Saturday, February 7, 2015

Wikipedia page

Namely, Thomas Gardner (planter). When you visit the page, you will see the following warning (of course, "multiple" means two).


Pray tell, what gives? Wiki is an open society. As such, opinions abound. If you would have looked at this last summer, there would have been a third bullet, NPOV (Neutral Point of View). That is, someone took exception to some of the material on the page. Since that time, the offending material is now on the Talk page, so the button went away.

The two remaining buttons deal with the list of descendants. Some of these are sourced by books. Some were from web sites. Now, if the web is suspect in general, so, too, is Wikipedia. Hence, Wiki people should not use that argument (I have already weighed in on that).

Aside: I have used Wikipedia from the beginning and have edited for about ten years now. I started the Thomas page in 2010 as there was NO (as in, nada) presence for Thomas, and many others, on Wiki whereas the other historicals were vociferously visible. At the time, I used the page to get some notion of the breadth of descendants and have kept at it. Note, you see similar for Lowell (and others). The Talk page has comments related to the expansion of this page from its inception.

So, if you look at the Talk page now, you'll see this, among other things.


I am jmswtlk (oldest wiki'an until proven otherwise). Note the second paragraph. Someone took exception to the tags (see above image); I agree in part. But, the Wiki way is to work toward consensus. Too, I will admit that some of the earlier stuff had attitude about which I intend to write in detail. But, I'm older now and want this page to be reflective of Thomas and his Gardner's BeaconTM (the varieties of connotations - including allusions to John W's little declaration - is not a small set) in an enduring manner.

So, as the last sentence says, it's on the plate. But, to date, the work has been done by mostly one editor. Besides this page, there are auxiliary pages to support. So, where is the support?

Aside: Wiki represents the real essence of Web independence. Personally, it is my first place for research (look at the material that has been added about Magna Charta in the past year or so - one can track relations between the Sureties - themselves - and their progeny, for instance). On some subjects, Wiki provides an irreplaceable framework - if you would like to discuss this, let me know -- that is provided by experts. So, the TGS, Inc. will continue to keep the pages current. However, any new material is welcome as long as it follows the Wiki rules.

Remarks: Modified: 02/08/2015 

02/08/2015 - Note the use of "web independence" rather than net neutrality which, while related, is different. The web allows self-publish and more much to the chagrin of many as we then need to endure the output of the bad as well as that of the good (talking content and rating thereof).


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