedy and Paul Barlow, so restoring that phrasing looks like sheer provocation. I have added a few words to note that the controversy, when it went public, gave rise to a considerable literature at the time (1856-1900), particularly in the US. But in any case, this line will itself be re-edited, consensually, according to some minor modifications in the versions being proposed.Nishidani (talk) 16:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Closer to the emerging consensus? Isn't that just crystal ball gazing? I restored the version that Tom reverted to on Feb 25th because, as he sai, there is no consensus to change it the way you have done. "Small" and "vast" are words you have added without consensus, and, as you know are weasel words that cannot by adequately sourced. If you remove those words until consensus is reached, that would be agreeable at this time.Smatprt (talk) 16:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, please note this quote from WP:AVOID - "A controversy is defined as "a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views", but is often used in place of the words scandal and affair, and often by editors with a strong disposition against the article subject. The term should be used carefully and only when it is interchangeable with the words debate or dispute, for example:" Thus the use of debate to completely acceptable in place of or alongside "controversy", which is used "often by editors with a strong disposition against the article subject". I think that pretty accurately describes what is going on here. ("public debate" is also the precise wording used by McCrae in the reference you supplied further down). Smatprt (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I was trained in 4 universities in three continents. I don't need your little notes on wiki pointers, thanks. They're there for the general public, not all of whose members may be aware of the ABCs of sensible neutral editing.
 * Don't be so faux clunk-headed. 'Vast' is in the source cited. I don't need a consensus to restore what Niederkorn, your source, actually says. What you are doing is weaseling your way out of source language you dislike. Tutto qua. Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's been pointed out already that "vast" is not used in the context you are using it. Saying the "vast majority dismiss" something, when the source says the "vast majority" support the traditional attribution are two completely different statements. As can be seen from the NYTimes survey, scholars can accept the traditional attribution without completely dismissing the entire issue. I thought you wanted precision in sourcing? This is in no way precise.Smatprt (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikilawyering. The language was changed in the provisory consensual sentences from dismiss. Vast is in the source to indicate the range of academic opinion. You enjoy babbling. Could you do us the courtesy of trying actually to read up on the subject instead of wasting our time with clunky prose, mispellings and niggling objections?


 * Again with the personal attacks? Smatprt (talk) 17:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way Smatprt. Are you aware that the term 'Mute Swan' evidence for the association of the 'Swan of Avon' with silence in 1623, only entered the English language circa 1785, by a deliberate name change effected by ornithologists?
 * Are those odd bods on the site you refer to aware that, in literary studies, to make this construal, you are required in mainstream scholarship to lay out the evidence for the use in literature preceding 1600 of the 'swan' as a signifier of mutedness.
 * Are you aware that retroactive interpretations, using later meanings as though they were present in periods otherwise unattested, is frowned on as nonsensical?
 * The fact that a raggedy page from the deVereans has this passage suggests to me someone must have made a formal argument about this within the sect. As it is the source looks hopeless.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You asked for an anti-strat source, and I provided it. Smatprt (talk) 17:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a wiki page. That fatuous piece of pseud's corner speculation on a page, without authorial attribution, unhistorical, anachronistic, extralunar and extralunatic, should not (dis)grace the aims of an encyclopedia aiming at quality. You haven't answered my questions. Did you know that 'Mute Swan', on this showing, cannot be adduced to read back into a phrase made 160 years earlier, a significance that, until now, has not be shown to be current in Ben Jonson's day. My point is, do you actually think about what stuff can be culled from these unreliable RS without too much discomfort for serious readers, and what stuff, sheer junk, should be weeded out for pure shame, and discretionary awareness?Nishidani (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I hadn't answered your question because you only waited 8 minutes. Ok, now I'm no classical scholar, but have you never heard of the ancient myths regarding swans who are mute their entire life and then sing their one and only (swan) song? Um....isn't it in Ovid? Anyhow, now you know how they came up with the name, mute swan. (We theatre guys like to know about "break-a-leg", "swan song", "raining cats and dogs", etc.) Smatprt (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No I admit, despite a degree in classics, that I hadn't heard of the 'ancient myths' you speak of. I have read Aeschylus's Agamemnon however, where the belief that they sang shortly before they died is attested at line 1444. As Eduard Fraenkel's note will tell you (E.Fraenkel, (ed.) Agamemnon,, Clarendon Press, (1950) 1962, vol.3 p.684), Plato has Socrates allude to it in the Phaedo (84 e, where, tellingly against your thesis, swans are said, when they perceive the imminence of their death 'to sing more fully and sweetly than they've ever sung before:ᾄδοντες καὶ ἐν τᾥ πρόσθεν χρόνᾢ, τὀτε δἡ πλεῖστα καὶ κάλλιστα ᾄδουσι)  As I said the 'mute swan' is a term introduced into English ornithology around 1785. When you come across the word κύκνος in classical Greek, or cygnus in Latin, you do not cry out: 'ah, the mute swan!, for the simple reason that swans are of various kinds: the swan at Horace, Odes Bk.20,line ll.9ff. for example, is a noisy whooper (cygnus musicus), not a mute swan (cygnus olor). The swan that legends had keening before carking is the whooper swan - Aristotle mentions it in his 'Historia Animalium'/(615 b4-615b2), but says the death dirge was just more intense than the usual swan song (μάλιστα ᾄδουσι) I don't know if Ben Jonson, the real guy, was familiar with this, but he could have read it in Aelian's de natura animalium, Bk.10,36. All sang, in this account, Only some (tinas) died after the 'sweet, mournful song' (μἑλος...ἡδυ, γοερὀν. That epithet 'goeros' intimates funerary weeping). The 'more sweetly' at death (than usually) goes right through European literature (Giacomo da Lentini, 'E'l cicier(swan) canta più gioiosamente/Quando vene alo suo finimento'. The sacred bird of Apollo was, appropriately for the patron of music, the swan, not for the silence of the 'mute' species, but for the elegiac crooning of the whooper, which use to pass from its Icelandic breeding grounds through Greece, down into Africa.
 * Of course both Shakespeare of Stratford and Ben Jonson read Ovid, who refers often to swans. The singing as opposed to the 'mute' song, is a classical trope for a poet of distinction. If you want a big list see  R.G.M.Nisbet and Margaret Hubbard (eds.) A Commentary on Horace Odes Book 11, Clarendon Press 1978  p.342, bottom of the page)I'm not going to do your homework, your lack of intellectual curiosity doesn't deserve it. Actors are understudies. It wouldn't hurt if, having wider interests in the history of the plays they recite, they took time to overstudy.Nishidani (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've removed the 'evidence' in this edit by User:Smatprt. Not only is the translation wrong on a key point (the translator gets 'olim' wrong), but I can see no secondary RS source even in the deVerean motherlode, at least in those two pages he cites, which refers to the 'Ovidian evidence'. There is no ancient source cited here saying, as Smatprt tries to fudge up, that
 * "'the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely silent during its lifetime until the moment just before it dies. Ovid mentions the legend in 'The Story of Picus and Canens':"
 * This is Smatprt's 'original research' mugged up Polyphemically to support the deVerean society page assertion. Worse still, as I mentioned above, there is no evidence that any of these passages refer to an ancient belief that the 'Mute swan' sings. A more egregious example of abusing wiki's hospitality in order to smuggle in one's own personal elaborations of shoddy fringe ideas, I've yet to encounter.


 * More personal attacks? This isn't my research, it's referenced in numerous places.Smatprt (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well fa Chrissake reference it properly!Nishidani (talk) 21:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For the record the Latin lines run
 * ut olim
 * carmina iam moriens canit exequialia cycnus.' (Ovid, Metam XIV.429-40)
 * 'just as sometimes (olim) in dying, the swan sings a last funeral-song'
 * In no commentary consulted can I find this glossed as referring to some 'ancient legend' that the 'Mute Swan' is completely silent during its lifetime'. Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Isn't "your" translation the OR going on here? The RS says "just as the swan sings once, in dying, its own funeral song" is the translation. So now are you going to argue that the University of Virginia is not RS? Smatprt (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you just acting dumb, or is this persistence in not understanding what is laboriously explained to you, in absurdly boring detail, a reflection perhaps that English may not be your mother tongue. In short, (a) I wrote as a courtesy that the translation happens also to be wrong. (b) The major point is that the primary source you cited does not warrant the construal you placed on it, (c) that your 'interpretation' of Ovid was a personal one, (d) that it was not filtered through a secondary source that interprets Ovid the way you would like him to be interpreted, as protocols required, and that therefore you were engaged in a gross WP:OR violation. I've told you twice now, and you persist. My presumption is, therefore, that you are a fraudulent editor. Complain if you like, but you are abusing this page, and not only here. Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * User:BenJonson. Do us a good faith favour. You have a Phd in English, and a doctoral dissertation written under certain strict protocols of method. You cannot but understand the elementary point made here. Write this chap an email, and point out to him privately, that what he did just then is a flagrant violation of the editing rules outlined in WP:OR. The spectre of yourself and Schoenbaum just sitting quietly in the shadows, with nary a word, where obvious breaches of the simplest procedures occur, is not a pretty sight. All good editors take their own to task, if they err, and are likewise contradicted by their peers, even from the same side. This behaviour by Smatprt is getting beyond farcical.Nishidani (talk) 21:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * More attacks noted. Must you make a controversy out of every word? All right, here are some more sources for you: "The silver song who living had no note" at the top of this JSTOR article, which I am sure you have access to: []. "The legend of the dying swan's melancholy song is given its first ...; by WG Arnott - 1977 - Cited by 8 - Related articles; legend of the dying swan he says (393 d-e) that he had actually ... The mute swan, as its name indicates, is normally silent, ... www.jstor.org/stable/642700";


 * and another: Mute Swans: Species Information and Photos; Mute Swans: Comprehensive information on this bird species, ... refers to this swan and to the famous ancient legend that it is utterly silent until the ...; "The phrase swan song refers to this swan and to the famous ancient legend that it is utterly silent until the last moment of its life, and then sings one achingly beautiful song just before dying; in reality, the Mute Swan is not completely silent." here: [] Now can you finally admit that you are in error here? Smatprt (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Jeezus. Go and review WP:OR. You are not permitted to make your own research notes for this article, and add them under the guise of referencing deVerean pages where no such comments are made.
 * Got that? For safety's sake, I'll repeat.
 * Jeezus. Go and review WP:OR. You are not permitted to make your own research notes for this article, and add them under the guise of referencing deVerean pages where no such comments are made.
 * Until an 'Authorship Doubters' RS links Ovid's line with the Swan and Avon, and fakes the usual evidence connecting the two, as you did, passing off the 'Mute Swan' terminology as predating Ben Jonson, though it only came into circulating 150 years later, you cannot step in and do their work for them. So phone your friends, get them to rush up the evidence, and get it on a reliable online site, which you can quote from.Nishidani (talk) 21:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, and in case your googling Jstor (1977) led you to think that's where I got my notes from, you're wrong. I have all the sources I cited, and good guides through them, including J.Pollard's Birds in Greek Life and Myth, Thames and Hudson, 1977. On p.144 the classicist Pollard explains that these references to the wild swan's singing are to the behaviour of the whooper swan, not the Mute Swan. Jeezus, even staring at the boobtube's advertisements is more exciting than having to push this stuff uphill against the sheer inertial momentum of obtusity.Nishidani (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nishi, you stated you could find no reference to the legend, so I supplied them for you. In any case, I simply altered the line to provide a direct quote to the De Vere Society along with a ref to that quote. Hope that solves it. Smatprt (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, another quick tute is needed. 'Myth' esp. in classical literature has a very distinct meaning, and is not synonymous with 'legend', 'hearsay,' or 'popular belief'. The myth of Leda and the Swan is one thing, the report, recorded by Plato and Aristotle, that swans 'sometimes sing more beautifully and powerfully when they intimate that they are to die, wholly another thing. I could find no ref. to the myth, and no reference to the 'legend' as you embroidered it, which was pure fantasy in suggesting that the ancients believed the species called a mute swan was silent and only sang when it was dying.


 * Then you have not looked very hard, or are just ignoring nay source that you personally disagree with.Smatprt (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't you just love it! 'Tis the toime's plague, when madmen lead the bloind!, as sumwun sed, alluding to Deuteronomy! Love that 'metathetic' game in writing 'nay' for 'any', too. A 'nay source', I presume is either a source used by nay-sayers (anti-Stratfordians?) or a nay sauce from Laos that disagrees with one. There's always so much to learn, sorry, loin, guv.Nishidani (talk) 17:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's called having an ear for the nuance of language. You can't read anything, let alone Shakespeare, if you don't twig, word by word, to these simple differences. Before you play that game of fudging up pseudo-material again, thing twice about the meaning of your interlocutors' remarks. On the evidence above, you are not replying to the objections, but your misprisions about what those objections might 'really' mean (which indeed underlines the whole problem of Authorship Doubters' attempts to rewrite the evidence, without any historical or textual understanding of the complexities of words).Nishidani (talk) 10:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words, POV, personal attacks, and other miscellanea

 * (Tom - Look at your post below. What is that, like 9 or 10 paragraphs?. You and Nishidani present these long posts, or lists of 20 - 30 items, and then expect some sort of response to each and every issue you raise, lacing your comments with sarcasm, irony, and, eventually, insults. I see BenJonson replyed below and in good faith, I am going to respond as well (in between paragraphs for fear of drowning), but it is hard to even want to carry this further and I pity the poor editors who read through all this stuff:)

'' Smatprt, have you even read WP:WEASEL? The use of "vast", "small", "large" is not banned by Wikipedia policy. They are useful words in their proper place, and there is nothing evasive, ambiguous, or misleading about them as long as the context is clear. What other word would you use in place of "small" to roughly describe the size of the anti-Stratfordian population? Little? Diminutive? Tiny? Minute? If the vast majority of academics believe in the traditional attribution, how many of them dismiss anti-Strat theories? Do the two sets not coincide?


 * Tom, please don't misquote me. I did not say "banned". These words can be (and are being) used inappropriately for a variety of reasons including weasel, peacock, words-to-avoid and good old common sense. To be direct and without linking to a bunch of policies, it's the wayyou are attempting to use them. To a line that says "the majority of scholars" you want to make it "the vast majority of scholars". The problem is adding "vast" when you have no data, no facts, to back it up, only the opinions of scholars you agree with and like to cite wherever possible. The only actual data anyone has on this is the NYTimes survey and it certainly doesn't say anything about a vast majority dismissing it. As I recall, only 35% were dismissive, calling it a "waste of time and distraction." That's pretty dismissive, all right. 60% called it a theory without convincing evidence. Hardly language that is dismissive of the entire subject. The same is true over wanting to add "small" before "thriving following" - what data are you using to come up with the word "small"? You'd have to pole the general public to determine that. And in both these case, you are leaning the article in the direction you agree with instead of keeping the language neutral. "a thriving following" is accurate and neutral. "the majority of scholars" is accurate and neutral.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * But frankly, having this discussion is way premature because their is a bigger issue at hand. Before you and Nishidani started edit warring over the line in question, it read (from your edit of Feb. 25 citing consensus building)[]: "and, in recent decades, the subject has gained a thriving following, though little academic support". While trying (endlessly) to build a consensus to change this line, you and Nishidani jumped the gun over the next 5 days and have now changed it without consensus to "The theory dates back to the mid-19th century, and sparked a vigorous public debate. In recent decades, the issue has once more attracted a small but thriving following, but is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars". There is absolutely no agreement for all these changes but you and Nishidani have edit-warred to "make" it this way regardless of agreement or not. If you really want to show good faith and cooperation, you will restore the line to your previous "pre-consensus version" until we have something approaching a consensus. Right now, 3 of the 5 (or 6) regular editors have not agreed to this version yet you and Nishidani changed it anyway. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words are comparative words that have no context, such as “improved” (over what?), “better” (than what?). And certainly the word “seriously” is not a weasel word, unless you don’t know the meaning of it. And why on earth do you think “point out” and “argue” are weasel words? You really need to explain that one. "Believes" and "speculates" are two different functions to anyone with a common command of the English language. Trying to turn every “speculates” and “asserts” and “argues” into a “believes” in the name of POV doesn't make sense.
 * Misquoting me. See below.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You claim that “argues” is not a neutral term. It is true that one side argues more and the other side rebuts more, but they both engage in argument. Your wish to banish the word “argues” is beyond me. Why do you think it’s called a debate?


 * Again, :You misquote me and, again, to be direct - it's the way you apply each of the words you are citing here. According to your and Nishidani's edits, Stratfordian scholars "note", "point out", "respond", but anti-Stratfordians "argue" and "speculate". It's POV editing and you really need to pull back if you want to promote a true atmosphere of cooperation. Otherwise it looks like you are just trying to say the "right things" while at the same time continuing your disruptive behavior. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And look at all the “point out”s. You’ll find that they indeed refer to undisputed statements. There is no direct evidence for any other candidate of the type that exists for William Shakespeare; all other such candidacies depend on interpretations and suppositions. It was common for certain types of real names to be hyphenated in print in Elizabethan times. There was no standardised spelling in early modern times. There is clearer evidence for Jonson's formal education and self-education than for Shakespeare of Stratford's. Many dramatists of the time wrote a fluent hand, and many didn't. The phrase “ever-living” in fact appears most frequently in Renaissance texts as a conventional epithet for eternal God. Et cetra. Trying to argue that all these should be transformed into “believes” is arguing for inaccuracy.


 * You are just continuing to warp my language and misquote me. I don't say "all" of anything should be changed. If "point out" is indeed about a verifiable fact (and not just someone's opinion) then it's totally appropriate. But when you "point out" or use other language that implies an undisputed fact that is, in actuality, in dispute, then it's improper usage. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Other comments of yours, "‘is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars’. This is POV and in no way neutral,” are just incomprehensible. I think you have a problem defining exactly what POV is. From what I've been able to gather it's anything that could be construed as putting anti-Stratfordism or Oxfordism in a bad light.


 * Explained above. But this raises a related issue. You, an anti-Stratfordian who is completely dissmissive of the entire subject, are picking and choosing what you think are the anti-Stratfordians main arguments. In reality, you are purposely choosing the opposites, or citing only the examples that you can make the most fun of and... present in "a bad light". And now it appears that Nishidani is starting to quote as many negative opinions that he can find (the Freud "note" he just added.) This is, apparently, your shared agenda. It's POV editing at its worst.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Another puzzling statement of yours: “Constant accusations of 'deliberately misleading' is a form of personal attack. Can you please refrain from this behavior?” I never knew that a phrase or sentence could be a person. The same with “fraudulent? Can you stop attacking editors this way?” Nishidani is referring to the material, not the person who put the material in. It appears to me that you are over reacting in an attempt to document misdemeanor behavior on the part of your interlocutors.


 * Tom, you and Nishidani go back and forth calling so many edits "dishonest", "misleading", then calling various editors "dishonest" and "misleading", it's become impossible to even attempt to distinguish the two apart. You did it again down below at your post of 4:25 today (March 1). I'm not sure about "interlocutors" though. Are you saying I'm working with some evil Wikipedia cabal that's out to get you? Sorry, I'm not even going to go there.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

We all have biases, and this article needs editors from both sides of the question to keep them in check, but you need to learn the difference between writing an encyclopedia article and promotional pamphleteering. Your edit that corrected my misstatement about Diana Price was a good call; in my bias I overstated what she said. But it’s a shame I can’t say that about most of your edits, which seem to be motivated by a desire to control the content of the article instead of improving the article, because most of your edits either remove properly sourced material you don't like or revert another editor's contribution. I daresay I've never seen you revert or delete an edit from an anti-Stratfordian. Nishidami has deleted several of mine. There is no doubt that the article has benefited from Nishidani’s editing. I know my edits have and I welcome them, even though I don't always agree with his opinion 100 per cent.


 * I'm sorry, but even while you say this, you and Nishidani continue with the name-calling (your post below), defending POV editing (your post above), and the refusal to achieve consensus before disputed changes (lead, line 2, for example). As long as you refuse to refrain from the insults and name-calling, restore the lead to what it was before you changed it prematurely, and stop the POV editing, you appear to be just gaming the system.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

One other thing, the list of reverts and removals you have compiled on me are ridiculous. All one has to do is access the previous or subsequent edits to put them into context. I could go to all the trouble to explain, but I don’t have the time and it is simple enough for anyone to look at those edits and determine whether they were justified.


 * I agree that all anyone has to do is look and it should be pretty obvious what has transpired.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Which brings me to another point: if all the time and energy spent arguing over the second sentence had been spent in actual good-faith efforts to improve this article, it would be well on its way to peer review. But your intransigent and disruptive behavior has wasted everyone's time and worked to keep the article in an unbalanced and pathetic state. BenJonson'scomment to the only editor to make a substantive response to your request of peer review illustrates the problems you two have better than I ever could. You can either keep it up or try to join the other editors who want to improve the article. The choice is clear, and it's all up to you. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, it is unfortunate that you and Nishidani persist in violating the basic protocol of the wikipedia editing process --to assume good faith-- by your constant personal attacks on one person or another. I would not contest your argument that the article may have benefited from Nishidani (and your) participation. And I agree, for example, with some of your comments in this post (e.g. about "argues"). But the fact is that both you frequently get your way only by being so personally nasty that no one with any sense really wants to deal with you. Your frequent sarcasms, your use of such creative terms as "fake Phd,"you need to learn the difference between an Encyclopedia and pamphleteering," etc. only undermine morale and divide participants. And if a few of your edits have been valid, a number of them have been ridiculous, such as your attempt to qualify the Taylor and Mosher book into irrelevancy. Nishidani came barreling in here a few weeks ago, full of assumptions about the nature of the subject. Its obvious that the resistance he has encountered has forced him to re-examine a few of these, but he persists in his name-calling, as do you. That's truly unfortunate. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, if you think that you are going to have a permanent impact on the unfolding history of this debate by persisting in promulgating the illusion that your critics are morons and "fringe theorists," you're going to be very disappointed.--BenJonson (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That you consider an invitation to cooperate a personal attack tells more about you than me. And your idea that I bully my way by my abusive personality is deliciously ironic. The fillings in my teeth are positively buzzing. And speaking of good faith editing, what do you think of an editor deliberately adding deceptive material to an edit that isn't in the source? How many times would an editor have to do that before you would stop assuming that he's editing in good faith?
 * And I'm not trying "to have a permanent impact on the unfolding history of this debate by persisting in promulgating the illusion that [my] critics are morons and 'fringe theorists'"; I'm trying to get the work done. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom - you just wrote: "what do you think of an editor deliberately adding deceptive material" - Tom, can you ever reply without making yet another attack a fellow editor? This is exactly what Schoenbaum, BenJonson and I have been talking about. You write your "invitation to cooperate" without ever acknowledging the main problem - except to deny it - and then you proceed to make more accusations, and more disputed edits.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The attacks arise because of frustration with your editing and method of debate by attrition. The fact is that you are not really interested in creating a good article. This article was full of basic errors of fact before Tom intervened. Its account of the history of the subject was a mess. It was little more than a compendium of claims made by Oxfordians. There are still many basic improvements to be made, but neutral-minded editors are put off. Paul B (talk) 11:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So are you saying that anyone who gets frustrated has the right to make personal attacks? Smatprt (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

'the resistance (Nishidani) has encountered,' BenJonson. Oh dear, now I am cast either as a gendarme of the vicious Vichy, suppressing the legitimate uprisings of maquis partisans, or, if we take the substantive psychoanalytically, as a Freudian practitioner encountering 'resistance' in his neurotic 'analysands'! Come now, loosen up. Consistent factitious editing raises hackles, that is all. Nishidani (talk) 08:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)