User talk:RavensAtRest

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Hello, RavensAtRest, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Patriot's Day. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:


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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Herostratus (talk) 00:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Battle of Menotomy
I think this'd be a worthwhile article to create. Would you like to work on this together? Herostratus (talk) 00:29, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is a worthwhile article - in fact it is a critical article given your actions today. I would be happy to participate in writing it, but I believe we have different ideas about what constitutes a reliable source. However, if you are serious, and are willing to cite respected publications, and to take the time to understand the history of Massachusetts - specifically how policy gets made, how town boundaries are decided, and the dates these boundaries have been formalized - and to rely on local sources for local events, yes I'd consider it. However, I believe that there are people who are extremely well-qualified to do this work and that they should be consulted.--04:21, 16 April 2019 (UTC)RavensAtRest (talk)


 * Right. Well, I'm fairly liberal about what's a good source. Anyway, let's continue the conversation on the article talk page, so that others can see what's going on.


 * I also want to say that I appreciate your work and effort -- and ability. Ugh, it sucks to have one's effort rolled back or gainsaid. Especially if you're new, or somewhat new, I hate to do that. It's happened to me enough times, especially when I was new, and its no fun. Anyway, your talent for writing encyclopedic content is clearly high, and I certainly don't want to discourage further involvement by you in this project.


 * By the way, comments are easier to read if you add a couple linefeeds after the previous comment, and use colons for indentation (with, usually, more colons added for each reply to increase the indent) -- see the source of this thread for example.


 * Also, you can do this on article talk pages: to make sure the recipient gets a notice that they've been addressed.


 * See you on the article talk page.


 * Also, the usual procedure is outlined in BRD -- Bold, Revert, Discuss. 1) An editor boldly adds (or subtracts or changes) material (this is fine). 2) Another editor reverts the change (presumably with some explanation, even if only a brief one in the edit summary). 3) Discussion, on the article talk page. Since an editor objected, the onus is on the original editor who added the material to make his case and get consensus for the change, before it is re-added.


 * It's important for the smooth functioning of the Wikipedia for it do be done this way. However, since your additions were extensive, and reasonable, and you're new, I'm not going to stand on the rule, it's fine. Just pointing out that this is the usual procedure that you find here.


 * Oh, and don't overly worry about rules like this. We're not rule-bound here (by design; some may disagree). It's not that WP:BRD is a rule, it's just that it helps things work smoothly as a practical matter. Herostratus (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Herstratus - I'm not new to editing Wikipedia pages, nor am I new to writing and researching. It has been awhile since I've worked on Wikipedia articles, and clearly things have changed since the early days, however standards have not. Regarding liberality of sources - there is liberal, and there is questionable. I'll say this here privately first. Using a North Dakota newspaper for a Massachusetts topic is firmly in the questionable category. Massachusetts has a highly regarded newspaper staffed with award-winning journalists and editors, many of whom are considered at the top of their field. This newspaper contains extensive coverage of local events. Not only that, there is considerable material available both online, and in hard copy at local libraries and historical societies covering the events of April 19, 1775.

Regarding how policy gets made in Massachusetts - which speaks to your question of what Patriots' Day is celebrating - there is less publicly available. If you have worked as a staffer in the Massachusetts' Ways and Means Committee your experience would be valid here. If you need direction on where to look to find the exact wording of the speech announcing the creation of Patriots' Day, I'm going to assume you lack that experience. I can provide direction on where to look for this information, if you are interested.

I am grateful for your information regarding current Wikipedia editorial culture. I promise to pay more attention to how things are done, out of respect for the work you all are doing. Wikipedia is an important resource. Thank you for the work you have done to make it one.

If history and policy are an areas of interest for you, then you will be fascinated both by the Battle of Menotomy and how this critical battle has become overshadowed by the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. For the sake of the people who cannot access local sources and whose textbooks have left out the details of the fighting that occurred in Menotomy, I suggest we continue our discussion, but leave the references to Menotomy on the Patriots' Day page. Let's discuss ways to do this that work with current Wikipedia culture.

As you read up on the bravery of ordinary people on that day, I think you will come to agree that when Massachusetts chose to declare Patriots' Day a holiday, the intention was to include all of the people who fought the better armed, better trained and (somewhat) better funded British Army.

RavensAtRest (talk) 19:13, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I mean I didn't use the North Dakota ref in an article. It was an instance of someone specifically including just "Lexington and Concord" under "Patriot's Day", the first one I came across. (It's probably a mediocre ref for an article, not because it's from North Dakota but because my guess is that nobody there fact-checked that particular statement very rigorously. It is an example of what people maybe think tho, so it's a data point for our conversation.)


 * Further looking at this, it seems that "Battles of Lexington and Concord" is the usual name for all the combined actions of that day, from the first shot to the last, of what was basically a single mobile battle of attrition, notwithstanding that this name happens to reference just two of the several towns where action occurred.


 * It is what it is. The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed's Hill, but it's too late to change it now. A number of battles are misnamed, or named for one part of a bigger battlefield.


 * So it looks so far that taking "Battles of Lexington and Concord" in the large sense (the name for all the action that day, rather than just meaning strictly only actions that occurred within the towns of Lexington and Concord)... it is in this sense that Patriot's Day is about the battle which is called "Battles of Lexington and Concord", and no other thing.


 * Naturally, all this subject to uncovering of new refs.


 * As to the governor's proclamation, I didn't look hard for it online. I guess I could. It'd be a data point. Obviously I can't access offline materials from here. If you have a copy, if you could quote the relevant passages that'd be great, or if you know an online source, a pointer would be great. Herostratus (talk) 02:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Herastratus - Yes, people do refer to the fighting on the first day of the war as the battles of Lexington and Concord, I would assert they do this because that is what they have been taught to refer to them as - most likely because they weren't taught about the battle of Menotomy to begin with. Which brings us back to my original point. The fighting in Menotomy was significantly different than the skirmishes in Lexington and Concord. More people from a larger area were involved and more people died.

The first British prisoners were taken at Menotomy - by a female slave. For that reason alone, the battle deserves to be known.

Ignorance is what Wikipedia is designed to fight - and as information is disseminated widely, people correct the inaccurate assumptions and alter the words they use to describe a thing. There are many examples in history, but you might think about Pluto as one example, and what used to be called the Persian Gulf as another. I'm pulling together references for the page on the Battle of Menotomy. Would you like to do the initial formatting? RavensAtRest (talk) 13:15, 17 April 2019 (UTC)