# Talk:Erasmus Smith

I am in the process of getting references for this article. Please bear with me.

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because <replace these words with your reason>. — Iliketoeatbeansalot (talk) 20:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I am currently getting references for the article and it is notable because it is about an important man in seventeenth centrury Ireland.

The High School, Dublin is notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, yet it seems that the school's founder, Erasmus Smith, does not. This seems odd.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iliketoeatbeansalot (talk • contribs) 20:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
While I greatly appreciate this entry on Erasmus Smith, as the archivist for the Erasmus Smith Trust, I hope that the citations are corrected soon as there are several errors and general statements that are not entirely correct. The main one for the moment is the sentence that "Erasmus Smith had become a merchant, trading with Turkey" - this is the biggest error, as it is dervied from the common job title that he was a turkey merchant, which others have attributed to meaning slave trading, where in fact he was merely a merchant trading in grains and other supplies with Great Britain and Ireland - not Turkey. If you can find a citation to prove this I would happly stand corrected. Thank you. AlanEST21:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC) 
 

It is already cited to numerous sources. Some say "Turkey merchant", others say trading with Turkey". But the capitalisation of "Turkey" in the first version clearly indicates what they mean. I, too, was thrown by this, especially because of his apprenticeship to a poultry merchant. Of course, all of these sources may be false - that is just tough, since Wikipedia relies on what is verifiable using reliable secondary sources & not, for example, the archival sources. - Sitush (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I must disagree, many of the original sources on the history of Smith and moreover the Trust are factually incorrect (and often clearly biased). Wallace, as the most recent person to consult primary sources is the most accurate source for information. He dispelled several myths about the Trust which I am glad you have not blindly repeated here as many have over the years. My contestation the trading with the county of Turkey stands - there is no evidence of this, especially if you look at the goods that are being traded - they would surely be more exotic in nature other than grains and cheese. As I am sure you are aware, capitalisation was used in different grammatical ways several generations ago, putting emphasis on the trade title not as a country. I would therefore again ask you to provide a proper citation for trade with Turkey as I am not aware that any evidence of this exists. Thank you for the ongoing updates. AlanEST 21:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)  

Alan, I am sorry but this is Wikipedia. Sometimes I share your frustration but there are rules etc in place here regarding what sources can be used etc. I do not think that anyone claims Wikipedia to be the be-all and end-all of knowledge and, yes, it may sometimes be incorrect. Perhaps have a read of WP:V and WP:PRIMARY, WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. In the interval, I'll go back through Wallace. One solution is to put the phrase in quotes - "Turkey merchant" - but unfortunately there are sources that say otherwise. It is a mess; it happens. This is not a perfect platform and, boy, do I know it. - Sitush (talk) 22:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it's that much of a mess, just illogical. "Turkey merchant" is generally how I have seen it also, assuming poultry not country but knowing it means something else again possibly. So putting it within inverted commas is a great solution. Anyway wiki rules aside I will check also tomorrow and put in a call to Mr Wallace also and get back to you. AlanEST 22:32, 14 November 2011 (UTC)  

It certainly is not illogical that he was trading with the country, but it could be ambiguous. There is no more reason why he could not, for example, have decided to trade in spices of some sort, and then moved to grain etc than they he traded in the bird and then moved to grain. The premise for one being more sensible than the other lies entirely in the knowledge of his apprenticeship. Turkeys (bird) were around by his time, and there is a rather nice description from p. 25 of this book, running into a few pages of the next chapter.
But all of this is irrelevant to Wikipedia, as is any information that you may obtain from Ronnie Wallace unless that info points to reliable sources. On this platform, we are bound to show all opinions that meet our fundamental criteria & not to pick and choose as we feel may be most appropriate. That is why - sometimes - it can be frustrating.
BTW, if you type ~~~~ (four tildes, ~) at the end of your messages then the software will automatically add your username & a timestamp. Much easier ;) - Sitush (talk) 00:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, I think that I have found a solution, at least for now. I'll probably be spending a couple of weeks developing this article & so it is anyone's guess what might turn up elsewhere, but the note which I have added + the use of "Turkey merchant" will hopefully suffice.
I actually arrived here from a completely different subject area: I was fettling a few biographies of British Raj ethnologists (& need to return to that fettling!). Among them was William Crooke, whom I discovered to have attended Erasmus Smith's Tipperary Grammar School. Hunt for the link to an article about that, and ... boom! This article was a mess, as can be seen if you click click.
Anyway, there are two things that will still be desperately needed once this is in a more suitable state. The first is some copyright-free images, both to inform and to break up the text a little; and the second is to create a separate article about the Trust, which skimps on some of the detail in this article but takes things right through to the present day rather than terminating around the time of the death of Erasmus.
For now, if you spot any obvious howlers then please let me know - or just fix them if you know how to do so & are aware of the policy restrictions etc. It is a work in progress and things will change quite frequently at this stage. - Sitush (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Enjoying the updates and thanks for the note AlanEST 10:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I have also noticed that on the Wikipedia page List of professorships at the University of Dublin, some are named adter Erasmus Smith. This shows just how notable Erasmus Smith must have been at that time.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Erasmus_Smith&oldid=455432762"

Regarding the note about the ambiguous meaning of the phrase "Turkey merchant", please note that Wikipedia has a redirect with that title, so it seems likely that the intended meaning has to do with trade with the country, not the bird. Plantdrew (talk) 21:48, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

See above discussion with AlanEST regarding this. - Sitush (talk) 08:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

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Hi all. Task today is to shorten these while keeping original meaning. Will check if there was specific sweeteners given by parliament for supporters, or if this is merely referring to E.S's commercial success. Will also clarify and shorten his religious motivations in three, if at all possible. Simon. Irondome (talk) 12:02, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry. I'm having a bit of an odd weekend. I'll take a look at things either Sunday night or Monday. - Sitush (talk) 20:06, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
I've tweaked a few words in the lead - hopefully nothing that people find too drastic. I am a bit concerned re: the implications that EdJohnston raises in the section below but otherwise happy. Thanks! - Sitush (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
Following, Ed's advice, "Royalist" removed. Seems to read smoothly as a summary of what's to come. Minor trims? Simon. Irondome (talk) 20:35, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay. I've just tweaked the lead slightly - hopefully, the edit summary is self-explanatory. I'm not a fan of links in the format [[Irish Rebellion of 1641#English and Scottish intervention|military campaign]] I know we have {{anchor}} but that is fairly obscure and while article page dependencies are maintained via redirects if the article is renamed, the same does not apply to anchors for changed section headings. Is there a better way to deal with it, even if it means a slight rephrase? - Sitush (talk) 15:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Also, is there any need to obscure Adventurers' Act? Using legislation as the pipe means people have to at least hover over it to make sense of the thing ... or, worse, they assume it is a link to the Legislation article. If we name it outright then it also makes it more readable when we unlink (as we now must) the mention of the Act in the body of the article. - Sitush (talk) 15:12, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Do you note any improvement Sitush? Unfortunately we now appear to have lost mention of the subject's father. Is this point critical? Irondome (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, his father is back in this, the latest version, thanks. Erasmus bought up the paper assets in which others had either invested or (in the case of soldiers) were entitled. That was the sense in which I had the thing referring to both him and Roger, rather than just the latter. Roger's £300-odd investment alone would not have produced the land value that followed. (Well, I doubt it anyway, but we all know that property speculation is still often a murky game).
You have changed crystallised to recoup. The former, although a somewhat technical term, refers to turning the intangible into something tangible; the latter, I think, means to get back, to recover. Crystallised might be obscure and in need of a better word/phrase but I don't think recoup is it. What do you think? I am very grateful for your help, btw - this article has been lying around for a while but I've always known something good (or even Good) could come of it. - Sitush (talk) 19:28, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed feedback Sitush. I am substituting "recoup" with "realise" in effect, to make real. Is this acceptable. If not, quite happy to return to crystallised. I agree it's a challenge to find the correct term to do this justice, and to assist in clarity. I have also added  which was added to by his practice of purchasing additional subscriptions from other investors in need of a faster cash return to the sentence ending "from which he gained extensive landholdings in Ireland as a reward." Unsure if that clarifies or just muddies things..Glad to be of assistance b.t.w. It is a pleasure to work with you. Simon. Irondome (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

This phrase about Smith is confusing: "..his early investment in a Royalist Military campaign which depended on entrepreneurial funding." I guess this is trying to summarize the loans that Smith made to the government per the Adventurers' Act of 1641. The phrase 'Royalist Military campaign' might confuse the reader into thinking that Smith was on the side of the King against Cromwell and the parliamentary forces. Which would not be correct. It may be better to reword to get 'Royalist' out of the sentence. The military conflict between the King and the English parliament had not yet broken out in 1641, so it is not clear what 'Royalist' would be referring to here. Maybe just strike the word 'Royalist', so we would be left with: "..his early investment in a military campaign which depended on entrepreneurial funding." EdJohnston (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:Jnestorius
Hi, the article concerns the man, not the Trust that has long outlived him. I am unsure why it is you are not following the citation style but cherry-picking a couple of schools, as you did in the last few hours, isn't particularly helpful and especially so given that they, like most others, do not actually have an article.
I'm not opposed to improvements, as I would hope no-one else would be, but your two edits to Erasmus Smith don't really add anything of great relevance or suitable weight. But shades of grey sometimes elude me, so am I missing some nuance? - Sitush (talk) 00:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I've just added redirects Erasmus Smith school and Erasmus Smith Trust. I think these topics are notable enough for Wikipedia and I hope some day they will have their own article, like Carnegie library. For now the information can be here, like Andrew Carnegie#3,000 public libraries. Moving information to a different (new or existing) article is okay, but I don't like to delete it altogether if the information is, as I believe, encyclopedic. If someone adds substantive information in a suboptimal format, it is often better to fix the format than to revert the edit and hope the original editor will learn the intricacies of the approved format. jnestorius(talk) 00:56, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
I disagree. You have been here long enough to learn how to do things properly and you have twice messed it up. This article is nominated for GA and your changes are disruptive, adding irrelevancies. Either create articles to support those redirects or bin them. - Sitush (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
Bin the redirects? Are you suggesting Erasmus Smith Trust is better as a redlink than a redirect? Perhaps you should remove Erasmus Smith Schools Act, 1938 from the External links. jnestorius(talk) 16:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Erasmus Smith/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Shearonink (talk · contribs) 22:23, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
I will be reviewing this article for possible GA status. Shearonink (talk) 22:23, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct: 

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation: 
Everything looks fine on my first pass, but I'll need to take a closer look at the parameters. Shearonink (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Is it verifiable with no original research?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline: 

B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines: 
The Oxford DDNB is subscription=based and should be marked as such.
C. It contains no original research: 

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism: 
Ran the copyvio tool and everything seems fine. Shearonink (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic: 

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style): {{GAList/check|yes}

Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each: 
Nicely lays out the tussle over the Trust during Smith's lifetime.  Clearly delineates issues over what exactly "Turkey merchant" could mean. Shearonink (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute: 
no edit wars! Shearonink (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content: 

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions: 
Nicely-done...I imagine it is difficult to find portraits of people who lived in the 1600s. Shearonink (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Overall:
Pass or Fail: 

Thanks for taking this on, Shearonink. I've been away for a couple of days. Is there any preferred style in which you would like me to respond to any queries? Some people prefer a response to points inline, others prefer en bloc at the end of the reviewer remarks. - Sitush (talk) 19:12, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I like the responses and correspondence about the Review to be on this page - maybe ping me so your changes show up in my notifications separately (as opposed to being in with the rest of my Watchlist).  Whatever works for you is fine, either down here or up there, thanks for asking, I'll be able to update the criteria as they are fulfilled. Shearonink (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
All the requested adjustments have been tended to.  This is a well-researched nicely-illustrated article about a historical person.  I still can hardly believe that the Trust is still around in any form - over 300+ years later. Shearonink (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)