User talk:Mandm2008

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Source for Charles 'Flip' Fairbanks
Everything in Wikipedia must be verifiable from an independent, reliable source. What is the source for your information about Charles Fairbanks? Regards, JohnCD (talk) 16:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Charles 'Flip' Fairbanks
An article that you have been involved in editing, Charles 'Flip' Fairbanks, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/Charles 'Flip' Fairbanks. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? JohnCD (talk) 21:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Please do not create hoaxes. Cease and desist from introducing misinformation into Wikipedia if you are attempting to test our ability to detect and remove it. This has been done before, with universally negative results. Hoaxes are marked for deletion shortly after they are created. Kindly — do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. If you are interested in how accurate Wikipedia is, a more constructive test method is to try to find inaccurate statements that are already in Wikipedia, and then to check to see how long they have been in place and, if possible, correct them. Feel free to take a look at the five pillars of Wikipedia policy to learn more about this project and how you can make a positive impact. Thanks, JohnCD (talk) 10:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Charles 'Flip' Fairbanks
There is no point continuing to post comments on the AfD deletion debate page; once closed, that is history for the archives and you are specifically asked at the top and bottom, in red, not to modify it. In any case, no one will be reading it; I was only aware of your comments because I had forgotten to take it off my watch list. If you disagree with the result you can ask the closing admin to change his mind, or you can take it to deletion review; but I think you will be wasting your time. I will try to explain why by copying some of your "Comments to Save" here and replying.


 * Comment to Save Let's clarify this "what level of detail" are you referring to? His name, or nick name and/or his ailment? I don't know. The site you point to refers to a hypothetical account, quote, "The hypothetical voyage advanced above is no more than an approximation to the truth, closer than which it may not be possible to come barring further documentary evidence." The book I am referring to is does not make any such commentary.

The "level of detail" I'm referring to includes your statements: (1) one of the crewmen on Cabot's 1497 voyage was called Charles Fairbanks or Fayerbankes (2) he suffered from polydactyly (3) his nickname was "Flip" (4) he was the man who first sighted the coast of North America. This contrasts strikingly with the level of detail known to current historians who don't know the name of any member of the crew but John Cabot; don't know for sure whether his son Sebastian was on the voyage; don't even know the number of the crew - different sources say 18 or 20.


 * Comment to Save This is just an opinion/comment. My question is 'Do I have to be a formal translator to add to Wikipedia?' Let's put his ailment, which I find superficial, but appearently quite humourous to young adults, on the backburner. Is the Fairbanks notable? This is what the discussion should be about. No one other then Mdsummermsw has said otherwise. Therefore when I translate the paragraph I want Fairbanks back up on Wikipedia where he should be.

No, you don't have to be a "formal translator" but you have to cite a reliable source for your statements. The question is not is Fairbanks notable but is there any reliable source to show that he ever existed?

Two questions a historian asks when confronted with a statement are "Who said so?" and "How did he know?" The answer to the second question often produces another "How did he know?" question, until you trace back to someone with first-hand knowledge. The answers to all those questions determine how much reliance to place on the statement. The less probable, or less in accordance with other knowledge, is your initial statement, the stronger the evidence required.

In this case the statement is "The crewman on John Cabot's 1497 voyage who first sighted the coast of North America was Charles Fairbanks, known to his crewmates as "Flip" on account of his polydactyly". Who said so? mandm2008. How did he know? He says he found it in "I saw the future" by Savario Grimaldi, published in Italy by Ediesse in 1957. Right: how did Grimaldi know? He wasn't there. Does he cite a source? It certainly wasn't any known primary source (there are none), or any known contemporary secondary source (a few letters), or any source used by present-day historians.

There are five possibilities:

1. The Grimaldi book you are citing exists and gives a historically true account of John Cabot's 1497 voyage, including the name and nickname of at least one crew member, Charles "Flip" Fairbanks, and detail such as his polydactyly and that he was in the crow's nest at first landfall. These facts are obtained from a specified reliable source, which was available to the writer of the book in 1957, and is still available to check, but for over fifty years has remained unknown to, or ignored by, all the scholars and historians working in the field.

2. The book exists, gives the detail you describe, and is historically true but, though the author had a good source unknown to other historians, he does not specify it, or it has been lost, and so it is unverifiable.

3. The book exists and gives the detail you describe but, though it purports to be true, it is a hoax.

4. The book exists and gives the detail you describe, but is fiction: imaginatively dressed-up history, or a novel with invented characters and incidents round the framework of Cabot's real voyage.

5. The whole thing is a hoax made up by you.

The point of Mandsford's suggestion was to check out possibility (5), which the faked photograph raised in everyone's minds: if the book exists, you should have been able to quote directly, with no translation delay, passages in fluent Italian about "Flip" Fairbanks; if it didn't you would have had a problem.

But that's not important. Without seeing the book, we have no way to choose between cases 2 - 5, but that doesn't matter because only in case (1) would an article be acceptable to Wikipedia, owing to our policy that everything must be verifiable from a reliable source; and I find case (1) utterly, totally incredible. If it were true, you could cause an academic sensation by publishing the evidence in a historical journal; in fact Wikipedia might well prefer to wait until after you had done that, so as to let professional scholars validate Grimaldi's source.

So, I'm sorry, with Charles Fairbanks you are flogging a dead horse. I advise you to write it off to experience, and look for some other neglected historical figure with better sources. I have learned lots of interesting things from researching it - did you know that the legends of St Brendan's voyages in the Atlantic are at least partly sourced from the Arabian Nights?

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 21:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)