Talk:William the Conqueror

Citation changes...
Please read WP:CITEVAR - changing something that's consistent and is not wrong to an editor's own preference is not something we do. All of the changes were reverted (except the change of the template name at the bottom) because all of them contravened CITEVAR - the short citations don't need commas, the citations do not need to be set with last and first parameters, it was harder to keep the bibliography in alphabetical order by putting the date parameter first occasionally, and the column sizes and indentation are NOT required or an improvement in my mind. There is no requirement to change just to change - what happens on other articles isn't required to happen on this article as long as the style is consistent - which it is. Ealdgyth (talk) 19:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I have reverted the changes per CITEVAR just before I saw this post. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That "column sizes and indentation are NOT required or an improvement in my mind" is not a standard for reverting. In my mind (or specifically, to my eyes), the change in column sizes and indentation were an improvement. —GoldRingChip 19:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * CITEVAR is very clear - changes to the style of the references need consensus before being made, if the article is already consistent. It's designed to prevent folks going around and randomly changing to their preferences when they are not the primary editors involved in editing and maintaining the article. I do not follow around and revert your changes in situations where the citations aren't consistent nor do I go around to other articles imposing my own preferences - if an article is using sfn, I use sfn. If its using list defined, I use list defined, even if I'm making copyedits to the references. Ealdgyth (talk) 19:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) The point of CITEVAR is to avoid editwars over things that editors can reasonably disagree on. Also, I would suggest that regardless of CITEVAR it's not a good idea to make a change of this scale to a featured article without suggesting it on the talk page first -- typically a featured article has had multiple editors review it, and you can save yourself editing time by getting consensus first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:William I (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Last words"
David Douglas in William the Conqueror says that Wiliam's last words were "I commend myself to Mary the holy Mother of God, my heavenly Lady, that by her intercession I may be reconciled to her Son our Lord Jesus Christ." Mark Hagger concurs, although he just says that "just as the bells of the cathedral were ringing for prime, William the Conqueror raised his eyes to heaven, commended his soul to St Mary, and died." David Bates, speaking of the two sources describing Wiliam's death, says "There are two accounts of the scene at William the Conqueror's deathbed, but neither of them is fully trustworthy. Far and away the best is Orderics, even though the lengthy speeches he gives are more an indication of what he thought should happen when a great princes died, than of what actually took place. The second, the so-called 'De Obitu Willelmi' is a tract, written in the early twelfth-century, which has been shown to have been copied almost word for word from two ninth-century sources, with the names being changed where necessary. It is of little value. We have to rely on Orderic for most of the basic facts, with some extra evidence supplied by William of Malmesbury and in a charter." - so none of the three academic biographies of William done in the last 60 years support the speech given by the youtube source. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:49, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Pinging who has re-added the speech. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Danegeld link
Would someone with edit privs mind please add brackets around Danegeld to link the article? 142.183.237.6 (talk) 19:10, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It was already linked at its first occurrence. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:56, 27 June 2024 (UTC)