Talk:Offa's Dyke

message: I dunno but why is this article being written like it was either built x year or y year, you would think 100 mile long earth mound would take quite some time to build, and you know how short the construction season can be. None the less I am very suprised nothing in here touches on the length of time that sections or the whole thing took to build.  Also not taking into consideration that ramparts and other earthmounds with ditches will infill over time. Therefore it may be possible that earlier smaller walls were not the same size and that in fact Offa or predecessors maintained and grew the size of the dyke structure over a course of some 400 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:1DA0:BBD:69C2:940F:FF03:1717 (talk) 04:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: TOOK A LONG TIME TO BUILD MAYBE???

message: Jeez, and I was about to delete this as somebody's off-colour joke :)  --Robert Merkel
er, I don't think so... --user:sjc
I've fleshed out this article quite a lot now, though I'm still not entirely happy with it, and think there are some conceptual areas that need clearing up. When I come back to it I'll probably introduce more context, though much of that can probably be gained from looking at Offa of Mercia. Harthacanute 01:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These reservations are best expressed in quotes from the published authors who have voiced them. (Not a guru Wetman 06:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

text: All those ideas may be true... or they may not be. As an encyclopaedia Wikipedia do not publish original theories (see WP:OR). If any of those theories have been published by reliable sources they may be worth adding to the article, depending on how notable they are. You may want to note it here on the talkpage first if you aren't sure whether or not to include it (or how to cite sources), and someone will be happy to help. I added a paragraph on the historian John Davies' conclusion that may help explain the original motive for building it. Cheers, Daicaregos (talk) 10:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Dyke

message: I have no idea why my edit was reverted, with respect to travellers.
I'm Canadian, and frankly had never heard before about this English sub-ethnic group.  However, I like to swap out groups, to see how things sound/appear when using similar terms.  If I do this with this sentence, it sounds exceptionally racist, and completely incorrect to boot.
EG:
In August 2013, a 45 m (148 ft) section of Dyke, between Chirk and Llangollen, was destroyed by travellers.
to
In August 2013, a 45 m (148 ft) section of Dyke, between Chirk and Llangollen, was destroyed by negros.
First, 'travellers' did not destroy the dyke.  It was a *person*, working *alone* that did so.  The cited newspaper states that this was the case, and describes the person, and the person's name.
Not only is this article repeating a racist statement in a newspaper (eg, why does it matter that the person belonged to *any* ethnic subgroup), the article in the newspaper states that *A TRAVELLER*, not *TRAVELLERS* destroyed that section of the dyke.
By changing traveler -> travellers, you are immediately inaccurate, as travellers is PLURAL, and 'traveller' is singular.. and this was an act by a single person.
I have revered the change to my change.  I hope you leave it this way... not only for accuracy, but to prevent the assignment of this act to an entire ethnic subgroup, when it was merely a *HUMAN BEING*.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.70.111.174 (talk) 17:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason I reverted you was that your reference to "an English Traveller" seemed unnecessarily specific - the capitalised term "English Traveller" is not in common use.  But I accept that there is in fact no need to refer to the person's ethnic status at all - so I've changed it to "local landowner".  Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Travellers versus 'a traveller'