Talk:Robert Gray (sea captain)/Archive 1

Ordering, fact-checks, year-links, and circumnavigation

This article was in somewhat of a mess from having been written piecemeal by many contributors. I have put it into coherent order and added a few facts that seemed needful, such as that the voyages were out of Boston. Other than that, though, I have let be what the piece told beforehand, and I take no responsibility for its rightness on any given point (though I believe it to be largely true).

The article needs references, and fact-checking in conjuction with their getting and giving. (It's also quite stubby as yet).

"Hmains", I'm not sure why you de-linked most of the years, but it seems to be usual practice in Wikipedia to make links to those upon the first appearance of each in a given article. If you know different, please tell me about it here. Meanwhile, I've reverted the de-linkings.

I've re-worded the bit about Gray's circumnavigation to make it more exact: Although it seems he is generally billed as "first American to circumnavigate the globe", he was not necessarily that any more than was any given member of his crew, who also left from and returned to Boston. Granted, if he had earlier been involved in cross-Atlantic trade then he became an American world-circler well before reaching Boston in 1790, but most likely the same went for at least some of his crew. He was, however, the first American to be captain over a circling of the globe, albeit not captain of the same vessel the whole way -- well, the first that we know of, at least, but that can be said of a great many "firsts".

Lonewolf BC 06:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Links to years

"Hmains", please don't de-link the years again without discussing it here, beforehand. As I said last time, the links as they stand seem to accord with usual practice in Wikipedia. I don't know that that is actual policy, but seemingly it is at least customary -- besides which, it does no harm, and even does some good. Having the year-links gives readers a handy way to view what was happening in the world, generally, that year.
If you have some particular reason for de-linking the years, please say what it is, and we can discuss it.
Lonewolf BC 07:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Resolution

As it turns out, the de-linking was part of an illicit mass date-delinking campaign, alike to other cross-article stylistic warring, such as AD/BC vs CE/BCE and "American" spelling vs "British" spelling. This sort of warring has been forbidden since the arbitration committee ruling on such disputes. There is, as of now, no consensus for blanket de-linking of dates, including stand-alone years. See the relevant WP Manual of Style page and section.
-- Lonewolf BC 01:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Was Tiverton in Massachusetts when Gray was born there?

I think that it was not. The two colonies that became the state commonly called Rhode Island were established as a colonies apart from Massachusetts, in law and in fact, during the 1630s, and then were joined to each other in 1663, that joint colony becoming the state of Rhode Island in the wake of the successful colonial revolt that began in the 1770s. Gray was born in 1755, nearly a century after that colonial set-up was sorted out, and only 20 years before the American revolts began, leading one to suspect that the colonial boundaries were firmly set, and were the same as the state boundaries are now, by the time of his birth. According to the WP article on Tiverton, Rhode Island this was so -- although the final fixing of the colonial (now state) boundary between Rhode Island and Massachusetts came surprisingly late. Nevertheless, according to that article, the boundary dispute between Rhode Island and Massachusetts was finally settled in 1746, with Tiverton and other areas along the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay being annexed to Rhode Island. Tiverton was incorporated as a Rhode Island town the next year. Gray was therefore born in Tiverton, Rhode Island.
-- Lonewolf BC 10:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I do believe this answers the question. Rhode Island's official history confirms the annexation was complete in 1746, which places it 9 years before Gray's birth. --Bobblehead 12:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. I guess that bit need not be sourced in the article, unless someone has found a source that explicitly claims "Tiverton, Massachusetts" -- I mean a source which is generally worth taking seriously, but which gets this detail wrong. If there are any such a disagreeing sources, then a footnote dealing with the discrepency and its resolution should be given, but plainly the main text must say only, "Tiverton, Rhode Island", in any case.
-- Lonewolf BC 19:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal discussion: Gray Sails the Columbia River --> "Second Voyage..." section of this article

I propose that the Columbia River episode be merged into the fitting section of this article, perhaps as its own sub-section. Discussion of a merge along those lines began on the talk-page of "Sails", 2006-Dec-21-06:21. I am moving discussion to here; it follows, below these introductory comments.
Note that when the discussion began, this article was just a stub. It has since been expanded (mainly 2006-Dec-27-00:03, by Aboutmovies) and further organized (mainly 2006-Dec-27-00:37, by me), thus making the section into which I now propose the material from "Sails" be merged. Some redundancies would need to be trimmed, and some material integrated into other portions of this article, given the major overlap between, but somewhat different coverage by the two articles.
I've made minor [edits] to the older discussion, and downgraded its sections one notch each, to account for its now being here, not on the "Sails" talk-page.
-- Lonewolf BC 04:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of a proposal to merge [Gray Sails the Columbia River] into Robert Gray (sea-captain)

Not meaning to knock the material in [Gray Sails the Columbia River], but I think that it should be merged into the article on Robert Gray. The Gray article itself needs fleshing out, and the Columbia bit is, I believe, generally considered the most noteworthy thing about him. Conversely, this makes quite a short article by itself, even though much of its material is redundant of the content of the article on Gray. This is not to knock the material, here. I'm just saying that it seems overly particular to have a separate article on the most prominent achievement of a historical figure (Gray) whose article, even when nicely filled out, should itself be only of modest size. I can't see any benefit to this "fork".
-- Lonewolf BC 06:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Since the sailing up the river is a seminal event in the development of territorial rights in Oregon Country, it is an important event in Oregon's history that is seperate from Gray's other accomplishments. Had Gray not "discovered" and sailed the river, then in October 1792 Vancouver's men would have done so and the US claims on much of Oregon Country would likely fail to amount to much. This means no US states of Oregon and Washington.

Gray's story overtime should be expanded as more information is added to the web for easier research, and same with the Columbia Part. The story of his cirgumnavigation is another notable event that could be expanded, and if some historians from the East Coast would get involved I'm sure they could help to expand his tale. Having seperate articles I think better reflects the policies of being bold and building the web. That's why Lewis & Clark have seperate articles for each of them and the expedition, yet there isn't much of note for either without the journey. Overall, as a student of Oregon history, I would vote against the merger since both articles are important, the Columbia part to Oregon history, and Gray for the biographies people.

Aboutmovies 00:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you are much over-rating the historical effect of Gray. As far as I can make out, he made no territorial claim -- he was, after all, only a private trader, in pursuit of furs and profits, not a representative of the young republic -- and none such was mooted at the time. (Keep in mind that this was over a decade before the Louisiana Purchase, and the U.S.A. extended only as far west as the Mississippi.) Gray gained no renoun for his river-entry in his own life-time, and seemingly thought little of it himself, beyond the good trading it afforded him. In any case, it defies logic that this one minor bit of exploration gave any particular claim to anything. Gray was all up and down the coast (as was Kendrick). Why should being first at this particular place give any more claim to the whole region than any other place he (or Kendrick) visited before any other known white man? Why should being first at any particular place give a claim comparable to that of other nations who were exploring the region much more thoroughly and intensively, with official representatives, at the same time (Britain and Spain; I don't know that the Russians were as keen), and who had already been doing so for many years? It might be that a hindsight importance was attached to it by Americans, much later, -- in fact, I gather that it was, and yet is -- but that is another story.

About the "fork", though, the thing is that Gray's Columbia excursion cannot be told of comprehensibly other than within the overall tale of his trading voyages to the region. Whereas that overall tale is Gray's only claim to fame, and scarely anything more is know about him -- he would otherwise be an utterly obscure merchant sea-captain -- the content of an article on Gray, on the one hand, and of an article on Gray's Columbia excursion, on the other hand, end up overlapping immensely. In fact, the latter would end up being a mere extract from a thorough treatment of Gray. (Note that Gray's other, less famous achievement, circumnavigation, was also in connection with the same overall trading mission, which also involved Kendrick, and which in Gray's case included a return to Boston and then back out to the north Pacific coast. Thus almost everything that matters and is known about Gray is of a single piece).

Your analogy with Lewis and Clark and their overland expedition is not apt. Their expedition is more comparable in scale to Gray's Pacific trading voyages taken as a whole, whereas the Columbia bit is only one small episode (timewise, at least) within those voyages. Further, Lewis and Clark are two where Gray is but one and, unlike Gray, both are reasonably well known historical figures even outside of the expedtion for which they are famous. Furthermore, that expedition involved other historical figures (Sacajawea comes to mind) deserving of articles, besides its two leaders. So there are clear reasons to have separate articles on Lewis, on Clark, on other expedition members, and on the expedtion itself. Nothing comparable is true in Gray's case.
-- Lonewolf BC 09:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I don’t want to get into a pissing match with you over POV, that’s not what Wiki is all about. It’s about a consensus and building the web. You obviously have a particular agenda and POV that you are pushing based on your talk history and warnings, I don’t have the free time to devout to such an endeavor. I’d rather continue to work with the cordial folks at WikiProject Oregon to build the Wiki and help to expand the number of articles available for all to read. So I am awaiting other people’s thoughts on this topic. Aboutmovies 17:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that you would characterise this as a "pissing match", and the only viewpoint I am interested in advancing is that of objectivity. Nothing among the diversity on my talk-page, past or present, has any bearing on this matter. On the whole, your last post seems to be mostly an attack on me and my supposed motives. There's no need or justification for such (seeming) personal rancour. Certainly I do not feel any. Please don't take personal offence at this or any editorial disagreement between us, if that is what has happened.
The problem I see here is that this article is a "fork". Although forks multiply the number of articles, they do not help to "build the web", but interfere with its good structure. I've considered, at length, the reasons that this article is a fork, in my last post. I hope that you will be willing likewise to consider the matter dispassionately, and to reply in kind. In the end, we may still disagree, but there is no good reason that we cannot do so and yet remain cordial.
The thoughts of other editors are, of course, most welcome by me (so at least we agree on one thing!), whereas the concept of "consensus" hardly applies to only two people.
Sincerely, Lonewolf BC 21:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The principle of consensus should still apply, since working with divergent perspectives is still necessary in realizing a common objective, but perhaps compromise would be a better operative word here. Bobanny 21:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at, although I could have put it better that I did. A consensus really takes more than two parties. Compromise (which is really a separate concept) is consensus' closest two-person equivalent but, at least for WP purposes, is only its poor cousin. Also, in a case like this, where the choice is essentially binary -- to merge or not to merge -- a compromise is difficult if not impossible to find. And so I especially welcome comment from more editors, to break the impasse.
-- Lonewolf BC 23:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about Gray and his entering the Columbia River, but I can offer this -- the other day I was quickly searching for wikipedia pages relating to the geography of Washington and the rather wild and dangerous seacoast, how early explorers had trouble finding the Strait of Juan de Fuca, let alone the Columbia. I knew that Vancouver and Cook had both sailed by the Columbia without realizing it was there, and Gray was the one to find it and discover its hazardous bar. A quick search for wikilinks turned up the Robert Gray (sea-captain) page, which I linked to and was content. I didn't read the page closely and didn't realize there even was a page about his entering of the Columbia. The name of the page, "Gray Sails the Columbia River", is not exactly one I was about to type into the search. I knew Gray was the guy, I didn't know the event of entering the Columbia had a name. Pfly 18:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

These are good points. As far as I know, Gray's entry of the Columbia estuary does not have an established historical name of its own (in contrast to, say, "The Lewis and Clark Expedition"), nor even does his (and Kendrick's) overall trading expedition have an established historical name. The events are remembered in history under his name, "Robert Gray", making that the logical title for an article on them in WP (qualified with "(sea-captain)", to distinguish him from the other Robert Grays, but that's a slight point). "Gray Sails the Columbia River", on the other hand, is not a title many folk would think of looking for. -- Lonewolf BC 06:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the subject here to weigh in on whether Gray and his Col. River trip both merit articles or not. But, as a disinterested editor, since there's not a consensus here, the two should not be merged. First, the Gray article is a stub and this one looks like there's room for expansion as well, and incompleteness is not grounds for eliminating an article. Expanding both of these would likely help readers unfamiliar with the subject decide for themselves if one or the other is non-noteworthy. If there is a difference of opinion reflected in the historiography over Gray's significance, that should be reflected in the articles. Secondly, there are advantages to having a separate article for the man and the deed, which is that events and people are categorized differently and provide two different types of wikilink targets. Thirdly, there is, so far as I know, no danger of running out of space on Wikipedia, and in general, it's better to err on the side of redundancy than incompleteness, and preferable in lieu of consensus. Any POV or other disagreements related to the content should be focused on the content, not on technical issues, i.e., focus editing energy on quality rather than quantity. Finally, if there is still a strong feeling that the articles should be merged and no consensus is achieved here, it seems the way to go is to nominate this article for deletion, but I can tell you that until the Gray article is expanded, other editors are not likely to support a deletion. Hope this helps, Bobanny 19:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, just to be clear, I haven't, and am not advocating a "hostile" merger. If I'd wanted to proceed in that sort of way, I'd have quietly spliced this material into the Gray article, and then AfD'ed this one -- but that would have been mean, and I'm not a mean person.
-- Lonewolf BC 06:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for inviting the WP:BC members to take a look at this proposal. I hope it proves to be beneficial having an outside opinion look at this debate. Purely as an editor, the article Gray Sails the Columbia River has what will most likely be a more functional purpose in this encyclopedia. The event of Gray manuvering the Columbia River will have many internal links to it seeing as the event is more important than the man so to speak. The moon landing to Neil Armstrong so to say. Furthermore the Gray article itself has very little content and merging the two topics would degrade the integrity of the Gray Sails the Columbia River article for you would be merging a well defined thesis article to one that lacks direction. I strongly suggest you keep the articles separate, give a brief summary on the Gray article, and expand the Gray article. Mkdw^talk 19:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to find a historiographical cite for the dispute over whether or not Gray actually even entered the Columbia, or just said he did; this controversy only erupted (academically-speaking) in modern times but was AFAIK "not on" during British position-making on the Oregon Dispute; the Brits had no awareness of that geography, or not much anyway, though certainly HBC staffers did; but it's not as if Capt. Gray's journals were tossed to John McLoughlin or James Douglas for their review/critique (Simpson may have read them once they were published, though...). What caught my eye above was:

Why should being first at any particular place give a claim comparable to that of other nations who were exploring the region much more thoroughly and intensively, with official representatives, at the same time (Britain and Spain; I don't know that the Russians were as keen), and who had already been doing so for many years?

The Spanish were by far the most assiduous of the scientific explorers in the area; Vancouver charted things extensively then moved on, but Spanish expedition ships, particularly the Aranzazu, stayed in the area on extensive scientific research assignments, studying everything from people and languages through to flora and fauna; most of what I know about that is from Derek Pethick's books and some of James Delgado's columns - the bulk of the original logs and reports on the area remained in Spanish archives in Madrid, sealed, until very recent years, and have largely been uneplored by British Columbian historians; likewise journals of expeditions originating in Russian America, or Russia. The Russians were fairly active with scientific expeditions but I'll have to pore over Pethick to dig out who and were; not as much as the Spanish. BTW Vancouver did not "fail" to find the mouth of the Columbia; he moored off the bar and declined the risk of taking his vessel across it into what was clearly a river-mouth; La grande fleuve de l'Ouest was known about and sought for by all parties, as with the Straits of Anian; if this was it, he didn't consider risking his ships worth it. I agree with the point about Lewis and Clark being a chartered expedition, rather than of an independent adventurer/sea-captain; Gray was not mandated by the US government on a voyage of "exploration and discovery" as were Lewis and Clark.Skookum1 04:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The article in question is rather length now, so I changed it to a {main} template. Merge "Complete" ^_^ --ShakataGaNai (talk) 23:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Obiter dicta from the merge-proposal discussion

And I would assume good faith, but you already demonstrated that you do not through your actions at removing links to the page before anyone but yourself has weighed in: Grays Point (Washington), Columbia River, and Template:Oregon Early History where you edit comment says it all: POV! Aboutmovies 18:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now, the above is getting pissy. I wish that you would assume good faith, or be less hasty in dropping that assumption, as the case may be.
You seem to suggest that I'm trying to hide your "Sails" article from other editors. That's not so, and not even reasonable to suppose. Please re-consider the three articles you've instanced:

• In "Columbia River", I left alone the link to "Sails", which only undermines your accusation.
• In "Grays Point", I did eliminate said link, largely because the link-density was oppressive and the link to Gray himself is right there. (By the by, I think the link-density bit illustrates one aspect of the problem with this fork. Are we to have two links so closely spaced, where ever Gray and his entering the Columbia are mentioned thus?)
• In the template, yes I changed the link from leading to "Sails" to leading to the article on Gray himself. In this case, I made the change for no other reason than that I believe this is the proper article to contain the material involved. My edit comment says "Better link". What viewpoint do you suppose that reflects, other than the overt one that I think it is a better link? -- certainly not any "POV" with respect to the content of the article(s), given that I hold that their material should be merged.

So in two of the three cases you raise, I did eliminate the link to "Sails", though only for legitimate editorial reasons (with which you might disagree, of course, but that does not make them illegitimate), and only by replacing the link with a link to Gray, or leaving a nearby, pre-existing link to Gray. What I have not done is go on some dastardly search-and-destroy campaign for links to "Sails". I imagine that such links are still liberally spread through WP. In particular, I've left alone the "See also" to "Sails", in the article on Gray, so any link to Gray yields a link to "Sails". So plainly I'm not trying to keep other editors from seeing "Sails"!

I hope that clears up this small matter. -- Lonewolf BC 23:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I never accused you of trying to hide the article. It's about acting before getting a consensus. Anyone could find the article. Aboutmovies 18:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It is good at least to know more exactly what you were on about. I disagree that I have acted in any way improperly, though. More particularly, I most certainly have not, in any way, failed to act in good faith. You should be much more cautious about making such accusations.
-- Lonewolf BC 03:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I concede on the Columbia River part as I was looking in the wrong area of the history. But what about 1792 in Canada? I didn't add the blurp about Gray (I did add the link), whoever started the page did. I know you don’t think it is important for Canadian history, but that’s your POV. I think the generally accepted way to go about something like that would be to post something on that page’s talk page, then everyone can weigh in. Much like we are doing here. Not being Canadian, I don’t care too much about that page, but just thinking about it for a second can make one realize it is significant to Canada. Look at your user name. I am assuming the BC part is in regards to the province. What does the C stand for? I think it is Columbia. So if Gray were to not open and name the Columbia, then the name of the Columbia District would have been something else I’m sure. Thus the subsequent province would have been something else, and so would your user name.

You see, this is where good faith comes in. You wait before deleting other people’s ideas/thoughts. That is why I didn’t go in and revert all your edits, though if you are about acting in good faith then you should go back at revert those edits (including the 1792). I started to assume good faith in the beginning, that’s why at your invitation on my talk page I weighed in on the topic of the merge. But if you remember, I didn’t reply to you. I went to the talk page and started a new part (which you then decided you needed to edit into a reply to your original comment). I replied to the discussion (which before myself or anyone else had weighed in you started to prepare for your deletion by removing links). Then you started talking about al sorts of other things, for some reason debating these things like we are at debate club. That’s not what Wiki is about. If you would read the five pillars, you would get this. And until you get this you will never really get what Wiki is about. Because it’s not about my POV or your POV. Your POV may be important to you, and that is fine. The NPOV says you get to include your POV, but don’t exclude others. That is why I think a blog is a better forum for you. There you are master of the content. You can write whatever you want and have fun.

Until then, find something productive to add to Wiki. Aboutmovies 18:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ummm... No, not every niggling edit needs to be talked over beforehand. That is the essence of "be bold". We all may exercise our editorial judgment. Also, although such judgments are often matters of opinion, by their very nature, that nature must be distinguished from "POV", in the sense of lack of neutrality. Editing unavoidably involves exercising judgment; what must be avoided, here, is bias.

In the case of "1792 in Canada", I deleted the entry on the explorations of the lower Columbia River for the simple reason that those events "...took place outside what was then, is now, or has ever been part of Canada", as I stated in the edit-summary I left. I surmise that you disagree on the grounds that those events nonetheless have some bearing on Canadian history. I grant you that they do, but disagree that "1792 in Canada" should include external events with a bearing on Canadian history. (The same goes for historical "[time-period] in [place]" articles, generally.) If, having considered that, you still disagree, then exercise your own editorial judgment; this point is not worth fussing over.

Your attempts to lecture me on good faith, which you suggest that I have broken, and on other WP principles, which you suggest that I fail to grasp, are more than slightly condescending and, more importantly, are wrong in their assumptions of bad faith, ignorance and bloggery on my part. I took much care to broach this merge proposal in an open and cordial way, and to make sure that you, in particular, knew about it -- and yet you seem to suppose that I have acted underhandedly. You accuse me of "start[ing] to prepare for your deletion by removing links". That is thorough nonsense. The work I did on links the other day was not "removing links", but updating links after an article-move. Nor was it done "to prepare for ... deletion" of anything, as should be plain to you if you look at my edit-history for that time-period. Granted, while doing the link-updates I made a few other edits, in passing, among them the deletion of a few links, but this was (I believe) only 3 links to "Sails" out of about 50 articles I edited in the course of the link-update, while I left alone the "Sails" links in 7 other articles I edited in the process, and didn't even touch any articles having "Sails" links but none to Robert Gray himself. I also sorted out the pre-existing mis-linkages caused by there being more than one Robert Gray in WP. (The "Robert Gray" article was originally about the Australian poet, and many of the in-links to it were really meant for him, rather than for the sea-captain.) All told, it was plenty of fairly painstaking work, and mighty nice of me to take the trouble of doing it, I would say. I hope that, in light of all the just foregoing, you will not persist in believing that my real purpose was to get ready to "delete" your work. Really, though, I'm not trying to delete your work at all; I just think that it should be merged into the pre-existing article on Robert Gray, to avoid an undesirable fork. In other words, I think that the separate article should go, not its contents.

I don't see what your issue could possibly be with my refactoring this talk-page so as to keep considerations of the merge proposal in one section of it, but there certainly has been nothing devious or nefarious in my doing so.

I did not start writing about "all sorts of other things". Rather, I set out a thoughtful treatment of why the fork is not a good idea (i.e. why the merge is a good idea). The only somewhat tangential aspect of that treatment is the part about the historical effect of Gray's entering the Columbia, but even that part is not altogether tangential, because it relates to one of your rationales for having a separate article. In any case it is valuable with an eye to keeping the material accurate and unbiased, regardless of what article includes it.

Although WP editorial decisions operate by consensus, proper consensus-building is not a mere matter of taking a straw-poll or of everyone offering up their pre-conceived opinion. Reaching a true consensus does involve reasoned discussion, which is what I've provided on my part. I really wish you would follow suit. Reaching a true consensus also involves openness to changing ones mind, partially or even wholly, in light of what someone else says. I am not suggesting that we treat this as a "debate club". That is, we're not here to argue for the sake of arguing. However, one important aspect of civility, and one necessary part of reaching consensus, is to actually read, consider, and respond accordingly to what the other fellow says. I regret that you seem disinclined to do that. I hope that you will reconsider. At the least, spare me your high-horsemanly comments which amount to, "You just don't understand what WP is about. Go start a blog, and meanwhile go away and do something else on WP." They're really rude. I'm not writing stuff just to spout off. I'm writing it to try to discuss things with you reasonably -- and that requires setting out my thoughts is a careful way, at the length needed to do so. If you don't want to take part in such a discussion, just don't take part. You've no just cause to be rude to me for trying.

-- Lonewolf BC 04:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Do it. "Grey sails the Columbia River" has to be a violation of some kind of title policy... don't know for sure. It sounds like a book. W1k13rh3nry 21:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

One, not a book title I am aware of, two not a reason to support a merge per [[[Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages]], three as previously mentioned in this debate the only possible violation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions would be that Sails is capitalized which would just mean a re-name, not a merge. Also, the closest thing to a consensus here would be to keep. Aboutmovies 22:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal ab initio

At this point, I would oppose merging the two articles. Among the articles within the scope of the Oregon WikiProject, there is considerable muddling in wikilinks between individuals, institutions or events in which they played a role, etc., even when the distinctions should be clear if not obvious. In the instant case, the problem is compounded by the fact that there is no common usage to apply as a naming convention for the event of the first recorded navigation and claim of the Columbia River, and the individual who accomplished it. Unlike the Lewis & Clark Expedition, the rest of the voyage in which this obviously noteworthy and historically important event occurred is otherwise unencyclopedic. As the work of the fairly young Oregon WikiProject progresses, I can see increasing problems with references to this event being wikilinked to the biographical article on the sea captain. If the merge occurs now, it will overwhelm the biographical stub; if merged later, wikilinks will not navigate to pertinent information.

I do not recognize any established article naming conventions in its current title, and I think that may be why it sticks out to some readers and editors who happen upon it. I am not fluent enough in the subject to offer an alternative off hand, but perhaps we should consider a move and rename rather than a merge.

And as for whether or not this event is as significant to Canadians as a whole, and British Columbians in particular, as it is to Oregonians, I shall leave to those whose citizenship qualifies them to have a voice in the matter. I certainly would not wish to support anything that gave offense to my northern neighbors to whom I am most grateful for teaching me to use malt vinegar on my chips, which, it being early evening on a Friday, I am expecting to enjoy almost immediately. --"J-M" (Jgilhousen) 01:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do (the debate above), but my immediate reaction as per your request on the [Wikipedia talk:WikiProject British Columbia BC Wikiproject talkpage] is that the two articles should be merged, and the title of this one well, sucks (no offense); I'm not even sure of the notability of the rest of Gray's maritime career, but this episode is his claim-to-fame and as I suspect Lonewolf BC is on about above, the Canadian/BC perspective is that his voyage was never proven and there's too many discrepancies in his log for it to have been real; this article seems overblown, especially with the details of the journal/voyage, without saying anything that there is a fairly strong debate in historiography about Gray's journal being bunk that was later trotted out by the US politicians seeking to establish a claim to the area....I just got my copy of the Akrigg's BC Chronicle back so I'll see what they have to say; meanwhile I'll read through your debate and see what's up.Skookum1 03:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The controversy may very well be the notability. The story of Gray's first navigation and naming of the Columbia were standard fare spoonfed us as children in Oregon schools. I have a facsimile of the Oregon standard civics text from the pre-sixties era (when they still taught civics) on disk somewhere, and will dig it out and dust it off. That the incident was taught as fact on this side of the border and as bunk on the other seems in and of itself worthy of an article. Add the legal proceedings and treaty negotiations in which it played a role (though obviously not as near a deciding one as both sides would like to make out, since it is clear that economics and other political factors were in play that were not in the interest of either side to acknowledge). Surely someone with JSTOR and full EBSCO access can pull up sufficient recent scholarly work on the subject to update and document it beyond the dated textbook material in place now. I still think it unwise to bury the subject in a biography of the sea captain, as the geopolitical import is far greater than the sum total of his life. From my perspective, it would be like merging an article on the Amistad trials into one on Captain Ramonflues. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 06:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Jgilhousen, your seemingly intended line of reasoning in support of keeping the "fork" (30 Dec) really does not follow. To the contrary, you raise a number of points which are actually good reasons to merge the articles. You also make a few other points that would be reasons not to merge if they were true, but upon which you are mistaken.

The link-muddling you mention is a problem, no doubt. This problem is only worsened, though, by having one article on Robert Gray, and another article on what is probably Gray's single most famous accomplishment. There really is no well-established name for Gray's discovery of a way into the Columbia's estuary -- such historical particulars generally are not named -- and so there is no natural title for a separate article on that specific topic. That is, there is no title that most people should recognize on sight, or should think of, sight-unseen, when they want to link to the event (as WP writers and editors), or want to search for it (as WP readers). The title that has been chosen for this article breaks all guidelines for WP article-titles, and is extremely awkward for making links to, even if someone knows what it is. (Really, the practical deficiencies of the title matter much more than its breech of the guidelines, but that breech of the guidelines, which exist largely to ensure titles are workable, is a good indication of how great this title's practical deficiencies are.)

The natural link for this information is to the man, Robert Gray, who is the one name associated, in history, with this particular discovery (that is, the discovery of a way into the Columbia River). I grant you that editors unknowing that there is more than one "Robert Gray" in WP are liable to link to plain "[[Robert Gray]]", but this leads to a disambiguation page, which directs a reader to the proper man. That is exactly what disambiguation stuff is meant for, and it is good enough -- until such time as some diligent editor gets around to righting a given link to a direct "[[Robert Gray (sea-captain)]]".

Further, it is a rare reference to this bit of history that would not mention Captain Gray right near to mention of his entering of the estuary and naming of the river. If these "forked" articles are both kept, that causes there to be two different links to the same information, right beside each other, which is just plain silly. Furthermore, the tortuous wording that has in many instances been used, just so as to work in a separate link to this article, is awkward and in some cases downright ugly.

You are quite right that linkage problems will only become greater as time goes on and the Oregon wiki-project (one hopes) grows. You are also quite right that the merging these two articles is thus liable to become more troublesome with time. That is a very good reason not to delay in merging them.

Although his discovery of a way into the Columbia, and his naming of that river, are probably Gray's most famous achievements, they were only one very brief episode in the overall tale of his trading voyages involving the north Pacific coast. That greater narrative also encompasses his other particular achievements and discoveries of particular note (first American circumnavigation, discovery of Grays Harbor, and perhaps others) and, more broadly, his pioneering of what became a somewhat important aspect of American trade. All of those things, together with the Columbia episode, deserve coverage in an article on Robert Gray, if one wishes not to leave gaping holes in such an article, and all of them are bound up together in the overall tale of the voyages that made Gray historically noteworthy. It is therefore imperative that an article on Gray tell that overall tale, both for its own importance to Gray's life and place in history, and in order for its particulars to make any sense. Conversely, the Columbia episode cannot be told of comprehensibly without a considerable amount of explanation about the overall tale of Gray's famed voyages. Thus an article on that particular episode ends up being a mere extract from a thorough biography of Gray. Considering this, it is silly to have a separate article just for the Columbia episode.

To make explicit one point that I've just covered, Gray's voyages are not un-encyclopedic without the Columbia episode.

You have written, "...I can [fore]see increasing problems with references to [Gray's entering the Columbia] being wikilinked to the biographical article on the sea captain. If the merge occurs now, it will overwhelm the biographical stub; if merged later, wikilinks will not navigate to pertinent information." As to the "stub" issue within that quotation, the Robert Gray article is no longer a stub, and even if it were that would be no reason to separate the Columbia episode from it. It is quite alright to build a WP article piecemeal, even if that leaves it temporarily lopsided in its coverage. The other points you raise, about troubles with linkage and navigation, do not make sense: If the articles are merged, links to the Columbia episode shall "navigate to the pertinent information", because that information shall be within the article on Gray. Organizing the Gray article so that the Columbia episode (or other particular information) is easy to find within it is a simple matter.
-- Lonewolf BC 01:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The title was bothering me, too, and much the same applies for other sea-captains in the region, whether as official voyages or as private commercial enterprises (I'm tempted to say "privateer", but of course that has a few other implications; many of the "Boston traders" - Americans - in the marine fur trade era approached their business with the local natives, indeed, as a form of piracy and cheating; but then it was a two-say street). Certainly an article discussing the competing claims to the Oregon Country/Columbia District/New Spain/Russian America (the Austrians and French also had nominal claims, though never exercised as by the time Barkley got back to Europe, Austria was caught up in the Napoleonic thing and never got it together to build an overseas empire, or a navy at all other than the "Sea and Health Police" on the Adriatic; la Perouse's death near Australia was pretty much the end of what might have become a competing French claim). I was thinking of calling this Imperial Rivalry in the Pacific Northwest but that still wouldn't (necessarily) address the technicalities of the competing claims and the questionable or valid nature of the accounts that supported them. I'll think about this more - maybe there's a title that will work but I can't think of one right now - Discovery of the Columbia River might address both maritime and overland efforts/claims perhaps - but in closing I was amused by a comment in Alan Morley's Vancouver: From Milltown to Metropolis where he quips that Capt. Vancouver didn't have much luck with rivers, failing to recognize the mouth of the Fraser as well, condemning it as "only suitable for canoes". He didn't try to penetrate any rivers, according to Morley and others, because he was looking for a saltwater passage to the Atlantic, not a freshwater link; never mind the Columbia Bar....Skookum1 01:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My digression about Capt. Vancouver was going to be that his explorations of the Pacific Northwest could constitute a separate article, while his own worldwide voyages and military and exploration career are covered in general on his bio page. I would think that "Exploration of the Pacific Northwest" as a general title/article could then have subarticles like The Pacific Northwest Voyages of Captain Vancouver etc. Coordinating with all this is my work with User:NorCalHistory re History of the west coast of North America, which has some amazing coverage of Spanish voyages and more; I've been meaning to "get at" the BC components of it when I get a chance....got my hands full right now between fleshing out BC's mountain range articles and "the Bornmann case" (see the AFD on Erik Bornmann) but this is the stuff I'd rather be working on ;-) Skookum1 03:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

We differ both in application of logic and as to material fact. As to the latter, at the risk of merely entering into a "no it won't" vs. "yes it will" endless loop, I must comment that I strenuously disagree with your conclusion that placing a link in an article on one of the instances in which Gray's claimed discovery has been proffered as a legal precedent to a biographical article on his entire life is a satisfactory outcome of the merger. I am utterly baffled by your conclusion that it the logical outcome of keeping the articles separate somehow relieves confusion between the man and the event, the opposite seeming so patently obvious. The only purpose in merging them I can see is to avoid some implied endorsement of the verity of Gray's claim of discovery, and its relevance to subsequent territorial claims of the United States, a purpose better served by cleaning up the article of POV statements, giving it a more appropriate title, and including a full discussion of opposing views. Exposition in most cases, and I think certainly in this one, is better than suppression. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 03:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's me you're replying to there, but LoneWolf BC (?). I'm actually saying something like, yes, we can have this article if it has a better title, and there are others, such as the Capt. Vancouver one, that could be parallel to it; his is a parallel situation, as would also be the case for Juan Franscisco de la Bodega y Quadra, Martinez, Baranof and others; likewise David Thompson's overland explorations and others.Skookum1 04:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

(My fault. When I moved the discussion over to this page, I also moved Jgilhousen's comment to the bottom, for sake of keeping time-wise order, and meaning to answer it right away. Then something came up. -- Lonewolf BC 10:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC))

Right, I was trying to keep the thread chronological, and so placed my comment at the bottom. It was a bad call. Since claim of discovery is lesser to subsequent occupation, the overland explorations were actually more important, as they led more directly to later settlement... glad you brought them up. And as long as the issue of renaming the article (assuming it survives the merge proposal), do you have any ideas? I'm coming up dry. I definitely don't want to see the word "discovery" memorialized in the title. I'm sure an indigenous American response to "Gray's discovery of Columbia" would be, "I didn't know it was lost." "Gray's claim of navigating the Columbia" seems unbalanced in the opposite direction from that which seems to have prompted this debate in the first place. Since the fact that Gray named the river after his ship, perhaps "Naming of the Columbia River," while not entirely satisfying, would at least not prompt as much controversy, and would still leave room for containing information on the claim of discovery and first navigation, both pro and con. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 05:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I haven't kept this topic on the frontal lobes because of my hands full with a very snarly AFD but just to comment on your suggestions above:

1. use of "discovery" is sure to rile Native American feathers (I don't mean that in any stereotypical sense). The river was also known about though not explored, because of Vancouver and others who'd moored off the Columbia Bar but not penetrated the river itself.
2. "Naming of the Columbia River" relates to another discussion/controversy, which I'm not sure if it's on Wikipedia or not but may be linked from the Oregon page, about the origin of the name Oregon. Namely, among other possibilities of its origin, that it is a corruption of the French rivière de l'ouragon - "river of the hurricane" - as Metis and French trappers had oral knowledge from their native contacts of a huge river in the West that was constantly beset by stiff winds, as in the famous gale-force blasts of the Columbia Gorge near The Dalles, so popular today with windsurfers and sailboarders. Theories also existed that it was the same as the "Tacoutche Tesse", from what language I don't know, which was the name of the stream that Simon Fraser followed to its mouth. The search for the Columbia under various names is a whole topic in its own right, hence my suggestion that an article on David Thompson's, and for that matter Simon Fraser's and others' attempts to follow streams west of the Continental Divide to the Pacific, is in the same category of subject; and equally hard to title.
3. I'm not sure that Gray himself named the river after his ship - is it in his logs? My impression has been that the name was conferred post facto to honour his (putative) voyage.
4. an interesting aspect of Gray's possible (but not proven) voyage is that some population historians, I think including Cole Harris of UBC, that a hemorrhagic fever which swept the Lower Columbia in subsequent years may have been brought on by his voyage, or by another unrecorded one (several ships which visited Nootka Sound were never heard from again, so it could be any of them, although they could have easily been wiped out by a native attack anywhere along the Coast, or like La Perouse lost their necks somewhere else on the return voyage.
5. somewhere in the mazes of my incomplete education, I think in a geopolitics course but it could have been even from a very history-aware high school teacher I had, that there were three established principles in international law of the day governing claims and discovery:

1. prior discovery incl. declaration of claim - this refers to the famous charades of the hoisting of a cross, flag, whatever, and "taking the land in the name of the king"; and would include Lewis and Clark's beating David Thompson to the mouth of the Columbia from inland; Simon Fraser's accession to the sea was one of the factors mitigating in favour of the British being able to "hold the line" to the 49th Parallel (the mouth of the Fraser is just north of that latitude). Drake's fabled nailing of copper/bronze plates bearing his claim to Nova Albion, hammered into trees wherever he landed, was also trotted out by the British, which is why there's always been a kerfuffle when something purported to be one of these plaques is found, whether at Bodega Bay, Sooke BC, Prince of Wales Island or various other places such things have variously turned up in, or claimed to have been turned up in. A recent book on The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, by a former mayor of Victoria (also featured ona History Channel video, theorizing that Drake covertly and deliberately staked these claims in the name of Gloriana (QE I) but the results and records of his mission were deliberately suppressed back in England in order to not tip off the Spanish of British intentions in the region; haven't read it, but apparently it's a compelling read (saw it in the library the other day when looking for stuff; guess I'll take it out next).
2. active economic use/exploitation. Hence the importance of Nootka Sound, Fort Astoria, Fort George, and so on, and also why Forts Langley and Victoria were established - to secure the British claim farther north than the Columbia, despite the strong presence of the HBC on the Lower Columbia and in the Williamette...

1. active settlement, generally as proxies proxy of colonial status/claim (not just wayfarers/independents). This is why, had Vancouver's plan to make the Puget Sound-Georgia Basin a transplantation/settlement colony not gotten derailed by the Napoleonic Wars, the British claim to Puget Sound would have been indisputable; as it was the presence of Forts Nisqually and Puyallup wasn't enough to satisfy American expansionist sabre-rattling, likewise on the San Juans. Equally, had the Russians situated Sitka at, say, Nootka Sound or Gray's Harbour, the treaty settlement between the Russians and Spanish, and after that between the Spanish and the British, would not have fixed 54-40 as the boundary between Russian and British interests, but somewhere much farther south; when I get to revamping the Nootka Conventions article, you'll be able to read the terms of the Third Convention, which did not cede the Spanish garrison (and it was a garrison/presidio, and a large one) at Nootka Sound to the British; rather, they agreed to open the Coast to all comers and abandon their claim of monopoly over the region, including the right to occupy their former holdings at Nootka Sound, which could have been taken up by anyone - the British, the Russians, the Americans, even (if they'd been aware of the possibility) Japan or China or for that matter the King of Hawaii or even the Austrian Emperor or that Bonaparte guy).

More tomorrow; that's just prelim notes. I support the idea of there being a separate article; I'm not sure it should be only about Gray's voyage, however; which is why my suggested title Imperial Rivalry in the Pacific Northwest or maybe Competing Imperial Claims in the Pacific Northwest might work; but then it wouldn't be just about the Columbia. "The Search for the Columbia" comes to mind and is maybe workable. That's all for tonight; got other pages to drop by before I hit the hay.Skookum1 08:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

(In reply to Jgilhousen's comment of 2007-Jan-04-03:48)
I sincerely hope that you do not differ from me in the application of logic, because that is what it is, and anything else is illogic. I'm all for logic, myself. However it might be that we differ upon underlying premises, which can be matters of opinion and judgement, rather.
Bearing that in mind, endless loops of mutual contradiction are readily avoided, or at least put off to a deeper level, by saying how you figure. Why should it be troublesome for a link to lead to a general biography, so long as the specific information concerned may be found therein?
There is no confusion between the man and the event. The man took part in, and is chiefly credited for the event -- simple-dimple. (In this case, Captain Robert Gray discovered a way to take a sailing ship into the estuary of the Columbia River, and named the river.) Putting the event into the man's biography scarcely complicates that easy distinction. So it is that we have an article on Erik the Red, without a separate article, "Erik Sails to Greenland"; one on Bartholomew Diaz, without a separate one, "Diaz Rounds the Cape of Good Hope"; one on Vasco da Gama, without a separate one, "Da Gama Sails to India"; one on Juan de Fuca, without a separate one, "Juan de Fuca Discovers the Strait of Juan de Fuca". (I could go on, but the pattern should already be plain.)
Your speculations that there is some ulterior motive to the merge proposal, and particularly your implication that that motive is "supression" of a point of view, are ... "uncharitable" is the most charitable word I can think of for them. The seeming bias of some of the present material in "Sails" is a concern to me (and ought be to any impartial editor), but the same goes for some of the material lately added to the Gray article. Yes, of course the solution to bias is to clean up the bias, but this is just as true whether the articles are merged or left separate. Whether in one article or in two, tendentious sources and interpretations of sources must be avoided, and genuine, extant scholarly disagreements must be presented impartially, from as many sides as there are to them.
There is an oblique connection, though, between keeping a neutral point of view and not forking articles, which is that it is easier to ensure neutrality in one article on given subject-matter than it is to ensure neutrality in two or more forks.
-- Lonewolf BC 10:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It took longer than I expected, but predictably comes the charge of bias when, in fact, I have little interest in either Captain Gray, the man, nor the event under discussion, and no preconceived notions whatsoever about either (1) the verity of his claim of "discovery," or (2) the relevance of his claim to later territorial claims of the U.S. government. That he made such a claim, and that claim was so used, however, is a matter of fact. I have tried to make it clear that I would welcome referenced exposition on any and all sides of those controversies in the article. The sheer tonage of verbiage on this talk page convinces me all the more that it deserves its own space in which to be documented. My sole interest in the matter is how it relates to work being undertaken by the Government and Politics workgroup of the Oregon WikiProject, and in that regard the merger is problematic. There are already too many links within the scope of our project that lead the reader to a page where they have to scour to find little or nothing of relevance to the text from which they were directed. As an entirely practical matter, I would prefer that number not continue to be increased as rapidly as it is now. I am sorry you see no logic in that position, but I have lost faith that my humble faculties are sufficient to find anything more to convince you, especially now that you seem to be convinced that my motives are driven by prejudice against God only knows whom or what. Following your logic, all articles on historical events should be removed in favor of subordinate sections in articles on the person or persons who were parties to them. I am sure there are instances in which that might be perfectly satisfactory. In the case of those which have become major controversies, and even relied upon as legal precedents, rightly or wrongly, to the point of their notability eclipsing that of the person or persons to whom they are attributed, it is far less satisfactory. From the perspective of my involvement in such articles, this one seems to fit the latter category. The earth would not shatter nor the heavens fall if the article under discussion were to be merged into Gray's biography, or even if it disappeared from Wikipedia altogether. Either of those eventualities would, however, prove inconvenient for me from time to time, as I suspect it would for the handful of readers who might wander onto the page. I will readily admit a bias against increasing those inconveniences. And as for "suppression," it can be accomplished as effectively by burial as by deletion, even if done for the purest of motives. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 21:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My dear fellow, I have not suggested any bias on your part. Nor have I made it any secret I think some bias has crept into both the article on Gray, and the one on his Columbia River episode. Moreover, your use of "expected" and "predictably" seem to be a continuation of the ulterior-motives suspicions of which I would have hoped I had disabused you. There are no ulterior motives on my part. I believe that the articles should be merged for reasons quite apart from concerns over bias and I wish for bias to be eliminated from the article or articles whether or not they are merged.
Once again, a properly organised article on Gray would readily allow a reader to find the material on the Columbia episode. That is easily done. So your stuff about "burial" and "suppression-by-burial" is just plain wrong. I recommend that the Columbia River episode have its own sub-section, even, which might be linked to directly. Moreover, a proper merger should solve the problem you raise of "...links ... that lead the reader to a page where they have to scour to find little or nothing of relevance to the text from which they were directed." In other words, if we don't keep a separate article on the Columbia bit, but put all of that matter into the article on Gray (and make it easy to find therein, which is easy), then links to Gray that are meant specifically for his Columbia River bit will cease to be an "inconvenience", or otherwise troublesome. Considering that, you should be supporting the merge! (In any case, as of now there are but few links to either article.)
I regret that you seemingly are not "following [my] logic" at all. I'm not suggesting that all articles on historical events should be scrapped. I'm saying that events of the kind I listed, where the event is chiefly tied to a single person, should be covered in the article on that person, not in a separate article. (Other considerations may also matter: If the person's achievements are so many that proper coverage of them all would make an over-long article, then a split may be in order. We've far from reached that point in this case, though.)
With regard to your statement that "This [historical event] seems to [be one] ... of those which have become major controversies, ... eclipsing ... the person or persons to whom they are attributed," no, I don't think it does. Such controversy as there may be about whether it really happened, or over exactly what really happened, is readily covered in Gray's article. I don't gather that there is very much. In any case, like any historical figure of the sort, Gray is historically important because of, and thus in proportion to the historical importance of his achievements.
-- Lonewolf BC 01:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a name for Gray’s Columbia expedition, Gray Discovers Columbia River or Gray’s Discovery of the Columbia River. Or other slight variations. You are right, no real exact universally accepted title, such as World War II has. Oh wait, that’s right there is no universally accepted title for that. Well maybe a better example is the Oregon Treaty, oh wait that too has multiple names. OK how about the Seven Years war, oh wait that too goes by several names. Hmm, seems like much of history seems to have multiple names. Now, when I created the article I could have used to more common Gray Discovers Columbia River, but that seems a little too POV, so I tried to make it less western society POV. Didn’t want to anger the Natives. But whatever you call it, it is still important to NW history. That would be why so many things are named after Gray. But there are also many things named Columbia, and that is only in reference to the ship. No ship named Columbia entering the river, no places named Columbia in this part of the world. But, Gray would still have been famous and had places named after him. In the NW (especially OR & WA) he is remembered for the Columbia sailing, but back east it is more about the China trade that he helped pioneer and the fortunes that helped generate. That is covered in the Conflict on the Northwest Coast book referenced on the Gray page. It might be of some interest that Gray’s return received a lot of press (for instance The Herald of Freedom, 8-10-1790) up and down the East coast. He even received press when he set sail again later in 1790. But nothing upon his return. So some scholars find his first voyage more important, just depends on your POV. Lastly, I just don’t think the articles overlap enough to justify merging. Rightly everything in Wiki could be merged into one giant page called Universe, but we don’t. An article on Gray should cover the Columbia part, but a good biography would not go into explicit details of the discovery. Also, Gray was not the only person on the ship entering the river, and some of his crew were off in a different boat. Those could be covered in his bio, but wouldn’t receive much on the discovery. Much as Cook and Vancouver should have, and Columbus does have, there should be separate articles for the voyages that have greater detail than a biography should have. Aboutmovies 05:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Since some people have been talking about the naming conventions, I actually looked it up and thought this might help: 3. If there is no common name for the event and no generally accepted descriptive word, use a descriptive name that does not carry POV implications.Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) So what part of this convetion does the name violate? Aboutmovies 03:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Consensus

It appears there are differences in defining this term. Mine does not equate it with a process by which a proposed action receiving two strenuous dissents and a moderate one, and no assent, results in the proposal being enacted. But then, perhaps I am once again applying flawed logic, defined as any which does not agree with the proposal. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 03:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been too busy to discuss this, or even read in detail your guys' posts. Talk about "buried" stuff, see the AFD I'm struggling with right now and its associated sockpuppetry and checkuser cases. As for Capt. Gray and the secondary article on the Columbia, I submit once again that an article discussing the rival claims to discovery have their own article, of which Gray can be a part; I'll have to have a look at the Vancouver, Barkley, Cook, Meares etc articles to see how their role in the PacNW Coast was covered there, and then I'll be back, if I don't get caught up in another topic and forget that is '-) (one-eyed smile). I did notice this in the intro, though:

He achieved both in connection with trading voyages to the north Pacific coast of North America, which pioneered the American sea-borne fur trade there.

I don't think that American participation in the fur trade was launched by Gray; there were "Boston traders" (the term "American" hadn't quite been invented yet...) at Nootka Sound and eleswhere along the Coast in at least 1789; I'll have to check my book on Nootka by Pethick (I don't have his First Voyages to the Northwest Coast anymore; it has even more detail and more voyages) and see "who else". Gray was "just another captain" in the region, of many from all nations, and what distinguishes him in regional history is the purported Columbia voyage and its political consequences in later years. The marine fur trade was already booming - really booming - by 1790.Skookum1 04:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Worth a further short comment that even getting to the Pacific Northwest Coast in those days was a major achievement. For anybody.Skookum1 04:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

These and further discussions are made moot by unilateral action to execute the merge, now well underway. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 04:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No, they're not. The Gray Sails the Columbia title is NOT acceptable by Wikipedia standards, and what LoneWolf BC is doing right now is preserving material from deletion. You'll note that he's commented that, if it grows to dominate the article too much, it can be split off to a separate article if we can find a suitable title. My position is that Gray is only part of the story of the discovery of the Columbia, and of PacNW exploration as a whole, and that this episode is only part of a much larger story which ISN'T USAcentric concerning regional history. That's why my discussion of how the other captains are treated, from whatever country. As for the rather paranoid complaints (and that's how they sound) that you are powerless, you are not, and this is not being done, I feel, to ignore you. It's just your own position is quite intransigent and throwing around comments complaining about a lack of consensus. There is no consensus anywhere in Wikipedia, believe you me (again, see that AFD for a good example, which is full of ironic complaints by the people who caused the problem in the first place). I respect your contributions; but you must learn to respect other editors. LoneWolf BC is not disrespecting you. He is preserving material from what would inevitably have been a deletion scenario because of the title you chose. If a better title can be come up with, fine, but right now it doesn't exist.Skookum1 04:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

This is getting downright silly. Whether or not there continues to be a separate article on the Columbia River episode, the material about that episode belongs in the article on Robert Gray. It was, after all, his most notable single achievement, historically speaking, by most reckonings. That's all I am doing right now -- grafting that material into the article on Gray. Whether the separate article is "merged" into the Gray article, in the sense of ceasing to have a separate existence, is a separate matter. I really am getting weary of these accusations of bad faith on my part. The way you are carrying on, Jgilhousen, one would think I had turned "Sails" into a redirect, or blanked it altogether. In fact, I have not altered it at all. I've merely used its material elsewhere. -- Lonewolf BC 06:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

As should be, as articles sharing topic-material should not differ much on their contents; integrating differing articles within even the Vancouver project requires a lot of, well, integration....Skookum1 08:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Fur trade/fur trader categorization

Also, like other marine fur trade types, he should have either the Fur trade or Fur traders cats; these are usually given to landlubber fur traders, but unless there's a "Marine fur trade" category upcoming he should also be in one of those two; I'd say the latter, since the article is about him, not his "corporate person" or place of business, as with an HBC, NWC or AFC fort.Skookum1 08:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed article title, to settle the unsettled -??

Came to me simply as Discovery of the Columbia River. Which then would be about the failed sightings or un-made voyages by pre-Gray captains, as well as the lendary/oral tradition concerning the river's existence (among mariners as well as learned about from natives on the Prairies/Plains) and also address the geopolitical and legal/imperial claims aspects of its various forms of discovery, including the logistics of Lewis and Clark as well as Fraser and Thompson and certain others; and in the course of that, if I can find the cite (more than one, I'm sure) about there being some doubt as to the veracity of Gray's voyage, it would fit in the context of the suggested article nicely. This is a much more workable title IMO than Gray Sails the Columbia River as it addresses the reason and context of why Gray's voyage was politically significant (even if it wasn't to him at the time), and also what the upshot of the whole affair was, as the resolution of the contest over claims to the river's basin wasn't over for another...hmmm....54 years, and the equation of the outcome (such as things turned out, for "us" anyway) can't be made by talking about him alone. I'll also try and find the cite about "the Death" or whatever it was called, that swept through in the same era and may have been a result of his voyage; in Cole Harris' The Resettlement of British Columbia, which is a collection of demographic history of First Nations people in the Pacific Northwest; but I know I've seen it somewhere else, too.Skookum1 11:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

How about Exploration of the Columbia River, discovery of the Columbia is a bit of a misnomer as the river was technically discovered by the Paleoamericans somewhere between 15,000 and 35,000 years ago. It would accomplish the same thing, but get rid of the misnomer. --Bobblehead 16:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That suggested content, under either of those suggested titles, would be fine by me. I'm not sure that it needs to be more than a section of the article on the Columbia River, though, depending upon how much material there is for it, and upon how long the general article on the Columbia River is. The general principle should be to find a home for information within an existing article, rather than fragement information into separate articles.
In this case, the detailed events concerned naturally belong in Gray's biography, a summary of them belongs within coverage of the discovery and exploration of the Columbia River by whites, and consideration of their diplomatic and legal uses and implicatons belongs in a treatment of the Columbia District, the Oregon Country, and the Oregon boundary dispute. This would put all information in its needful context.
(By the way, I wouldn't worry about using "discovery". Anyone discovers anything if they know not about it beforehand, so it is not a misnomer to say that this or that white explorer discovered this or that bit of geography, regardless of whether the same was already known by folk dwelling thereabout -- who also might have discovered it at some point in the past, although they might also merely have heard tell of it before settling in the area.)
-- Lonewolf BC 19:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The word "discovery" was in my forebrain because I've been reading Akrigg and Pethick about asserted claim, prior discovery, effective occupation, and all that re imperial rivalries; usually, as somewhere above, I'm much more conscious of First Nations/Native American perspectives here. "Exploration" is OK but it doesn't quite address the imperial-law quotient, and "mapping" isn't quite right either. The idea of the article is to do with the political meaning (by design or accident) of the various visits/voyages/explorations, so it's a somewhat different thing than a briefer mention of this on the main Columbia River page; on the other hand it could be a section - with the "Discovery" or "Exploration" title - on an Imperial claims in the Pacific Northwest article (a bit better-titled than Imperial rivalries in the Pacific Northwest maybe. (rivalries=/rivalry ?)Skookum1 19:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Those are all great titles for an article. They should be written. However, the Gray Sails article should still remain. Changing the name is to a a larger series of events/claims is in essence deleting the article. The purpose for the article is to expand out on the significance of the actions by Gray (whether he knew them or not) on the geography of the NW, both boundries and naming. Not other claims, not other people's voyages that did not lend their names to the Columbia. That is for other articles.

Drake's claims, Cook's claims, Gray's claims, Vancouver's claims should all have articles, they deserve them. Then have a larger article (much like the states and provinces have a main article, then additional articles on history or economies) with reference to these additional articles. The amount of information about each of these events/claims is more than enough to create a good article. Otherwise the proposal would be much like saying lets combine all the articles about Fort Vancouver, Fort Astoria/George, John McLoughlin, Jason Lee, Douglas, and the Whitman Massacre into one History of the Northwest. It could be done, but from an encylopedic or WP:BTW standpoint there is no reason too. As someone above mentioned in the early stages of this debate, Wikipedia is not in danger of running out of space on the servers, so there is pleanty of room for additional articles that go into more detail about a topic that a larger article would gloss over. For instance someone researching claims in the northwest is not going to want the intimate details of what time Gray sailed into the Columbia in May 1792 or that they then filled there water casks with fresh water. But someone researching in depth about why their county is named Columbia might want to know this level of detail and could not care less about Cook's voyages. Same thing for Gray, someone researching Gray may not need the info on the Columbia as part of what they are looking for, as would be the case for the Conflict on the Northwest Coast book cited on the Gray page. The author there only cared about the first voyage, and really didn't go into the British claims at all, not part of what the book is about (its about Russia v. US).

So there should be a "Exploration of the Columbia" that talks about the Spanish first propsing that a river might lie there based on exploration around 1745ish, then Gray on his first voyage, then Meares, then Gray on his second, then Vancouver and his men, then McKenzie (I think in the headwaters), then Lewis and Clark and so on. Plus a Foreigh claims article that discusses the Russian, Spanish, British, and American claims on the northwest coast. But ultimatly these are incidental to the Gray Sails article. Aboutmovies 21:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Broughton

Well, while compiling List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest just now, I came across the HMS Chatham's commander, Lieutenant William Broughton, who was sent up the Columbia in small boats (not the Chatham so far as I can tell) a good distance farther than Gray claims to have sailed, and did so in 1792. I changed the intro of the Gray Sails The Columbia article for obvious reasons, therefore (q.v.); and in doing so it opens up this idea of an Exploration of the Columbia River article, incorporating everything from Broughon and Gray to the Spanish sightings, to Thompson and Lewis and Clark, and even Fraser (as he was trying to find the Columbia's mouth, but didn't) and others; also the legend of la grand riviere de l'ouest comes into it (see "name" in the Oregon Country article). Anyway, just more grist for the mill, but coming across the Broughton thing was a bit of a shock; it had slipped even my mind, as the prevalent mythology is that Gray found the Columbia first.....why this has slipped through history's cracks is maybe more of an issue of propaganda, as Gray's voyage wasn't even an official mission; whereas Broughton actually went through the ritual of "taking posssession in the name of the King" etc.Skookum1 09:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This does not affect the matter of Gray's being first to enter the Columbia estuary. Although Broughton explored the river much more thoroughly than did Gray, he did so some months later. Broughton and the Chatham were part of Vancouver's exploratory voyage. Gray left a copy of his chart with the Spaniards at Nootka. Vancouver saw the chart there, and so went to investigate the river for himself. He entered the estuary and sent Broughton to explore up-river.
-- Lonewolf BC 19:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The Akriggs (their British Columbia Chronicle is what I was browsing/mining when I came upon Broughton's story) are very pointed in a lot of their writing - very POV - so that makes sense now; their condemnation of Ned McGowan (McGowan's War) is very undeserved, for instance; so I'll transcribe the Broughton section to my sandbox, as it's rather full of "invective and complaint" as is a lot of the rest of the Chronicle in spots.....Skookum1 19:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Robert Gray (sea-captain)

See the peer review suggestions on how to improve this article. Aboutmovies 02:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-04 Robert Gray

Is this dispute still active or can I close the case? --Ideogram 03:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I had not known that anyone had opened a mediation case. I suppose it must be about the merge proposal. I still think the merge should be made, and I assume that disagreement about it remains, so insofar as that the dispute is still active. Lonewolf BC 03:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No, if you read the case page it is something about removing citations. --Ideogram 04:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

And even if I don't read the case page. ;-) (Actually, I did read it, but not till a few minutes after I'd written the above, and then I didn't bother adjusting what I'd written.)
Yes, I assume that the disagreement about citations still stands, although Aboutmovies' complaint gives a false impression of it. Aboutmovies wants to cite the same source for every other sentence (okay, I somewhat exaggerate) in paragraphs coming from that one source. To my mind, this makes for needless clutter, so in some cases I've changed those many citations to a single citation for the paragraph as a whole. -- Lonewolf BC 15:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Obviously if Lonewolf BC continues to think removal of footnotes is correct, then yes there is a disagreement. The way I read the policy on WP:CITE it does not say footnotes are needed only at the end of a paragraph, or that they can be omitted when Lonewolf BC says it is OK. You can correct me if I am wrong and show me where it says that. As I tried to explain to LBC, since this is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, new information can be added at anypoint, and thus a paragraph that was correctly cited would no longer be if new information is added to it. I am trying to work towards moving this to a GA article, and LBC's activities that tend towards ownership are not assisting in that process. This has nothing to do with LBC's proposal for a merge that needs to be removed as no consensus was reached, other than their attempt at integration (which he/she stopped at a point where the article looked very choppy and repetitive) that as the peer review process demonstrates had made this article look bad. Aboutmovies 18:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at the case page and have to agree with LoneWolf BC that Aboutmovies is misrepresenting Lone Wolf BC's activities; I had a good scroll through the edit history and looked at LoneWolf's edits, and cannot see what Aboutmovies is talking about; accusation by way of pretension is common enough, but I just don't see the systematic removal of citations that LoneWolf is being accused of; the Mediation Cabal case is, to me, spurious.Skookum1 19:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I would need agreement from all interested parties that mediation is desirable to keep this request open. Also please note Cowman109's comment on the case page. --Ideogram 20:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If you compare a version from here to the current version you will see the previously properly sourced item about circumnavigation is no longer sourced, and this was an item specifically pointed to for imrpovement to the artilce from the peer review. Then if you compare the section about the War with France from this edit to the one just before you will see there is now just one footnote. Again, this then leads to the problem such as appeared with the circumnavigation. I could go on to point out the additional times if you would like, but it is rather pointless as I think two examples and a request for them to stop are sufficent.

And as to misrepresenting, I'm not sure how that is. I said LBC removed citations, and LBC did. The aboved items show that. It's not that the section is still cited that makes it OK. Again, anyone can edit and thus create the problems such as the above mentioned section. If LBC wants to go back in and add these citations to fix these later problems, then that's fine. But they have failed to do so. Furthermore, I find it odd/conflicting where paragraphs have been cited and then information within a paragraph is then tagged by LBC with{fact} in the occasional spot where I forgot to put a ref on every sentence. That is why I have made sure to source every sentence, as not only could LBC come in and add the citation need tag, but so could anyone else. If you look at other FAC biographies you will see multiple sentences within the same paragraph haveing references from the same source. It may be from a different page number, but the whole paragraph has come from the same source. I would hope we are all trying to get articles up to this standard and that this article would be no different. For example Mary Wollstonecraft on the last section uses three cites for the same reference; second paragraph of Early life for Anna Laetitia Barbauld same thing; or New Orleans Mint in "Secession and rebel seizure" two cites in same paragraph from the same source and they like all the others mentioned above are the only cites in that paragraph. I could go on, but again why? I know that other FAC articles may only use a cite at the end of a paragraph, but how do you know that they are citing the paragraph or just the last sentence? You cannot know unless you were the editor. And that is ultimately the point. There is a guideline on this: WP:CITE and no where does it say it is OK to 1) remove citations, or 2) that you only need to cite at the end of a paragraph. Prove me wrong. Aboutmovies 21:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It appears to me that this dispute is no longer active, so I've closed the case. If the case needs to be re-opened, please feel free to contact me on my talk page, or post a new request. I'll be happy to mediate, if you need me to.

At any rate, the dispute seems to have stemmed from one user's dedication to thorough sourcing clashing with another user's dedication to formatting. Policy is rather silent on the subject, but I would posit that you're both right, because 1) everything on Wikipedia should ideally be sourced directly and 2) having a lot of footnotes in a sentence or paragraph does indeed look clunky. With that in mind, I would suggest that instead of repeating your footnote, you name the source in the article, place a footnote, and then make it clear that you're still citing the same source. For example, a heavily-sourced (and clunky) version of a bio on me might look like this, with numbers representing footnotes:

Moralis lives in Bellevue, WA, and is currently between jobs(1). He has two dogs and a cat(2) and spends a lot of his time on RC patrol(3). Though he performed well on his standardized tests, Mora ended up getting his GED due to a general failure to do his homework(4).

While it's quite thorough and I understand the reasoning behind it, if all four of those footnotes cited my userpage as a source, some of them could probably be removed without detracting from the quality of the source:

According to his userpage, Moralis lives is Bellevue, WA, and is currently between jobs.(1) His userpage also states that he keeps two dogs and a cat as pets, and spends most of his time at Wikipedia on RC patrol...

Et cetera. This way, there is only one footnote, thus vastly improving the appearance of the paragraph, but information is still properly sourced. Just my two cents. Let me know if you still need the services of a mediator. --Moralis (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Aug 9 or Aug 10, 1790 - on which day did Robert Gray arrive back in Boston?

Under section "Voyage to Pacific Northwest Coast 1787-1790," it currently says "Gray then continued on west, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and arriving back in Boston on August 10, 1790."

I know this is a small point, but this is the day an American vessel first completed circumnavigating the globe. I've found sources that say it is Aug 9. And many of these sources are more detailed, specific, and also cite more specific dates, making Aug 9 a more credible date for me.

Please compare these Web sites below (Search "August" on these Web pages to quickly find the relevant info). Without passing judgment on the Websites themselves, I focus on the specificity of that part of writing about this date. I'm no historian, so someone please check on this important date in America?

Sources that say Aug 10:

http://theodore.l.durgan.home.att.net/gray.htm

http://www.scituatehistoricalsociety.org/articles/menkent.htm

Sources that say Aug 9:

http://www.lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=577

http://www.tacoma.k12.wa.us/schools/ms/gray/history.htm

http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/jcr/~vamerican1.html

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1956/5/1956_5_64.shtml

Is it possible that the Columbia Rediviva arrived in Boston Habor late in the day of Aug 9, and only started the "pageantry" of a heroic return on the next day?

Or even more interesting: Is there an "Around the world in 80-day" effect? That is, perhaps the ship's log said Aug 9 while it was already Aug 10 on land, because the Columbia Rediviva went westward around the globe?

• According to The Herald of Freedom newspaper from Boston, in an article dated August 10, 1790 in an article titled Safe return of the Columbia on page 171, "...Gray arrived here yeasterday, after an absence of nearly three years..." shows from a period document (the best to use for this sort of research) that Gray completed the voyage on August 9, 1790. It appears the confusion would have come from the fact that newspapers with the news would have had the August 10 date on them. The article starts with that date and so people who missed the "yesterday" part would assume the 10th. Aboutmovies 19:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Aug 9 or Aug 10, 1790 - again?

While the section "# 2 Voyage to Pacific Northwest Coast 1787-1790" now says "Gray then continued on west, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and arriving back in Boston on August 9, 1790.[8]"

A (new?) subsection "* 2.1 Circumnavigation" now says "His return there, August 10, 1790, completed the first circumnavigation of the world by an American vessel."

It seems the confusion between Aug 9 and Aug 10 is quite widespread.

Inland Sea

I made some changes to the bit of text that said:

During their trading up and down the coastlines of what is now British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California the two explored many bays and inland waters, including an inland sea north of Nootka Sound. Gray then encountered Captain John Meares[4] of England and relayed this information to him, which led to the British sending out additional ships to explore the coast under the command of Captain George Vancouver.

It isn't clear from the text what this "inland sea" was, but if it was important enough to supposedly launch Vancouver's voyage (itself doubtful), then I'm guessing it was the imaginary inland sea reported by Meares, who said Gray had sailed through it. Gray never did, and while there is an inland sea (Strait of Georgia), the one reported by Meares is far too large. Plus, Gray told Vancouver he never made such a voyage. Meares is known for making wildly exaggerated and outright false claims in his promotion of the Pacific Northwest fur trade. I edited the text to try to make this clearer. Also I doubt Gray's explorations or Meares's reports were what led the British to send Vancouver. They both probably contributed to the decision, but were hardly the only factors. Of greater importance, I would think, would be the reports of Spanish exploration of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (Vancouver had a map of Quimper's 1790 discoveries) and elsewhere on the northwest coast. Continued reports of possible northwest passages and the growing activities of Russian and Spanish explorers, both establishing posts in the region, plus the Nootka Sound crisis -- all these things undoubtedly played into the British deciding to send a naval exploring expedition to the region. Let's not overstate the importance of Gray and Meares. Anyway, the text I edited contained a footnote to an 1893 book by Greely (no page number though). The placement of the footnote makes it hard to tell which claim it is a source for. I'm guessing it is just for Gray and Meares meeting. If it is also for Gray's finding an "inland sea" then perhaps this old book is taking Meares's made-up story as true. Either way, I added a another source and rewrote, removing the claim about the reason for Vancouver's expedition. Pfly (talk) 16:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Quick followup -- the book I've been reading parts of, "Voyage to the Northwest Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786-89" by Robert Galois, clearly describes the reason for Britain sending Vancouver to the Pacific Northwest, and it was the Nootka Convention -- not only did Britain need an official representative at Nootka to oversee the carrying out of the agreement with Spain, but the government was suddenly interested in learning more about the region they had just acquired new rights to. Now something that could and maybe should be added to this article is that Robert Gray was at Nootka Sound during the Nootka Incident/Crisis of 1789, witnessing basically the whole affair. As an American he was basically left alone. Pfly (talk) 05:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Triangular trade

This is still unsourced, after being added over two years ago. I propose removing it, as it is unreferenced.

Comments appreciated. Daniel (talk) 04:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)