Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/Archive 21

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Question about article scope and focus

This response below was posted at the Neutrality Notice Board. It sheds new light on the content standstill, as I am under the impression this Wikipedia article was about the Stradfordian/ anti-Stratfordian theories question. Now, according to this editor, it appears the article is actually about the debate between them, and not their content at all? Is this quotation by a previously uninvolved editor an accurate assessment of everyone else's understanding:

“Remember that the article is about the debate. It's not about, say, Anti-Stratfordian authorship argument. If it were, then properly it would be mostly about that argument, and would only give a thorough mention to the mainstream POV. It wouldn't go into more detail than necessary to outline that POV. But what you have here is Shakespeare Authorship Question, which would naturally explore the question from the standpoint of the entire field, and thus give most WP:WEIGHT to mainstream sources. So do you see how the focus of the article has influenced the way it's written, and how it must be written on WP? "Leviathan references" means, "huge." BE——Critical__Talk 05:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Having operated under a certain assumption about the site's subject, i.e., that this, or any, debate about a controversy has to include the content of the contending positions, I think clarification on this point would be helpful to all involved. The outline of the debate would look differently from what is there now.Zweigenbaum (talk) 20:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think he meant to say "and would only give a brief mention to the mainstream POV", not "and would only give a thorough mention to the mainstream POV", which makes no sense. Just a copy-editing slip. But apart from that, BE-Critical correctly summarises Wikipedia policy, IMO. Paul B (talk) 21:01, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he pretty much nails WP:WEIGHT policy. How it would change the article as it now stands I have no clue, because he's essentially explaining to Zweigenbaum why it looks the way it does now and why more mainstream sources are used than anti-Strat sources.

And Zweigenbaum, in response to your question about why the page is archived every 5 days, it's because the repetitive posts fill the page up more quickly and make it hard to keep up with the discussions. From 2002 to Decemeber 2010 15 and 1/2 archives were filled, about two a year on average. Since late December 2010, the time you and Nina got here, we've filled up three and 1/2 archives.

The bot only archives the threads if there have been no responses within the past 5 days, and they are readily available to read by clicking on the archive link above. There is even a "search" feature that you can use to find a particular post using key words. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:36, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Mr. Reedy, it appears to me that you are misinterpreting Wiki policy to further your own agenda, i.e., snuffing opposition to your article via a quick burial for recent contrary exchanges. I "got here" in November, so you will be hard-pressed to justify the volume issue by scapegoating what I have written since then. As far as the exchanges between you and Nina Green, I hope you'll learn to be happy together, because she doesn't seem particularly intimidated by the company in the room. But on the assumption you may not be aware of the Wikipedia policy-concern about auto-archiving:[1]

" It is difficult to say exactly when a discussion "ends" and when it is ongoing. Given that archived discussions are immutable, archiving a discussion effectively ends that particular discussion."

There appears to be on-going work on this issue. That is why Wikipedia provided this note on the same instruction page:[2]

" Note: Make sure to establish consensus before setting up MiszaBot or ClueBot III on a talk page other than a user talk page."

Can you confirm that a consensus was established to set up this automatic archiving bot in the first place? It was just the opposite, from my observation. Speeding up the archive process is ad hoc if done by an individual participant under such conditions, and it leads the disinterested observer to the inevitable conclusion that individual has a self-serving motive in doing so and will have a ready but insubstantial pretext if questioned.

Given these rules, it would be required and appropriate to GAIN CONSENSUS before changing the automatic period from 30 days down to an inexplicably quick 5 days. Otherwise it might appear--tell us if this is an egregiously false charge--that you are trying to cut off discussion - the anticipation of which the page quoted above warns in plain language, "archiving a discussion effectively ends that particular discussion". I agree that there are length issues at times, but in such a case, discusants can use common sense and material can be manually archived, can it not?

In the meantime, so as to "make sure to establish consensus before setting up MiszaBot or ClueBot III on a talk page other than a user talk page," I respectfully request you restore the auto archiving back to 30 days in accordance with rule until there is a consensus to change it. Zweigenbaum (talk) 00:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

My comment: we have to be practical; this discussion page is already impossibly long; discussion here is pretty regular, so setting the archive bot to archive after 5 days of inactivity seems pretty conservative at this page. And as Tom notes, those pages aren't hidden, and are searcheable. I think it should stay as it is. Something that would help, though, is if editors used accurate descriptive section headings, and confined discussion udner a heading to that heading subject. That makes threading easier, participation easier, and archiving easier. Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 00:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Let's just follow the rules, shall we? They were written to create a common denominator for equitable communication, which is presently lacking, leaving a moral snakepit of prevarication that twists and skirts the guidelines for base partisan advantage. While I appreciate the input of Hamiltonstone, third parties were not addressed in my previous post, and I repeat to Tom Reedy, "Can you confirm that a consensus was established to set up this automatic archiving bot in the first place?" ["Make sure to establish consensus before setting up MiszaBot or ClueBot III on a talk page other than a user talk page.] If no consensus, the default rules apply. Participants might agree to be brief. This is more probable without the cuts and slights shown so far. If Mr. Reedy does not take responsibility for his actions and refuses comment, it simply perpetuates the poisonous atmosphere introduced by his methods since entry into this site last December. Kindly clear the air and revert your improper action. This would be one way to demonstrate good faith. Zweigenbaum (talk) 02:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This is an article talk page, Zweigenbaum, so any editor can weigh in to the discussion. I have the advantage of having been historically uninvolved in this article, so have a more distanced perspective, which can be useful. The use of bot-generated archiving is widespread, but if it wasn't explicitly discussed before, then I certainly would have suported it, and support it now. Incidentially, you say "Let's just follow the rules", but if by rules you mean what is usually meant here - policy - then, the page in question isn't policy I believe (though it is certainly generally a useful guideline). The accusations that appear to be being made against Tom Reedy by Zweigenbaum (eg. "which is presently lacking, leaving a moral snakepit of prevarication that twists and skirts the guidelines for base partisan advantage") look like a level of attack that I would normally expect to be taken up at ANI, but I will leave that to Tom I think. This page is bad enough already: can everyone please tone things down a little? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Zwiegenbaum, nobody is hiding any arguments. I speeded it up on 30 Dec when the page got unmanageably large and slowed it back down on 3 Jan when things got a bit calmer in order not to lose the lede discussion too soon, but then speeded it up again on 5 Jan when the page got heavy again. If you don't think an argument is finished it's a simple matter to begin a new section and try to get other editors to respond. You also might want to read the same discussion I pointed Nina to, except you might want to concentrate on the material that begins with the heading "You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of 'suppressing information', 'censorship' or 'denying facts'." Tom Reedy (talk) 04:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

And as far as I can tell from your editing history, you began posting under your user name 17 Dec. I don't know when or if you posted under an IP address. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Goodness gracious, Tom, this definition of tendentious editing sounds just like you! Wasn't it you who accused me of 'suppressing information' earlier today on this Talk page? And you're now presuming to lecture another editor on the subject of tendentious editing?NinaGreen (talk) 05:18, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You still are suppressing information in your argument against Shapiro's conclusion of forgery. I do not suppress information. That's the difference between us. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Tom, yet another DEFAMATORY comment from you. I did not suppress any information whatsoever. The point I was making concerned the testing of the paper ONLY. It had nothing to do with the type of paper. So far administrators seem content to let you and Nishidani and Paul Barlow get away with making defamatory comments and mounting personal attacks, not just on me but on others. But one day that will change, hopefully sooner rather than later.NinaGreen (talk)

Nina, why not sooner? Just FYI, your mentioning the term "defamatory" in every possible post does count as evidence, but not evidence that you've been defamed. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum In response to Hamiltonstone: So expect, think, or do. My language may or may not sound rhetorical but accurately reflects what has been going on, as proven in the record of deplorable and quite similar discussions. Whatever rationalizations you or anyone invent in support of defying the archiving rule, is of course an avoidance of having to respect it. (As in, "I'm not concealing the present dispute, it just looked like it should be stored out of sight right away.") Your confusing the words policy, rule, and guideline doesn't change the fact of Reedy archiving by fiat not consensus. Since you have been around a while, you know these conflicts are a repeat of wrong methods and manners perpetrated by Reedy and Nishidani before, in pursuit of instituting a given point of view. Since there is already documented history of the pattern, it cannot be successfully defended before third parties with excuses, avoidances, and rationalizations. Zweigenbaum The above response by Tom Reedy is off the first point of his violating the rule proscribing changing the archiving function by fiat. Consensus seems to be the method prescribed by Wikipedia. Personally I don't care what your post facto reason is; it is irrelevant; achieve what you want regarding the archiving cut-off time by consensus. That is the rule. You are not in charge of anything so far as I can tell and personal discretion isn't part of the archiving function. It is incredible that you have been carrying on like this for some time without being sanctioned. I take it I will have to appeal to authority on this issue, if such exists in the Wikipedia website.

Incidentally, to respond to the comment I did not "get here" until December 17, wrong. I began reading the site in November and began commenting in December. Is there a control issue implicit in this investigative penchant? One of the children once asked a policeman, "Have you ever been to a zoo? [Yes.] Why didn't you stay? Wouldn't they feed you?"

Returning to the sub-section's original subject, if the purpose of the section is to describe the history and features of the Shakespeare identity debate, the section should have a modified approach. I note that Dr. Barlow feels he knows what BE--Critical_Talk means, although the former's post facto language does not conform to the syntax of the latter's statement. The best course is for the writer to weigh in and amplify the statement. Please do.

Finally, I am in receipt of an accusation, false on its face, that "you have recently accused an editor (Tom Reedy) of creating 'a moral snakepit of prevarication that twists and skirts the guidelines for base partisan advantage.'" The actual statement is quoted here:

"They [guidelines regarding archiving] were written to create a common denominator for equitable communication, which is presently lacking, leaving a moral snakepit of prevarication that twists and skirts the guidelines for base partisan advantage." There is no reference or inference to any individual in that sentence. Therefore it is incumbent upon Bishonen to withdraw the incorrectly stated charge and its mal-deduction, and perhaps explain how he/she has authority to sanction any other editor to begin with. Further warning, "Avoid discussing the motives of others; discuss their actions and edits. If you continue to flout wiki culture and wiki policy and guidelines in your comments, not to mention ordinary civility in discourse, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia."

By this standard Nishidani and Reedy might have been despatched some time ago, and the proof is in the dialogues with Ms Green and with a previous participant who evidently resigned or was driven out. But this must be left to a neutral party to decide, not me or a partisan editor, as Bishonen appears to be by the comments presented. The immediate solicitude for Reedy is a nice touch, under documented circumstances where others, both Oxfordian, have been typically "attacked". Really, is this the quality of ethics of which you all are capable? Surely you can do better. It constitutes an underground scandal, even subject matter for an article about fighting down and dirty defending Shakspere. C'est la Vie.76.102.211.42 (talk) 10:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"I take it I will have to appeal to authority on this issue, if such exists in the Wikipedia website."

I, for one, would be grateful if you did, instead of prating on incessantly. I recommend W:AN/I. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Sorry, your meaning is ambiguous. Did you mean you would be in a state of gratitude instead of a state of prating on incessantly? Or that you would be grateful if I appealed to authority instead of prating on incessantly in public about your unlawful and disagreeable actions? Must appeal to authority be the only alternative? Remember, veritas is our mutual goal and Vero nihil verius, Nothing truer than truth. Just a thought for the morning.98.248.218.84 (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I mean it would be refreshing if you were able to clearly speak to the point without a skein of supercilious mendacious bloviation wrapped around every phrase. Heed, don't imitate, Polonius. Hardly any of us are as clever as we imagine ourselves to be. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum No one appointed you cop for others and rule-breaker for yourself. That double-standard is characteristic of the general state of the site, a biased takeover. Zweigenbaum (talk) 16:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

"I note that Dr. Barlow feels he knows what BE--Critical_Talk means, although the former's post facto language does not conform to the syntax of the latter's statement." Er wot? I quoted his words exactly. If you are referring to my proposed 'correction' of his sentence, you can check that with BE Critical him/herself. I suspect s/he intended to write either "and would only give a brief mention to the mainstream POV" or "and would not give a thorough mention to the mainstream POV", but failed to complete the switch from one formulation to the other, leaving "and would only give a thorough mention to the mainstream POV". Alternatively the intention may have been to say "...and would only give a thorough mention to the non-mainstream POV", since the context was as follows: "It's not about, say, Anti-Stratfordian authorship argument. If it were, then properly it would be mostly about that argument and would only give a thorough mention to the mainstream POV". "That argument" is Anti-Stratfordian, which is not "mainstream". But as I say, ask the author. Paul B (talk) 14:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi all, thanks to Paul Barlow for notifying me of this. When I said "thorough mention of the mainstream POV," I just meant that it would take up enough space so the reader could know what it was. That would vary, for instance if you didn't have other articles about the mainstream POV, you'd have to explain more thoroughly. But if you had those articles, a paragraph might be plenty. The principle being that the reader has to thoroughly understand what the mainstream POV is, but you don't go into great detail about the mainstream POV in an article about a WP:FRINGE subject. But you'd never have the mainstream POV taking up most of the article. BTW, there might be arguments about POV forks, but why couldn't there be an article about Anti-Stratfordian Shakespeare authorship arguments? I am guessing here that there are more notable theories than can be comfortably covered in the current article, probably many of which would deserve their own articles under WP:NOTABILITY. If they had those articles, they would be about FRINGE subjects, and could cover the fringe arguments in detail without having the mainstream POV dominate the articles the way they must in the current article (since it's about the question in general). However, scanning the above, I should warn Zweigenbaum to slow down and stop accusing people and be civil. The way to get the least done around here is to go at it the way he is. He could be a valuable author, but he's headed for banning. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 20:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Mainly because of this decision that was made after a long and contentious process, which states that "Content forking should be done after a decent main article is written if and only if it is deemed necessary in light of WP:CFORK." Such a fork right now would be a POV fork to get around WP:FRINGE guidelines. Once the FA process is completed would be the time to discuss whether that or other content forks are necessary. All this squabbling is merely delaying that discussion. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Also the notable theories already have their own pages: Oxfordian theory, Marlovian theory, Baconian theory, and Derbyite theory of Shakespearean authorship, plus the Oxfordian theory has several satellite articles, as well as its own article template and category. How much coverage do the subgenres of a fringe theory need? Tom Reedy (talk) 20:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmph, looks like I didn't peruse far enough into the article, sry. You're already doing what I suggested and have other articles about the fringe views (and I assumed you weren't after a brief look because this whole discussion probably shouldn't be taking place if such articles exist). Thus this seems more like POV pushing. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 02:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your observation on the noticeboard, but I don't quite parse your meaning in the above comment. Do you mean that this article seems more like POV pushing or this particular talk page discussion? This is the only article concerning the authorship question written according to WP:FRINGE guidelines and using WP:RS sources with an effort to maintain a WP:NPOV. If you read the rest of them (and I'm not recommending it; hic sunt dracones), the differences in POVs is quite marked (not that they couldn't be made descriptive instead of WP:SOAPBOX; it's just that life's too short). Tom Reedy (talk) 05:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Aw shit man, never mind. I just now saw your edit summary. Cheers Be! Tom Reedy (talk) 05:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

LOL cheers (: BE——Critical_{__Talk} 09:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum In response to Be critical: if the accusations refer to patent injustices, they are pertinent. Playing nice in such an atmosphere is complicity. It has been like pulling teeth for the simplest concession to verifiable fact that is contrary to the overall conformity. Some prefer to call protest poor manners in order to pretextually eliminate the opposing view. This is wrong. Zweigenbaum (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd be glad to help you in any case where you're right. But as far as I can tell, you're just trying to go against the site policies. However, you might as well forget it entirely and go away if you're not going to maintain a civil atmosphere and make this into a battleground. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 19:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Not to correct you in general but the civil atmosphere had disappeared long before I started reading this site. There was one stage, following Tom Reedy's arrival, after which thee was constant conflict and somebody was driven from the site on a majority rule basis apparently. There was another stage involving conflicts mainly between Ms Green and Reedy-Nisihdani. My misfortune is taking the minority position in a contentious issue, contentiously prosecuted in the one-sided article.

A productive atmosphere relies on mutual respect for verifiable fact. That is blatantly lacking when it comes to editing, i.e., what the public reads about the issue. Everything I have presented, and the content has been substantive--fact, logic, sources--has been stonewalled. This nullification is a betrayal of the very mandated function of the discussion page. It is unwholesome for a group of editors to single-mindedly pursue a questioned academic agenda by means of excluding opposing arguments and documentation that deserve recognition. Thus, I feel your judgment is somewhat unfair to me as an individual. I wouldn't fight if the terms of exchange weren't so uncivil and unjust. I will not abandon the truth because of petty abuse.98.207.240.11 (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Alan's rewrite of bardolatry graf

I'm beginning a new section since the original one is becoming unwieldy. For discussion I'm posting below three different version of the section that Alan rewrote and numbering them for convenience so that we can all see what information is gained or lost by the different versions. At top is the current version; below that the rewrite that Nina did on 16 Dec and which was modified by Poujeaux on 6 Jan, and the last is how it looked before then.

1. The Shakespeare authorship question was first posed in the middle of the 19th century. By then, Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time, had become widespread and its expression often extreme. It was also noted, however, that Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, and some began to suspect that the man known as Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him, with the real author hiding behind the name. Thus began a controversy that, in the century and a half since then, has spawned a vast body of literature. More than 70 authorship candidates …
2. Scholars contend that the controversy has its origins in Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare in the 18th century as the greatest writer of all time. Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution might be a deception. In the intervening years the controversy has spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 70 authorship candidates …
3. The basis for these theories can be traced to the 18th century, when, more than 150 years after his death, Shakespeare’s status was elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time, an adulation later disparaged as Bardolatry. To 19th-century Romantics, who believed that literature was essentially a medium for self-revelation, Shakespeare’s eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution might be a deception. Public debate and a prolific body of literature dates from the mid-19th century, and numerous historical figures …

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom Reedy (talk • contribs) 16:51, 13 January 2011

Well done to Poujeaux for "an adulation later disparaged as Bardolatry", taking that word out of a sentence which included "in the 18th century". I should really prefer to do without that word, which breathes all the eccentricity and venom of George Bernard Shaw. If it is to be included, could we please have a footnote giving its origin? Jean Marsden says in The Appropriation of Shakespeare (1991) that the word was coined by GBS in 1901. But I wonder if anyone here feels strongly that it's worth keeping? Moonraker2 (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

All three proposals retain 'bardolatry', which confirms a consensus. I don't think the article can fulfil its aspirations to comprehensiveness without it, and the accompanying link page, which of course will in the course of time be much improved by further details. Shaw's term corresponded to Shakespearomanie, which German criticism in the 19th century had identified as a distinguishing characteristic of the Romantic period. Nishidani (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact that in editing the paragraph no one went so far as to dispense with the word does not seem to me to be a consensus for keeping it. In any event, I'd be glad of any comments one way or another. In the mean time, I've run the first use of it to earth and will add a footnote to give it. Moonraker2 (talk) 01:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

In adding a footnote I realized we have an article on bardolatry, and in view of that I can see the link is worth keeping. Curious that even the Bardolatry article itself had the origin of the word slightly wrong, but I have corrected it. Moonraker2 (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Moonraker2, your addition is WP:OR. You need to quote a secondary source saying that Shaw coined the phrase, not the actual work in which he coined it. I'll look through Schoenbaum; surely he says something about it. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

A version to discuss:

The question of Shakespeare’s authorship was first posed in the mid-19th century, after his reputation had been elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time, often expressed in extravagant terms later disparaged as Bardolatry. His works also came to be read as personal expressions of the author’s philosophy and life, and his eminence appeared incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution could be a deception to hide the name of the real author. In the intervening years the controversy has spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 70 authorship candidates …

Tom Reedy (talk) 18:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

This version avoids a problem or two, and that's good; but I think it also introduces some. Here is a further revision (I know it is longer, but please bear with me, and I will explain):

The question of Shakespeare’s authorship was first posed in the mid-19th century, after his reputation had been elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time, and he was often adulated in extravagant terms later disparaged as Bardolatry. His works had also come to be read as personal expressions of the author’s philosophy and life, raising him to an eminence that appeared incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life. This aroused suspicion among some that Shakespeare was not the real author of the plays attributed to him, and that this attribution could have been a deception to hide the name of the real author. In the intervening years the controversy has spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 70 authorship candidates …

This suggested further change is more verbose, but I am leaving it this way deliberately for comparison here. I think it avoids certain awkwardnesses, e.g., "the Shakespeare attribution". That sounds like a technical term that I think will put off the average reader. Also, "his reputation … often expressed" suggests that his reputation was expressed in terms of Bardolatry, when it was the excessive adulation that was the Bardolatry.

Yes, more discussion will ensue, and I hope it will; that's the idea. --Alan W (talk) 06:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

On the matter of the secondary source, I've now cited the 'bardolatry' entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

On the draft, I'm not sure about "in the mid-19th century, after his reputation had been elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time". Ben Jonson had some such idea, but are we talking here about a reputation among English-speaking people in general or among some narrower or wider group?

A small point, a short number such as seventy is surely better as a word than as figures? Moonraker2 (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Numbers greater than 10 should not be spelled out. I haven't had time to find a good cite, but I'll try tomorrow. Tom Reedy (talk) 08:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and i don't fully understand your question about Jonson. Tom Reedy (talk) 08:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

My minor point on Ben Jonson was that the "greatest writer" notion began in the 17th century. My general point on 'reputation' was that there are reputations among different groups, so we need to specify which group we mean. Moonraker2 (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think these are good points, Moonraker, and worth discussing, though I don't agree with you about Jonson. There is a difference between the kind of praise one contemporary gives another (think Hollywood movie stars talking about their friends on television) and the kind of worshipful praise given long after an idol's passing. Jonson is himself a case in point, as elsewhere he could be very critical of his Stratford contemporary. Shakespeare idolatry was kicked up a notch or two, as Paul reminded me, by Garrick; it intensified in some ways with many of the Romantics; and by the middle of the 19th century had, as I see it, more properly assumed the shape of what Shaw would call Bardolatry. There may be some differences about the specifics of this timeline, but I think the sources will support what I am saying in general.

As for "which group", I do agree with you; but I'm not sure that the lead is the place to go into any of that in detail. The problem there is that if we aren't concise (and it may well be that what I suggested can be trimmed down; conciseness is not one of my strengths), then the lead ends up repeating nearly everything that follows, when it's supposed to be a relatively short introduction.

Oh, I meant to mention that I also like numbers (except for really large ones) as words. According to WP:Numbers#Numbers as figures or words, we could do it either way, but we must be consistent throughout. --Alan W (talk) 22:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Moonraker. re 18th century, the Romantic cult of the writer and bardolatry etc ('Well done to Poujeaux for "an adulation later disparaged as Bardolatry", taking that word out of a sentence which included "in the 18th century".'). I happened to find in an op shop bin three days ago a pertinent book on precisely this: Two quotes:

And yet by the middle of the eighteenth century, Shakespeare the universalo genius was becoming more important than Shakespeare the craftsman and businessman. The books and the theatres could all be seen in Lodnon, but bvardolaters increasingly wanted to go beyond the works to get close to the man. Eighteenth-century writers were developing a new interest in the importance of childhood, and they bwanted to see the places where the young genius was bornh, grew up, went to school, and fell in love. They wanted to touch the font where he was baptized and to visit the house of his darling Anne Hathaway.'(p.245)

'In one respect the Jubilee was unprecedented, Never before had a writer - any writer-been the object of such veneration, and never before had a poet or playwright been honoured with tour guides, souvenir trinkets, and songs. In another respect, thought, the pattern is strangely familiar: the mulberry tree had become a modern equivalent of the True Cross and, to the Straford pilgrims, Shakespeare was the secular equivalent of Christ., The faithful were determined to get their hands on a piece of history, and the less faithful were willing to provide as many pieces as the market would bear. Shakespeare's tree had been chopped up and turned into relics, hawked the way unscrupulous friatrs had sold sains' bones. There was even a hymnbook. In 1641, Shakespeare's friend (and sometime rival)Ben Jonson said he "lov'd the man, and (would) honour his memory, on this side idolatry." By the 1760s, England had crossed from this side of idolatry to the other. During his lifetime, Shakespeare had been appreciated. In the early eighteenth century, he had been admired, even adored. By the time of the Jubilee, Shakespeare was worshipped.' (pp.251-2)

The chapter (Worshipping Shakespeare) is replete with stuff on this, and the author, a Rutgers prof of English, an expert on Johnson. See Jack Lynch, Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife that turned a provincial playwright into the bard.Walker and Company New York 2007. Nishidani (talk) 00:01, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Alex Pope's edit.

Alex, in reverting , you write:

Bias needs to be corrected. It's untrue that there is "no hard evidence" for anti-Stratfordian theories. Much of the "evidence" for Strafordians has been destroyed.~Alexpope

This appears to be contesting as 'untrue' what RS, as cited, affirm, and therefore constitutes an editor's WP:OR dismissal of an RS, on the grounds that what the RS is quoted as saying is untrue. See WP:V. I'd appreciate it if you self-reverted and discussed this here, rather that acting in a way that gives the appearance of provoking an edit-war.Nishidani (talk) 10:42, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I am of two minds here. On the one hand, it appears that Alexpope and Zweigenbaum see an opportunity here to edit unchallenged now that the SAQ is in arbitration and our attention is turned there, in which case their behaviour is useful in demonstrating to the committee what we're up against on a daily basis. On the other hand, we have a responsibility to those seeking information to give them a fair, balanced and unbiased treatment of the topic. I am reverting back one more time and if they revert back I will seek administrative help in the form of locking down the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not altogether happy about edits by Alex Pope being reverted en masse with the summary "restoring page; see talk page". I don't expect anyone to edit here unchallenged, but there surely needs to be some discussion of points of detail which are at issue. Alex Pope gave a careful explanation of why he preferred "Anti-Stratfordians also question how William Shakespeare of Stratford..." to "Anti-Stratfordians also find it incredible that William Shakespeare of Stratford..." and I broadly agreed with it. No specific reply was made in reverting this. The summary "restoring page; see talk page" also covers the deletion of a paragraph which had several citations, viz.:

Like most issues having to do with the debate over Shakespeare's authorship, documenting the history of the controversy is often contentious. There is no agreement, academic or otherwise, as to when the theory was first proposed or alluded to. By the mid-20th century, mainstream scholars identified the first possible allusions to doubts about Shakespearean authorship in certain 18th century satirical and allegorical works. Anti-stratfordian authorship researchers, however, believe that several 16th and 17th century Elizabethan works, including Ben Jonson's "Poet Ape" and Thomas Edward's "L'Envoy to Narcissus" (1595) , hint that the Shakespearean canon was being written by someone else.

I don't agree with all of this, it is not brilliant prose, "when the theory was first proposed" doesn't say which theory,and citations should be formatted to be consistent with the rest on the page, but it isn't all completely without merit. Shouldn't we consider what in it is disputed?

With another addition, "A more moderate view is that Elizabethan England was a police state in which secrecy was vital because of plots against Elizabeth's person or throne", that is hardly an unorthodox view, and I should have preferred to see it challenged by a {{Fact}} tag. Moving straight to deletion strikes me as unhelpful. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:23, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

What is unhelpful is for an edit with contentious content (as you mentioned) to be added that was copied-and-pasted from History of the Shakespeare authorship question without bothering to conform the reference apparatus to that being used in the article (as you mentioned) and without discussion or talk page consensus by a drive-by editor to make a point while the topic is the subject of an ArbCom case. The main purpose for its composition months ago was to dispute the WP:RS-supported statement that Shakespeare's authorship was not seriously questioned for more than 200 years after his death. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah! You know what? I conflated that rewording with the rest of his edits. I've got no problem with changing it to "question" instead of "find it incredible". He has a point in his summary. My remark above does apply to the rest of that reversion, though. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Tom, I see you have put back in Alex Pope's "also question how", which I think is an improvement. In the reverting of AP's various edits, you unlinked baptism, which I linked (when I was correcting "birth") only because I have come across university students who do not know what it means. Moonraker2 (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Man, we do live in a secular age, don't we? I unlinked it because of Nikkimaria's point that common words shouldn't be linked. I'll change it back. (I wonder how long before we'll have to link "marriage"?) Tom Reedy (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I do broadly agree with Nikkimaria. I think marriage will be widely understood for a few years to come; Moonraker2 (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

...Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life

(Perhaps this is not worthy of a New Section; feel free to blend it in with a previous topic.) The Stratfordians view the Anti-Stratfordian convention of calling the Stratford man something besides Shakespeare as a character assassination, but it does help to avoid confusing statements as above. A new reader would wonder how a man of eminence could be obscure. If the above were written, "Shakespeare's accomplishments seemed incongruous with his...," I believe few would confuse Shakespeare the achiever with Shakespeare the contender.Fotoguzzi (talk) 22:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not parsing your last sentence. Can you clarify? Tom Reedy (talk) 02:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I've discerned your objection. The use of the word "eminence" refers to his 18th century reputation as the Greatest Writer in the Entire Universe from the Creation, not his reputation during his life time. His obscurity consists of his biographical traces (besides the literary records and commentary, as noted in the main article). It was the dissonance between his reputation and what we knew of his biography that set the stage for the authorship question. If there is any way to phrase it more clearly, by all means lead on. But his "accomplishments" are quite distinct from his reputation, as they were all done while he was alive. It wasn't until later when the historical stage was set and England needed a National Poet that he became the Bard. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the whole sentence needs re-writing. The "It was also noted that..." is far too definite as the contention that his obscurity is incongruous is one of the points at issue and some would say Will was not that obscure anyway. What does the source say exactly? --Peter cohen (talk) 23:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the reason why there are so many quotations in the refs: the editors would work out a phrase, and then new editors would appear weeks or months later and question the wording. (Then other editors objected to the quotations on the grounds that they violated NPOV!) That particular phrase is cited to Shapiro, and it is a summary of a page and a half, so it is too long to include. If you go to the Google book page and search for "Schmucker", pgs 77-8 willl come up and you can read the material there. I don't like beginning a sentence with "It was noted" or its variations either and would welcome a revision. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Possible typo? ...the Bruton Vault at Williamburg.

The link points to Williamsburg. Is Williamburg a variant of Williamsburg?Fotoguzzi (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Good eye, F. It's a typo. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Mark Twain...favouring Bacon as the true author.

At this moment the text reads:

The American humorist Mark Twain, influenced by Greenwood,[155] revealed his anti-Stratfordian beliefs in Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), favouring Bacon as the true author.[156]

Footnote 156 points to Shapiro. This sentence seems to do a disservice both to Twain and Shapiro. Twain states a few times in the essay that he does not favour anyone as the true author--only that he disfavours the Stratford man.

Would it be acceptable to remove "favouring" and substitute "arguing for" in the above sentence? I question whether a footnote is needed to support that Twain argued for Bacon. I do not think there is controversy in that statement.

Thank you,Fotoguzzi (talk) 03:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point. How could Twain argue for Bacon without favouring him? He presents Baconian arguments in his book, stating that only Bacon had the qulifications, and the Shapiro material quotes some of his Baconian pronouncement. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I suppose by "favourite" I think of "favourite, given all possible choices." I also suppose that the writer of the wikipedia sentence (and perhaps Shapiro) meant, "favourite, given two choices." The point of Twain's essay is that one of about five hundred people wrote the works, and that that person was not the Stratford man. Twain would have passionately "argued for" a Brontosaurus if that and the Stratford man were the only choices. I am sure that there were people who "argued for" Gerald Ford after the 1976 Republican primary elections who "favoured" Ronald Reagan. That is the only distinction I am trying to make."Fotoguzzi (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm still not sure I understand your distinction. When Twain wrote the book Bacon was the only candidate that had been proposed with any seriousness. And he several times says he favours the Baconinans over the Strafordites, as he calls them.

I only believed Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I knew Shakespeare didn't…. That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in that ancient day, remains my faith to-day, and in it I find comfort, solace, peace, and neverfailing joy. (9-10)

And many more like that. I'm not married to the exact terminology, so a change from "favouring" to "arguing for" is a change without change of meaning, IMO. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

To me, "argued for" is unambiguous, while "favoured" has two meanings. Someone reading the article might think that Twain was a rabid Baconian, when (to me) he made pains to demonstrate that he was a deranged anti-Stratfordian who would "argue for" a Brontosaurus before he would accept the Stratford man. I will make the change--thank you.Fotoguzzi (talk) 00:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC) Actually, I did not realize that Shapiro had expended ten pages on the subject(!) I will look at this before making the change.Fotoguzzi (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If you haven't already, you also might want to read Twain's book about it. It's a short read-20 minutes or so. But as I said, unless anybody else has any objections, I'm OK with changing the wording (although experience shows that another editor will come along in six months or so and argue against it!). Cheers! Tom Reedy (talk) 13:04, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I only know of Is Shakespeare Dead? I recall reading something that was shorter, but it may have been an excerpt of Dead. Is there another book or essay or book-length essay?Fotoguzzi (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No, that's what I was referring to. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to cut candidate sections

Since each candidate has its own authorship article, I propose we dump the truncated treatments we have in the article and replace them with a sentence and "see also" links. The arguments can't be laid out in any type of comprehensive form, and if anybody wants to read about them they are all but a click away. It would shorten the article and get rid of its weakest section, IMO. What say you? Tom Reedy (talk) 22:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

We are talking about Alternative candidates. I guess a shorter article would be better, so severely pruning that section is desirable. It would be good if the opening para could have some words to indicate why these four candidates are mentioned here, and the sentence on each needs to retain the key point of the case for that candidate, and perhaps when the candidature was proposed. Possibly the "see also" links could be incorporated something like this:

The candidate favoured by the Baconian theory is Sir Francis Bacon, lawyer, philosopher, essayist and scientist. The case for Bacon, first proposed in the mid-nineteenth century, relies upon historical and literary conjectures and cryptographical revelations found in the works that disclose his authorship.

Is that about the length you were thinking of? Johnuniq (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree, but doesn't this mean that the "Stratfordian" (urgh) view will appear to have too much prominence in the article vis-a-vis the (for example) Oxfordian? And that this will unleash yet more anti-Strat (ugh!) commentary in these parts? --GuillaumeTell 00:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Well after all, the article is about the "Shakespeare authorship question", which is more about the arguments against Shakespeare than any particular candidate, plus the evidence that he did write the works. As to the candidates, why not just use the introductory graf and then furnish the links for more information? Or maybe just put them in the "see also" section?

What I'm getting at is that what we have now about the major candidates is not very good, so there's really no sense in trying to make it better since we don't really have the room and they have their own articles anyway. Distribute the pictures in the text above to give it some colour and maybe cut some of the text illustrations, most of which are redundant with the text anyway. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The "positive" claims made for the major candidates should be included, but we could roll them up into a single section which is discussed chronologically. That would either involve supplementing the history section, or removing stuff from the history bit to a separate candidates section. It would allow us to explain why for example, the Victorians were so keen on Bacon, but he isn't much fancied anymore. We could include the RS arguments for the candidate preferences along with the arguments that have been made by their supporters, which includes Looney's supposedly Comtean logic as replicated by Zweigenbaum above - you start by collating evidence of who the author should be and go from there. Paul B (talk) 10:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't we be getting into some awfully shaky ground there? I've heard several different underlying reasons for Bacon and Oxford's candidacies, from tying Baconian ciphers to the industrial revolution to Freud's search for a father figure (or something like, that; I'm sure I've got it botched), none of them with any real degree of acceptance in the scholarly community (who for the most part ignore all this anyway). There's no doubt they begin with the candidate—believe in Bacon? Look for legalisms. Believe in Oxford? Look for knowledge of the court and an aristocratic attitude. Believe in Marlowe? Look for evidence of a university education. And of course all of them left biographical information in the works. But that describes method (historical [as Chambers calls it] or biographical [as most moderns do]), not underlying the psychological reasons. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, saying what RSes say is not shaky ground. We don't have to agree with it, just report it. They are allowed to speculate. It would be encyclopedic if we had good sources on the historical context for the candidates. The Freud argument would be irrelevant here, since that's just a theory about his personal inclinations. I think the link beween Bacon and Victorian ideas about science is well established, but I know of no literature that historicises the popularity of Oxford. Looney's claims to be applying positivist methods are however documented by Shapiro. Paul B (talk) 15:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I've yet to quite process this suggestion, so I reserve the right to change my mind, but my immediate gut feeling is to disagree with at least the extent of the proposal. The various candidate sections should, IMO, be a summary style overview of the candidate and the related authorship theory: essentially it should replicate the content of the lede of the article linked with {{main}}. Or rather, since those articles are in a deplorable state—and with little hope of improvement in the short term—this article should contain a summary style overview equivalent to what the lede of those articles should look like if improved to something approaching FA-quality. I do have concerns about the overall length of this article, but I'm not, currently, convinced that the sections mentioned here are the place to start pruning (modulo copy-editing and other general improvements of them, of course). --Xover (talk) 10:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this proposal. On the plus side, those bits are weak, and there are inconsistencies between them and the main article (eg the Oxford page does not make use use of the non-anagram from the book that doesn't mention Shakespeare!). On the minus side, it could be argued that the other candidates are an essential part of the argument, and we have to watch out for Tell's point of being accused of deleting anti-strat stuff. I'd certainly be happy with a reduction to a paragraph on each. Poujeaux (talk) 13:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

But again, if we don't have the space to do a very good job of it, why bother with more than a short mention and a main link, since it's going to be there anyway? I'd like to hear from some sane Oxfordians, Baconians, and Malovians on this, but I don't think any of them are speaking to me. BenJonson, JackofOz, Softlavender, Peter Farey, if any of you are lurking out there, would you mind weighing in on this? Tom Reedy (talk) 13:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well, some of them have recently been blocked! Poujeaux (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. They are all free as a bird. Paul B (talk) 18:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, that depends on what your criteria are. If we're just in a vacuum arguing what would make the best article, the argument that when we can't do it right it's better to not do it at all would make sense. In the context of guidelines and practice for Wikipedia articles, we need to consider things like do we need to cover the major candidates to cover all relevant aspects of the topic (on which point one may disagree, of course)? If we're aiming to take the article to FAC, we need to consider what the criteria say and the reviewers are likely to expect. On the latter I would be cautious of speculating too specifically, or attaching too much weight to the speculations, but I would imagine—and I may very well be wrong on this!—that they would expect a treatment of the various claimants and that this treatment would need to be of a certain weight (“length”) and quality. The specific format of such a treatment is of course a different matter; for instance, I could easily imagine both the current format(-ish) as well as variant with a single section that discusses all the candidates. --Xover (talk) 18:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

You make some good points, although I'm not too keen on trying to tailor an article to what as-yes-unknown reviewers will want. If we're going to keep the candidates, then I favour individual sections as we now have. I would prefer that they all be about the size length as the Marlowe section, and perhaps a one-graf explanation of the types of evidence used so that we might be able to include some of the material Paul thinks should be in there. Paul, would you mind drafting something suggestive of that content so we can see what you mean? Tom Reedy (talk) 21:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Organization Problems - Bardolotry

I've moved the lede paragraph on Bardolotry to the Background section, where it logically belongs. How about leaving the edit in place for a few minutes so people can consider both the effect on the lede and on the section in which it is now placed? This is not something which can be discussed in the abstract. It needs to be evaluated visually as well as in terms of a logical structure of the article.NinaGreen (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Your method or approach is wrong. With a lead with a long history of development, that is now stable for months, one does not just go ahead and make a major change, here a significant excision and readjustment of text, and ask that other editors then use the talk page to justify its partial or complete restoration from the relocated area back to the lead, Nina. It is not collaborative to do so.Nishidani (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The section logically belongs in the lede, for reasons that can be found in WP:LEDE. If anybody needs to "evaluate it visually" they can find it in the edit history. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is the link to the old edit. Wrad (talk) 20:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It is glaringly out of place in that edit. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I think there is a valid point here - in fact I was thinking this yesterday independently. IMHO the lead is excellent, except for the first two sentences of the 2nd paragraph, which read as rather vague and flowery, not essential to the main point of the article, and more based on opinion than fact. For example the claim that "19th-century Romantics, who believed that literature was essentially a medium for self-revelation" is very much a matter of opinion and does not fit with the general view of the themes of Romantic Literature (Nature, historical myths, etc). And even if it is true, it is not central to SAQ. I think the lead should be a more concise statement of the facts, so I suggest replacing those 2 sentences with a simple statement that it started in the C19, so the 2nd para would look something like:

"Questions over the true identity of the author arose in the 19th century, and in the intervening years the controversy has spawned a vast body of literature,[7] and more than 50 authorship candidates have been proposed, including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, Mary Sidney, the Earl of Derby and the Earl of Rutland.[8] Proponents believe that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court they say is apparent in the works.[9]"

Discuss... Poujeaux (talk) 14:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it does not matter if it is 'opinion', if the opinion is the consensus of reliable sources. However, it does seem to me to be problematic for various reasons. The argument that plays are 'self-revelation' does not actually feature strongly in early SAQ arguments. Rather, it's a feature of Oxfordianism, in which emotional identification with the True Author, struggling to 'express himself', plays an important role. Oxfordianism is a 20th century invention, not a nineteenth century one. The Victorian view is that Shakespeare is a magisterial moral and intellectual powerhouse, who has deep philosophical ideas to express. Bacon-as-Shakespeare is not expressing himself, but rather a view of the world, one shared by other illuminati of the period in Delia B's view. It's really very different from a 'Romantic' belief in self-expression. Also, this assertion does not chime very well with the other argument put forward by Scahpiro and others that Higher Criticism plays a role - a position which breaks down the model of individual authorship. In other words, Bardoloatry does not necessarily imply claims of self-revelation, rather more a belief in 'greatness'. Paul B (talk) 15:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Why not just drop the Romanticism phrase? It would work (and if I read Paul right, work better) without it.

"Scholars contend that the controversy has its origins in Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare in the 18th century as the greatest writer of all time.[4] Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution might be a deception. In the intervening years the controversy ..." Tom Reedy (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's better and it puts the seeming incongruous with the greatness, so as Tom, Paul me and presumably Nina are happy with it I'll take that as a concensus and make that change. Poujeaux (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

According to Stratfordian authority H.N.Gibson(frequently cited in this very article) the controversy began with John Marston and Joseph Hall in 1597 which view was even more fully affirmed by Stratfordian authorities Garnett and Gosse over fifty years previously. According to Stratfordian Richard Simpson arguably the most intelligent Stratfordian,aside from J.Payne Collier,in nineteenth century Stratfordian criticism,the Shakespeare Authorship controversy began with Robert Greene's "Farewelle To Follie" c.1587-88(but not actually published til 1592) and according to Dowden of Trinity Shakspere's most popular academic biographer ever,and others writing in 1869 it began with the publication of Narcissus(registered Fall,1593 but the only know surviving copy is dated 1595)the author named either Oxford or Bacon as the author. This crap about a nineteenth century origin of the authorship controversy should as Reedy well knows(for we patiently instructed him on the subject nearly ten years ago) should go back on the compost heap from which it has once again only recently re-emerged.Charles Darnay (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Leaving aside the above drivel by M. Darnay, it's fair to say that Bardolatry has been closely linked to the emergence of the controversy by several authors. It's a specifically Victorian variant, as epitomised by Carlyle, so the fact that the phenomenon has its origins in the 18th century is not important. I don't think we can say whether Bardoloatry was just a necessary or a sufficient condition. In any case "bardolatry" is just a simple word for a complex range of related views and attitudes. Paul B (talk) 15:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Stratfordian H.N. Gibson,author of the "Shakespeare Claimants"(which is frequently cited here) states,"With Marston's works there are no such difficulties.The introduction of the family motto[mediocra firma] makes it clear

that he had Bacon and no one else in mind, and his own echo of the lines in "Venus and Adonis" prove the same of the poem."(pp.63-64)."It may prove that Hall and Marston were the first proponents of the Baconian theory."(p.65)

You should really apologize to M. Darnay and to the readers whom you may,unintentionally no doubt, have mislead.Arthur Orton (talk) 23:32, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Charles. You must learn to avoid your quirks if you also wish to avoid recognition. Paul B (talk) 16:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Things to do

Here are the todo items noted by Tom back on the 10th, with added points from Poujeaux, since the original thread has been archived. I've not restored any of the comments since off-topic and/or controversial stuff had been interspersed with the action items and the processing of them, and I didn't want to restore a too heavily edited version of people's comments. The original thread can be found in Archive 20.

1. Ref cleanup. Consistent format, complete bibliographic details.
2. Use of the terms “Stratfordian” and “anti-Stratfordian”. Should this be noted in the text just as a fact of the SAQ jargon that has evolved instead of being in a note?
3. One-sentence paragraphs. I think I've got them all but they should be checked again and edited if any are found.
4. Embedded links—first use only. Dupes needs to be de-linked.
5. Section titles: "arguments" vs. "evidence". Any suggestions? Or is this a problem?
6. Repeated use of 'all' in sec 1.1.
7. Consistent use of italics. I think all play titles, books, journals should be in italics and I have fixed some. But what about Shakespeare's Sonnets, or TV programmes...

If we could try to keep this section of the talk page focussed on the todo list, and take any longer discussions or major changes to separate sections, that would be appreciated. --Xover (talk) 18:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

There are some trivial consistency issues: In the wikitext, there are two paras which are split into two lines. I assume we want these joined (the lines are 'Since 1845, Bacon...' and 'Oxford's use of the "Shakespeare"...'). Also, the heading "Standards of evidence" is the only one which has spaces like "== Heading ==". Several headings are followed by no blank line, while others are different. I can attend to these items if worthwhile. Is "no blank line after a heading" what is wanted? Johnuniq (talk) 02:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Fix 'em to whatever is MOS, and thanks for pointing them out. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Will do (but it might not be for 24 hours or so since I will be occupied elsewhere).

This edit fixed a couple of spellings to UK, and added a template that British English is to be used (good!). However, it changed two quotations. Search the article for "a courtier, a lawyer, a traveller in Italy" (was "traveler") and for "with the humours of Sr John ffalstaff" (was "humors"). Should these two cases be changed back to the original? Johnuniq (talk) 06:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The first paragraph in Shakespeare authorship question#Alternative candidates needs a citation; and unless the source makes a summary very like what we do in the article, we'll probably need several cites that all say almost all of it (i.e. we need to avoid the appearance of novel synthesis). --Xover (talk) 07:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I've got sources all the way back to Chambers that say it (using the exact term "conjectures", which I iimigaine is the only contentious word), but I thought since it was a summary it didn't need a cite. I'll pull one out sometime in the next few days. (Historical and biographical are really the same.) Tom Reedy (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Tom has now put in the word 'case' in the 'case for' and 'case against', so I think we can cross out 5. This removes a potential accustion of bias. Poujeaux (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"reputation" for "eminence"

I suggest we change that in the lede. The word "eminence" has confusing connotations to some readers, implying stateliness or high social rank. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I agree. But what in the world do we change it to? My shortest summation of it is that we mean to say his wit, erudition, literary/artistic genious, and actual worldly success was an ill fit with his base origins in a rural town. How do you cram that into a word or two without running into the exact same problem that “eminence” does? --Xover (talk) 20:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

What I meant was to replace "It was also noted, however, that Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life" with "It was also noted, however, that Shakespeare's reputation seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life". (We also need to rewrite that section again, as noted above, but we've all been distracted.) Tom Reedy (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that eminence is troubling - may I toss out "renown" or even "standing" as suggestions? Kaiguy (talk) 06:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think “standing” has the same problem as “eminence” (it tends to imply social standing in a way that leads people to look for the blue blood). “Renown” fits better, IMO, but may run into the problem of indicating he was merely famous and not that he was considered a natural genius, with unique insight in the human condition, etc. etc.; and I think “Renown” and “Reputation” both have the same problem in that sense. I wouldn't actually oppose either choice brought up here, but they don't fall perfectly into place for me either.
Would returning to something neighbouring bardolatry help? Maybe if we start from “Idolatry”, to avoid the discussion on jargon in the lede, and recast the entire sentence in that light? Or is that too much right now? --Xover (talk) 11:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

"The Shakespeare authorship question was first posed in the middle of the 19th century. By then the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread, and its expression often extreme.[4] It was also noted, however, that Shakespeare's eminence as a natural genius seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life,[5] and some began to suspect that the man known as Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him, with the real author hiding behind the name."

Something like that? Now my only problem is the phrase "obscure life". Kaiguy (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I have noticed that some of the second graf as re-written merely repeats the first and repeats itself. There is no reason for this repetition. Look (repetition bolded):

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him, and that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for reasons such as social rank, state security or gender could not safely take public credit.[1] Although the idea has attracted much public interest,[2] all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims.[3]

The Shakespeare authorship question was first posed in the middle of the 19th century. By then, Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time, had become widespread and its expression often extreme.[4] It was also noted, however, that Shakespeare's eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life,[5] and some began to suspect that the man known as Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him, with the real author hiding behind the name.[6] Thus began a controversy that, in the century and a half since then, has spawned a vast body of literature.[7] More than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed,[8] including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Derby.[9] Proponents believe that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.[10]

This just makes it long, loopy, and repetitious. I propose we go back more-or-less to what we had in the 2nd graf with a few tweaks:

The question about Shakespeare’s authorship was first posed in the middle of the 19th century, when Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time, had become widespread. But Shakespeare's biography, with his humble origins and obscure life, seemed inconsistent with his poetic eminence and reputation as a natural genius,[5] arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution might be a deception.[6] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature, [7] and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed,[8] including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Derby.[9] Proponents believe that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.[10]

We need to get this done and forget about it. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been silent about this, but I haven't really forgotten about it, and I've been playing around with variations.

Your last version, Tom, is not bad at all in my opinion. I see you've finally dealt the coup de grace to my "It was also noted, however". Not that I'm complaining; I agree that it's too loose and colloquial for the context. The only thing I'm still uncomfortable with is "the Shakespeare attribution". Sounds too much like jargon. I think it would seem odd and incompletely comprehensible to the average Wikipedia reader. So I would request that we strongly consider splicing back in at least part of my original wording for that phrase. So my revision of your last submission above would then become:

The question about Shakespeare’s authorship was first posed in the middle of the 19th century, when Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time, had become widespread. But Shakespeare's biography, with his humble origins and obscure life, seemed inconsistent with his poetic eminence and reputation as a natural genius,[5] arousing suspicion that the man known as Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him.[6] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature, [7] and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed,[8] including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Derby.[9] Proponents believe that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.[10]

Discussion...? --Alan W (talk) 04:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Alan W that "the Shakespeare attribution" is too tricky for the lead, and offer the following possible replacement for the second paragraph:

Shakespeare's authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century, when Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time, had become widespread. Shakespeare's biography, with his humble origins and obscure life, seemed inconsistent with his poetic eminence and reputation as a natural genius,[5] arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him.[6] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature,[7] and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed,[8] including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Derby.[9] Proponents believe that their candidate is the more plausible author in terms of education, life experience and social status, arguing that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.[10]

Tom's last version, and Alan W's version, and my version are identical after the "[6]". My version uses "attributed to him" which repeats para 1, but that might not be too bad? Johnuniq (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm good with either version. Somebody change it and let's get the rest of the work done so we can go to FA. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I like John's slightly more concise version though I would suggest using Kaiguy's trick of omitting the B word but linking to it: "when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time ...". This makes it a little more concise and omits the jargon word that casual readers may stumble over. Poujeaux (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Done, plus I substituted "incompatible" for "inconsistent", which is more accurate diction. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Glad this worked out. --Alan W (talk) 01:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk page auto-archive interval

Now that the volume of edits on this Talk page has subsided a bit, could we perhaps increase the auto-archive interval to 10 days or so (it's currently set to 5 days)? I'd normally just change it myself, but given this was made subject to criticism and interpreted as censorship (or some such) recently I'm asking for indications of consensus first. --Xover (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Although even with the 5-day frequency, the page hovers around 85kbs, go ahead and try it. If it lards up again we can always change it. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary reverting by Tom Reedy

The two paragraphs beginning the Singularity of Shakespeare sub-section were RS sourced and referenced, but the the first of these has been repeatedly reverted--to be precise, deleted entirely, sentences and references alike. Although there were two prior discussions of the issue which I had made on the Discussion page, no other editor commented upon them in reply, including Reedy. Then the first paragraph disappeared. I found the culprit was Tom Reedy and ask him to explain saying nothing in discussion but reverting the first paragraph, contrary to rule after it was in place. The references are backed by RS. There are no apparent reasons, substantive or procedural for Reedy's action. For the good of the site, cease vandalism. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you restored an old series of affirmations dating back almost a year, which in the meantime have been shown to be, because dated, somewhat unreliable though sourced. (b) refuse to coordinate the formatting with that established for this article, creating a citational dissonance (c) introduce a word like 'bardology' which is apparently a word meaning discourse on or about Shakespeare, and quite distinct from bardolatry (See this first google result) (d) restored a text that in its sourced summarizes some viewpoints current in the 1950s and 1960s, ignoring, unlike the text you in turn deleted, what research has established in the following five decades. (e) you seem to ignore that almost all passages here have a long history of discussion, rest on intricate balancing of sources. (f) this is not quite the time, as the articles strives to meet the strictest criteria for FA pieces, which includes a 'stable text', to push through extensive challenges to patches of text without at least showing editors the courtesy of making first a proposal here so that it may be examined fairly and closely. As it is, we have an edit out of left field hitting the article at a very late stage, in a way that invites edit-warring. I'd be happy to discuss your proposal, if you reverted and presented it here so that all can comment on it.Nishidani (talk) 08:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Do not understand your "happy to discuss your proposal" since you didn't when I wrote and entered it in some detail twice. The Stratfordian editing and reversions have gone on apace without any ecumenical discussion I have read, and I have followed it every few days. Thus there is a double-standard: I must discuss (and I did, twice, to no response); you need not. That is the underhanded method of killing the opposing research. Although you write as though the "latest" texts are more authoritative, in reality they are chosen, late or early, depending on whether you can hang your approach on them. If there is a long background of similar discussion getting repeated, under these terms it means you haven't been able to force it through successfully enough and persuade new editors, who have read otherwise and say so. Either certify RS texts or have none, but don't pick and choose what I can use, which amounts to none by your calculus. They are RS, meeting your own stated qualifications--academic, respectable press, qualified author--except you don't like what they say.98.207.240.11 (talk) 10:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The text you added contains a whole series of misrepresentations of evidence. For example you say that "mainstream authors" identified doubt in 18th century texts. This implies a consensus of the "mainstream" which is wholly untrue. As far as I am aware the authors you quote are merely providing a summary of evidence that has been used by anti-Statfordians. In any case they do not represent some sort of generic 'mainstream' view. Apart from the Learned Pig, which is expressly presented as a fantasy, the other sources in fact explicitly say that Shakespeare wrote the works. Indeed the footnoted source text (McMichael/Glenn p.56) states that "It seems that the first man to question Shakespeare's sole authorship of the plays was a certain 'Captain Goulding'" In fact the booklet was almost certainly not written by Goulding and the fact that Shakespeare was probably not "sole" author of some plays had been discussed many years before (as far back as Ravenscroft in 1687). In any case, not being the sole author is quite different from not being the author at all. Of course it is true that anti-Stratfordians have found hidden messages in Shakespeare's plays and in the works of other Tudor/Jacobean authors throughout the history of anti-Stratfordianism, but these are hidden. For example Ben Jonson explicitly says that William Shakespeare in the engraved picture is the author of the book, but anti-Statfordian choose to read this as a hidden statement of the opposite. The point is that the doubts were never read into these texts before anti-Stratfordianism began in the mid-nineteenth century. I have no problem adding that Anti-Strat writers find these hidden messages in Tudor/Jacobean literature, but there is no "controversy" beginning in this era, because there is no discussion. All the 18th century pamphlets are explicitly humorous, and the 'Goulding' text makes obvious completely absurd statements for comic effect. Modern reliable sources on this issue do not treat these as part of the history of SAQ. Paul B (talk) 11:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There was nothing arbitrary about my reversion; it was explained in my edit summary. You should include your complaints in your ArbCom testimony instead of continuing to insert undiscussed material for which you have no consensus. Tom Reedy (talk) 14:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Contradictory reasoning. My contribution regarding filling in the early history of doubt about the Stratfordian Shakspere figure was unremarked and unopposed for days, permitting me to enter RS material into the site. Silence is tacit consent. Your statements about consensus first and your edit not being arbitrary are non sequiturs. First I have not seen any of your edits prefaced by "Do I have consensus on this?", Thus, it is an understood railroad job, i.e., assuming a majority--not a consensus--whether or not it is stated and solicited. Second, when you edit-war, you assume it isn't, but when I restore the deleted material you conclude it is an edit-war. Note the contradiction. As for what I should submit to ArbCom, you are not authorized to advise. Conclusion: you're playing games. This is contrary to the mandating purpose of the site.98.207.240.11 (talk) 04:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Silence is tacit consent'? You ignore the follow-up 'ubi loqui debuit'. The silence of exhaustion, or the silence that just lets a buried argument, raised again and again, die a natural death. The Japanese speak of mokusatsu.Nishidani (talk) 05:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Incidentally, although I have repeated logged in the prompter says that I am not, so this will identify that I am the author of the statement that follows. In response to the above charge, you have discounted the sources and reasoning provided in my edit, on the basis that they were presented and rejected on some prior occasion. But your solution was not persuasive then evidently, as incorporated into the final product, given that the same exception to it is now occurring from a different participant. Hence, your attempt to associate me with a previous "rejection" (is there any reason to use the Japanese?) is itself a form of guilt by association. Specifically, your claim--that the edit contains a whole series of misrepresentation--fails by inspection. e.g., Emerson was mainstream and he said he could not marry the man and the work; Jonson really did make Shakspere out as a buffoon for assuming an otherwise laughable dignity, "not without mustard", etc. That is what they said, each in his own way, constituting dubiety, and they are RS by even your definition. So you attack me but not them also? Re-writing history won't do, and your generalizations do not stand up to actual quotation from the sources. Sorry about the 'bardology/bardolatry'. Terrible disrespect of Shaw's epithet there. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 07:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It's fine within reason to express one's thoughts on the talk page, but when discussing edits to the article, it is best to rely on reliable sources. Other editors need to follow procedures that are based on policies. Johnuniq (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure who is the "you" being referred to here. Some of your comments appear to be replies to Nishidani, others refer to my remarks in this section. I said that the sources were misrepresented and are not in accord with more modern ones. I never said anything about Emerson, nor did anyone else in this section. He never denied that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, but he does belong to the era of "Doubt", so his views are relevant to some degree. Nevertheless, I don't understand how he relates to my comments which were about 16th-18th century material. Jonson's joke may or may not have referred to Shakespeare's coat of arms, but it is not an expression "doubt" about anything. It's a joke, quoted from Thomas Nashe. Neither Jonson nor Emerson are "RS" by either my definition or Wikipedia's definition. Please read WP:RS. Paul B (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum I agree other editors need to follow procedures that are based on policies. That would lead to a fair article. If the sources I mentioned in the edit are not RS, (preferred or unpreferred by other editors being a separate issue), please document and will revise.98.207.240.11 (talk) 07:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but you are making a substantial change to a section of the article that has been stable for some time. Accordingly it is up to you to provide reasons (based on policy) for why the previous text was unsuitable, and/or why the new text is an improvement. WP:TP explains how to indent comments. Johnuniq (talk) 07:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

Xover - here is the posting you could not find: > [3]. > Here is another > [4]. > And here was the first time it was brought up by another editor > [5]. The > material is accurate and properly sourced. It indicates that the assertions in the present article are not supported in the literature. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 05:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The second one is the same as the first one, with a typo fixed (unnecessarily, as we don't care about them on the talk page), and was an almost complete non sequiter in that discussion. The last one is the one you copied from Charles Darney. I don't know of any reliable sources who say the authorship question began before the mid-19th century, although they do say that anti-Stratfordians believe it by fanciful interpretations. And you need more than a book title for proper sourcing. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum In the effort to discredit what I was saying you state that I have quoted the same source twice. By 'another', I meant simply, here is another instance of a(n attempted) discussion before transfer to the article page, justifying the term discussion if followed by no comment. It did not have to do with a claim of providing two sources. But to take up your (mistakenly discrediting) point, both are the same, would there be something wrong with quoting the same reference twice? If you really want particular quotations, they can be supplied from that source. But in the course of discussion about a point, with individuals who are familiar with the historical sources, one of those (Gibson) whose thought bears on the point in question, I do not see that final footnotes are indicated by the discussion. If so, they will be provided. But here is a problem with my doing that. Since you have categorically cut out any appearance of contrary evidence, there seems to be no percentage in presenting a final detailed version for you to eliminate. When first entering this discussion in December I did go through the article making numerous changes in the direction of neutrality, virtually all of which work got wasted because you or an ally reverted that work. One phrasing you did retain because there was more pith in my expression than your own--but that is hardly an example of collaboration towards neutrality. It was more like presenting a jury evidence of co-operation that existed in the claim but not the neutrality.

If you "don't know any reliable sources" that provide evidence that "the authorship question" began before the 19th century, then you aren't able to read Marston and Barnefield. Their tributes (uniformly to Oxford/de Vere) are glaring evidence that the Shakespeare you are claiming was never in their minds as a question at all. Thus, retrospectively the or more properly our "question" of identity, one they themselves did not even consider as a question, has a foundation and an answer deep in the past, nearly contemporaneous with the subjects we have involved in the present dispute. What I am telling you, though I doubt it will be heard, is that you are ignoring primary and early evidence. But then again the presumptions upon which you and others operate require that that evidence be blanked or shunned, otherwise your points would be laughably discounted, for lack of foundation. (If you have ignored the actual foundational knowledge, the basis for the claim you do make will lack foundation.) If you did want to call Marston, Barnefield, Digges, Jonson, and others, fanciful interpretations instead of just my quotations of their words, then you have gone a long way towards detaching persuasive power from the very authorities you (at present mistakenly) use for your own position on the question. Without going into this at great length, a source you claim for your own position is the tribute entitled, "To the memory of my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left us." It contains seventeen words in that title. On the 17th line of that tribute begins the sentence, "I, therefore will begin, Soule of the Age!" The writer then lists seventeen dramatists. The person addressed as "Shakespeare" is mentioned four times. Vere is a homonym of vier=four in German, a language familiar to Oxford and many of his educated readers. Seventeen is a cue to the 17th Earl of Oxford. If you think this formation of number cues is accidental or fanciful, see a doctor. It goesway beyond chance. Meres also mentions seventeen English dramatists versus sixteen ancient ones. This is asymetrical to the even listings elsewhere in his almanac. The cue is that there is one English dramatist listed twice. Which one? Oxford is listed first. Shakespeare so called is listed ninth. 1+9=10. 10 is orthographically almost identical to the Phoenician alphabet's IO, the Italian word for "I", but pronounced ee-oo, the enunciated initials for Earl of Oxford. Sorry again, if you think this asymmetry puzzle is fanciful. They put out whole books of such anagrammic puzzles and communicated with them. But you have to have a mind open enough to the past to comprehend what they were communicating. And it surely is not pat-pat cut-and-dried that the deceit or cover aspect of the puzzle was the truth. The truth was protected for the knowing. In the Meres symbology, Oxford (1) and Shakespeare (9) added up to Earl of Oxford, IO. Tell me if you seek to know the truth or to maintain a status quo that is fraught with error? If the former, you will have to change from being the arrogant fool to the humble seeker of who wrote these works. Then you will be my ally and I yours. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 22:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If you "don't know any reliable sources" that provide evidence that "the authorship question" began before the 19th century, then you aren't able to read Marston and Barnefield.

I see. You haven't read WP:RS. We are talking about reliable sources in the academic literature, not primary sources, esp. as interpreted in the fringe literature of authorship speculations. Nishidani (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Uhh, sorry, but crackpot interpretations of "Marston, Barnefield, Digges, Jonson, and others" does not qualify as evidence in the real world. If you have a source that outlines that particular methodology, I suggest that its proper place is in the Oxfordian article, which does allow the use of fringe sources. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

{{Zweigenbaum]]

Well that must have cracked through your denials. Nishidani, you imply by your statement that the evidence of the time doesn't matter, only selective interpolations of succeeding generations that inert academic belief has turned into the governing paradigm, and those only you endorse and require me to endorse as well. And to Reedy, whose concern is that "crackpot" theories don't count-- don't you mean you hope so coherent a discovery as I outlined in sources previously wielded by yourself (-ves) will not now work a catastrophe against your contention? Try as you may to bury it by all means with invective, the truth will out. The point remains the same. Writers of the time knew who wrote the works of Shakespeare and they left documentation to that effect. Ergo, it was well before the 19th century that a "question" or better phrased an ambiguity, existed contemporaneously. As Keats put it, 'Shakespeare' lived a life of allegory. Going back to sourcing, Price is RS, by your own admission. Just like Shapiro and the writers of the time, she has found evidence of early doubt and misattribution. And just like Shapiro and the rest, her "interpretations", whether you personally like them or not, are quotable because she is RS - published by Greenwood Press. And I provided sourcing to McCrae (RS), the Friedmans (RS) and to Gibson (RS) as well. Do you now justify to yourselves deleting four creditable sources? Maybe they are not modern enough, or some other pretext? In answer to Johnuniq, my last edit removed half a sentence in the second paragraph that was an opinion being presented as fact. (i.e., see below the assertion that Shakespeare became considered as a power and name all to himself, etc.-- but in whose generally accepted view, other than being the opinion of Schoenbaum?) At the least, it should say "According to Schoenbaum...", which is a neutral limiting reference and no problem. Instead it says: and depends upon the perception of Shakespeare as a unique genius in a class by himself. In the first paragraph, on the other hand, I merely added material that was missing, complete with the four reliable sources that just weren't good enough and just had to be deleted. To verify that edit: [6] Of course my contribution has been reverted repeatedly with impunity. Incidentally I continue to be unable to log in, by any attempted sequence, even when the system says I am logged in, it does not register. Hence these tildes may not appear. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"If you think this formation of number cues is accidental or fanciful, see a doctor."

"you will have to change from being the arrogant fool"

Thanks for calling our attention to my "invective" (abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will). Thanks also for giving us an example of the kind of "so coherent a discovery" you would fill this article with. I believe my characterisation of that "evidence" is WP:SPADE.

You wrote, "Since you have categorically cut out any appearance of contrary evidence, there seems to be no percentage in presenting a final detailed version for you to eliminate." My reply is that unless you at least present the details of the sources, your suggestions cannot be considered by other editors. A statement is sourced before adding it to the main page, not after, and in an article as contentious as this one, it avoids a lot of problems to present proposed major changes on the talk page for commentary by other editors instead of adding them to the main page with a promise of detailed sourcing later.

An alternative for you would be to add the material to the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship and see what reaction you get from the editors there. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum No systematically ignoring my posts now, I see, nor recognition of my exhorting Mr. Reedy to seek the truth. Yes your use of the word "crackpot" was invective, name-calling, used to belittle and/or discredit comprehensive analysis of long misunderstood passages, such as Meres's praise of Oxford=Shakespeare and Jonson's First Folio eulogy of Oxford, with its tissue-thin surface of being dedicated to 'Shakespeare'. The disparagement of SPADE, I assume original research labelling, is unfounded. The ideas were published or were delivered in ecumenical conferences. These are contemporary-based clues you have so far successfully walled from entry into the article by shall we say arbitrarily associating them with the pejorative fringe belief and such language. And yes, my assumption you would find a pretext to deny any non-doctrinal reference is confirmed by the hypocrisy of your jibe, 'at least present the details of the sources'. Anyone reading this page would realize it would only activate a brief scramble for yet another pretext, employing slanted literature, to exclude contradictory evidence. That has been the history of the discussion anyway. On the same level of exchange, I'm sure your phrase "non sequiter" is meant to spell non sequitur. But so what if the pro doesn't know his Latin? That was never the point. The mandating function of the discussion page is the important point--fairness--but it is impossible, under conditions of majority bias against minority evidence. The manipulations serve that goal. The only solution would be Wikipedia-required comparison of explanations while dealing with such contentious subjects. That would be a severe crack in your stone wall, thus a consummation devoutly not to be wished. Point-counterpoint discussion is merely interesting, informative, verifiable reading. Nothing to fear for us seekers of truth. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 08:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you see the note I put at User talk:98.207.240.11 a few days ago regarding getting help so that you can log on? Re your messages here: please be more succinct. For example, text like "No systematically ignoring my posts now" does not assist the purpose of this page. I'm not sure that there is any text in your last message that could advance a discussion of what improvement should be made to this article. I am not quite sure what you mean by "fairness", but I do not recall seeing that term in the policy pages that I have read. Perhaps you are thinking of WP:NPOV which requires that all significant views are represented fairly, proportionately, and without bias. That has to be read in connection with the other policies, particulary WP:DUE (which is part of NPOV); it is not the concept of "fairness" that a television interview might use to have "equal time". Johnuniq (talk) 09:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

(outdenting here to try to get back to Zweigenbaum's original post)
Thank you for the pointers to the previous discussions. I assume you refer these to me as I was one of the editors that reverted your changes to the article? In any case…
I've read the posts you linked to, and I've read your following exchange with Tom in this thread, and I think I see why you appear to be frustrated. Let me start off by saying that I roughly follow your line of reasoning (I don't agree with it, but I roughly follow it). I am not sufficiently expert to refute any of it, and I freely admit this to be the case. However—and I believe this is the root of the confusion here—the merits of your argument are not actually the issue here! I'm sure you're generally aware of this, but perhaps have not fully internalized the consequences of that fact, but Wikipedia has a few very specific quirks that may not be immediately obvious. First of all, your argument attempts to establish the “truth”; and on Wikipedia the criteria for inclusion is not “truth” but verifiability. That is, it strictly speaking doesn't matter what the truth is—even when that can be consistently determined—just what the sources say that the truth is. That means—literally—that if the relevant sources say the moon is made of cheese then Wikipedia must also say that, even if you or I find it patently ridiculous. Further, another quirk is that Wikipedia explicitly does not use primary sources, for all but some very few exceptions, and especially not when there are secondary sources available at all (much less a plethora of them). This includes if the case should be that the secondary sources plainly contradict the primary sources. And finally, Wikipedia does not allow original research, even to the degree that you might feel the policies forbid you from thinking for yourself (and uncharitable way to put it, but true none the less). These are core content policies (as opposed to various behavioural guidelines that are merely intended to foster a collegiate editing environment) and shape the entirety of what Wikipedia is and how it covers the subjects it has articles on.
In other words, the arguments you make to, e.g., Tom above may be perfectly valid and definitive in general, but they rely on principles that Wikipedia by active choice has forbidden as a matter of policy. You may of course disagree with these choices, but unless you manage to persuade a great majority of the Wikipedia community to a consensus on changing these core policies, we cannot on this specific article disregard them.
I suspect when you get the impression that Tom (or the rest of us) are unwilling to listen and engage in debate it is partially caused by this confusion about the core policies, and partly because we are reacting to a long string of editors arguing for the same goal that you are, who have not understood this and have been unwilling to be educated. What you appear to be interpreting as acting in bad faith on others' part is in actuality caused by them acting based on those policies, and perhaps out of a little more frustration than is apparently merited.
I am sure you would be the first to admit that mainstream scholars scoff at and disregard the Authorship question, right? If we for argument's sake assume that your position is the correct one and mainstream scholars' position is the wrong one, then the place to remedy this is still not Wikipedia! I take from your argument that you want this article to fairly represent both sides and make sure that reader is not left with an impression about the subject that is, from your point of view, entirely wrong. But the thing is that Wikipedia as a project has made the choice that if the mainstream view of a subject is entirely wrong, then the articles should also be written in a way to leaves the reader with the wrong impression. This is of course counter-intuitive for most, no matter what your background—but it means you cannot “correct” this on Wikipedia! You have to first fix mainstream scholarship, and then Wikipedia can report on that correction.
If you want I can explain why the project has chosen these policies (or you can read them, they usually explain why fairly well), and if you would like to try to change them I can help point you in the right direction. But arguing for changing them, or arguing contrary to them, on this article will not help and will largely just cause frustration among the other editors.
Finally: if you would like to discuss the changes to the article that prompted this thread, by making arguments within the limits imposed by the mentioned policies, I want to assure you that I will listen with an open mind and attempt to understand your points. I cannot guarantee, obviously, that I will agree or be persuaded by them, but can guarantee that I will make a good faith effort to listen. --Xover (talk) 09:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I will just add a few point to what Xover said. I quote from your last message. You say we should discuss "Meres's praise of Oxford=Shakespeare and Jonson's First Folio eulogy of Oxford, with its tissue-thin surface of being dedicated to 'Shakespeare'." Now Meres says nothing whatever about Oxford being Shakespeare as I am sure you accept. He says they are two different people ("so the best for comedy amongst us bee, Edward Earle of Oxenforde, Doctor Gager of Oxforde, Maister Rowley once a rare Scholar of learned Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, Maister Edwardes one of her Majesty's Chapel, eloquent and witty John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, Shakespeare, Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Munday our best plotter, Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathway, and Henry Chettle"). Likewise Jonson says in words as plain as day that the person on the picture is the same as the person who wrote the book. He refers to the fact that the engraver could not draw his wit as well as his face and that "since he cannot, reader, look / Not on his picture but his book." It's his picture and it's his book. Same person. Now it is true that SAQ writers have chosen to find hidden messages here. They say that the opposite of the plain meaning is asserted. It may be that this argument is sufficiently notable in SAQ writings to mention here. But it would have to be a very common argument and we would have to point out the mainstream reading of the meaning too. We can't include every argument. I assume that the "eulogy of Oxford" is the poem entitled "TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED, THE AUTHOR, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE". Again the identity of the author is plain. It's difficult to imagine that Ben woulsd refer to an Earl as "my beloved", but of course I know Oxfordians read all sorts of hidden hints into this. However, we can see here that it's obviously a eulogy to the Contess of Pembroke! Should we include that too? As for Meres, this is a very very marginal argument and it is entirely restricted to Oxfordians, who have to explain away the fact that Shakespeare and Oxford are listed as separate people. This would not be appropriate here, sine this article covers all alternate author theories. It would be best placed on the article on Oxfordian theory in which its importance could be debated, since that article too should not be a rag bag of every argument ever invented, but should summarise the main arguments. Paul B (talk) 12:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Re: logging in, no luck, even by turning the machine off and trying to log in afresh. Re other remarks: admirable attempts to be patient concerning my objections to the system as employed in this webpage. To be brief, let's just return to the (in my view pretextual) criticism by Tom Reedy that there was no page number in the Gibson reference I used to establish that the question of the Shakespeare author's identity was a point of contention contemporaneously. This theory revolves around a polemical poem by Hall and a counter by Marston regarding who actually wrote Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. The Gibson discussion is on pp.59-60 en passim. Gibson is a dyed in the wool Stratfordian but he is honest enough to put the controversy in print. The primary evidence is still there, in the guarded ambiguous form that such exchanges had at the time. For our purposes, there does seems to have been a contemporary question of 'Shakespearean' authorship. But the details hardly matter, because the entire edit was rejected on different grounds. Those were that I didn't discuss sufficiently on the discussion page. When I established I had done so, the reverters sought other reasons--not modern enough, et al-- and Reedy arrived at an incomplete citation. None of that at the beginning, so I suspect reflexive bias right off the bat. As for the Meres and Jonson interpretations--we are not going to agree. Meres definitely set up the listing including Oxford and Shakespeare with intention, and I demonstrated the underground message in that. I can as comprehensively show that the introductory poem in the First Folio is a Cardano Grille surface message, hence its very odd almost flippant language for so momentous a literary event. Under terms of the present personnel and respective assumptions, all this is verboten despite that he research has been in print. It is relevant to catalyzing a solution to the historical issue of identity. Thus, I recommended a point-counterpoint approach, whose persuasiveness however would seriously weaken the present academic analysis as represented here. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 17:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You demonstrated no 'underground' message. Instead you give this: "the person addressed as "Shakespeare" is mentioned four times. Vere is a homonym of vier=four in German, a language familiar to Oxford and many of his educated readers." That's not an argument, it's just making stuff up. You could prove Mark Twain wrote Shakespeare this way (Mark is the second gospel; twain = 2. four is twice two = Mark Twain). None of it counts here, since it is not found in scholarly literature. That's what we call "reliable sources". Your arguments are WP:OR. As for Hall and Marston, have you read what they write. It's very very obscure, especially the former. Any number of interpretations are possible. Gibson simply says it's the only Baconian argument that can be taken seriously (and its only works as a Baconian argument) and then gives reasons against it. Do you have any evidence thast mainstream writers even agree with his comments these days? A one off expression of qualified sympathy for one argument is not enough to claim that there is any significant mainstream support for a controversy in Shakespeare's day. Even Gibson does not claim there is a controversy. Paul B (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for providing this explanation Zweigenbaum. For the benefit of other readers, “Gibson” is…

• Gibson, H.N. (2005) [1962]. The Shakespeare Claimants. Routledge. ISBN 9780415352901.

…and the relevant cite is to pp. 59–60 (59–61 actually; Gibson's explanation of Theobald is on 59–60, but his debunking of it continues into p. 61).
I've taken a look at it and it refers to a section where Gibson discusses several arguments made by Theobald. One of these arguments refers to a a satirical poem by the Elizabethan satirists Hall and Marston, which Theobald interprets as referring to Bacon and Shakespeare (under the names “Labeo” and “Cynic”). Based on the identification of these persona with Bacon and Shakespeare, Theobald interprets the poem in a way that he finds meaningful given the identities he has assigned them. Gibson explains this and goes on to point out that there is no reason to assign these identities to the persona of the poem following by disputing Theobald's interpretation. Before launching into this point of Theobald's, Gibson writes “Theobald's next argument is, in my opinion, the one piece of evidence in the whole Baconian case that demands serious consideration.”
While I believe his meaning there was “Everything else is so far-fetch it's not even worth thinking about to debunk”, I'll grant that if inclined to you could make the case that he meant “This is actually a quite solid piece of evidence.”
In any case, I do not see how this is a suitable citation for a claim that there were doubts about the Authorship of Shakespare contemporary with Hall and Marston; only that Theobald (writing in, what, mid 18th century?) had made an argument to that effect which Gibson found unpersuasive.
Did I perhaps misunderstand you? I was under the impression that you would like the article to mention that there were doubts about Shakespeare's Authorship in the 16th century, and that you meant to cite that to Gibson pp.59–61; but Gibson only refers to Theobald, and only in order to debunk the argument. i.e. the cited source does not support the claim. --Xover (talk) 20:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum There is only one relevant point in Gibson's discussion vis-a-vis the question of contemporaneous doubt about the Shakespeare authorship. One poet of the time made oblique reference that there was a pretender. The other (Marston) responded. 'Labeo', a word associated with Bacon because of his family motto, played into the dispute, which to our eyes and ears is highly abstruse. Thus, whether or not Gibson went for the idea, he did point out information indicating there was curiosity and doubt as to the writer of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. That is what I meant by the 19th century NOT being the beginning of doubt about Shakespeare's true identity. As for the Meres reference, though at first exposure you may be skeptical, perhaps read Robert Detobel's 'Shakespeare The Concealed Poet'. He goes into it in far more detail than I could in my tangential reference. You'll see that there is solid substance to the thesis, enough that it opens up understanding of just what Meres was doing in constructing the information as he did. he was both broadcasting that "Shakespeare" was an independent writer, a real person, and, to the discerning literary readers, that just the opposite was the case, "Shakespeare" and Oxford were one and the same. The IO theme [ee-oo] is evident in the Shakespeare canon as well as in Oxford's poetical works, acting as a family identification device embedded in the verse. Thanks for even granting the possibility of a valid contribution to knowledge in this area. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC) Zweigenbaum To provide further proof of questioning or doubt concerning the creations now associated with 'Shakespeare': Price, who is presently RS has, on pages 224-226, a section called "Early Authorship Doubts", with 1595 as the date of an early doubt that she located. Recall that the Hall-Marston exchange was 1597. On page 225 of her book, she states "Edwards became the first to imply the poet who wrote Venus and Adonis was an aristocrat".

Also, McCrea writes on page 21 "The Case for Shakespeare" (Mainstream RS): "some Anti-Stratfordians allege that Jonson's epigram "On Poet Ape", written sometime before its publication in 1616, reveals Jonson knew an actor being used as a front man". Gibson confirms this could have meant Shakspere on p. 45 of his 'The Shakespeare Claimants'. Also on page 21, McCrea writes "many scholars think that Jonson's 'Poet-Ape" is Shakespeare". McCrea's "many scholars" is right there in black and white.

In sum, two RS (one agnostic, Price, and one Mainstream Stratfordian, Gibson) that have written on the subject of early doubts. That this information has been excised from the article lends credence to the accusation that the current editors are selectively editing, i.e., cherry-picking, sources to support these editors' personal or collective views. Shapiro's model of Bardolatry followed by a backlash gets no support from the available history. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 07:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for your explanation. Let's see if I can recast this to illustrate why this is problematic in the context of Wikipedia's policies. Theobald, writing in the 18th century (iirc), asserts that the Hall&Marston poem was intended as expressing either doubt about the Authorship or that it was making veiled references to a specific hidden author. You, here, are making the same assertion, and you are citing Gibson. Gibson on the other hand, only mentions Theobald's assertion and refutes it. That is, Gibson is saying that the Hall&Marston poem is just a poem. In other words, using Gibson as a source we can say 1) that there exists a poem by Hall & Marston; 2) that Theobald, in the 18th century, adduced doubt from it; and 3) that Theobald i wrong and the poem is just a poem (the position Gibson takes). We cannot, still using Gibson, say that there was doubt in the 16th century, nor can we say that the poem had any meaning beyond “the plain meaning of the words” (i.e. without any kind of interpretation).
Now, if we were to cite Theobald we could say that there was a poem in 1597 that he interpreted as referring to Bacon and Shakespeare, but then we would need to assess whether Theobald fulfills the Reliable Source policy, whether his interpretation is still current among scholars (18th century scholarship has usually been superseded by now), and whether his research is generally accepted within the scholarly community. I am being a bit tedious in listing the detail—because my immediate assumption would be that Theobald fails on all these counts and would not be a suitable source for a Wikipedia article—but I wanted to explain why rather than just dismiss it.
From a superficial glance the same problem obtains for your proposed cite to McCrea: the source says that Anti-Stratfordians at some later date adduce doubt from the pre-1616 epigram, but the source itself does not construe the epigram as indicative of doubt. McCrea might be cited for doubt expressed today, based on an interpretation of a 16/17th-century epigram, but cannot be cited for a claim that doubt was expressed in the 16th century. That McCrea thinks Jonson was referring to Shakespeare in Poet-Ape is fair enough (I haven't checked, but I'll assume it's correct), but McCrea doesn't link the two theories (he doesn't believe in an alternate author, he just thinks Jonson was ribbing Shakespeare).
I am here deliberately ignoring the points you bring up regarding Meres, and your proposed cite to Price, in order to try to keep this discussion manageable. We can return to them once we've worked through the Gibson bit.
Finally, I am left with the impression that in your reasoning above you've focussed slightly too much on trying to persuade me that there was doubt about Shakespeare's Authorship even in his own lifetime. You don't need to persuade me of that—whether I believe it or not is strictly immaterial—you just need to show that a Reliable Source thinks it, and show that their view is still current (hasn't been challenged or superseded by other reliable sources). I can't stress this enough, so if you'll forgive the tedium I'll repeat it: it doesn't matter whether the editors on this page believe there is doubt about the Authorship of Shakespeare, it only matters what ordinary mainstream scholars such as Wells, Schoenbaum, and, yes, even James Shapiro say about it. Any argument you make that attempts to persuade us that there's doubt is essentially a waste of time, even if you succeed: we can only report what the reliable sources say. This is the mental hurdle I alluded to previously: the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia is not truth but verifiability. --Xover (talk) 11:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Xover, the "Theobald" he is quoting is not the Shakespeare editor; it is B.G. Theobald, author of Enter Francis Bacon (1932). Tom Reedy (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a mention of very similar allegations in this section:

All anti-Stratfordian theories reject the surface meanings of Elizabethan and Jacobean references to Shakespeare as a playwright and instead look for ambiguities and encrypted meanings. They identify him with such literary characters as the laughingstock Sogliardo in Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour, the literary thief poet-ape in Jonson's poem of the same name, and the foolish poetry-lover Gullio in the university play The Return from Parnassus. Such characters are taken to indicate that the London theatrical world knew Shakespeare was a mere front for an unnamed author whose identity had to be shielded.

It is cited to McCrea 2005, pp. 21, 170–1, 217. If that needs to be further particularised, I would have no objections as long as it is made clear it is an interpretation, cast in the form of allegations and not a fact accepted by the academic consensus, and not exclusive to Oxford (those should be in the dedicated article), since this is an overview of the anti-Stratfordian case(s).

I would suggest you (Zweigenbaum) write what you think should be inserted and post it here on the talk page for discussion. Also concerning your problems logging in: You might be using the wrong password, have you tried clicking on the "e-mail me a new password" button? You can change it once you log in with the temporary button. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The Hall and Marston evidence is discussed in McCrea (pp.137-8 in the edition I use). He points out that the Labeo referred to is a Neronian poetaster Attius Labeo, not the famous jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo, which the Baconian interpretation depends on. Attius Labeo was notorious for his rubbish Latin translation of the Iliad, hence he epitomises bad and derivative poetry. He is mentioned in Persius, one of Hall's models. Hall's Labeo has been identified with various authors in scholarly literature over time - Nashe notably, or recently Daniel or Marston. As McCrea and others point out the other information given about Labeo's output make the identification with Bacon nigh-on impossible. Regarding the "poet-ape" you misdescribe what McCrea says. He says that it may refer to Shakespeare, but that it's an accusation of plagiarism, not of being a front man - only the actual author can plagiarise. So again, this is not evidence of an authorship controversy. Paul B (talk) 16:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum I did request another password, though the original got me logged in; the issue is that being logged in is then immediately countermanded by the edit page of discussion section which says I am not logged in. However, to the immediate last point as indicative of the discussion in general. Whether McCrea thinks Mr. X was not a front man but just a plagiarist, merely opens the reader's inquiry, would either of these be the creator of the greatest English literary works? That is an enormous assumption. We appear to be denying the obvious in search of a locked-tight case against any other person than Stratford Will as that creator. The uncertainty evident from such terms or conditions as "front man", "plagiarist", or contemporary and copious praise for another as "best for comedy" when the theaters were filled with viewers of the comic plays in the Shakespeare canon, plays that had appeared at court in the 1570's and '80's--point to a contradiction in the Stratfordian narrative that cannot be avoided by a disinterested reader. Although Hall and Marston are far from candid as to who and why, their language does deal with uncertain authorship or production somehow some way. They are getting at something representing to some of us a problem existing then being placed centuries later. It isn't just "a poem", ergo thankfully harmless and of no meaning. But all this must be swept aside by seemingly responsible scholarship. And what is left after ignoring the parts that don't fit, is the default narrative itself, repeated and endorsed right down to you gentlemen, respecters of validated or endorsed study. It is the very contradictions that tell you something is missing in that study. I would certainly take up the invitation (for purposes of discussion I'm sure) to provide a paragraph on the matter at hand. That McCrea, Gibson, or any other scholar do or did not believe the evidence of something afoot from the materials they find, will not make the materials null and void of probity toward another thesis. The final question though is what good would that do, if the thesis has not been previously mentioned in the orthodox literature. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum, you are assuming that contemporary writers considered Shakespeare to be the "greatest" English writer. You surely know that Jonson criticised him for sloppiness - writing too quickly and coming up with nonsensical lines because of it. Beaumont referred to him as unlearned, following the "dim light" of nature alone. In any case, Elizabethan and Jacobean writers were always insulting each other, just like Alexander Pope and his contemporaries did. You could fill a book with insults directed at Pope -incompetent, lying, plagiarising etc etc. None of that is evidence that there was an "authorship controversy" around Pope. In any case, it's only possible that the poet-ape may be Shakespeare. It may be no-one - just a type - or it may be one of any number of other writers of the time. I rather doubt Shakespeare is the most commonly identified candidate, but I haven't attempted to tabulate modern criticism on the issue. Shakespeare was both admired and criticised in his day, from Greene onwards. Paul B (talk) 16:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum I see your reasoning. It is just that when I read the following poem by Barnefield, I think something is up with the identity of Shakespeare:

Shakespeare..... Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweet and chaste) Thy name in fame's immortal Book have plac't Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever: Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.

Clearly this 'Shakespeare' wrote Venus and Lucrece, and the Shakespeare NAME is assured immortality. But the person, the 'you' Barnefield evidently knows or knows of, he asks that he live in Fame EVER. Everyone's body dies, but Fame dies NEVER. Why would somebody refer pointedly to EVER and NEVER, which can be connected to Oxford's moniker Ever or Never in the much published 'A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres'? Or to the otherwise innocuous 'you', except that Oxford used it to identify himself in "Sitting alone upon my thought in melancholy mood": you=yeeeooou, or the Earl of Oxford's initials, EO? I just wonder about that poem, when people claim there was never a question or even controversy about the Shakespeare authorship in his time. Why else would this guy be pussy-footing around the ambiguous mix of 'Shakespeare' and the author known by the pseudonym displayed and the non sequitur possibly initializing use of 'you'? But I don't know. I'll leave it to the Shakespeare establishment to teach me inquiry has no place in this study. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 08:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Shakespeare on Trial, Part 1

Is there a reason that the sentence "The verdict came down heavily in favour of the man from Stratford" says 'man from Stratford' instead of 'Shakespeare'? I don't have access to the reference, and I wondered if it was because that's the way the reference framed it. (My contributions are going to lean more toward trying to liven up the prose - I'm not the scholar that some of the others here are.) Kaiguy (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this trial, but what's said in this paragraph is a terribly vague way to declare the outcome of a pseudo-legal process. If we look at how Wadsworth reports it, I imagine a change to "William Shakespeare" or "William Shakespeare of Stratford" would be justified. Moonraker2 (talk) 07:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Changed. Kaiguy (talk) 15:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Updated things to do

The original thread can be found in Archive 20.

1. Ref cleanup. Consistent format, complete bibliographic details.
2. Use of the terms “Stratfordian” and “anti-Stratfordian”. Should this be noted in the text just as a fact of the SAQ jargon that has evolved instead of being in a note?
3. One-sentence paragraphs. I think I've got them all but they should be checked again and edited if any are found.
4. Embedded links—first use only. Dupes needs to be de-linked.
5. Section titles: "arguments" vs. "evidence". Any suggestions? Or is this a problem?
6. Repeated use of 'all' in sec 1.1.
7. Consistent use of italics. I think all play titles, books, journals should be in italics and I have fixed some. But what about Shakespeare's Sonnets, or TV programmes...

We're slowly getting there. If anybody has other items, please add them to the list. The PR can be consulted here. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a reason why some of the books are linked to Google Books and some not? I have just added the Google link for Wadsworth. It is quite useful to be able to search and get 'snippets'.

I think most of the duplicate links have been fixed but I am sure there are still some there. Poujeaux (talk) 09:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I only linked to books that can be read in whole or part, and if I didn't actually use the link to read it (IOW I used the book itself), I didn't provide an access date. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Standards of evidence

I am not sure what the purpose of this section is. The gist seems to be that one group relies upon one set of data while another group uses another set. That kind of argument may be advisable in a case where one group uses the Bible to explain scientific observations while another group excludes the Bible, but to say that the two groups in this article have different sets of input seems nonsensical and confusing to a new reader.

If the standards section is somehow relevant, I do not think that anyone would argue that the Anti-Stratfordians have specialized in cyphers more than the Stratfordians, as the Stratfordians have conducted stylometric analyses more than the Anti-Stratfordians. (My understanding is that cyphering is more definitive of what the Baconians, Nevilleans, and to some extent the Oxfordians are engaged in. Some cryptographic allusions promoted by Anti-Stratfordians have been posited by Stratfordians.)

Perhaps my personal beef is with the word, "rely," even though it is used for both sides in this section. Words such as "emphasize," "specialize," or "concentrate on" would allow that either side was not leaning on one fact or narrow argument to the exclusion of all others.

Again, if this section is somehow necessary to the article, it seems to consider Anti-Stratfordians as the opposite of academic Shakespeareans and literary historians. Again, this is confusing to a new reader who would wonder what the Antis were studying if not Shakespeare and literary history. If the line read, "By contrast, mainstream academic Shakespeareans and literary historians...," I believe few would be confused or feel insulted.Fotoguzzi (talk) 00:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the handling of evidence is at the core of the debate, it is necessary to the article. That particular section introduces the two sections on anti-Strat and Strat evidence and give an overall assessment of the differences, i.e. Strats use historical evidence, which anti-Strats discount as evidence of a conspiracy (for one example). And for all oractical purposes, anti-Stratfordians are the opposite of Shakespeare scholars and literary historians. No Shakespeareans or textual scholars base an attribution on extracting biography from a fictional work, especially stage drama. Now if the author's biography is known, they certainly look for what could be biographical references (see Wells and Taylor Textual Companion (1987, 1997) p. 77), but they certainly don't base the attribution of the plays of Shakespeare on biographical readings. Anti-Strats do.

And the section, with its clear explanations of the differences, unconfuses new readers, not confuses them. The rest of the two sections goes on in detail, or as much detail as the article needs. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Fotoguzzi, I think what Mr. Reedy is trying to establish is that the questioned party has all the evidence and the questioning party has none, end of dispute. I "handle" the evidence exactly as a Stratfordian scholar would--does the information (linguistic, historical, or primary source) constitute clear and convincing evidence consistent with already established evidence, or at least does it form a basis for a working theory toward that clear and convincing evidence? Only by ignoring a tremendous amount of available evidence can the (Stratfordian) theory proposed by the defending party claim proof of their proposition. Hence there is an unfathomable difference between the parties, but that difference is not based upon their proving things differently,as asserted in the evidence section, but on one side insisting on the established bibliography favoring the established and possibly mistaken theory, while the questioning party considers that bibliography and its embedded assumptions subject to logical analysis. For example, Mr. Reedy and Stratfordians generally wish to discount the otherwise universal function of literary criticism, to adduce the life of the writer in understanding the writer's work. This is because there is NO correspondence between the life of the Stratfordian and the Shakespeare canon. The explanation you read above can be analyzed sentence by sentence in that context. Thus a comparison of the two approaches in the Wikipedia site would show contradictory gaps of the questioned (Stratfordian) party. Similarly, point and counterpoint style in the article has been outlawed by Mr. Reedy and his colleagues. The narrative becomes more and more strained under the light of logical analysis, i.e., how can Shakspere be Shake-Speare if he couldn't write his name on his will? Denial thus becomes the primary aspect of the Stratfordian contribution to the Wikipedia editing process. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 05:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum - your characterization of the "universal" function of literary criticism is far from universal, and may even be idiosyncratic. The idea of using literary criticism to "adduce" the life of the writer, to understand the writer's work, is in fact considered a fallacy in mainstream literary criticism. I do not mean to be perjorative, or to introduce a judgement here. My point is that mainstream literary criticism is different from the kind of literary criticism practiced by Anti-Stratfordians (as far as I can tell.) This dovetails with Tom's point - mainstream Shakespeare scholarship and Anti-Stratfordian scholarship in many ways come out of different critical, historical, and scholarly traditions, and an overview of those differences in useful to the reader. I will also say that your discussion above, and elsewhere, tends to move from discussing the article, to discussing the subject of the article. While you are entitled to your opinions, and your passion for the subject can be a great asset toward making this a great article, this talk page is not a forum for discussing Anti-stratfordian claims, but for discussing this article. I fear you are doing more damage than good, especially to casual observers who drift in here. Kaiguy (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum

There is no intention to do damage, --and to speak on the substance of your post, if literary criticism of Dante, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Twain, and a thousand others utilizes some generating frame of reference out of the lives of the artists involved, then that fact contradicts the assertion that no one in literary criticism refers to lives in order to enlighten an understanding of works, presumptuous one to one parallels excepted. As to discussing the article effectively, that appears an impossibility if an entire field of scholarship regarding the inquiry is discounted on an a priori basis. Reference to approved sources on relevant facts that contribute to the alternative view also has a hard time sifting through the net of what is considered kosher. Anyone reading this discussion page would notice an irreconcilable gap between the orthodox and the skeptical and that at present the former maintains the upper hand by majority means. If I point the conflict out, I don't see that as damage but responsible comment regarding a given article. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I tried. If Chaucer and Dante are supposed to be mainstream literary criticism, but no one in the twentieth century is, let that be the final argument for a standards of evidence section. Kaiguy (talk) 17:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Do not follow this, some kind of put-down perhaps. The appreciation of Dante's journey into the Underworld is increased by understanding the metaphors of his contemporary writers, one of whom made an allusion Dante picked up when writing the Inferno. (F.W. Locke, 'Dante's Perilous Crossing', Symposium, Winter 1965) So personal experience properly understood can contribute to an understanding of the allusions in the work, no matter who the writer is or when he wrote. Literary criticism of Dante or any other writer must deal in some way with the social frame of that writer. Arbitrarily or pretextually separating author and life (deconstructionism) has become merely a convenient way for defensive Stratfordian scholars to justify there being NO parallels between the life of Shakspere and the existence of the Shakespearean canon. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 02:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to start a debate, because we've already gone pretty far afield. No one is arguing that biographical information about an author can shed light on his works. Stratfordians (gah) believe that since almost no biographical information on Shakespeare exists, the ability to see the influences of his life in the works is necessarily limited. Anti-stratfordians believe that not only does biography shed light on the works, the converse must also be true - namely, that the works will illuminate the life of the author. (And as Shapiro points out, a good number of Stratfordians do this too.) But this is not the "purpose" of literary criticism; mainstream literary criticism since the beginning of the 20th century (from the New Critics to "Death of the Author" and beyond) has rejected the idea that concrete biographical detail is approachable through the author's works. Ergo, Anti-startfordianism rejects this mainstream critical view, ergo, Anti-stratfordianism uses different scholarly approaches and standards of evidence than mainstream scholarship. (I've tried throughout to be neutral - I'm not saying anti-stratfordians are wrong, or their use of evidence is wrong - just that they use it in ways vastly different from mainstream scholars. The debate began about whether a section explaining this is necessary in the article, and as the back and forth here shows, it definitely is.)Kaiguy (talk) 19:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Well as I wrote earlier in this thread, Shakespeare scholars do look for what could be biographical references (see Wells and Taylor Textual Companion (1987, 1997) p. 77, for a good example), but they certainly don't base the attribution of the plays of Shakespeare on biographical readings, nor do any other literary scholars that I know of except for anti-Stratfordians. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum I assume the position stated here is that respectable literary investigation does not intrude into a given work to state conclusions about the author's life, since that is right or wrong, in any case circumstantial information. However, the legal system, in search of missing persons for instance, do use what is generally referred to as circumstantial evidence. The legal profession comments on the book industry in the following. Towit: "Books, movies, and television often perpetuate the belief that circumstantial evidence may not be used to convict a criminal of a crime. But this view is incorrect. In many cases, circumstantial evidence is the only evidence linking an accused to a crime; direct evidence may simply not exist. As a result, the jury may have only circumstantial evidence to consider in determining whether to convict or acquit a person charged with a crime. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that "circumstantial evidence is intrinsically no different from testimonial [direct] evidence" (Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 75 S. Ct. 127, 99 L. Ed. 150 [1954]). Thus, the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence has little practical effect in the presentation or admissibility of evidence in trials."

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/circumstantial-evidence#ixzz1AZdpqcLu

CRIMINAL LAW/LAWYER SOURCE: http://www.criminal-law-lawyer-source.com/terms/circum-evidence.html Criminal prosecutors often rely heavily on circumstantial evidence to prove their case. Civil cases are often based solely, or primarily, on circumstantial evidence, particularly in cases involving liability.

Thus, circumstantial evidence if it is effective in determining liability or culpability, it may be effective in identifying a given individual. There is little or no circumstantial evidence that in one area, the literary, Shakspere ever wrote anything or was a writer. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence of his usury and business activities. Hence, the assumption that Shakspere was behind the writing known under the name Shakespeare is possibly the greatest circumstantial argument in English literature. The circumstantial evidence is limited to a 1590's payment for acting, association with the Globe and other theaters, names on plays, and a March 1604 dispersal of red cloth as one of the King's players. The literary name, not the person, received praise throughout. Then the 1622-3 writings for the First Folio posthumously glorified the Stratford person. This is a circumstantial record so full of holes, lawyers love to debate it and Powell, Blackmun, Brennan, Stevens, O'Connor, and Scalia of the Supreme Court doubted the validity of the argument Shakspere wrote Shakespeare. I would recommend a demonstration of circumstantial evidence for Oxford's contention, just to be fair, and see if it is persuasive. That Shakespeare scholars do not use circumstantial evidence is no reason it cannot be used in this solitary case in English literature wherein a fraud and deception may have been committed and a person who could write the Shakespeare canon may be missing from history. This is why the legal profession loves the study. Their position is, if Shakspere were tried as writing Shakespeare, he would walk. But literary historians who have painted themselves into a corner hate the idea of having to defend their case. Only by eliminating the entire concept of connection between life and work can the Stratfordian hypothesis keep from collapsing. It may be a losing game. Standards of evidence in this webpage does not benefit from delimiting means of understanding the topic, simply because the Shakespeare field has made that mistake. It may become a laughingstock if it does not face up to the field's unnecessary denial of practical methodologies because these instrumentalities may weaken that field's side of the argument. Or it may be miles ahead of the field it reflects, if it shows a circumstantial argument can be credible. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 07:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum, you really need to stop debating the content issue here. You are soapboxing, please stop. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum As I understand the webpage's standards of evidence, it endorse only commercial published academic monographs by mainstream Shakespeare scholars. This automatically cancels out the body of scholarship, mainly by amateurs and lawyers using conventional canons of inquiry, that place this issue in the controversial arena. To ignore "circumstantial evidence", for example, and therefore make it a bad word not even to be brought forward by Wikipedians, is to perpetuate a slanted perspective of the subject matter. Hence a discussion such as I offered, with the next step being alteration of the standards of evidence, is a proper and necessary stage of the editing process. 98.207.240.11 (talk) 06:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

@Zweigenbaum: I have explained at User talk:98.207.240.11 that the log-in problem is solvable: search WP:HELPDESK and if necessary ask there. Yes, "amateurs and lawyers" are not usable as source here. This page is not the place to debate that very firm aspect of Wikipedia's policy (it would be pointless, but if you did want to challenge it, you would first examine the relevant policies starting with WP:V, then propose a change at WP:VPR). You will understand why Wikipedia follows this strict rule if you contemplate how many enthusiasists exist on the Internet, and how they would love to use Wikipedia as a platform for their views. If you want to continue this discussion, please find another place because this talk page is not appropriate for any further contemplation of Wikipedia's policies. Johnuniq (talk) 08:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

One-sentence grafs

There are several one-sentence paragraphs in the article that I can see no elegant way to change, especially in the last part of the history section where an incident doesn't deserve more than a summary sentence but is distinct from the incident before or after it. Any suggestions that won't lengthen the article? Originally it was a giant list written in the present tense, which is one reason why it is written so compactly. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I just split one of those into two. The last one doesn't really fit anyway - why is the sentence about Shapiro's book in the section on TV and the internet? Could it be moved or just deleted? Poujeaux (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the section should be titled differently? Shapiro's book is the most important book published about the topic in decades, he's a real Shakespearean academic, and he makes the point that academics should engage the anti-Stratfordians instead of ignoring them, among other points. Tom Reedy (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I've rewritten the last sentence and retitled the section, but I don't think it's very satisfactory. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I combined several at the beginning of the section - it seemed they were all about increased media coverage of the SAQ in the late '80's into the '90's, so I added a sentence at the beginning (which I hope isn't too controversial). The Other Candidates Emerge section, though, has me stymied; I can't think of a way to incorporate some of those paragraphs into a larger one.71.10.86.108 (talk) 17:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The only ones we need to worry about are the one-sentence paragraphs, and if they're introductions, like the one at the beginning of the major candidates, I think one sentence is probably fine. (I do need to remember to source that, though.) Tom Reedy (talk) 18:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, this was me. I didn't realize I wasn't logged in, so there's a couple of edits that'll have my IP instead of Kaiguy (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Strat and Strat terminology

How about something like this to replace the note we now have? I cribbed it from the Baconian page.

Those who subscribe to the theory that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him have come to be referred to as "Anti-Stratfordians", while dubbing those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians".

As far as I have been able to discover, the two terms were first used almost simultaneously in "The Shakespearean Myth", by Appleton Morgan, Appletons' journal, Volume 8, p. June 1880, but of course we can't include that in the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is my suggestion, exactly as it would be presented (in italics, with no bold, but with no indent in the article):

Those who believe that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him are known as "Anti-Stratfordians", while those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works are dubbed "Stratfordians".

Someone is sure to add {{cn}}! Johnuniq (talk) 03:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this an improvement over what is currently there, and if so why? Personally, I don't really like 'dubbed' or 'dubbing'. If we want to avoid the cn question we can just start with "In this article,...". Poujeaux (talk) 13:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The other problem is that most Stratfordians don't consider themselves Stratfordians most of the time. The term is used only in the context of the SAQ.Kaiguy (talk) 16:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

How about something more like this - "Those who subscribe to the theory that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him call themselves "Anti-Stratfordians", while dubbing those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians". Makes it clear that both terms are Anti-Stratfordian terminology.Kaiguy (talk) 16:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always disliked the Strat/Anti-Strat terms, and this looks like a good solution. (Shakespeareans and Anti-Shakespeareans would have been a contender, but it seems to be too late now.) --GuillaumeTell 18:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I like Kaiguy's solution (mostly) as well. Not that I see anything wrong with the note as it is now, but then I don't know the background as well as others here. Mainly I'm chiming in to voice my agreement with Poujeaux: "dubbing" strikes a discordant note to my ears, at least in this particular context. Why not "calling"? "call"..."calling" maintains a parallelism that I think would work. --Alan W (talk) 02:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

For me, the trouble with 'Shakespeareans' and 'anti-Shakespeareans' is that it changes the terminology used elsewhere. So long as there are established words for the meanings needed, wouldn't it be odd for Wikipedia to decide it could do better?

No doubt the vast majority of people, asked who wrote the works of Shakespeare, would say Shakespeare, but I'm still not sure about "orthodox", which might suggest some preference for that view. How do people feel about "the majority view"? Moonraker2 (talk) 03:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

From Wiktionary - Orthodox, "Adhering to whatever is traditional, customary or generally accepted." If anyone has an argument that the Stratfordian stance is not orthodox, but merely the majority opinion, let them make it. I know there's some thinking that there may be a NPOV problem there, but I think I've seen Anti-Stratfordians refer to the orthodox position, i.e. call themselves (with pride) heterodox. Otherwise, I think "Those who subscribe to the theory that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him call themselves "Anti-Stratfordians", while calling those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians"." works fine. (I changed 'dubbing' to 'calling' but I also like 'designating' for the second clause of that sentence - something in me chafes at using call/calling twice like that.)Kaiguy (talk) 05:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well it is not up to Wikipedia editors to change convention based on our personal judgements; we must report the conventional terminology, not insert our preferences. It did begin and remains terminology used only in discussing the SAQ, though, and was promulgated by anti-Stratfordians as an attempt to reframe the terms of the debate and put their ideas on a par with the academic consensus by referring to it as merely another view (or -ism, as you will) with no more claim to validity than Baconism or Oxfordism. Academic Shakespeareans no more refer to themselves as "Stratfordians" than geologists refer to themselves as "round earthers". Tom Reedy (talk) 14:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Let me try to deconstruct this… A Wikipedia article should not invent its own terminology. The terminology used should be either plain English, or it should be the established specialist terminology in the relevant field. If the Strat/anti-Strat terminology is the accepted nomenclature in the reliable sources it should be used equivalently with other terms of art. If it is not the accepted terminology it should not be used at all. Specialist terms that the reader may not be presumed to know should be briefly explained on first use, or should be wikilinked to an article explaining the term. There is no reason to specially privilege the Strat/anti-Strat terms over a term like Bardolatry. Thus, whether to use the terms is dependent on what the accepted terminology in the field, as evidenced by the reliable sources, actually is; and whatever the outcome of that determination there should not be a note such as is here used to explain them.
I would posit that the terms are not actually the accepted terminology in the field, rather they are terms invented by advocates for alternate authorship theories intended to elevate their position to equal standing with the academic consensus. Scholars in the field certainly don't go around referring to themselves as “Stratfordian”. As it happens the term “Stratfordian” was only used in three places in the article; of which I have neatly avoided two with some simple copy-editing (which had the positive side-effect of improving the two containing sentences in the process). The only remaining use is in the heading for the External links section. This section is far too lengthy (Wikipedia is not a directory of Internet resources) and needs pruning (and I think the perceived need for headings in this section is a good rule of thumb for when there's too many crammed in there). I am particularly concerned that we're currently describing sites providing further information on the subject of the article as if it belonged to a “camp” or “side” (“Stratfordian”). The remaining links should also be examined for utility for the reader in light of the external links guideline, and in particular whether they are proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.) and contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail […], or other reasons.
I have not yet attempted to find a better formulation of the sentences that currently use the term “anti-Stratfordian” (there are quite a few of them in the article), and I expect that doing so will be difficult without damaging the quality of the prose. I have, however, hopefully reduced the scope of the problem somewhat by eliminating the need to take the term “Stratfordian” into account. --Xover (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of comments on the above: first, as far as reliable sources are concerned, it could be said that none of the "evidence" produced by "Anti-Stratfordians" counts as reliable sources; second (and possibly more constructively), when I first got involved in Shakespeare-related articles here, the expression that I remember was "authorship doubters", which, I see, now appears only three times in Wikipedia, and one of those is a redirect. Might this be resuscitated, or was there some good reason for its (almost) disappearance? --GuillaumeTell 23:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I just now saw this after restoring a use of the term "Stratfordian" to a sentence that didn't make sense without it.

The two terms are accepted jargon of the authorship topic, and many of the books and websites use the terms with no pejorative connotations, but merely as a shorthand way to refer to one side or the other. It is true that mainstream Shakespeareans don't refer to themselves as "Stratfordians", but then again most mainstream Shakespeareans don't argue authorship except in the most cursory fashion. Shapiro uses the term Stratfordian only four times, all in quotes, and he doesn't use the term anti-Stratfordian at all. I'm sure that is deliberate. Kathman/Ross use antistratfordian 15 times on their front page alone, but Stratfordian not at all. McCrea uses Stratfordian four times and anti-Stratfordian 31 times, about the same proportion as this article does. So just from that limited universe I would say that the terms might be on the way out, which would, I think, accelerate if academics finally grow a pair and confront Oxfordians directly instead of sneering in their cloistered offices far above the unwashed crowd, but so far it has not become universal.

While the terms were invented (we guess) as an attempt to frame the argument with more equivalence than warranted, the fact that the anti-Strat term is used much more often than the Strat, simply because the term is simple, concise, easy to understand, and necessary. "Authorship doubters" is not concise, and reminds me of a Victorian Latinised form of a straight-forward Anglo-Saxon term. Most Strat writers use "Oxfordian" almost as a generic term since they dominate, but that is not accurate enough.

Anyway, that's my 2p. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Look here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Anti-Stratfordian. So we can use a wikt link instead of an explanation if we wish. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The one sentence in question is this:

When lagged two years, the chronologies of Shakespeare's plays yielded substantially meaningful associations between thematic and political context, while the alternate chronologies proposed by Oxfordians yielded no relationships, no matter how they were lagged.

To which you (Tom) express that you feel the qualifier “Stratfordian” (as in “Stratfordian chronologies”) is necessary. I would suggest you reexamine this: why is, for example, the linked article called Chronology of Shakespeare's plays and not Stratfordian chronology of Shakespeare's plays? You're running into the very logical cul-de-sac that was the intent of introducing those terms: you start feeling a need to qualify that which needs no qualifier. The default throughout the article is the scholarly consensus that Shakespeare wrote the plays, and that if one refers to a chronology then it is the commonly accepted one. Thus, only the deviant chronologies proposed as alternatives need be qualified as Oxfordian. --Xover (talk) 09:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I only think it's necessary when the two are directly compared. Maybe "accepted chronologies of Shakespeare's plays"?

And how do you feel about using the anti-Stratfordian term? As I pointed out, it's efficient, specific, and accepted terminology within the field. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Trivial point

I notice that the name "William Lily" is piped to an article entitled William Lilye. OK, it says "or Lily", but wouldn't it be better if the link has the "correct" form of the name, assuming that "Lilye" is correct. Even if we don't know which name, if any, is better, it just seems to me that it would look better if the two articles are in synch. Is this the sort of thing that might be raised at FAR or is it too trivial? --GuillaumeTell 18:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd say change the name of the Lily article, which currently is a bit like titling the Shakespeare article "William Shackspear". "Lily" as grammarian gets 10 times the number of Goggle hits compared to "Lilye", and Google books gets 20x. (For your amusement, see this edit.) Tom Reedy (talk) 19:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The article itself indiscriminately spelled it "Lily" and "Lilye", and the article on his son is spelled "Lily", so for the sake of consistency as well as common sense I've changed it. Paul B (talk) 19:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both, and I was indeed highly amused by the edit that Tom pointed to. --GuillaumeTell 21:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That was wonderful. The sentence was apparently created by User:TheoClarke, a hitherto unknown Greenist. Paul B (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that all editors who insert such material are consciously promoting an alternative theory. You'd be surprised how many people have never heard of or don't care about the SAQ. I've noticed that a goodly percentage of Wikipedia editors take what they read on the Internet at face value if it has some type of academic patina, which is yet one more reason why this article needs to be neutral and factual. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Very likely. And rules about OR, RS etc were far more relaxed back in 2005 when that was written. BTW, TheoClarke created the article as "William Lily". The "Lilye" spelling was only preferred because another article on him already existed under that spelling. The two were merged and the older one given precedence. Paul B (talk) 12:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What about the "Lyly" spelling? Tom Reedy (talk) 13:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Changed one in the Bacon alternative candidate section to Lily. I don't see a reason not to just go with that. 71.10.86.108 (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

That refers to John Lyly, whose name used most commonly to be spelled Lilly, while Lilye/Lily is a different dude. Of course this is all almost arbitrary. It used to be normal to spell Shakespeare "Shakspeare". Now only certain persons who shall be unnamed do that. Paul B (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops. Teach me to be bold. Kaiguy (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I actually like variant spellings, and wish we still had some leeway with them. Variant spellings are used by Shagspere (one of my favouties that he used on his wedding bond) to shade words, such as the solid/sallied/sullied in Hamlet's first soliloquy, which delivers simultaneous meanings to the subconscious. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My favorite is Marlowe's spelling of his name as Marley. Not only is it a fascinating look at the phonetic pronunciations of the day, but it also undermines the whole Stratfordian technique of refering to Shakespeare at Shaksper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.10.86.108 (talk) 23:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit - Anti-stratfordian. And I meant to sign it, and be logged in.Kaiguy (talk) 18:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

A wedding bond was written by a clergyman or his clerk; almost always they considered they knew how to spell names far better than their owners, so they saw no need to ask. As we know, the notion of names having a correct spelling came much later. It looks careless and inconsistent now to use a variety of spellings for the same name, so we see the need to choose one version and to use it consistently. The challenge this poses is that very often there is no clear choice, it's just a matter of fashion. It's an interesting question how achieving consistency is to be dealt with at Wikipedia. The matter comes to a head when there is a discussion about a recent or proposed move from one name to another. I see Paul moved William Lilye to William Lily (grammarian) a few days ago without any objection being raised to that on the talk page there. I suppose the page will keep that name until someone else has a different idea. Meanwhile, the mechanism of the redirect will preserve the other spellings in different places, until some user with an obsession systematically goes through all the links and creates an artificial consistency. Unhappily, the judgement of such users is often doubtful. Moonraker2 (talk) 06:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Unearthing Proof

I wonder what people would think about changing the name of this section. Since none of the attempts to 'unearth' proof here were successful, I suggest changing it to something like "digging for evidence", or "proof" or something. There's also some smaller but somewhat substantial edits I'd like to suggest in this section: a) in the second paragraph, the second sentence reads "His dredging machinery failed to retrieve the concealed manuscripts" - I'd like to change the ending to "any concealed manuscripts" as I feel now it suggests that there are in fact manuscripts there, he was just unsuccessful in retrieving them, b) there are several references to "deciphering" or "decoding" that to me, imply that the idea that they were encoded or enciphered is correct or accepted. I'm not sure what the solution is to that phrasing, or if this is just my own bias creeping in, and it should be left alone, and I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on these. Kaiguy (talk) 06:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "unearthing" isn't the right word here. The section is about some strenuous special efforts, rather than the general search for evidence. How about "In search of proof"?

I also agree with changing "the" to "any". The expression " believing she had decoded a different message" is surely fine, but perhaps the same approach is needed earlier. "Orville Ward Owen used his famous cipher wheel to decode detailed instructions..." might become "Orville Ward Owen used a cipher wheel to decode, as he believed, detailed instructions..." Moonraker2 (talk) 07:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

"Unearthing" was probably meant to be a kind of joke based on the idea of digging up graves. (I'm not defending it). This whole history section does need some work - in fact someone, I think Xover, recently suggested getting rid of most or all of it. Poujeaux (talk) 14:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No, Xover was referring to the "Case for Shakespeare" section and inadvertently used the wrong section number, which got picked up by Nina as support for her dismantling and parcelling out of the article sections. He has since recanted his heresy, although only after a few days on the rack. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

As to the "unearthing" title, I think we were trying to be a bit too clever by following Shapiro, so another title is probably more appropriate. As to the other, we were trying to keep a straight face while reporting their claims and rely on the reader's good sense rather than spoon-feeding him or her at every turn. The "as they believed" or "supposedly" gets boring and repetitious after a while, and there's really no need to state the obvious, except for the fact that a few editors have pointed it out as a possible misreporting, so that should probably be made clearer, given that it will probably be quoted as proof they did find a cipher otherwise. (Ciphers and puzzles are still being found and touted by Oxfordians and Marlovians, which is usually interpreted as a sign of decline of the theory, given that they usually emerge after no other supporting evidence has been found.) Tom Reedy (talk) 14:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Kaiguy, I suggest you be wp:bold and edit the page. I don't think anyone will bite your head off. Not immediately anyway. Those phrases either sound like anti-stratfordians making assumptions, or (more likely) stratfordians being a bit sarcastic. (Shapiro says "he never found those hidden manuscripts"). My first non-trivial edit [7] was to remove something like this. Poujeaux (talk) 14:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright, changes made. I'm just a bit gunshy about being bold, especially due to the history of this page. I'll probably continue to give it a day or so on anything more substantial than copy editing for the near term.Kaiguy (talk) 15:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it's good to have more people editing the page, as there is a myth that it is all done by Tom and his friends and nobody else is allowed to change anything! In fact there are other places in the article where this rather inappropriate tone is used - see for example the last paragraph of the Bacon section. Poujeaux (talk) 09:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been a lurker for quite awhile, before deciding to get off the bench. With respect to the last paragraph of the Bacon section, I'm torn between trying to change most of the 'discovered' into more scholarly hedges (which is an ugly and inelegant solution to say the least), or just removing the entire paragraph and letting the Bacon page deal with ciphers. Anyone else have thoughts on the matter?Kaiguy (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggest recasting the first two sentences and making it clear that ciphers are an important part of the Baconian case and letting it go at that. You might drop the rest of the material into the Baconian article for later use, whether in the article itself or the talk page. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:47, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, in this case, since none of the alleged ciphers have been validated, no “scholarly hedges” are needed. To write “discovered ciphers in Shakespeare” is flat wrong, and the correct formulation is something along the lines of “they thought they discovered ciphers” or “they discovered what they thought were ciphers”. I'd say keep it but fix it; and I wouldn't worry too much about possible inelegance, I'm sure it'll be fine (or at worst someone will recast it later in a copy-editing run). --Xover (talk) 19:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Changed. I left discovered alone with the anagram - I may debate whether or not it is a cipher left by Bacon, but I won't argue the anagram or the latin. The rest are more hedged now, which I can live with.Kaiguy (talk) 04:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

As one old editor of mine used to say, you need to get back in there and wrestle with it some more! "maintained to have discovered "?!?! You did pretty good with the paragraph combining. Now go show those words who's boss! Tom Reedy (talk) 04:52, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I have some thoughts about this passage, but I will hold off in case you, Kaiguy, are still wrestling with this (hopefully not quite so violently as Tom suggests :-) I'll check in again later. --Alan W (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that edit was late at night. Still, that's what I ended up with? Let me give it another shot before I tap out. Kaiguy (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest something using "she". Tom Reedy (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed a couple of hyphens in that para that didn't belong, so, while I was in there, I also tried out "she", which is one of the alternatives I had been thinking of. Also, I broke up that long sentence, so the para advances the argument in three stages: (1) Introduction, looking back to Francis Bacon's interest in ciphers, (2) Windle's "discovery" of a cipher, inspired by both Bacons, and (3) the ensuing cipher craze. --Alan W (talk) 21:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Commas and Quotations

Starting a new section here, as the above section is getting too weighed down with a miscellany of concerns. Xover, your guidelines about style, tone, etc., make a lot of sense, and it's good to be reminded of such things. I would like to add my own reminder, regarding commas and quotations. Apart from commas that are part of the quoted matter—a separate consideration—it is British style to place a comma after the quotation and American style to place it within the quotes, even if it is not part of what is quoted. These at least are the prevailing editorial practices. Wikipedia style, however, always places the comma outside the quotation. (I recall an expression from my days of U.S. military service: there's the right way to do a thing; there's the wrong way; and there's the Army way. Read "Wikipedia" for "Army", and you have our situation here.) I am emphasizing this because as an American I know it is too easy by force of habit to quote in the American style, and that often results in a number of commas in quotations that do not belong there, scattered through an article. Probably there are not many here, as most of you seem to live on the other side of the big pond, but we should keep this in mind. As you see I've been pitching in a little with these matters of style and punctuation, but my time is limited now, and I can do only a bit at a time. (This stricture applies also to full stops—periods to us Yankees.) --Alan W (talk) 16:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

More on Punctuation

Another new section, as it is getting increasingly difficult to find anything in this discussion I want to refer to.

I believe I have fixed all cases where footnotes need a terminating full stop. (Of course I still might have overlooked something, but the situation is better than it was.)

I found one instance where it was the closing quotation mark that was missing. I was not sure whether it belonged before or after the full stop, as I don't know whether the latter is part of the quoted matter. On the face of it, it looks like it would be, and I added the quotation mark after the full stop. But if someone has the Matus book handy and can check this, that would be best. This is footnote 32. --Alan W (talk) 00:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I checked it and you are correct. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Lead and image caption

The caption to the image in the lead reads "Shakespeare surrounded by (clockwise from top left): Oxford, Bacon, Derby and Marlowe, all of whom have been proposed as the true author." The lead mentions "including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Derby". It's trivial, but is there a reason these are in a different order? If the caption were change to start from "top right" (instead of "top left"), the order would be alphabetical (Bacon, Derby, Marlowe, Oxford), and the lead could be changed to match. Is an adjustment like this worthwhile? Also, instead of "all of whom have been proposed as the true author" how about "each of whom has been proposed as the true author"? Johnuniq (talk) 09:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Another point which occurs to me (and has done before) is that "the true author" is rather vague, not going on to specify what they are suggested as the authors of. It also seems to suggest that Bacon, Derby, Marlowe, and Oxford are all proposed on much the same basis. I can't immediately think of how to address this. Perhaps it doesn't matter very much in a picture caption? Moonraker2 (talk) 10:02, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the four main candidates are proposed on "much the same basis". The standard model in all cases is that they wrote the plays, and Shakespeare acted as some sort of front man. All versions allow for the view that this was a Deadly Secret between the two, or an open secret, known to the literati of the day (and thus allowing for coded messages to be included in their works). There are some variations. Baconians often liked to imply that their man only wrote the Noble and Elevated stuff, but that the rude jokes and knockabout material was added by Shakespeare himself. That's also true of some Derbyites and Oxfordians. It's obviously less likely to be said of Marlowe that he wouldn't write knockabout material. He's also less likely to be involved in group authorship, since he's in hiding. But I don't think there is an essential difference between the way the four main candidates are presented as hidden authors. Some of the minor candidates involve distinct variations on the main model. Paul B (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetical order seems good to me. The list as it stands is semi-hierarchical, rather like John, Paul, George and Ringo - arranged in order of grooviness; though I see Paul as more of a Bacon than an Oxford myself, whether or not he's dead. John's Oxford, the mercurial one. Paul B (talk) 11:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

IMO any change would be trivial. It is given by the title of the article that the "true author" phrase refers to Shakespearean authorship as opposed to any other authorship. They all are proposed on the basis that Shakespeare couldn't have been the author, which is the main thrust of the topic covered here. "Each" for "all" would be correct. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Romanticism and Self-Revelation, Again

Somewhere in the dark backward and abysm of this talk page and its archives, I called attention to the problems engendered by framing the authorship question in terms of "Romantic" notions and "self-revelation", at least without considerable qualification. My qualms returned when I just reread the section "The case for Shakespeare's authorship". I think that my small edit pinpoints the kind of self-revelation that is relevant here, and I don't think that anything is lost in this context by omitting "Romantic". --Alan W (talk) 04:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Alan, I think, if one wanted to, one could make out a counter-argument about romanticism and self-revelation, using any number of passages from Keats (negative capability) and Coleridge. There was a strong concurrent view, wasn't there, that Shakespeare was great, in a distinctive way, because he embodied every kind of human temperament or could think in any mould, hence was most himself, when (neg cap) being no particular self other than the one the immediate dramatic instance required?Nishidani (talk) 06:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely, and an excellent point! Coleridge, Keats, and Hazlitt, too (who influenced Keats's thinking about negative capability), all emphasized Shakespeare's unparalleled ability to hide his own character and "become" any of dozens of other characters as the dramatic occasion demanded. All the more reason to avoid associating anti-Stratfordianism with the Romantic period in any kind of specific way. --Alan W (talk) 00:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I meant to add that in the interim I have read Shapiro, with much enjoyment, so that I might gain at least a little better idea of what this is all about, and I think that the gist of his argument supports my focus on self-revelation in the specifically autobiographical sense, even if he doesn't always make that explicit in every sentence on the topic. --Alan W (talk) 04:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

SAQ FAQ

I think we probably need to think about drafting an FAQ for the SAQ because of all the past contention and the issues that new editors keep bringing up because they're not familiar with past discussions and dispute resolutions. Talk:Muhammad, Talk:Global warming, and Talk:Barack Obama all have FAQs. I realise we're going to be going to FA soon and that's going to be a lot of work, so any concerted effort at creating an FAQ will have to be put on the back burner, but we might want to start thinking about it. Thoughts? Tom Reedy (talk) 23:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. We could probably do the same for the Shakespeare article too. Wrad (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to remove all the ref quotations from the article and place them on the FAQ page, maybe put a link on the ref to the quotation? Has that ever been done? Tom Reedy (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Er, no. The FAQ is meant to supplement the discussion/editing aspect of the article, not reading. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

References and duplication

It looks to me that all we lack on the list is formatting the references and a few refs. Xover started them and I've worked them through "G". If anybody wants to help it's pretty much self explanatory; just be sure to add the harv temp at the end. It might also be best to post the range of refs you're working to avoid someone working on them simultaneously.

I also noticed some duplication between the history and the candidate sections, especially in the Bacon and Oxford entries. Possibly the history could be cut down to a mere mention and it be left to the candidate sections to explain it in a bit more detail (now I wish I hadn't delinked the candidate sections!). Anybody want to have a go at it, lead on.

Once this is all done I don't see why we can't go to FA and let them take a look! Tom Reedy (talk) 05:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

---

I have processed the remaining citations, transforming them as had been done for earlier ones. I'm pretty sure I did this accurately, but I did it on remote control on the assumption that "ref = harv" should be added to each, without checking if that was in fact appropriate (although I think it is). There are a couple of minor issues I will fix in the next day or two (at least one inconsistent space after '|'), and I'll look at the order of the fields.

The following refs use "chapter-url=". I have not fully investigated, but it looks like it should be just "url=" (and "chapter-url", if used, should be "chapterurl" according to {{cite book}}):

• Bate 2002 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ck4HsjjC0SgC&pg=PA103
• Londré 1997 http://books.google.com/books?id=E4vHMEMdbvIC
• Nevalainen 1999 http://books.google.com/books?id=CCvMbntWth8C&pg=PA332

Should these just be "url="? I'll fix it with the stuff I just mentioned. If anything else routine like this is needed, let me know. Johnuniq (talk) 09:42, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

John those links go to the cited chapter in a book of essays. The page isn't available for Londré, so it just goes to the book. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the refs thing is not about formatting the wikimarkup, it's about making sure that the resulting displayed reference is formatted consistently. As an example, in one of our FACs, the reviewers seized on inconsistent placement of dashes within ISBN numbers (which will always be inconsistent as ISBNs are of different lengths and conventions among publishers vary), so the only way to make them completely consistent is to remove the dashes entirely. Another thing that has tended to come up under the heading “consistency” (which I would rather have termed “accuracy” or “completeness”, but…) is the inclusion of place of publication (i.e. “Oxford: Oxford University Press” rather than just “Oxford University Press”) everywhere that the information is available. Another point they've raised—this time under “accuracy”—is actually missing or imprecise/inaccurate bibliographic details; such as leaving out one of multiple editors on a work, or not including the name of the “work” when citing a web site (using {{cite web}}) or the name of the publishing entity (usually, the publishing organization). We also need to wikilink the names of presses (i.e. Oxford University Press), authors/editors, etc. Titles of works must be correct in capitalization (and there are some odd ones out there), and employment of italics or more rarely boldface. In terms of more technical stuff we need to make sure all the dashes used in the refs are correct according to the Manual of Style, such that, for instance, page ranges are separated by an “–” (ndash) and not “—” (emdash) or “-” (plain hyphen).
Once the references are dealt with we need to inspect the inline citations for consistency: particularly how we separate multiple citations inside the same ref tag, and how we terminate each such citation. The exempli gratia is that we are (IIRC) currently inconsistent in terminating inline citations with a full-stop; some just dangle without any terminating punctuation.
And finally we need to make sure all the references included are actually cited in the article. It's remarkable how often I've run across references that aren't actually cited in various articles. I don't think there are many in this article, but it needs to be checked.
As for FAC, I agree that the article is probably close to ready for an attempt at FAC; but nominating while the ArbCom case is still pending would be, I think, suicide. The “anti-Strats” would, somewhat justifiably, be outraged and probably kick up a right shitstorm, and the FAC itself quickly devolve into the worst excesses that we've observed on this talk page. I would expect a nom like that to be quickfailed under the “stability” criterion fairly soon. --Xover (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Found and fixed a few stray hyphens that should be en dashes in number ranges. (Except in file titles and ISBNs, where they must be left as is.) --Alan W (talk) 04:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Just jumping in here, but ref formatting and consistency is one of my review areas at FAC. If someone wants to ping me after you're satisfied with the formatting, I'd be glad to check it. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That was quick! Thanks to all, especially since I know next to nothing about what I'm doing with those; I only followed Xover's pattern and hoped I was doing it right. Xover our serial refs are separated by semi-colons until the last one, which uses a full stop.

I semi-understand about the furore that could erupt, even though all the time they had it to themselves they never even tried to get it up to GA standards, but we can wait until the ruling. One thing I thought about reading Smatprt's comments is possible adding a few sentences about Diana Price, which is thought so well of by anti-Stratfordians. The problem is that it hasn't had a response from the academy, and pointing out that it is merely an extended argument from silence and an example of selection bias (and that's not even mentioning that her facts in a few categories are a bit, shall we say, creative) would be OR without that, and from my reading an academic response is necessary to include her arguments. I know that type of evidence is favoured by anti-Stratfordians, but including it without any source to point out its defects would be unbalanced. McCrea and Shapiro touch on her lightly, but not, IMO, enough to include her. I'll review them both again and see if something can be included.

If anybody else has any ideas, please bring them up and we can use this time to polish even more. It is amazing how much work has been done on the past few weeks. When this is all over I'm taking a long vacation to some place that has no Internet access! Tom Reedy (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

We shouldn't go to FAC, but we can get a good peer review from someone like User:Awadewit or User:Qp10qp. Wrad (talk) 19:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sadly both Qp10qp and Awadewit are essentially unavailable right now, but, yes, we can request either a(nother) Peer Review or hit up the League of Copyeditors for a review or copyedit, etc. I'm sure we could all manage to apply a bit of polish too if we applied ourselves: Tom and Nishidani have probably stared themselves blind at the text (at least I would have had it been an article I'd contributed so heavily to), but everyone else should be able to bring fresh eyes to bear. In that vein, here are some things you could look for:

• Tense—Subtle shift from past to present tense, often triggered by something in the sources you're consulting, tend to sneak into every article. It's generally a good idea to write articles about history in the past tense; but try to make sure you used it consistently and you will have watched out for abrupt changes because they have ruined the flow of the text.
• Context—When you're familiar with a topic you tend to weigh down the text of the article with meaning that is not actually there in the plain words on the page; and for articles on controversial subjects this goes double. It is very likely that the article contains formulations that are contorted to counter or avoid a meaning that isn't actually present in the text, it's just there in the author's mind as baggage from the talk page or from other such meta-levels. If you dissect the text to remove instances of this problem, you can often find much simpler and elegant ways to get the point across to what is most likely a reader without this contextual baggage.
• Affinity—When you write, you echo your sources. Even if you change every single word you are still likely to bring along the conceptual approach. For instance, if you are using a fact from a source that treats the fact humorously (makes a joke about tasty Bacon, say), your instinct will be to treat it humorously in the article, even if you avoid every word of the original joke. Reading through you can often spot these as incongruities between objective meaning and the tone of the sentence. If the language is light, perhaps even flippant, while discussing something sombre; or using flowery language to recite a list of facts. There is a particular risk of this where the source material is in a narrative style (like Shapiro's 1599, e.g., is), which is seductive but ill fitting with Wikipedia's primarily neutral tone (what's referred to as “encyclopedic”; it's supposed to be a bit on the dry and stuffy side!).

I am, admittedly, more apt to honor these in the breach than the observance—and there are plenty of other things to watch out for—but looking through the article for this kind of thing might turn up any number of little linguistic warts that could be improved. --Xover (talk) 08:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

@Xover: Thanks for those details which I will investigate in due course (I have already done some checking as suggested). Formatting the wikitext was a first step (and consistency is good).

I confirm that Alan W has fixed all hyphen/en dash issues.

I have never fully understood WP:LQ, so would someone please check these:

• Search the article for ,' and ," and decide if the comma is in the correct place.
• Search for each of the following and decide if the period is correct: straight biography." and for the world." and common players."

Re "chapter-url" above, would someone please see what it says at {{cite book}} and confirm what is needed (Tom's reply sounds as if it should be replaced with "url" in at least one case). While trivial, I assume we should not use "chapter-url" with a dash because that is not documented. Johnuniq (talk) 08:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A cursory check suggests the commas are incorrectly placed: they're placed inside the quotation as common non-Wikipedia style guides often do, but do not appear to be a part of the original quotation, or they could be left out even if they were. Note that this applies only to those instances found within the article text and not to those instances where the quote is itself part of a quote from a source (i.e. in the citations). All the instances I saw of ,' were within the citations and were quotes inside of quotes that should be left as is. A useful guiding principle may be to never alter the quoted text by inserting punctuation, and another that quotations should only end with punctuation when they coincide with the end of a sentence in the article (i.e. it will be a full-stop or question mark most of the time).
“chapter-url” is unambiguously wrong, even if it happens to work, as the documented param name is “chapterurl”, and these should be changed. The usage I am more ambivalent about. The “url” param is intended to link to books that are entirely available on the web—such as at archive.org or Project Gutenberg—and the “chapterurl” as a more specific link when the book is not on a single web page but split out on several pages. However I am considerably skeptical about the use of links to Google Books (which is a commercial service designed to sell advertizing, that it is inappropriate for us to privilege above other such services like Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble) since they duplicate the functionality of Special:Booksources with less functionality and because, as far as I know, Google Books links are not stable (that is, the URL may one day without warning point at an entirely different book). I acknowledge that they can in some cases be a utility to the reader—i.e. as an aide to WP:V—but I also weigh the contrary arguments quite heavily. One approach that might work would be to link to Google Books only for books that are so old as to have no ISBN and who are available as full-text on Google Books but not on archive.org or other such ideal ventures. --Xover (talk) 08:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A good example of the problem with Google Books: of the three links at the beginning of this section, two are intended to point directly to the relevant page/chapter and one is intended to point simply at the book in general; but due to Google Books' regional restrictions and various implementation details, only the last link actually takes me to a specific page, the other two just lead me to the info page for the book. IOW, the destination of the links will be different for each reader, and is likely to be different based on when in time the access is attempted. --Xover (talk) 08:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That is disappointing, as I find the Google page links helpful and often use them myself. I'd like to understand this problem better. The first of the three links is to the right book (although dated 2004, not 2002) but on the page which comes up for me I read "no preview available". No access date is given in the citation template. If there is a regional restriction, does anyone know who can follow the link and who not? Moonraker2 (talk) 09:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that there is no documentation on how the Google links work, but experience shows that a link to a Google book may produce markedly different results for different people. I think that those in the U.S. have the best access, presumably due to friendly copyright laws, whereas in other parts of the world (inferred from the IP address of the user), access may be quite different (no preview available, or only snippets preview, or just some pages). I have heard it said that the recent history of the user's IP address can also influence the result (e.g. if it looks like the user is reading a lot of stuff online, they will find their access restricted). I have not previously heard the suggestion that a book link may change to point to a different book, but I would agree that there is no guarantee that a link will be stable. In practice, there are many cases where the link has been stable for an extended period.

I am sympathetic to the concerns expressed by Xover, and have seen other editors express those views. Yet the Google link is often so incredibly handy that it seems unhelpful to remove the book links due to commerciality concerns. In the discussions that I have seen on this issue, no conclusion was ever reached (i.e. I do not recall seeing consensus say "remove the links"). Johnuniq (talk) 09:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The links are in practice are quite stable (keep pointing to the same book), and I'm fairly certain there is no general consensus on Wikipedia to remove them (or the opposite). While I believe there has been some discussion at FAC about this, I do not believe I've seen it turn out to be a make-or-break issue (perhaps Nikkimaria has a better idea of this?) However, keep in mind that for most books the included ISBN number will link to Special:Booksources which in turn will furnish links to a great many sources for books; including, most prominently, Google Books and Amazon.com, followed by a whole host of topically specialized or regional services (e.g. one lets me find the work in my local library). Based on previous discussions I believe Tom was unaware of this feature, which I surmise has influenced his decision to include the Google Books links, and may suggest that it would be appropriate to reassess this choice. --Xover (talk) 10:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There was an RfC not long ago about page-specific GBooks URLs (URLs which link to a specific page of the Google Books view), which pretty much resulted in "Don't remove them if they're there, don't add them if they're not". ISBNs are generally required, GBooks links are generally not. Personally I dislike the page-specific GBooks links, simply because I'm not in the US and as a result they tend not to go to where I want them to (because of copyright restrictions), but you are allowed to include them as long as you also include ISBN and page number for deprived people like me. As for other FAC reviewers...some will complain about them, but as long as your formatting is otherwise good it shouldn't be a dealbreaker. In short, it's up to you, but if you do decide to include them make sure you still provide complete citation information. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If Special:Booksources links to Goggle Books I don't understand why Xover would object on the grounds of commercialisation that the refs for this article link there also. The links are stable in my experience, although there's no guarantee, but then again there's no guarantee that any Internet link is eternally stable, including Wikipedia's. As to their universal availability, it is correct that some countries don't have full access, but isn't that true of some of the files of Wikipedia? My understanding is that some files can be uploaded to Commons while others have to be uploaded to Wikipedia on account of differing copyright laws.

I tried to link to Google books only if it had a preview or unlimited view. Those that have no view or snippet view I didn't link to, although others have added those. Rather than delete them, it doesn't hurt anything to leave them there, IMO. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Special:Booksources includes Google Books among the list of things it links to, but it also includes free sources like Project Gutenberg and OpenCat. The issue of link stability is partially related to the issue of availability - for example, if you have an unlimited view of a particular book, you might choose to link directly to page 20 of that book. However, if I only have a preview of that book, the link that gives you page 20 might give me an error message, or page 30, or the book's information page - none of which are particularly helpful to me. As for the image issue, that's a red herring - even if certain images are uploaded locally because of their copyright status, those images are still visible to everyone. A book on Google Books, on the other hand, will not be visible to everyone. The links to GBooks with no view that you mention aren't harmful in and of themselves - however, they aren't helpful, and they do increase the size of the page. YMMV. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

So IYO should we delete all Goggle Books links, keep only the ones with unlimited or partial view, or what? My understanding of the page size is that it doesn't include the refs or images. When measured like that, the page come sin less than 75kb. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion we should delete all the Google Books links, except for the cases where that's effectively the only way to get at the source. Or possibly rephrased as, we should delete all the Google Books links from the article where a trip through Special:Booksources will get you to the same place. IOW, only add them where needed because a better mechanism is not available for whatever reason. --Xover (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll go either way on this, but one problem I see is that format is driving content here. It is very helpful for readers to have the links without having to go through Booksources, which I just now figured out how to make work. The primary purpose of anything in an article should be to help the reader, not to slavishly conform to an arbitrary standard for the sake of--what, exactly? Tom Reedy (talk) 01:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)