Talk:Theaurau John Tany

Renaming article from Thomas Totney
In contemporary sources and the scholarly literature, spanning four centuries, Tany has been identified by the name TheaurauJohn Tany. Only in the last 7 or so years has he been identified as having the baptismal name Thomas Totney. Wikipedia naming policy calls for the clearest, most obvious naming-- surely the name by which he is identified throughout 350 years of human history is the one by which the article should be titled?

Furthermore, Wikipedia has a long standing policy of taking at face value the names that people adopt-- either by themselves or through an institution. Thus Josef Ratzinger is listed under Pope Benedict XVI and Andre Charles is listed under Rupaul. The listing of Tany under the name he was baptized, rather than the name that he chose, violates the fundamental neutrality of Wikipedia's mission and also creates a dangerous precedent of allowing latter day scholarship to determine the validity of fundamental aspects of a historical figure's life, including the right to self-determination.

As such I have renamed the article and edited its intro to better reflect this. Fromthedepths (talk) 05:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

further edits
There is an awful lot of weak conjectural writing in this article, along with a seeming abundance of devotion to superfluous detail. I'd like to clean up (in particular) the sections about Tany's life as Thomas Totney, as much of it seems particularly notable nor reflective on his later activities, nor is any of it sourced. Latter parts of the article are also deeply problematic, being either conjectural or unsourced. If I remember correctly, the only account of, for instance, Tany's supposed circumcision comes from John Reeves and Ludowicke Muggleton, both of whom were explicitly hostile to Tany. The Evaluation section strikes me as having no place whatsoever in Wikipedia, particularly as it contains serious value judgments that are unbefitting the neutrality policy.

I wanted to mention this and invite comment and suggestions before I go about editing this material. Fromthedepths (talk) 06:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Final Years
I have taken out the reference to Tany's so-called "final work" The LAVV Read 10 June 1656. The problem with this work is that it is clearly not by Tany. It exists in a sole edition in the keep of the British Library, where it has been annotated at length by William PHinch, one of Tany's disciples, who explicitly claims authorship over the work, and indeed, the writing style lacks any of Tany's trademarks and bears trademarks of PHinch's (also anonymous) previous tract "A third great and terrible fire, fire, fire: where? where? where? Have patience, and you shall know suddenly" (1655). Hessayon has identified "The LAVV Read.. etc." as by Tany, but is, on this minor matter, clearly wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fromthedepths (talk • contribs) 06:25, 3 April 2010 (UTC)