Talk:Flying Elephant

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Ironically, the user who called for a copy-edit is Dutch himself :o).--MWAK 1 July 2005 19:13 (UTC)

This is rather confusing. So the copy-edit by Jonru was somehow wrong? If so, why? Most of the phrases, words and idiom used, I found in British books, articles and documents on the subject (I make no claim to originality whatsoever :o), some of them nearly ninety years old. Is the language too British? Is it too archaic?

--MWAK 8 July 2005 06:13 (UTC)

Both copy-edits were inadequate, either because the new English was stilted and and sometimes unclear, or because there were excessive Wikilinks. I've copy-edited and Wikified the article now. there are still one or two places where it could read better, but the main problems have been sorted out. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 8 July 2005 08:55 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your efforts!--MWAK 8 July 2005 10:10 (UTC)

[edit] Personal research?

Some of the new material is rather speculative in tone; could this be firmed up? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:25, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, personal research understood as "empirical research that is (yet) unpublished and the rendering of which therefore cannot be justified by reference to existing sources" of course should not be used as a direct source for the content of a Wikipedia article (although it might have a justified indirect negative function when someone doesn't mention popular beliefs he knows to be wrong: it would be dishonest to deceive, so he must remain silent). The only instance of this in the new additions that I can discern would be the reference to the drawings of the Flying Elephant conserved at the Albert Stern Institute. However these are, I believe, in print: the Bovington Tank Museum has made a full range of WWI tank drawings available to the general public that can obtain them at little cost (very commendable :o).

Concerning the speculative nature of the additions, it seems they basically reproduce the content of The Devil's Chariot, the book referred to. They also give possible arguments as to why that book would be more credible than other sources. Such argumentation is of course by necessity of a speculative nature in the old sense that it embodies a rational analysis of the problems involved. I see no harm in this: the writer of an encyclopedical article always must bring some coherence to often very disparate sources or even contradicting data. If he makes his choices during this process explicit, so much the better: it gives us all a chance to agree or disagree. In striving too much to give an outward appearance of neutrality we often merely create the illusion of it, deceiving both ourselves and the reader.

However in one respect they are not neutral at all: the writer thought he had to convince me of his truth and this still shows. Little did he know I didn't need convincing: it so happened that through my own little personal research I had already come to conclusions identical to his own. But I didn't know a secondary source for them existed — and so remained silent :o).

--MWAK 13:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Mel, I can understand the concerns over veracity of material. All of the material I added is, indeed, in Glanfield's book, that is to say: the first design with two six-pounders; the proposal to use a 3-inch gun; Stern's proposal to use the machine as a tank-buster, and his plan to build an initial twenty. These facts I have independently verified at the Stern archive at King's College London. Indeed, I have seen (and have had scanned) the blueprint schematic for the initial design, which is called the Foster's Battletank. I have verified those facts mentioned above, which are contained in the minutes of a meeting in January 1917, signed by Stern and Tennyson d'Eyncourt. However, my researches are, thus far, of a private nature, and copyright issues preclude my reproducing them directly (I will be negotiating this, though). There are aspects of Glanfield's account which I have not yet been able to verify, but as I have barely begun delving into the Stern archive, I'm sure this will come. Indeed, I have uncovered more detail so far than Glanfield goes into, but as it appears nowhere else, I have not disclosed it here (until I resolve the aforementioned copyright issues). There is also the matter of the strangely cropped scan of the final Flying Elephant drawing I mentioned, which cuts off the end of the rear-mounted machine gun. This can be easily checked at Bovington, by ordering a set of copies (I do have uncropped copies). McTodd 19:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

My worry wasn't about the content but about the tone, which gave the impression that the article was speculating on the basis of facts. I assumed that in fact the speculations were in the literature, which is why I hoped that clearer reference could be made to that.