Talk:Slighting

message: Isn't slighting the deliberate damaging of fortifications to put them beyond the use of an enemy? I wouldn't describe demolishing old town walls to make room for urban expansion as slighting.
Also, the suggestion that only the Parliamentarians had popular support in the English Civil War is incorrect. Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Town walls etc 

message: The reason that the lead was wrong before my most recent edit was because the sentence "During the English Civil War this was to render it unusable as a fort." implies that it was only during the Civil War that slighting was done to render a fortification unusable as a fort. All that has happened now Nev1 is that you have expanded it to two specific incidents. Yet ever example on the page was done to render the fortress unusable as a fortress. Do you have an example where slighting was carried out for some other reason as is implied by the wording you have introduced? -- PBS (talk) 23:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The burden of evidence is on yourself as the one making the assertion. The sources did not back up the statement that "A slighting is the deliberate destruction, partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition, to render it unusable as a fortress". It is a very wide statement that covers all times period and asserts that the movation was always and only to prevent the fortification from being used as a fortress. Providing examples for the reasons for slighting in particular circumstances cannot be used to generalise about all slighting. 23:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, it is you who is introducing an assumption. Do you have one example where an slighting was carried out that did not ",render it unusable as a fortress"? At the moment your wording implies that that sometimes it is. Unless you can then I will revert the change, to the simpler statement as "Under some conditions, such as the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, the intention was to render the structure unusable as a fortress." implies there are other conditions where slighting is done for other reasons. You have not produced an example. -- PBS (talk) 23:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: All the sources you have provided demonstrate is that on some occasions the intention was to deny the enemy use of a fortification, but to use the same sources to make a general statement is obviously flawed. It's like saying I saw three black cats today, so all cats are black. The current phrasing ("A slighting is the deliberate destruction, partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition. Under some conditions, such as the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, the intention was to render the structure unusable as a fortress.") reflects that the sources are not discussing all instances of slighting. Nev1 (talk) 00:07, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are missing the point by specifies some of the events mentioned on the page but not all of the, the piece implies that some slighting are done for other reasons. Yet all of them are done for the same reason so by emphasising just two of them you are giving undue weight to those examples and implying that slighting may be done for other reasons. You have not yet come up with any source that gives an example where slighting does not "render [a structure] unusable as a fortress". Do you have such an example? -- PBS (talk) 04:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: And once again you have extrapolated from a handful of examples that "all of them are done for the same reason", which is dreadful reasoning. By drawing on the specifics of the source, the text avoids problems such as original research; if you feel the statement is misleading, all you have to do is find a source supporting your assertion because the ones currently used are insufficient. The burden of evidence is on yourself, as the sources are currently being used to draw conclusions that they themselves do not reach. Nev1 (talk) 14:34, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: "Under some conditions," what are the other conditions? -- PBS (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a caveat that the sources only cover narrow periods and geographic locations and do not make sweeping statements about slighting as a whole. For the last time, where is your source? Nev1 (talk) 19:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a caveat it is making a statement that there are other conditions for which not source has been provided. you write above "deny the enemy use of a fortification" that is not what the wording you removed said what it said was "to render it unusable as a fortress", do you have a source that says that slighting is ever done for any other reason? -- PBS (talk) 05:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead

message: I've been working on a new draft of the article in my sandbox. Full disclosure: I've written one of the sources cited and the one source mentioned in further reading so it's going to be important to get some other opinions on the article.
You might notice that it differs quite a lot from the current article. Of the 11 sources in the current article's bibliography only one is used in the new draft. The reason for that is that most of the previous bibliography discussed slighting in passing. In the last decade or so there have been several publications which address the topic head-on and give it a theoretical grounding. So I thought it made sense to draw primarily on those, and in doing so the length of the article has nearly tripled. I've tried to avoid it becoming a list of individual cases or conflicts where slighting was used and tried to draw it back to be a bit more general. Hopefully that approach makes seems reasonable.
I welcome any feedback and have posted messages at WP:MILHIST, WP:ARCHAEOLOGY, and WP:HSITES. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:31, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed redraft