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Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
We have this sentence: "In 1834, the Palestine Association was integrated into the Royal Geographical Society." For this we have one weak source and one strong source. The weak source is one sentence in an encyclopedia that makes the stronger claim that the PA "joined" the RGS. When one organization joins another, it retains some existence of its own (think of a country joining the UN), which didn't happen here. But leaving that pedantry aside, the other source is so good, straight from the horse's mouth, that weak sources should be ignored. Here we can read exactly what happened. It was 1834 but the PA had held no meeting since 1805 and had no research activity since 1809. That's 25 years. So for practical purposes it was defunct, but it still had some assets, namely some money and some papers and books. The 1834 decision was to donate those assets to the RGS, nothing more. There is nothing here about merging, joining, or integrating. For one thing it is entirely unilateral, but any sort of integration would require a formal decision by the RGS—where is it? The source does not even say that members of the PA would automatically become members of the RGS, which would be the most basic requirement of integration. So I think this sentence should be replaced by something like "In 1834, the Palestine Association, which had been inactive for 25 years, was wound up and its assets were donated to the Royal Geographical Society." Zerotalk 00:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
Are there sources which say what this either "integration" or "winding up" was considered to be at the time it happened, such as in RGS records or in its journal? I agree "integrated" seems an overstatement, but while it might be true, or effectively true, saying "The 1834 decision was to donate those assets to the RGS, nothing more" is OR without some supporting source, and to change the article's wording to agree with that OR would also be OR I think. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
(I wrote a lengthy reply but forgot to click "save", poor me.) I've changed the text to match the wording of Kark+Goren. They call it "closure" and "disbandment", but then they also (without any reference or explanation) say "incorporated into the..RGS". So be it. Zerotalk 10:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
