Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Dee

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[edit] John Dee

Not a self nom, although I made a small edit just now. Well made page on an interesting person. Go read. Filiocht 08:35, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

• Support. Very interesting subject well written, most people know the name but few facts, so this fills a valuable void. One minor quibble (which doesn't affect my support) could one or two of the many "Dee" mentions be changed to "He" or "His", as it is a little repetitious In "Final Years" alone - there are six "Dees" in 5 lines.Giano 09:02, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have attempted to address this observation. Filiocht 09:17, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

• Support. He's a taff and a mathematician. Why have I never heard of him? -- GWO 09:22, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 10:44, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)
• Support, interesting and well-written article with all the trimmings.--Bishonen 11:24, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• I want to support, but is it comprehensive enough? I am not a Dee scholar, but I looked here (which is not referenced - I'm not sure how far I can trust it, since it claims that Dee coined the word Britannia and founded the Rosicrucian Order) which claims that Dee sold the Voynich Manuscript to Rudolph II (I'm sure I have heard this claimed elsewhere, so not so potty). There also seem to be more (and more believeable) details of his life here, here and here that could be included, and these websites are not given as External Links either. I won't refer to the more "esoteric" websites... I'm not objecting, but just asking whether further information should be added. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:49, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suppose it would always be possible to expand any Wikipedia biography almost indefinitely, but some selection has to be made or we'd end up with 800 page books. My own view is that there is enough there now, but I'd like the view of the major contributor and anyopne else who is interested. Filiocht 13:58, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed - that is why I was not objecting. The article is good, but should it be better? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:07, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do appreciate the attention that's being given this article. This is the level of detail I imagined Dee's significance would merit, but if there's a general feeling that more detail is needed I can certainly expand the article. I did consciously try to give more space to Dee's non-scrying life than a lot of sources do. Dee seems to have been claimed by every esoteric and occult group around, so there's lots of biographical misinformation out there. The connection with the Voynich manuscript rests on some very flimsy assumptions, but that's the context that most people have heard of Dee in, so I'll add a mention of it now. (When the system stops being so agonizingly slow!) PRIIS 15:34, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just added information on the Voynich Ms and an external link on the same topic. PRIIS 18:05, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - have you had a chance to look at the other references, which all looked pretty "normal" and useful, with some information that I couldn't immediately see in out article. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:52, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this one from St. Andrew's is good. This one not so much--anything with Necronomicon in it, you are encouraged to dismiss with a snort. This third one is in between but still pretty romanticized. I'll add the first to the external links. PRIIS 20:22, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Support - as said before, my points above were not objections, just questioning whether the articles was comprehensive. On the basis that they appear to be dealt with, I'll support. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:37, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support: Dee has been a favorite figure for every tinfoil hat group since 1700. He has been more maligned and used than Jacques de Molay. Every Satanist would-be, every "secret history," every "revelations of secret power" group in the world sooner or later claims something about Dee. As for his link to the Rosicrucians, it's possible, though he's hardly the originator. The Rosicrucian "cult" in England has two very, very brief lives. One is around the time of Dee, the other in the 1680's, but they never did do much or mean much. All "secret history" is unverifiable. I would suggest that the article make it a little clearer that Dee is a popular figure for outlandish speculation. Geogre 18:58, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, agreed, but then should the article not then summarise and refute or debunk some of these claims? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:52, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've added a refutation to these sorts of claims in the "Reputation" section. I'd say it's more "blanket" than "point-by-point." PRIIS 22:15, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wise. The only gripe I had was that you probably needed a bit more of a pointing hand and a blinking arrow to say loudly, "He wasn't a Satanist!" Point by point is impossible, because every schemer has his own point, and we ought not be in the business of validating them by repeating their fantasies. As a side note, I believe Dee features as one of the alleged links in the fake scheme in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Geogre 03:14, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

BTW, excellent new paragraph about hermeticism and Pythagorean philosophy in the 16th c. world. If any outsider reads it with reason and an open mind, he or she will get a good understanding of why the nuts like him, and why it's nuts to like him that way. Geogre 04:39, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Support. Thorough and readable. Smerdis of Tlön 02:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support. I earlier informed the author of what a good job he'd done, but failed to add my vote here. So now I have. PedanticallySpeaking 19:58, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
• Support, if American English spellings are changed to the more appropriate (for this article) Commonwealth English. -- Emsworth 18:21, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • I find "artifacts", "traveled", "centimeter" and "fictionalizes/fictionalized" as AmE. I can change them, but is it really an issue? If it is, are there any more I'm missing? PRIIS 08:21, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • OK, I made those changes. If there are any more, please make them or let me know. PRIIS 19:39, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • "More appropriate" because the subject is "Commonwealth"? Sorry, but I think that's nonsense. It is indeed not an issue, the only Am/Br spelling issue is to be consistent within the same article. I'm sorry you made the changes, PRiis. You've already got enough support to manage fine without the P. G. Wodehouse vote.--[[User:Bishonen|Bish (Bosh)]] 13:17, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • According to the Manual of Style, "Articles which focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally aim to conform to the spelling of that country." Thus, in this case, British English should be used. --195.11.216.59 13:23, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • Not sure about the rest of it, but the "bangers and mash" point below makes a lot of sense. Just because he's English doesn't make him "specifically" English. Comment withdrawn. --195.11.216.59 14:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • "To a particular English-speaking country." Ok, so you're suggesting that John Dee is on the level of "bangers and mash?" He lived before the break-away of the United States and is part of the common heritage of contemporary England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the U.S., Bahamas, Australia, and New Zealand. He is not a particularly English figure. This is aside from the fact that orthographic arguments are silly (all of Webster's reforms were proposed in England before him, and the reaction against "American spellings" had a lot to do with then-extant hostility between the nations) and that American spellings are no farther from Jacobean than contemporary British spellings are. (Sorry for jumping in, as I swore I wouldn't, but this subject is a sore spot for me, and I don't want this to affect voting on the excellent article.) Geogre 14:24, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support --ZayZayEM 05:49, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Jayjg 21:34, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Why is 'commonwealth English' suitable for John Dee, does this mean that all the Kings from 'Will the Conk' to ' Henry the Something' have to be translated into Norman-French or whatever the English natives spoke in those parts at the time. Spelling is immaterial so long as it's correct and consistent to one country or the other. In England correct English is referred to as 'Queen's English' as Commonwealth English could cover a multitude of pronunciations and spellings. Finally 'Commonwealth' was not in general usage in England until 1649, sometime after the demise of John Dee. Such a trivial objection should not impede John Dee becoming a featured article.Giano 15:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • As I understand it, the policy is that specifically American articles should be in American English, specifically British/Commonwealth etc. articles should be in British/International English, and other articles should be consistently one or the other, depending on how they were started (which is an encouragement to British authors to start writing articles in British English to avoid de facto cultural hegemony :) although, ideally, articles should be written to avoid the distinction - see Pilgrim Fathers and Battle of Yorktown which seem to sail a middle course, avoiding Americanisms and Britishisms entirely. But if a middle course is not chosen, shouldn't articles on a British topic (which John Dee surely is, notwithstanding that he is part of the cultural heritage of the world) be in British English rather than American English, and vice versa, as the policy states? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:39, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• • • I certainly don't think so. I read that as "particularly national," not as "just sort of part of that nation." I.e. an article on tyre would maintain British spellings, as that's a British spelling. An article on "the tube" would, as well. An article on "State legislatures" in the US would need to be Americanized. If the institution/thing is characteristically and particularly associated with a single nation, it should have usage belonging to that nation. On the other hand, common heritage (literature, whether American or British), historical figures (whether of India or Indiana) could be either, so long as they are consistent. I write articles generally about 18th c. British subjects, with other literature and theology tossed in, and I'm not fond of the idea that my articles are all in need of a rewrite because I avoid twee and exaggeratedly anachronistic spellings. N.b. that I in fact attempted British English in the Jonathan Wild article, only to have someone entirely misunderstand "gaol" and rewrite it to a completely different word. I shan't get into a Manual of Style argument here, but I would absolutely not demand a rewrite of every article written by a Brit on a person or work that happened to be American in its first origin (we could demand that no television articles have any Anglicisms in them, I suppose, and the same for all computer topics). That way lies madness and the kind of cane-shaking rancor that does no one any good. Geogre 18:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • (TV was invented by a Scot). Mark¹ 09:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • And the computer was invented by the British, too. Proteus (Talk) 12:35, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mes Enfants! Genug! Get real! Grow up! So long as the student understands stop flattering your egos with this pseudo-prattle. 81.135.124.238 20:55, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)