User talk:223.27.212.170

December 2019
You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war&#32; according to the edits you have made on Sir John Slade, 1st Baronet; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note: If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. – Erakura (talk) 01:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
 * 2) Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.





Erakura, these were straightforward edits which, as you yourself came to concede, should not have been undone wholesale by the vandal Urselius. This Wikipedia page was overwhelmingly negative versus what the facts bear, as if written by a semi-literate with a grudge against this distinguished albeit flawed minor figure from military history, and so we have sought to cleanse it of pejorative speculation, including bizarre attempts by an anonymous Wikipedia editor to read the mind of the Duke of Wellington. The updated page is more focused on the facts, and we have trimmed (conservatively) some of the uncited waffle (it should go without saying citation needs to be in loco, and can't vaguely come at some undefined point "later"). After the troll, Urselius, maliciously restored all content we had removed (with zero compromise), you and we engaged not in an "edit war", but rather in an iterative process where you restored all (erroneously) then some (as a self-correction) of this content (i.e., you yourself correctly acknowledged that some of what we had initially removed, before the troll wholesale restored what was presumably his own poor work, was clearly not neutral). We, as a compromise, have let this modified version stand. Since then, we have made a number of other tidies. Each of them is explained in commentary. None of them is controversial, nor do they conceal what Urselius is breathless to tell the world, namely that Wellington criticised Slade as well as praising him. The page now is more accurate, more tightly cited, and more credible than before you and we improved it, when it was little more than an ill conceived screed from somebody keen to present opinions (and even purportedly psychic powers) as fact. How can we protect the page from the vandal, Urselius, if he undoes all your and our work on this?


 * You are not assuming good faith by when you continue to refer to him as a vandal and a troll; indeed, the very first time he undid your edits, you went straight to the administrator intervention against vandalism noticeboard and reported him. An administrator saw your frivolous report for what it was, and removed it. I once again encourage you to approach this situation the right way: have a conversation about what you deem to be wrong with the article on the article's talk page and seek consensus to change it. Do I think what Urselius has written is absolutely perfect? No. (Very little on Wikipedia is, and that's why we work as a community to improve it.) But that does not excuse your conduct in this matter. Re-read what I have written, and consider handling this the proper way. – Erakura (talk) 14:33, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Erakura, have you considered making the same case to Urselius? We made good faith edits, then he simply undid them - zero consensus. *That* was the edit war. I then, in conjunction with you, arrived at a second modified version of the article. His response? Exactly the same - total reversion, and zero consensus. When will this stop? The changes you and I made were in good faith, and whether we call the uncompromising reversion of these changes on both occasions vandalism or something else, the question remains how Wikipedia can sustain behaviour like this. Please advise on how to get this article protected (or ideally handle it on our behalf, since you are now involved, and like us are a victim of Urselius having simply undone your good faith edits, presumably hoping we will give in the absence of him being able to defend an article which is malicious and under-cited): if you are saying that reporting Urselius' uncompromising reversion of all changes (now yours as well as ours) is not vandalism, then please help with whatever other mechanisms are in place to achieve some basic quality control over this article. We need to be clear here: your work, and ours, cannot be cursorily dismissed by the self-authority of this anonymous person; whoever, this anonymous person is, he cannot read the Duke of Wellington's mind; nor are Wikipedia's standards upheld if Urselius continues to resist our efforts to introduce balance, objectivity and adequate auditability/citation for this article.
 * Do not lump me in with you as a "victim" of Urselius -- that is nonsense and simply untrue,. You continue to ignore what I have told you to do. – Erakura (talk) 18:37, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Erakura, you have failed to engage with the issues and defend your conduct here. While I recognise you improved the quality of the article by removing one obviously non-neutral sentence from Urselius and also tightening some citation (both of which Urselius promptly undid, with zero discussion and zero compromise), your off-page conduct has been to undermine Wikipedia's standards and disincentivise good faith participation in the platform. You have sided with Urselius in a context where he has been edit warring, by uncompromisingly undoing multiple users' changes to a non-neutral article, including your changes. You are thus complicit in this edit warring, even though it overrode your own work. Meanwhile, you have been attempting to intimidate users who oppose Urselius' attack on Wikipedia's credibility, by initially accusing us of the very misbehaviour he has been perpetrating against users including you (i.e., blaming the victims - and yes, as a matter of public record, you too have had your changes edit warred out of existence by Urselius, however much bold type you may deploy in seeking to ambiguate this). Meanwhile, when we explained this above, you simply dodged the issue and handed out imperatives, as if you believed this was a senior-junior situation; and you failed to address these explanations, which presumably you would understand easily if you gave them a moment's dispassionate consideration. Given that the changes we have made have been characterised (as, by the way, were your positive changes) by increasing the neutrality, tonal balance and richness of citations of a non-neutral article, and given we have sought compromise in both series of changes, we now request that you cease harassing us with these repetitive messages, which level accusations against us and fail to address the qualifications we have made to them; and we now ask for the second time that you advise on how we or you can protect this article, which has now been subject to two acts of edit war: first, when Urselius simply undid our initial good faith edits, after which you accused us of edit war (wrong way around - a plain misunderstanding); then second, when he simply undid our second round of good faith edits, including edits of your own. Instead of making a Sir John Slade hate page outside Wikipedia titled "The world of disparaging minor historical figures according to Urselius", he is instead trying to demean Wikipedia through non-neutral, under-cited satire, though Jimmy Wales has expressly dedicated Wikipedia to accuracy and objectivity and as you know this is a time when Wikipedia is seeking to preserve its credibility and even attract donations from the public; and whilst we have tried to flag this through vandalism reports and now through our ongoing effort to protect changes including your own changes to this page, we have found that instead of supporting us you are simply issuing imperatives to us, as if you believe you may be in a position of authority over us, or are simply lashing out and changing the subject perhaps because you are flustered and unwilling to concede what we have pointed out above, namely that you are attacking the wronged party in this dispute, as opposed to the edit warring vandal who is actively testing Wikipedia's ability to maintain basic standards of impartiality on its platform (in the words of his own defiance in gloating over his second act of edit war, "report away"). Please now have a positive impact and advise on how we can preserve the work we have taken time to implement here, including the work of yours which we support (removing a terribly low quality piece of opinion from the very intro, as well as tightening citations as we recall). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.183.221.50 (talk) 04:41, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You removed a sentence immediately in front of a citation. Obviously, this was a sentence fully supported by citation to the standard reference book to the British cavalry in the Peninsular War and Waterloo campaign. This is hardly the action of someone wishing to uphold Wikipedia's standards. You seem to be the one pushing a private agenda, and I am the one attempting to create an article reflective of the weight of historical opinion on the subject, which is essentially universally negative. This is demonstrably true, just look at the scholarship out there, as upsetting as this may be to yourself. Urselius (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * We have had to do a huge amount of work on this piece. Whilst you are suggesting one of these was too gung-ho, it is not even worth our time auditing this one detail in your defence. Since you are the person who dared defend incredible tittle-tattle like "lacked talent" and other uncitable insults (it might be true that this or that scholar made this judgement, but the judgement itself cannot be confused with facts - there is clearly a difference in solidity between a fact such as his date of birth and the view of many, some or all scholars that his "talent" can be quantified in this or that way), it is clear that despite your bio claiming you are a scientist, you regard history as a little indulgence where you can throw evidentiary rigour and epistemic humility out of the window during Chrismas cheer soaked sessions of bashing the dead. This is fine - we have let much of your derogation stand, and have resorted now to just trying to trim its hyperbole and excitable non-neutrality - but suffice to say this article is a perfect example of why Wikipedia cannot be substituted for a real education, i.e. somebody reading this is not going to emerge with a sharpened historical mind, but rather just an emotional hodge-podge of vaguely abusive opinions about a general from a previous century. This is disappointing, and raises questions around whether the public indeed should be donating. Why pay for this, when some anonymous guy thinks it is a locus for his (or even other others') opinions about quantification of talent? Where one even needs to debate the difference between this and fact, there is already a basic quality of thought issue. 223.27.212.170 (talk) 05:11, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You seek to obnubilate fact with flummery and grandiloquent word usage - see, I can do the same - but it does not help matters. Let's not disparage each other's intellect or education. The basic fact is that John Slade was not competent to act as a general of cavalry and that his record in holding this rank was very poor. You say that this is opinion, not fact. If we were to remove opinion, and here it is the opinion of contemporaries serving in the same army, on the same campaigns, as Slade, and generations of knowledgable and expert historians since, then all biographies in Wikipedia would be mere terse recitals of dates and events. This is not a desirable outcome, as I'm sure even you recognise. That Slade was inept as a general, "that bungler", in the words of Anglesey, is a very cogent element in any biographical treatment of him. Removing, or even toning down, unpleasant aspects of the biographical article of a relative is not in the interests of Wikipedia. In contrast to your behaviour, I introduced cited material to Wikipedia that shows that the Spencer family (of which I am a distant female-line descendant) fabricated a descent from the Medieval Despencer earls. I recommend the promotion of accuracy over family partiality. Urselius (talk) 11:27, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point. By "epistemic humility", I just mean knowing what we know and don't know. Opinion should be stated as such (though surely his official awards hold higher authority than private insults anyway? Did it not occur to you that promotion to general, Army Gold Medal etc speak for themselves as more substantial than unofficial badmouthing). Your view, that Slade used black magic to bamboozle the British Establishment into awarding him, again and again, over many decades, and that this black magic was courageously exposed by a handful of third party commentaries, does not pass my smell test. However, even if it passes your smell test, surely you feel obliged to acknowledge that such commentaries are, even if 100% reasonable, on a different level of knowledge from fact? Wikipedia need not comprise only "dates and events", but minimal standards require that dates, events, and other facts be distinguished clearly from non-facts (even if opinions you regard as authoritative, though from different millennia, and different period of academic rigour, than our own). By missing this point even upon repetition, and adding a second conspiracy theory (not only was Slade into black magic, but those who laugh at this theory must be related to him), you are strengthening my point about credibility. 223.27.212.170 (talk) 04:58, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Consider Nero, he received the laurels for every event he ever entered, be it chariot racing or poetry. Did he deserve these honours, or was he in a position to receive them without particular merit? An extreme example, admittedly, but Slade's greatest achievement was becoming the protégé of a prince. It is known that the influence of the Duke of Cumberland, later King of Hanover, in the army was very considerable. He was also responsible for the promotion of Colquohoun Grant as a cavalry general; Wellington got rid of him after Vittoria, but Cumberland's influence soon had him replacing Robert Ballard Long (a personal enemy of Cumberland) as a major general commanding a cavalry brigade in the Peninsula. Cumberland's brother, Frederick, Duke of York, was the c-in-c of the British army, and Wellington praised some of his undesirable senior officers publicly because they had influential patrons, whilst denigrating them in private. The British honours system has always rewarded those with influence, or with influential backers, as much or more than those meriting reward. So much for public honours. I think if Wellington, Anglesey, a number of contemporary cavalry officers with no apparent axe to grind and historians of the calibre of Oman all say that Slade was inept as a commander of cavalry, then their views carry great weight. Far, far too much weight to be ignored or dismissed as 'opinion' or 'gossip'. Urselius (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2019 (UTC)