Talk:Stephen Hopkins (politician)

Citation under "Legacy" section
This article states that "Hopkins is renowned in historical calligraphy as author of 'the worst signature on the Declaration of Independence,'" but does not provide a citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.38.5 (talk) 07:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This sentence has been removed. As Hopkins aged he developed palsy in his hands, and it was very difficult for him to write. It is not fair to characterize him as a person with poor handwriting, because his handwriting as a young man was quite beautiful, and can still be seen in many places in the Scituate, Rhode Island town records.Sarnold17 (talk) 19:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 07:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Description of Wilkinson
How should Jemima Wilkinson be described in this article? I added the main descriptor from the lead of Wilkinson's own biography, "evangelist" (or at least, what had been the main descriptor in that article for years, until a recent unexplained removal of it by the same editor), but another editor changed this to "self-proclaimed prophetess", which is problematic in several ways, e.g. using the uncommon and archaic word prophetess instead of the more common word prophet to unnecessarily gender the referent who specifically rejected being referred to with gendered terms and who thus, on a basic level, was never a self-proclaimed prophetess. Other sources, and e.g. wikidata, describe the person as a "preacher", which accurately describes their main activity. Which term should be used? I would suggest preacher as the best choice and evangelist as the second best (and prophet as third best). -sche (talk) 18:06, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * She considered herself a prophet, and she uttered prophecies. In treating historical topics, it is good to use the terminology that was used at the time—and she would have been referred to as a "prophetess" rather than a "prophet". An "evangelist" is someone who shares the gospel or brings good news, so I suppose it could be used in a loose sense. All the same, I've changed it to "Quaker preacher", which is probably the best short description. —Dilidor (talk) 11:45, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Parkinson’s
It has been conjectured that Stephen Hopkins had Parkinson’s disease. 108.34.248.223 (talk) 16:06, 9 June 2022 (UTC)