Talk:Charles II, Duke of Parma

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[edit] Etruria

Since WP practice is to use the highest title for an individual (e.g, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom rather than Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor) shouldn't this article use the Etrurian territorial designation? Charles 19:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Given the extreme ephemerality of the Kingdom of Etruria, and the fact that, as a child, Charles was not actually involved in running it, I'd much prefer not to. john k 22:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You would allow common sense to overrule Holy WP Convention? I'm shocked! :o Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 22:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Are you stalking me now, or did you just happen to be looking obscure 19th century petty monarchs? There are some aspects of wikipedia naming conventions I find more important than others. "Most common name in English" I find to be most important. And that, in fact, agrees with my preferences here - he is most known as a Duke of Parma, and not for his brief childhood tenure as King of Etruria, a title by which he was never known after that kingdom's demise. john k 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Lol. You don't have to worry about me stalking you, busy enough without that. I, like most other users, regularly check contributions history to see what's going down. Naming of rulers has nothing to do with popularity of names, e.g. William I of England would be William the Conqueror if it were. Holy Wiki Convention dictates this must be at Charles of Etruria. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Naming of rulers is not entirely dictated by popularity of names, but that is one important consideration. And there are always exceptions to the rules. john k 00:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like heresy to me. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This is intensely fun, Calgacus. We should do this more often. john k 00:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK he was Louis II as King of Etruria, but who ever calls him that? Känsterle 10:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My edit

The whole article is unsourced and I, for my part, only reorganized the presentation of the information, including information from related articles. Why are you, Mel, reverting my edit (which, I agree, is unsourced) to a version just as unsourced, but also substantially worse. I do not know which template you are talking about and frankly, I cannot fathom how a wrongly placed template justifies a blanket revert.

Also, independ of the issue whether his mother was Duchess of Lucca in her own right and not just regent, he clearly was Duke of Lucca from 1814 to 1847 and not just in succession to his mother, therefore your version also included a clear factual error.

Str1977 (smile back) 15:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

First, your revert introduces (reintroduces) much non-MoS style, as well as making the article's structure bitty.
Secondly, that the article is (and is marked as) unreferenced doesn't mean that you can make more unsourced changes.
Thirdly, you complain about a blanket revert, yet that is what you're doing — reverting all the editing that I di to bring the article into line with Wikipedia MoS style. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think your preferred style changes could be better made on the basis of "my text" than the other way around, especially since I don't know what the concerns are. As for the references, I disagree. Your reasoning would require reverting to the version present before the first referenced claim. Since there is no reference, this means returning to the original version. My changes are changes of presentation, not of content (taking the related articles into account). It is not that I introduce anything outrageous (then I would be agree with you). Str1977 (smile back) 16:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the substantive issue you guys disagree with? The two versions look very similar to me, except that one has shorter paragraphs. Also, I don't understand the argument that you can revert unsourced edits simply because they are unsourced. Do you think that Str's changes are wrong? You have every right to demand sources, but I don't think "unsourced changes" should be a reason for reversion unless you think that the information is dubious. Wikipedia grows largely by unsourced changes, and the whole project would quickly die if every unsourced change was immediately reverted. At any rate, what do you all disagree about? Is it just the dates? What are the problems with the "non-MoS style," exactly? john k 16:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

in terms of good style, the shorter paragraphs are a problem (for example "He was the grandson of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and the son of Louis, King of Etruria." was separated out as a paragraph, for example, followed by another one-sentence paragraph).
In terms of markup, the dates and dashes are the main problem, though there are other issues such as unnecessary bolding.
As for sources — a failure to give sources is indeed a reason for reverting. The backbone of Wikipedia is rejection of original research and the insistence on verifiable sources. Saying "I know about these things, so leave my changes in place" is unacceptable. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I stand by the contention that unsourced changes should only be reverted on that basis if one has some reason to think they may be incorrect. Are you saying that you have never made a change without providing a source? Sourcing should ideally, of course, be provided, but you wouldn't really delete information you yourself believe to be correct just because you think it is unsourced? Are you really arguing that every unsourced change on wikipedia should be reverted, or is the unsourcedness simply an excuse for reversion on the basis of formatting issues? I agree with you, btw, about the shorter paragraphs being worse. john k 16:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
There was nothing original about my edits. If I had expertise in this field I would provide sources but since I don't but stumbled across badly written articles I wrote what I wrote, synthesizing related articles. Why disimprove articles? Also, I never said "I know about these things, so leave my changes in place" Str1977 (smile back) 16:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, particularly ugly is the intro Charles II of Parma was Louis II of Etruria. Thefore I moved the different names to their proper context. I don't insisted on bold print. Str1977 (smile back) 16:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Five pillars: "[Wikipedia has a neutral point of view] means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible".

I have indeed reverted claims that I believed to be correct because they were unsourced. I have a duty to do that as an editor, and even more as an admin. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 18:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This is crazy. The whole article is unsourced. Why don't you delete it? I don't understand why an unsourced edit to an unsourced article should be reverted solely on the basis that it is unsourced. Reverting it doesn't make the article any less unsourced. What if there is an unsourced claim that is false, and it is replaced by an unsourced claim that is true? Would you revert that as well? Here are some unsourced edits I have made in recent days: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Should all these be reverted/deleted? I should perhaps be more careful, but, with the possible exception of t he last one, I don't think anything I've changed is even vaguely dubious - it's all pretty clearly true. What good comes of deleting such material because it's unsourced? Unsourced material is always problematic, but it should only be removed when it's actually wrong, or, at least, seems likely to be wrong. Blanket reversion to any unsourced edit is certainly not the way things are generally done. john k 19:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is unsourced, and sources have been requested; why on Earth do you think that that justifies further unsourced edits? When no explanation – not even the courtesy of an edit summary – and no source provided, reverting is consistent with Wikipedia policy. I don't expect you to understand, given that you neither provide edit summaries nor sources. That you also go against Wikipedia guidelines and policy in this discourteous way is not an argument against reverting such edits. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that you don't provide any actual content, but seem to spend all your time formatting articles and reverting people, I suppose I oughtn't expect you to understand that the vast majority of content on wikipedia starts off unsourced. Wikipedia moves forward by sourcing unsourced material, not by removing it. It certainly doesn't move forward by removing trivially verifiable information, like my Niger-Congo languages edit that you reverted, in which I merely added a statement that most of the languages of central, southern, and eastern Africa are Bantu. (I apologize for the vulgar edit summary in my revert. I was irritated. I stand by the contention made there that it was a total WP:POINT violation. ) john k 20:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
At any rate, I'm going to stand by the position that "all unsourced edits can be removed" is not the same thing as "All unsourced edits should be removed." Unsourced edits that look very fishy should be reverted. Unsourced statements that look potentially fishy should be given a {{fact}} tag, and then eventually deleted if no one provides a source. Unsourced statements that one thinks are true should be met by just adding the unreferenced tag at the end of the article. john k 20:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that before you make silly assumptions about other editors you check your facts; a brief glance at my user page shows you to be wrong (though, because I'm an admin, I do spend more time than non-admins on vandal-fighting and dealing with disruptive edits and good-faith edits that have the same effect).

The main problem is that you completely misunderstand the way that Wikipedia work: you don't make edits without giving sources, and then airily wave your hand at another editor and say "it's a trivial matter to give a source, so go and do it yourself".

Your edit-summary went beyond the bounds, though, and is more than merely vulgar. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for cursing you out. I lost my temper and it was unacceptable. I'm completely deserved a block (although i think you had no right to give it to me). That said, looking at the last few pages of your contributions, nearly all your edit summaries are "MoSed", "reverted unexplained and unsourced changes," "tidied," "copyedit," or similar. I'm sure I was overstating the case because I was angry, but this does seem to be your main activity in the main space on wikipedia (not that there's anything wrong with that - it's good to have people who copyedit and so forth, but I think my basic claim was more or less true). And I don't misunderstand the way wikipedia works. I've been here for four years, and I've never run into anyone demanding sources for utterly uncontroversial statements the way that you are. If we are obsessive about this kind of thing, wikipedia will never grow, and it is completely counterproductive to revert unsourced statements of what is essentially common knowledge. And I think my understanding of this is a lot closer to the way wikipedia actually works than yours is, which is based on a completely non-existent perfect world idea of what wikipedia should be. john k 05:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

It should be obvious what the problems are. Two editors have decided that Wikipedia guidelines and policies are unimportant, and have insisted on the misplacing of the {{unreferenced}} template, the changing of en-rules to hyphens, the over-wikilinking of dates, and many other errors of style and presentation. As 3RR means that I can do nothing about this, I'm hoping that the {{cleanup}} tag will bring editors to do the necessary work. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Certainly not. The problem is an editor disrupting WP by using policies and guidelines in a frivolous manner. I hope other editors will come but I feel sorry for them if they have to encounter your behaviour here. And all this by someone armed with admin powers. First you drive someone into using foul language and than you block. RaD. Good day, Str1977 (smile back) 23:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I don't want to be involved in this, other than to say that it's sad to see obviously good editors (whom I've seen on other pages) getting on each other's wrong sides. I've changed the hyphens back to ndashes, and unwikified some dates. My understanding is that things like 7 September should always be wikified, as some people prefer to read it as September 7, so I left days and months wikified, but unwikified the years, except at the beginning of the article. If I'm wrong about that, someone please tell me. I see from the {{Unreferenced}} template, that "There is currently no consensus about where to place this template; most suggest either the bottom of the article page (in an empty 'References' section), or on the article's talk page." So I put it into an empty "References" section. I don't mind if anything I did is undone, although I think we should definitely keep the ndashes. ElinorD (talk) 00:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I haven't reverted anything, and I certainly haven't insisted on anything with respect to format changes - I even said I agreed with you about the paragraph length issue. I originally came upon this because I was genuinely puzzled as to why such a bitter argument was going on when I couldn't really see any significant content differences. And then, obviously, we got into it and I got mad. But I've made no changes to the content of the page, and I don't think I ever made any statement which can be attributed as support of any particular stylistic set-up of this or any other article. john k 05:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship with wife

I have removed the unsourced sentence about Charles Louis being a homosexual and banishing his wife. Other sources suggest that Charles Louis was active in pursuit of other women. Noel S McFerran 13:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)