Talk:A Vindication of the Rights of Men/Archive 2

message: N1) "Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English" from WP:ENGVAR.
N2) No national usage is favored, albeit at the risk of a stilted expression or two.
:*Do you mean "favoured"? qp10qp 21:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Very funny! :D  The terrible irony is that I grew up using British spelling because I thought it looked more "elegant".  My teachers had to punish me for two years before I would switch.  Even now, I'm apt to lapse into elegance. ;) Willow 21:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

text: *Roger, please stop insulting British readers. Awadewit | talk 00:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not. But this is controversial, so I'll strike it. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 09:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pro neutral formulations

message: That feeling of my parallel universe drifting further and further away from this one is becoming stronger, but I'll still try to reach across the divide.
It should be evident to everyone by now that each of us is arguing from different premises and, as such, we can reasonably expect never to come to a consensus through rational argument — or irrational, for that matter. ;)  That suggests to me that our future road together does not lie along this one-dimensional track we've crafted, but — perpendicular.  
Therefore, I'm pleading with you to forgo this tug-of-war — whose victory can only be Pyrrhic — for something better.  I'm not asking you to discover and do the Right Thing; I'm asking you to do the Noble Thing.  Not because this or that rule says so, not because "Oh dear, it might set a precedent for other articles", not because the Others are arguing so lamely, not because of anything rational.  I'm pleading with you all to lay down your arms, have faith in a gracious solution, unfurl your wings and fly — upwards.  Grander things await us all beyond this trifling battle-field.
Something must be conceded by someone — ideally by both sides here.  Let the one most blessed with grace concede first, and let the others be more gracious in turn.  Don't fear for the future; be great-hearted and generous now. Willow 20:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, Awadewit and I have both said that we were not going to be editing from BE to AE or vice versa. When I do copy-edit I do so in AE because that's what I know, but I will certainly not reverse any edits either way. I have said for a while that my sense is that if the regular editors (and arguers of this point) refrain from edits pertaining to the BE/AE issue, that the articles will migrate to BE. Cheers, Laura --lquilter 21:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Then why hasn't this happened yet? As far as I know, for example, I haven't reverted any BE changes in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman regarding BE/AE since it has been made an FA (that would be since March) nor on Mary Wollstonecraft (that would be since February). Certainly none of the other MW articles has migrated towards BE at all. No one has tried to make any dialectical changes until now. The only person to make any substantial changes to any of the MW articles has been myself. I have rewritten the second half of the Mary Wollstonecraft article to better the reflect the new articles about her works (Kaldari, perhaps you could review those sections?). Lquilter, perhaps you could find some examples of articles that have drifted? If there is no evidence that articles drift, then this particular argument does not hold much weight. Awadewit | talk 22:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: *Willow, I understand the reasons behind your plea, I do. However, I do not think that the "noble thing" can be described as "I am tired of this debate, therefore I will concede". If such a philosophy were applied on more serious topics, the results would be disastrous; by logical extension, therefore, it is not a good idea here. I have always been willing to abide by the wikipedia policy of consensus. Consensus may sometimes be flawed, but it is wikipedia's governing system, therefore I must abide by it. At this time, I do not see a consensus to change the article to BE. I have made numerous, well-supported arguments for why the guideline regarding national varieties of English is not the best one to follow in this instance. It is on these and the counterarguments presented by other editors that I believe we should base our decision. Giving up on logic and accepting rule-by-MOS or rule-by-heartstrings is the way to madness and chaos. I think we all recognize this, as we are all attempting to provide arguments to the best of our ability. Awadewit | talk 22:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: *I teach an argumentative writing class and a week ago, I spent an hour with my students discussing the importance of logical argument in life - what should I tell them now, do you think? My students asked me when it was acceptable to appeal to emotion (we were looking at logical fallacies). I said that it is sometimes acceptable, but one must always have an argument as well, otherwise the plea is suspect; moreover, the appeal to emotion is still a logical flaw - it is just convincing rhetoric. One must always weigh logic and rhetoric, no? I am happy that the editors above don't think I would resort to "emotional blackmail" - one of the worst "appeals to emotion" on wikipedia - and I hope that never happens, but like I told my students, relying on the rules of logic gives everyone a solid base to rely on in disputes, while "appeals to emotion" do not. While this debate might be protracted, I believe that, if we try to remain calm, and weigh all of the evidence, we could come to consensus. Awadewit | talk 22:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: *We do all remember that VRM was written about the French Revolution in many ways, right? We have all read the article? VRM was part of the British debate over the French Revolution. Just checking on that. MW may have been British-Irish-French or whatever, but this work (the subject of this page) was dealing with issues that stretched beyond Britain. Just to throw that out there. Awadewit | talk 04:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The measure of nobility

message: What happened to the images? Why does it say "undefined" in the text where two of them used to be? Awadewit | talk 03:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to have been a temporary problem with the Wikimedia image servers. Kaldari 17:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images