Talk:Ragnvald Ulfsson

message: The contemporaneous source is Sigvatr Þorðarson, who connects this guy with Svitjod. The rest is elaborations by Icelanders. /Pieter Kuiper 09:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am fine with improving this article, as long as the decision as to what is "elaboration" and what is "history" is based on reliable sources. This article is in line with the encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok which suggests that a great deal of information is not "fiction" as you call it in your edit summary.--Berig 15:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nordisk Familjebok is a century old, and definitely not to be relied on nowadays. /Pieter Kuiper 15:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have seen you use it yourself as a source, so why should it suddenly not be relied on now?--Berig 16:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have found Nordisk Familjebok useful to show that some things were oldfashioned already a hundred years ago. Nowadays, all knowledge pre-1100 seems to be lost. Nationalencyklopedin has only two sentences about Ragnvald Ulfsson. Regrettably, Wikipedia is the major factor preserving the old "knowledge" (lore would be a more appropriate term) in the digital age. /Pieter Kuiper 17:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please go ahead and make the article up to date, preferably by adding sources and discussing them. I look forward to seeing your progress.--Berig 17:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I reverted you because you continue your old habits of deleting information. Please add sources and discuss and do not remove based on WP:IDON'TLIKEIT.--Berig 17:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legend and history 

message: The burden of proof is on User:Berig who wants this "information" about Ragnvald's second marriage in the article. Berig restored this again and again, without giving a source, only on  sweeping claims that this is in history books. In fact, the part that I deleted says that there is no source: "The second marriage is not mentioned in any historical source. It is solely based on the assumption that Stenkil's father Ragnvald the Old (mentioned in Hervarar saga) is identical with Ragnvald Ulfsson." 
My assumption is that this was user:Wiglaf's inference. /Pieter Kuiper 06:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You say "again and again", but according to the article's history I had only restored it twice. The problem is that three times you have removed the theorized connection between Ragnvald the Old and Ragnvald Ulfsson and the latter's theorized role as the father of Stenkil. Don't you agree that it is a bit questionable to remove so much information just because you argue that the marriage of Ragnvald the Old and Astrid may only be an assumption by an editor? In my experience most wikipedia editors would simply add a  tag.--Berig 14:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Burden of proof 

message: It seems to me that you are looking at to few recent secondary sources. This whole debate, and any other debates of similar historical issues, is just a pointless waste of time if you don't survey recent scholarly texts on the subject.
I have access to the CD edition of Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, where there is an article on Ragnvald Ulfsson in a volume published 1995-1997. It includes a bibliography and at least briefly discusses different issues.
I can cut and paste the article here (it is less than a page in print). I guess it would be a violation of copyright to do so, but could it then be removed by a site administrator after you have all read and copied the text and before Google finds and caches it? Or you could go to whatever libraries you have nearby and check for yourselves. Olaus 07:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can look it up. The library here has the work. /Pieter Kuiper 07:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd be interested in seeing it. Could I ask you to email me a copy? The link is Special:Emailuser/Angusmclellan. Everyone here but me can probably see it in a library. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 08:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An e-mail has been sent. Olaus 10:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reference Olaus! I have just read the article and it reveals how subjective the evaluation of the historical value of the sagas is. Nationalencyklopedin (1994), Lars-Ove Larsson ("Stenkil" in Vem är vem i svensk historia, 2000) and Mats G Larsson (2002) state as a fact that Ragnvald was the jarl of Västergötland while the lexicon attributes this only to Snorri's later account, which it gives low value as a source.--Berig 14:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Better sources needed before discussion

message: I find the "template" method of entering references ridiculously complex, and have removed this. I tried to add a page number to Winroth's article but it came out as "pp.", despite the whole thing being on only one page:
*
Maybe I just don't get it and it can be fixed somehow. I made links with |-lines to put the authors in alphabetical order, despite their linking.
One thing I don't understand is why Pieter Kuiper removed Winroth's article from the alphabetical list when he inserted it as a footnote. Footnotes and bibliographies are supposed to include the same references, just ordered alphabetically (or systematically, according to repository and archival signum, for archival sources). If the template is restored, please put it in the bibliography, not in the middle of the text. I have looked at the "source text" for articles with more references, and it gets awfully complex and difficult to read the article. Olaus 08:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes the templates are a bit of a constraint (the "pp."-thing has also been bugging me), but in general it is a help in formatting according to a common style. The rest is a matter of convention, and wikipedians are divided. Many people prefer the Harvard system, but I think the duplication is unnecessary, certainly for short articles like these.  /Pieter Kuiper 09:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may not really be necessary for a short article, but I sort of prefer it for consistency's sake. Generally speaking, I like getting the overview of literature in one place at the end (and in this case I think simplifying the links within the text justifies it as well). Olaus 16:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing templates