Julie, your emails are very strangely formatted. It is hard to tell what is your writing and what is Stan's. In this letter, it might seem confusing, but I am responding to both.
--- Julie Kemp juleskemp@yahoo.com wrote:
Stan wrote:
I think you're touching on the root of frustration here. Wikipedia is supposed to be a secondary source, not a primary one, which means that every factoid in it should be extracted from somewhere else, preferably from the published work of a recognized authority.
Yes.
**Actually, Stan, you misunderstand the difference between primary and secondary sources. I think you may mean that the 'pedia is not supposed to be articles that are original research? If that's the case, what I am saying is neither original nor is it new. If for some reason only other encyclopedias and general popular history and lower-division texts are considered appropriate as sources, but not scholarly books and articles meant for a narrower audience (or even primary sources) then we are truly working towards the lowest common denominator. Just because it hasn't trickled down to the mass audience doesn't make it cutting edge or some wild theory.
Wikipedia is supposed to report *everything*. Not just the old stuff or just the new stuff. We are supposed to report both the old theory and the new one, and say that they are *theories*, not facts. And Stan's definition of primary source was accurate. Your definition included only a part of it.
When there are multiple authorities disagreeing with each other, it's a difficult situation for editors. For instance, you've alluded to latest research or latest trends among historians, but is the latest trend authoritative? Not really, because maybe it's just a fad and will be discredited by an article - maybe even one of yours! - a year from now. Although we'd always like to pick up the latest info possible, in some cases I think we have to hold back, just use what is at the most recent edge of consensus, and note that more recent claims are not yet settled.
Again, we should write about all theories (if possible). The cutitng edge and the traditional. If someone wants to report on the cutting edge, while leaving out the old stuff, then what can you do? All you can do is write about the old things yourself. What article are you reffering to?
**How very patronizing -- again, this idea is hardly new. The 1982 version of Hollister's "Medieval Europe" first published in 1964, says that Charles the Bald became sole ruler of West Frankland, "which evolved into Modern France" (p.106). The implication is clear that there was no France at this time -- approximately 300 years after Clovis.
**The crux of the problem is that we are using modern boundaries and modern concepts of nations anachronistically. **For example, Edward James' book, cited on the page in question, is about the history of France -- it's been a while since I've read it, but I would wager money that he calls the Merovingians kings of the Franks (rex francorum). Yet the book is called Origins of France or something like that -- why? Because we want to know where the France of today came from, and its modern roots are in the post-Roman, Germanic world of the Franks (not to mention all the Roman and Christian things they adopted. You might notice that the books Jacques cites are fairly recent -- in academic terms as recent as the Geary books I cite -- and I could name others, if I didn't have a ton of papers to correct. By the way, what makes you assume that I am stating a view not currently held among those people whose studies focus on the period?
Merovingians as not-French is definitely in the radical rethink category, and it may be a decade, or a generation, or even longer, before it comes to be generally accepted.
** Why do you think this? What evidence do you have? Even Anthere admits to the possibilities of what I am saying.
Until then, trying to edit Wikipedia based on the assumption that the assertion is true is going to be hard; you're going against an army of editors who are backed by a horde of published authorities with reputations much higher than your own.
**Again, that's pretty patronizing. Did you read at all what I had written? It includes the fact that French people traditionally consider Clovis a king of France, but that this is not properly true, in that France didn't exist. In fact, have you read any of the discussions on the talk pages (where there are a couple of comments that demonstrate that a compromise view makes sense)? And, since you have jumped into the fray ready to tell me that, as nice as they are, my views just don't jibe with what "most people know based on published authorities," I have to ask you one question. Why exactly do you think you have enough background knowledge on the subject to tell someone who has probably read a lot more on the subject for the past 15 or so years, including reviews of the books I haven't yet gotten to (which means I have an idea of what colleagues think of these newfangled theories) that her judgment as to what is accepted and what isn't, is in question?
JK -- building up the first scream
All presentation of history in a definitive tone is somewhat biased. This may sound bad, but Wikipedia should use an uncertain tone, only quoting others, never just stating facts. This can go to far, though. I don't know where to draw the line between unbiased and bad writing, and I face this problem often. --LittleDan
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