Helsned

Need help with the Carl Adolf Feilberg article? Victuallers (talk) 20:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi :) Thanks for helping with the early Queensland lists and the Pugh article. Just thought I'd also let you know re collaboration that there are two Australian noticeboards which may be of interest or use in the future - one is the Australian Wikipedians Noticeboard which is used mainly for alerts and general discussion, whilst the Indigenous Australians project discussion page is more specialised and people with a specific interest in that area will have it watchlisted. Look forward to seeing you around! Orderinchaos 02:59, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot guys -

Yes 'Vic' certainly I am new and not used to it so I always welcome a bit of assistance and suggestions. Your cutting down in my excessive use of words was good ty. Right now I would like to see that automatic remark on the top disappear, I don't think this article is in any need of references, links and notes. There are certainly no 'multiple issues' any longer. But but I have a few things I will add down the track and certainly a bit of editing when I find time. - Helsned 9 Feb 2010

Yes 'Orderin' I hope you don't mind me removing the 'Hon' but it seems to me that we either keep check on all of the honorables or or we should keep none. I could see that there were at least two missing and I think probably a few should be added, and thought you be better of leaving them out and then explain in a future biographical note. I also noticed that my friend Atkin was missing so I added him and 'William Walsh' was always spoken of as W.H.Walsh and if people didn¨t like him they would just say 'William Henry' - like a naughty child - that made him very angry :) . so wee needed to add his mid name. I will make more contributions down the track. But this will be it for now. - Helsned 9 Feb 2010

Thanks for the info - and yes, removing the Hon is fine in those circumstances. Most of these lists, I did because they weren't there on the basis that "you can't fix something that doesn't exist, so having something slightly flawed but basically correct is a good start", so corrections and improvements are always welcome.

Re names - as the sources I used were almost always official Parliamentary ones, what they were known by was largely unknown unless the record was kind enough to state it. I can't imagine too many people in colonial Queensland, especially those below the ruling class, to have used their full names in normal use. So if you see one that's clearly out like the ones you describe, don't hesitate to fix it ... if ever in doubt about stuff just make the change anyway and make a note in the edit summary and either myself or someone else who has it watchlisted can give it a second look. Orderinchaos 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes this is my opinion too, we add a name and a few things we know, perhaps as a stub and that might inspire others to improve on it. So far I am very impressed, I think WIKIPEDIA and the like sites is the future, it is so much easier to improve, add and correct information for others to go on using. - Helsned 10 Feb 2010

Duncan McNab

Interesting article – wonderful photo – thanks for your hard work :) -- Hebrides (talk) 06:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

thankyou, it is only a small beginning, there is much to say about this wonderful fellow - Helsned 13 Feb 2010

Member lists

Hi - I've re-reverted your recent changes, per conventions for these member lists. I'm happy to put some of them back if you can provide a source. We never include future titles (like Earl of Ducie) in these lists (the member at the time had nothing to do with the Earldom of Ducie, even if he did later), and we generally try to avoid titles at all. (There are a few discussions on this in the archives of WT:AUP.) As for your party designations - it's common practice to use "unaligned" to represent the fact that there were no parties, but if you can provide a source that they were known at the time as Independent Liberals or Squatter-Conservatives then fine. And welcome to Wikipedia! Frickeg (talk) 21:08, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Look I am a historian who are specialised in 19 century Queensland political history, the reson why I added his later title is that it provides a link to a brief biography on this man. I have provided a source. Indeed I was the one that put Waterson listing on all members in there as source, there were no other sources on this list before. I have already begun a small biography on William Henry Walsh, the others will follow. You cannot put peoples first name in without providing at the very least the initials to their mid name. You have to take the period into acoount. If yoy read the Hansard of the period you will find the man you refer to as Henry King - as 'Mr H.E. King', this is how he was known to most Queenslanders in the 1870s and he was a very high profile politician, a reference saying 'Henry King' is useless. It might work today where it has become common to use peoples first names and ignore mid names, but it does not work in the period before about 1950, and certainly not when dealing with nineteenth century. apart from that 'Henry King' is too common for anyone to identify the man, and eventually we will have to correct it anyway when we set up a biography for him.

Look there is no reasons to shorten peoples names, there is plenty of space and it only makes it impossible to create a link to his later biography. Be consistent then, reverse also my correction of William Henry Walsh back to the William Walsh it was. That will of cause cut his name of from his biography, but you need to either treat them all alike or not.

Earl of Ducie is in fact this mans name from the moment his installed as such, it is thus more than a title. I can see though what you are saying but for the moment he is in fact biographed on wiki as the Earl of Ducie, not as BB Moreton, as he was known in Queneland, nor as Berkeley Basil Moreton which was his full name.

I suggest that you follow strictly Waterson naming of all politician, it is the reference source and the corect way, what you do here is simply incorrect and it means you are making it difficult tro look up people or connect them to future wiki biographies.

Now that was for naming - as for politicc - you are also here inconsistnetn. Political parties, as we know them, did not come into existence before some time into the 1890s, when they used the phrase 'political party' before that time they were thinink of what we call movement today. 'Unaligned' is a nonsense phrase and foreign to the period, it was called independent in those days and ideed it still is. Yet most of these people were not genuinely 'independent' or unaligned, they were connected either to the conservative side (in the days before January 1879 (to give you the exact date) commonly called the squatter side of politics or the 'Squatter Party' or they belonged to the 'Liberal' or 'Great Liberal Party' (although none of these parties were actaula parties as we understand the phrase). Anyone that know the period knows that e.g. John Douglas always referred to him self as a liberal or independent - liberal. But as I said there were no parties as we know them and unaligned is nonsensical, unaligned from what?? The I put the term Independent - Liberal in there because that exactly how John Douglas described himsef to the electorate of Maryborough in 1875 - you only need to read his election speec. Please accept the revision - I have read the speeches and I know the sides of politic these people by own declaration belonged to - if you do not want that - then again you ought to take the consequence and remove all 'party' references from the list - like the names, it is an either or - you cant do one thing one place and another in another place.

Now Waterson's listing IS the reference work, follow that and you will be alright

helsned 9 Mar 2010

OK. I think a major part of your earlier objection comes from a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works - this is completely understandable, of course, since you're a newbie. (In Wikipedia, that is - I'm not impugning or doubting your knowledge of Queensland politics.) We have a process called disambiguation - the most common way to distinguish people with similar names is to have a qualifier in brackets after them (as in Alexander Hay (Australian politician)), or if there's still a conflict to use the full name. Obviously in cases where the full name is the name they are known by, now and previously (very, very rare), that's fine. (As for Hansard - I'm not a novice there either and although I'm more familiar with federal and NSW records I know that it is common practice to have ALL of them referred to by their initials. Hansard is not an indicator of common usage - unless you want to move Robert Menzies to "R. G. Menzies".)

To use the Hay example, we then format the link like this: [[Alexander Hay (Australian politician)|Alexander Hay]], which produces Alexander Hay. That way the link is still to his article. There is no reason why this would not work in the aforementioned cases. I've had a look at William Henry Walsh (Australian politician) - that page needs to be moved anyway. It can be either at William Henry Walsh (since there isn't another one) or at William Walsh (Australian politician). Either way he can be linked appropriately in the article.

As for shortening people's names, have a read of the Manual of Style. In all instances we use the most common version of the name. We have Billy Hughes, not William Morris Hughes. Notice that where the person was generally known by the initials, that's where they are: H. G. Nelson, for example.

We do not have retrospective titles in lists - ever. That is Wikipedia policy. Even if Morton's page ends up under the name, the name we display (after the | in the link) must be the name he used at the time.

I do not have access to the source to which you refer, but if it's valid then there's no reason not to accept it. I don't pretend to be an expert on early Queensland politics.

As for parties - as you say, they were arbitrary groupings. Generally we don't allow people to give affiliations to themselves - we either use the party they belonged to (in early cases where this was not as strict as it is today we follow general historical agreement). Regarding "unaligned" - this is the term used across the Australian Politics WikiProject to distinguish members from a time without parties from members from a later time who were nevertheless independents. If you think the term is inappropriate, feel free to raise it on the project's talk page.

A few notes about Wikipedia - these are intended solely as helpful hints to you. Firstly, you can sign your name automatically by having four tildes (~~~~), which will automatically generate your signature. Secondly, we have a policy called bold, revert, discuss. This means that you can be bold and make a change, but if someone reverts it then you discuss it before reverting back. I'm not going to revert your changes back until this is resolved - that would be counter-productive - but for future reference if you change something, and someone reverts it, you can't change it back because eventually you'll end up with an edit war on your hands. And they're not pretty, and usually end up with people being blocked.

My only other advice to you (I remember when I was a newbie, and this was the only thing that worked): just keep familiarising yourself with the guidelines - this will come with time. I've had a look at your article on Walsh and it's broadly OK, but there are some style issues here and there. Also be careful with proper capitalisation, etc. You can check this sort of thing by clicking "show preview" just next to "save page".

Finally, I'd like to say that it's great to have someone interested and knowledgeable about early Australian politics - as a whole our coverage on this area is pretty poor, so I'm sure you'll be a great asset to the project. Frickeg (talk) 05:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Well I accept this with the title re Moreton, yet the other names I have coreccted is indeed to corrected the names they were and still is known as: meaning H.E. King is indeed always referred to as Henry Edward King (certainly never as Henry King), RB Sheridan is either Richard B Sheridan or Richard Bingham Sheridan in Queensland historical books, and we are in all cases talking about a widely known historical figures. The same goes for B.B. Moreton, this is in fact how he was known and is mentioned in our history. If you do not want his full name (as he is mentioned in the ADB), then it should at least be Berkeley B. Moreton, otherwise he is not recognisable. It seems logical that these people should be mentioned in this list in the manner they were and still is known to history, that, according to the guidelines should indeed also be the case. So I still do not understand why you reversed my corrections without asking or explaining yourself first. I made my corrections based on the quite in depth knowledge I have on these individuals. I still do not understand why a pertion who is widely know to history as a liberal - as is the case with John Douglas, one of the most outstanding liberal Premiers in Qld history, should be put under the term unaligned, it is quite frankly odd so also Robert Mckenzie one of our most outstanding Squatter-conservative Premiers. I have thus corrected Richar Sheridan to Richard B Sheridan and Henry E. King (whom I still think should be Henry Edward King as this is how is was and is known. I do find it problematic that to talk about 'Australian politicians' at a time when no such thing existed. We are here deling with the period before 1901 - so there are no such thing as an 'Australian Politician' they were either a Queensland New South Wales or a a Victorian or other colonial politician (I have consequently corrected this accordingly although I do not find it necessary in the case of Sheridan - with his full name he is perfectly unique). It cannot but remark that I do find it a bit odd that you are so convinced about your ability to make such corrections and yet you do not know about Waterson, who is the principal biographer for both NSW and Qld parliament. - Helsned 9 Mar 2010

First of all, I have gone out of my way to be courteous and civil to you, so I don't appreciate you impugning my ability in these matters. I have admitted that I know little about early Queensland politics, and as an amateur I can hardly be expected to have access to many of the doubtless important works, and I do my best with what I have. I might just as well ask you how you are so convinced you can edit Wikipedia without a thorough knowledge of the guidelines. We all have to start somewhere, and I certainly use the ADB a great deal, even if I don't have access to more specialist texts. We are all amateurs here, and while professional qualifications are a help they are by no means requisite. My corrections were based on Wikipedia policy, which seemed to be to be contravened. I hope you don't mind my saying so, but they were not very well formatted and showed little knowledge of the Manual of Style; I have thousands of pages on my watchlists that I patrol and I see very many of these kinds of changes. I explained myself in the edit summaries which is more than adequate for this kind of thing. I agree with your conclusions above about King, Sheridan and Douglas. If the Squatter-conservatives were an actual grouping that was formally affiliated in parliament, as opposed to an arbitrary description along the lines of "conservative" and "liberal" as used today, then I have no objection to including them in the tables. I'm still perfectly happy to help you with regards to Wikipedia in any way, but I must say a little friendliness and courtesy never goes astray. Frickeg (talk) 08:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Look I admit I was taking a bit back by you just reversing my additions without even initially giving me an explanation. I just saw that I could certainly enlighten people about the political affiliation and proper name of these individuals, that is all. I have been working with the historical records of these people for some years now on a daily base. As I said earlier, formally organised political parties did not exist neither inside or outside parliament in the period before about 1890, and it is the same world wide - the first actual genuine modern meaning formalised structured political party was the Labour Party or Socialist and Socialdemocratic party, they simply copied their structures from the Unions and in doing so they forced the others to take change from loosely organised movement like 'parties' to a more formal organisational structure. However, they still used the word 'party' in those days, indeed they used it frequently, but what they meant was what we today call a movement, and in parliament a loosely structured cooperation between men (it was always men) who were like-minded.

Now up until 1878 there were two so-called parties in Queensland, one was the 'Squatter party' - called so by its opponents - who viewed themselves as the 'Liberal Party' and was scathingly referred to by their opponents as the *Great Liberal Party'. But none of these groups were parties as we undertstand it today. But as a parliamentarian you were in fact always either an independent conservative oriented or you were an independent liberal - the third group were people who referred to themselves simply as 'independent' of either side - thinking that they were simply representing their electorate - yet in real life that rarely last very long.

Some squatters were classical British conservaties, and can be viewed as Tories - that why I used the phrase 'Tory-conservative' - they viewed themself as the future Australian aristocracy and quite literally wished to establish an aristocracy here - other conservatives were more like the right wing liberals or national party of modern Australia - in Queenskland they organised their forst govt in 1879 - Labour only took its place in the 1890s splitting the old liberal movement. But the language and expression you use simply do not fit into the political landscape of the 19th century.

I am sorry if I have been a bit rough in saying this though but as I said I was taking a bit back by this sweeping delition without expplanation - but yes I am new here and I certainly are only beginning to understand this tool, but so far it seems alright to me and I am certainly willing to learn and listen - but I do like to see a reason explained if my suggestions meets a thumbs down. - Helsned 9 Mar 2010

Fair enough, and thanks for your reply. Perhaps we could say that we both could have given a bit more explanation for our reverts! As I said, if you've got a source that calls them by those names (and evidently you have) then I have no particular problem with it. I understand what you're getting at with unaligned, but I suppose at least keeping the colour as white identifies that they were not parties as we know them today. And by the way - was William Henry Walsh better known as William Henry Walsh or as William Walsh? If the latter, either of us could move it ourselves (to William Walsh (Australian politician)), but if the former we'd have to get an admin to do it since there's a redirect in the way. (The current name is superfluous as there's only one William Henry Walsh.) Frickeg (talk) 22:51, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Wiliam Henry Walsh was always known as such if not as W.H. Walsh. People in this period were not in the habit, as we are to day, of using only first and family name and then forget the other names. That,. exactly is why we should not impose such a thing on them now. They were in that habit of marking all of their names with initials and then use only the surname. That at times meant that they had more than three initials before their surname as in W.R.O. Hill (a well known public servant by the name William Richard Onslow Hill) and W.O.Hodgkinson, They and their contemporaries, would never dream of removing from existance any of the mid names as you guys continually do in this list, that is some late 20 century (un)habit. Quite the contrary, all names mid and first was always carefully marked out with initials, and at rare occasion their full name was used, never a shortened version although in some rare occasions a nick name such as 'Bill' or 'Bobby', but that was only in informal circumstances. So it is also in history books from this period and should also be when we dealing with them now, otherwise they are not easily recognised. Take the fellow here marked as 'John Macrossan', indeed a highly influential politician and several times minister, no history book or primary source would dream of writing his name this way. He was either John Murtagh Macrossan or J.M. Macrossan - so it should be also in this list here. William Henry Walsh was never anything else - his daugther later said that even his own wife literally addressed him as 'Mr. W.H.Walsh' when once a journalist really wished to upset him he wrote a full article referring to him only as 'William Henry'. Now that was considered an insult as big as Mount Everest, like treating him as a child, had he added his surname, it would have been alright.. He responded childish too, by the way, but it illustrates my point, dealing with people before about 1930, if not further up, you need to make sure that at least all initials are there, preferable the full name. So yes I think it very wrong indeed the way his name is put here, it also forces us to make additionally trickery to get him connected to his biography and Probably the (Australian politician) could have been rendered unnecessary as his name is sufficiently unique went written in the full. Also, 'Australian politican' is an after 1901 thing, there were no such thing before federation - if I did not know better I would thing the fellow to be a 20 century person, and he certainly was not - yes I am the first to add a source to this fie and I shall now follow up with the later register- Helsned 10 Mr 2010

Personally I think it's great that you're able to help us out - I remember when I started four years ago and there was this blinding array of syntax and linking methods and refs and so on to learn. The "Australian politician" thing is merely a disambiguator rather than an actual description - keeping in mind it's an international encyclopaedia, it's so that people can tell two similar named entries apart, so its "a politician from down there" instead of a "politician from up here" (UK, US, Canada, wherever) when someone reads that. (We only tend to use the state ones when there's ambiguity within Australia, as sadly not many people outside Australia know what they mean.) Obviously accounting for middle names in cases where the sources consistently use them will reduce the need for this, as there's hardly likely to be two "John Murtagh Macrossan"s :)

Part of the problem has come about because the official records (and even the newspapers in many cases) keep the same notation well into the 1970s, by which stage the societal conventions which produced it had been long abandoned. For instance a Western Australian minister and deputy opp leader was consistently referred to as "H. D. Evans" in both the papers and in Hughes and Graham's Handbook of Australian Politics, the bio register notes he was called "Hywel David Evans", but all *other* documentation (eg Labor Party publications, people's memoirs, interviews etc) refer to him as "David Evans". WP has a "use most common name" guideline, so he's listed on WP as David Evans. With my work on 1930s and 1940s candidates for Queensland I've found bizarrely that almost everybody went by a nickname at that time - so Ned (Edward) Hanlon, Rex (Reginald) Pilbeam, Mick (Michael) Kirwan, Ted (Edward) Theodore, etc, with T. J. Ryan being a very rare case of where all sources agree on the initialled name. So I'd agree we're probably guilty of making assumptions that things proceeded unchanged from the 19th to the 20th.

I've moved the article to just "William Henry Walsh" - like I said before if you see any others that need renaming or re-linking (for those that don't exist yet), let me know and I can sort it out - I have an automated tool which can find all links to a name anywhere on the encyclopaedia and fix them with a few clicks of a button, so it's probably the sensible way to do it (I did that for B. B. Moreton a few days ago after you changed the 1873 instance of it). Most of these lists were authored by myself anyway, and I pretty much just followed our project's existing convention for how to do them - so I'm happy to work with you to find better ways of doing things for the historical ones. Orderinchaos 05:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

And re party affiliations (separate issue), agreed that "unaligned" is incorrect. Reading the debates surrounding the introduction of the Divisional Boards Act 1879 (something I want to have an article on), introduced by McIlwraith not long after his election, I can see there were clear ideological lines in Queensland by that point. Going from the papers and from Hughes & Graham (which unfortunately only starts in 1890) there is clear evidence of in many cases a "Ministerial" and an "Opposition" faction (entirely useless terms in my view but a lot of the sources use them), and some "Independents" who were not purely independents but were simply neither M nor O and had a clear stance which I'm hoping sources will emerge to document.

From I think the 1883 or 1888 list onwards (I couldn't find reliable info before this period), I'd been using "Liberal" or "Conservative" when the Courier identified such a grouping. There are periods (eg 1890-1903) where it seems the forces somewhat merged and so we've used Ministerial and Opposition per Hughes & Graham. The confusing one was around 1907-1909 when the Liberal party and some moderate Labour people merged together at a time when parties were identified only by their leader, with the press consistently talking about "the Kidston party" or "the Kidstonites" - so I broke from our usual convention and identified them as such. (The previous way of doing it had the bizarre effect of claiming they changed affiliation several times!) I'm in the process of aligning the electorate articles to the lists over time - gradual process. :) Orderinchaos 05:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Orderinchaos I am in the process of adding Duncan Waterson biographical index as a source to all of the Qld lists, and I will gradually update information accordingly. The reason is that Waterson IS THE source, also to the Qld Govt online version, they are just taking the naming a bit easy, but if we are not going easy on such details we will then edn up making wikipedia a more reliable source, and I think that is worth while - Helsned 10 Mar 2010

Re:Amongst Cannibals

That was not my writing. All I have ever done with that article was to add a link to Carl Sofus Lumholtz' WIkisource page. The source of that line was User:Drazur, who has never made many edits at all to Wikipedia. If you believe the line should be changed, by all means go ahead and change it. --Eliyak T·C 19:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I do not use wiki near enough and it is at times difficult to see who the author really is. But to other who might object, I have made a slight chance to the sentence

"It should be pointed out that regardless of the title of the book, Queensland Aboriginals were not (and still are not) known to consume human flesh."

to

"It should be pointed out that regardless of the title of the book, Queensland Aborigines were never known to hunt for human flesh as a source of food."

I thus agree with the intention, but I think this was perhaps slightly overdone. I do not think any human culture on earth ever was in the habit of hunting for human flesh as a source of food. Which is not the same as saying that it never happened. Indeed such thing do occur in all cultures, cannibalism happened in a murder case in Germany only a few years ago and there are description that it equally happened in other circumstances, amongts other in China during the cultural revolution where people were starving. However Lumholtz overdid this thing, no doubt to sensationalise and boost the sale of his book.

However there are some evidence to suggest that what may be classified as ritual cannibalism, meaning consuming sections of a dead body, either as a mark of respect and grief as part of a funeral ritual or to appropriate the spiritual strength of a slain enemy, were not uncommon. I believe that it was this aspect which was frequently misused to in a degrading manner, so as to make excuses for genocidal behaviour, dispossessing and murder people of another culture and skin colour.

James Morrill who had lived for seventeen years until 1862 with the Bindals near present day Bowen - a neighbouring tribe to the one encounted by Lumholtz some 20 years later - always strenuously denied that this tribe or any of their neighbours were ever engaged in eating the flesh of their enemies. Yet he spoke of a frequent practice of dissecting the bodies of slain enemies aimed at conquering and internalising the spiritual powers and to prevent the spiritual resurrection and multiplication of a slain enemy. The Bindals and their neighbours used to, he wrote,

…cut their enemies up in strips, dry them and distribute the pieces through the tribe, by which means they think they have their enemies’ strength added to their own, and that they will be lucky in hunting and fishing.

Morrill was not a racist or classically prejudiced man. Indeed, he was a plain man but he left no opportunity to defend his friends and there are evidence to suggest that this was not an entirely uncommon thing, also that kidney and kidney fat was collected from dead enemies exactly as described by Lumholtz. It was seemingly believed that a man's spiritual mana was connected to kidney's.

Helsned (talk • contribs)

Max Eastman

Please don't insert your own opinion into articles, like you did at Max Eastman. Corvus cornix_talk 07:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This particular section

At the end of the preface he cites Upton Sinclair for the statement that Eastman's conversion from Bolshevism to the extreme anti-big-government free market economy merely meant that he had "gone from one extreme to the other". Certainly this does seem to have some merit, not the least considering Eastman’s characterisation of the Norwegian democratic welfare state as, "they have produced the closest imitation of an authoritarian state to be found on this side of the iron curtain."

was certainly not 'my own opinion' - I simply extracted citations from Eastman's own work, for the reader to contemplate

So you are saying that throughout his life Eastman never seemed to be able to truly grasp the concept of democracy. is not your personal opinion? Corvus cornix_talk 08:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Sir - with all do respect - where in the above cited lines do I say that? yet you still delited this too, despite the fact that this was properly sources citations from his own hand?

You can argue that what came later could be viewed as too opinionated, and I accept that, but I do not accept the deletion on the lines above on that ground.

There are actually statements in this article that are plainly wrong. Here is one

"Eastman embarked in 1923 on a fact-finding tour of the Soviet Union to learn about the Soviet practice of Marxism. He stayed for over a year, observing the power struggles between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Upon returning to the United States, Eastman wrote several essays that were highly critical of the Stalinist system, beginning with "Since Lenin Died" in 1925. These treatises were unpopular with American leftists of the time. In later years, however, Eastman's writings on the subject were cited by many on both the left and the right as sober and realistic portrayals of the Soviet system."

If you read the actual account (Since Lenin's died) it becomes very clear that he was at that time embracing a position which was fundamentally favourable to the anti-democratic bolsjevik left. His own later account of this is to a very lage degree an ideological falcification of his previous conviction which on several core point is not at all 'sober and realistic'. There are good elements here and there but his views are fundamatally not in favour of democracy at all - and what is worse - he seemingly never was!

I do maintain that the lines above are sober to the core. It is citations from his own hand from the book in mentioned - and it leaves for the reader to judge whether or not he had a tendency throughout his career towards extremist positions. Some people may think not - they may argue that a fellow NATO ally is in fact a totalitarian and authoritarian ruled dictatorship fully comparable with the communist Stalinists dictatorships but the citations merely raises the question - adding that Sinclair possibly did have a point!

I therefore hope that we can agree to reinstate the lines below,

At the end of the preface he cites Upton Sinclair for the statement that Eastman's conversion from Bolshevism to the extreme anti-big-government free market economy merely meant that he had "gone from one extreme to the other". Certainly this does seem to have some merit, not the least considering Eastman’s characterisation of the Norwegian democratic welfare state as, "they have produced the closest imitation of an authoritarian state to be found on this side of the iron curtain."[1]

I shall then in return leave the delusion about his 'sober and realistic' support for the deeply anti-democratic dictatorship of trotsky and friends alone

Where did you say that? right here. And please don't use your Talk page for POV screeds, that's not what they're for. Corvus cornix_talk 21:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The now highlighted lines was the first four lines entered some 24 hours before the remaining ones - but does it matter - you were asked a question - can we agree?

What question? There's too much text here. Pare it down. And I don't care if it was the first two lines before the others, it was still POV, and that's not acceptable on Wikipedia. Corvus cornix_talk 22:15, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Certainly this does seem to have some merit is still POV. Corvus cornix_talk 22:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No it is not POV - it is simply a hint that Sinclair's criticism of Eastman for being a man with inclination to extreme view may not have been entirely unfounded. That is a perfectly reasonable in such an article it draws no conclusion, it leaves that to the readers to judge after having cited himself and a critic

And where does that analysis come from? Who is making that claim? Corvus cornix_talk 22:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Both is from his own 1955 book about socialism he cites upton Sinclair and a few pages later he makes the statements about Norway the references is there it follows closely after the presentation of that very book - it simply puts forward the question - did Sinclair have a point?

We could also slightly change this saying

At the end of the preface to this book Eastman cites Upton Sinclair for the statement that Eastman's conversion from Bolshevism to the anti-big-government free market economy merely meant that he had "gone from one extreme to the other". Clearly it was statements such as the one Eastman goes on to make a few pages later when he characterised the Norwegian democratic welfare state as, "they have produced the closest imitation of an authoritarian state to be found on this side of the iron curtain"[1] that led to Sinclair's perception of Eastman as a man who favoured extremist positions.

You can't say "clearly", that's your own opinion. You can't make claims about what leads Sinclair to say anything, unless Sinclair said it himself. Corvus cornix_talk 23:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well - then - you can say 'possibly' it was

At the end of the preface to this book Eastman cites Upton Sinclair for the statement that Eastman's conversion from Bolshevism to the anti-big-government free market economy merely meant that he had "gone from one extreme to the other". Possibly it was statements such as the one Eastman goes on to make a few pages later, when he characterised the Norwegian democratic welfare state as, "they have produced the closest imitation of an authoritarian state to be found on this side of the iron curtain"[1] that led to Sinclair's perception of Eastman as a man who favoured extremist positions.

No. You cannot draw conclusions. Unless you have a quote from Sinclair which explains why he made the statement he made, you cannot claim to be able to read his mind to determine how he came to that conclusion. Corvus cornix_talk 18:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody in their right mind can classify that statement as concluding anything, it rather seem that you are driven by your own personal agenda. Besides anyone knowing Sinclair even just remotely knows that this was exactly what he meant, you only need to read his wiki biography, - you are way out of line here - suspiciously eager to invent arguments to sustain a certain POV of your own

I have no personal agenda, I never even heard of Max Eastman till I was doing Recent Changes patrol. You will not post your own conclusions into an article, or you'll wind up being blocked from editing. You are warned. This is my last comment on this matter. Corvus cornix_talk 20:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, what can I say. You may have that power, but you are certainly very seriously lacking in the academic qualifications to exercise it. But this, I guess, is one of the problems Wikipedia is faced with.

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Walter Jervoise Scott - did he really represent Mulgrave?

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I've been writing short biographies for Qld MLAs and today started work on Walter Jervoise Scott, the member for the electoral district of Mulgrave. My problem is that I cannot find any source material for his being an MLA. The Queensland Parliament website claim it was another Walter Scott. So I scanned back through the history of the article and saw it was an edit you did in 2010 that said it was Walter Jervoise Scott, so I thought I would check with you before proceeding about what info you might have on Walter Jervoise Scott. Thanks Kerry (talk) 00:48, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

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