Talk:Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell/Archive 1

message: Can we move "military career" ahead of "family life", to put the article in chronological order? Zaian 00:48, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK with me.  It probably had family first as in most wiki bios they put early life, education, and family first. Rlevse 01:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Order of sections

message: If he was interested in naked pictures of young boys, this is evidence of pedophilia, not of homosexuality.  The two things are not one and the same.  
Pedophilia is about a sexual interest in young persons who are unable to reciprocate on the same emotional level, if at all.  Pedophilia is considered psychologically aberrant behaviour, and is repugnant to most people and illegal in all civilised countries.  Even having pictures of child pornography is illegal, one does not even have to actually "do" anything with a child to break the law.  Pedophilia is not necessarily confined to interest in young persons of the same sex - in most cases, it is different-sex attraction.  An adult male who is attracted to young boys is a pedophile, not a homosexual.  An adult male who is attracted to young girls is a pedophile, not a heterosexual.
On the other hand, homosexual behaviour between consenting adults is considered perfectly acceptable by most people, and has been decriminalised by all right-thinking legislatures.  The mere fact of being attracted to people of the same sex has never been illegal (how could it be, one cannot legislate against thoughts or feelings).  JackofOz 05:14, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not qualified to expound on the official definition of pedophilia, but I will say that your reading of it conflicts with what I know about the current definition. As for B-P, a close reading of a couple of modern biographies, like Jelks', may change your mind both about his possible pedophilia and his possible homosexuality. Haiduc 17:38, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm no expert either.  The text in the article contains nothing that might suggest homosexuality, but it does contain possible evidence of pedophilia.  Why the word "homosexuality" appears at all is beyond me.  Cheers JackofOz 02:25, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps this controversial topic should be moved to a separate page?  Zaian 12:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is against Wikipedia rules to "solve" controversial topic problems by moving them to a separate page. Haiduc 14:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Homosexuality or Pedophilia

message: I have recently been reading a biography of Patrick Young Alexander. This mentions some aviation experiments by Robert Baden-Powell and his brother. The book leaves me a little confused about which brother did what. Can anybody shed any light?
:His brother Baden had an interest in aviation and other subjects, such as Radio (he was a friend of Guglielmo Marconi, too). --Lou Crazy 02:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Aviation

message: (copied from Talk:Robert Baden-Powell's sexual orientation)
I think that the article should be merged into Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell; it is unimportant on its own. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 18:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Robert Baden-Powell's sexual orientation]] 

message: So, to summarize, Mackensen said that it should be either the current name or simply Robert Baden-Powell. I think the latter would be much more sensible. Actually, in Italy he's more known as "B.-P." (sometimes without the dots), but Robert Baden-Powell is still OK. In the german-speaking world the situation is similar (except that they call him BiPi). So, is there any reason we shouldn't rename this article as "Robert Baden-Powell" ?
--Lou Crazy 23:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point, I don't favor one over the other (although naturally the intro would remain unchanged). You're right, though, that those are the only two choices. Mackensen (talk) 23:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About the intro, what would be the most correct way to include the word Gilwell in it? It ought to be mentioned if we can do it easily (otherwise we'll have a lengthy explaination in later text).  --Lou Crazy 01:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Proteus is the resident expert on territorial designations; for my part the territorial designation is fairly unimportant and would be difficult to include in the intro. Mackensen (talk) 01:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Still, it is quite important in this case, because Gilwell Park has been the centre of Scout Leader training since 1919. I'll ask Proteus... --Lou Crazy 03:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: While they might be generally unimportant, in this particular instance they are. He used the Gilwell title very often. During the '30s, all his books had the byline "Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell". Of course, in the '20s he used "Sir Robert Baden-Powell, Bt". Scouts around the world call him either B.-P. or "Baden-Powell" or "Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell", so Gilwell should be mentioned early on. Have a look at how I changed the opening paragraph. --Lou Crazy 01:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Again, about the name 

message: Everyone's reading this and freaking out, right?  I do not know Baden-Powell's personal feelings about blacks and so I will not throw serious charges around regarding the Father of Scouting.  It is clearly proven in the historical record that in his defense of Mafeking part of his success was due to rationing, which favored whites over blacks.  At one point he ordered a significant portion of the native population of the city to be cut off from all food from the local supplies.  This less than honorable series of decisions is very well outlined in Thomas Pakenham's definitive text on the war, The Boer War, Random House, 1979.
B-P also armed native Africans and allowed them to fight in the defense of their own city over 50 years before the United States army would allow blacks to fight on the front lines.  This decision was decried by Boers and British alike, with a Boer general even writing him a letter, saying, "It is understood that you have armed Bastards, Fingos and Baralongs against us—in this you have committed an enormous act of wickedness ... reconsider the matter even if it cost you the loss of Mafeking ... disarm your blacks and thereby act the part of a white man in a white man's war."
Should a man who became a legend fighting in Africa be taken out of context by ignoring his relationship with the very people who were native to that land?  Baden-Powell lived with, dealt with, and thought about black Africans every single day of his famous deployment, it would be ridiculous for us to be unable to address it when we recount his memory today.  User:The Frog
:I agree with frog and the preceding statement. He fought in Africa for a reason, and if he were a racist, do you even think for one minute he would not commit war crimes in South Africa? Baden-Powell served with distinction in the Boer War, and his treatment of his enemies and the African people is nothing short of honorable. Эйрон Кинни (t) 07:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. Baden-Powell was not a saint. As The Frog says, by today's standards, many people would find some of his actions far from honorable. This sort of criticism would also apply to a great many Victorian military men. Zaian 10:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A little late to the party - but pretty much everybody at that behaved in ways that current society would abhor - remember, this was a time where no democracy allowed women the vote, where slavery was still rife in many parts of the world (and where it had been abolished, treatment of ex-slave peoples was still quite poor).
BP was a man of his times - and while we must, with current values being as they are, agree that his preferential treatment of whites over blacks in Mafeking is now unethical, no-one would have batted an eyelid 100 years ago... and I think that the native population had a rougher time of it from the Boers during and definitely after the war than simply "short rations"...
This is the danger of retro-critiquing - applying our values on old times...
But to call him a racist when he made these decisions at a time when the word hadn't been invented? Horus Kol 11:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racist? 

message: Thats not very helpful. --Dumbo1 16:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Stephe (rhymes with Livy)

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thread_title:  Recommendations for GA-approval 

message: There are several image files in the wikicommons for B-P. Two of these are derived from the Jagger-painting. All have very dubious copyright tags, so this definitely needs corrections. We ought to find a good free picture for the article. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 07:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues to be solved for A-Class status 

message: In several articles this book is given the title Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts and stated that it was published by the Yale University Press. The copy in front of me is called just Baden-Powell and it is published by Hutchinson in London. Since Jeal was British I suspect that this is the original publication, but I could be wrong. If I am correct, then all the references should be changed. It may also mean that the page numbers are incorrect. --Bduke 00:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Jeal book deals with far more than BP's alleged homosexual/bisexual orientation; see merge discussion on orientation article's talk page and Talk:Robert_Baden-Powell%2C_1st_Baron_Baden-Powell/ArchiveTo30March2006. Rlevse 10:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It would be well to merge the book article back into the B-P one. If I remember well, it smacked of being a POV fork when first created. As for B-P creating his own myth (and maybe coming to believe in it himself), that is not at all surprising - people do that, it is how myths are created, and debunking those myths is what historians do. Haiduc 13:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Merging the book into the article will only work if the WHOLE BOOK, not just the POV-oriented 5% dealing with his alleged and unproven homosexual leanings, is used; which is what happened last time and what led to the book being forked out.Rlevse 18:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you Rlevse, for pointing out that the relevant section in this article had been cored out. I replaced most of the missing material, with some minor edits for clarity. As for your contention about Jeal and 5% and POV, come on, man. You by now must be fully aware that the whole thrust of Jeal's book was that B-P did not give a hoot about women except as pals, and preferably adolescent ones at that, while they still retained much of their boyish appeal. Let's not make the man into a skirt chaser now. I thought we had reached some balance here, need we start the whole discussion back up "da capo al fine"? Haiduc 19:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the old talk link about the multiple pages about his interest in women.  His book deals with the whole man, not just his sexual orientation--whatever it was or may have been.  The 5% is based on pages devoted to the subject, which was well-established the last time, so saying "come on, man" should point back at yourself and saying that was the whole thrust of the book seems misguided to me as if it were the whole thrust, much more than 5% would be devoted to it.  Societal standards of the time had women in lower, subservient status and often relegated to minor roles and BP being in line with that does not make him homosexual or bisexual.  As he is not here to defend himself, we'll never know the absolute conclusive truth on the matter. And no, I don't want to start the debate all over again. I will only repeat what I've said: if we use the book as a ref for the main article, it should be the whole book, not just 5% as Jeal certainly deals with many parts of BP's life other than his sexuality, or just leave it as it is with the couple of paras on the subject with the link to the sub article as that had at least achieved an equilibirum on the matter. On a side note, I  find it fascianting that many of us have spent all this time on this subject when you don't see these lengthy debates on other people who were/are or may have been homosexual and none of this can be conclusively proven in the first place re BP. Rlevse 19:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually there have been a great many debates on the sexuality of historical figures, as we are living through a time of more careful examination of the past. These things have historically been suppressed - look at Byron, Shelley and their circle, just as an example. As for "conclusive proof," that is a false standard of evidence, since you can always hold that carrot just out of reach of the donkey's mouth. Historians seek a preponderance of evidence and draw conclusions from that. No objection to Wim's suggestions. Haiduc 21:59, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Haiduc: valid point, but think I also made valid points. I also have no objection's to Wim's proposal, but suggest the obvious--the book article needs a link to the orientation page. Rlevse 23:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree with Bduke above, BP was a complex man with many facets and noteworthy accomplishments.  I would like to see this a FA one day, but it's not there yet. Rlevse 23:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jeal's book

message: There is a citation needed at the bottom of the article. This quote "98. Lord Baden Powell wanted a section on the dangers of "self abuse" in his Scouting for Boys. His original manuscript read: "A very large number of the lunatics in our asylums have made themselves ill by indulging in this vice although at one time they were sensible cheery boys like you.""
Is available at this link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4134329.stm but I don't know how to addSchnizzle 13:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed 

message: The book that I'm using is "Baden-Powell: The two lives of a hero" by William Hillcourt with Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, published by The Gilwellian Press: New York, , Library of Congres Catalog Card Number 64-24263.  The first mention of Olave in the index is their meeting on the steamer, where it says:
"He did not know the other, yet there was someting vaguely familiar about her.  He must have met her somewhere.  He searched his memory.  No. . . . and yet . . . then he remembered: her gait, that quick determined gait.  He couldn't be wrong.
. . . 
Now to find out if he had remembered correctly.  He charged the young lady with lving in London.  Wrong.  She lived in Dorset.
'But you have a brown and whie spaniel?'
'Yes.' The lady showed surprise.
'And you have been in London?  Near Knightsbridge Barracks?'
'Yes, two years ago.'
It was the same girl . . ."
However, BP, although he had apparently inquired after her, had not been introduced to her before this time, I think.  I'm now rereading the book to see if it mentions where BP first saw Olave. Banaticus 07:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meeting Olave before the steamer trip

message: When there is no "evidence of his sexual activity with any males" why don't we delete??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.78.207.78 (talk • contribs) 
(New topics go at the bottom of the page- just click the + at the top of the page to add a new topic.  Please sign your entries.)
This has been discusse at great depth and is now an archived discussion.  The link to the archives is to the right of the table of contents at the top of this page. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds as if you are trying to recapitulate the article in the title, which is a thankless task. The article indicates that the discussion is about his sexual orientation, which it is. Trying to read more into it, or to keep people from reading more into it will just lead to more confusion and speculation. Keep it simple, people are smart enough to figure out what the situation is. Haiduc 04:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Haiduc--long time no see! Nice to see you again. I totally agree with what you just said. At one point we didn't agree no much, huh-;) Rlevse 08:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Avoid restating the subject of the article or of an enclosing section in heading titles. It is assumed that you are writing about the same subject, so you usually do not need to refer to it again. Thus "Early life", not "His early life".
On his sexual orientation always stuck me as a bit pedantic.  Ideally it would simply be Sexual orientation.  I'm not going to get hung up on this.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexuality