Talk:Canford School

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mid as alumni known Victuallers 16:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Relief specs

How wide , thick, tall is it? How much does it weigh? How was it mounted? What is it made of? 71.139.161.30 (talk) 04:41, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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When co-ed?

When did the school go co-educational? This ought to be in the lede. Valetude (talk) 22:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

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(Unsupported) Links to Eton and Oriel?

I notice a number of potentially unsupported assertions in this article.

More specifically, I refer to the following assertions:

1) "The school itself was founded as a sister school of Eton College with links to Oriel College (King's College, Oxford).[7]"

--> this reference [no. 7] points to a link that no longer exists; nor could i find the information elsewhere on the current, official website of the School. As this information is highly 'reputational', I feel it needs a proper, verifiable reference, which I was unable to find. I therefore suggest we remove this assertion until someone can provide us with evidence. 

2) "There exist, however, few continued links between Oriel College and Canford, excepting the presence of some of its fellows on the school's similarly constituted governing body. Upon the school's formation, the school adopted the arms of John of Gaunt in addition to its primary symbol of the Oak tree.[11]"

--> Similarly, this reference [no. 11] alludes to an alleged passage in vol. 3 of Sumption's Hundred Year War, more specifically pages 329-330. I would like to draw attention to the fact that these pages are part of the chapter on England's Barbicans (1377-1378) and thus do not in any ostensible way appear to implicate the history of Canford School. 

All in all, I am a worried that we might deal here with instances of self-promotion or, at the very least, poorly-referenced scholarship.

I would therefore be grateful if the community looked more closely at this matter.

Thank you,

A Young Canfordian

YoungCanfordian (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi - In view of the doubts I have removed both pieces. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Further to your interventions, and as per similar reasons, I have also removed the Eton + Oriel + John of Galt heraldry images. YoungCanfordian (talk) 22:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 22:13, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

List of Old Canfordians

There seems to be an issue over the list Old Canfordians. Currently most of the entries are now marked "full citation needed": I would suggest that "Notable O.C.'s" The Old Canfordian Magazine. The Old Canfordian Society, Dorset. 2018" is quite comprehensive. Conversely the edit summary to this edit suggests that there is an issue here. Please can someone give some background? Thanks, Dormskirk (talk) 09:46, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

No, currently none are so marked. For my part, I saw your edit reducing the list to a single person and reverted it. Otherwise I can just see some queries over individuals (and giving the head a rude name). Johnbod (talk) 14:14, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

OK. I don't think that there is anything wrong with the citation but there may still be issues with specific individuals (which we should deal with individually). Thanks. Dormskirk (talk) 14:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

There is a possible problem with the citation for most of the entries. It was added by an account that looks to be one of the BriceStratford (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) spammers - over a dozen WP:SPAs who edited to promote Brice Stratford. There was a lengthy SPI that wasted time because the astroturfer gamed the system with this pattern of disruption: spamming up to warnings, then stopping editing with that account, creating a new one, and repeating the pattern. All disruptive but no overlap.

As there has been a lot of misleading content and editing by that user, and they used the main edit that added that list to insert yet another Brice Stratford promotion, with almost all the entries cited to a hardcopy alumni newsletter with incomplete publication data,[1] it seemed insufficient sourcing to me. If you think it's clear the other people on the list should be there, I'm not attached. But I removed the astroturfing and I think better sourcing is required due to the chronic misrepresentations by the account that added the incomplete source. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:55, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I understand the point that you are making, which is probably the reason why various editors (including myself) have sought to remove the list. Personally, I don't think think it is appropriate to mark all the items in the list with "full citation needed" (a full citation has already been applied). The issue is whether any items on the list have been falsely cited to a document we cannot see as it is only available in hard copy. I think either the whole list should be removed or we should remove any individual items which are deemed suspect. Dormskirk (talk) 20:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

So, this is the citation that was added by Bdog Drummond (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

• ref name="O.C. Alumni List": "Notable O.C.'s" The Old Canfordian Magazine. The Old Canfordian Society, Dorset. 2018.

The reason I flagged it as incomplete is there is no other publication information, as you would find with a legitimate journal, magazine or book, to enable us to find a copy and check. There's no month, for instance, or issue number or journal id numbers. How do we find this, if it exists? There are no web links, or wikilinks. Nothing. How do we know the cite is even WP:V, let alone WP:RS? I'll do a bit of looking, but doing OR to verify shouldn't be on us. There should be something more solid, especially given the circumstances. Perhaps we should remove anyone that is only cited to this one. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I have also test checked the individual entries and, for the vast majority of them, no alternative online source is available. So I agree: we should remove everyone who is only cited to the hardcopy list. Dormskirk (talk) 20:43, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The closest thing to the alleged publication I can find is this: https://issuu.com/canford4/docs/oc_magazine_oct_18_web. It has a slightly different title, but real publication data and page numbers. It's published twice a year. This is the October issue and the edit was made in May. I can't find the April issue online. Even if we AGF that the list is in the April issue, the inaccurate publication name, and leaving out all data of date, issn, page number, etc, leads me to believe that this is more obfuscation and quite likely fabrication. I agree, at this time the source is neither WP:RS nor even WP:V. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree, fabrication seems increasingly likely. Subject to any significant reservations from other editors, we should remove everyone who is only cited to the hardcopy list. Dormskirk (talk) 20:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I disagree, especially remembering that your last edit left the section with ONE person only. I checked a number of individuals, and sure enough every one mentioned the school in their article. The list seems what one would expect from a fairly well-known, and old, school. If you are that bothered, why not contact the school, who must have a list, or be able to review ours? Johnbod (talk) 21:57, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

It is not my role to contact the school: per WP:ONUS, none of us should have to. Yes, I am very bothered because, on the basis of the information CorbieVreccan has presented, fabrication seems increasingly likely. Fortunately, we don't come across situations like this very often, but if fabrication has taken place, I think we should all be concerned. Dormskirk (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Phooey! You say the suspected sock added refs, but how many names did they add? Have you found any cases where the bio article doesn't mention the school? Are you saying the sock added to each bio too? Johnbod (talk) 01:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Most of the bio articles do mention the school but quite a few of them fail to cite mention of the school (e.g. Hector MacLean (RAF officer)). I have now added extensive citations to the school article, but a few entries remain dependent on the hard copy article. I have no idea how many names the sock may have added, if any, but I remain concerned that a least one spammer (Bdog Drummond) was active in editing this article. Dormskirk (talk) 18:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Good work. We don't even need the dubious cite now, so I've removed it. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Johnbod, Please read the conversation, diffs and page history. This is where the spammer added the list of names sourced to the dubious cite:diff - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:53, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

No, you read them! That diff just re-added the list, with the ref, after a lot of edit-warring and god knows what (with guess who in the thick of it). The list seems (I haven't compared fully) the same before all that, in this earlier diff. Johnbod (talk) 01:25, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Check out this comment by Softlavender. The Stratford sockdrawer has a history of fabricating references. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:38, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Never mind the refs, I'm talking about the names themselves, all but one of which Dormskirk removed as "contested". Johnbod (talk) 19:42, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Johnbod - The names themselves are not the issue (they are valid, but we only known this as I spent much of a day verifying them, despite the fact that I was not the editor adding them). The issue is that it looks as if the reference may have been fabricated by a sock. Yes, I reverted the inclusion of the list by a sock. Please look back at the page history: Bbb23 reverted inclusion of the list by a sock on 2 April 2018, Diannaa reverted inclusion by a sock on 18 February etc. A number of socks have been active in developing the list. I now believe that the names are valid but only because I have done the work to verify that. Dormskirk (talk) 10:52, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Listen to yourself! The names clearly are the issue (I've said I've no problem with removing the ref). You and several others removed the whole list (with one exception). It would have been highly wierd if such a well known public school only had one notable alumnus. Yet this is what you apparently believed. I'm glad you have now satified yourself, but I suggest you think a bit more clearly in future. Johnbod (talk) 11:43, 23 April 2023 (UTC)