User:Breadh2o
favorite quote
If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened --- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." --- George Orwell (1903-1950), British novelist. Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 1, sect. 3 (1948).
why GA status is undeserved, for now
(duplicated in archaeoastronomy Talk as subsection 12.2)
I believe it is appropriate to make a case against restoration of Good Article status, so long as several issues persist with no resolution in sight. No tolerance has been shown for inclusion of minority opinion or for contributions made in the interest of neutralizing the article's point of view.
In my reading of the article as it is now constituted, exposition is often choppy and erudite, detrimental to ease of comprehension. Sentences strung together can often appear as non sequiturs --- clarity of the narrative subordinated to footnote count --- leaving gaps and nagging questions unanswered in many readers' minds.
All reference to a profound debate that gripped all of British society, science and academia across three decades in the last half of the 19th century, changed astronomy and spun off enlightened and diversified fields such as archaeoastronomy has been thrice excised from the article's History section. The reason given for deletion is that the sourced reference only discusses pyramid metrology and is, thus, unrelated. But in whose opinion? Sanitizing the past by ignoring certain foundational influences, is seen as expedient in that it gilds the science's nobility. In the same way chemistry shuns its dark legacy of alchemy, British astronomy's near obsession with the Great Pyramid from Oxford University astronomy professor
My early January rewrites of the article's introduction and History sections preserved all references and retained a good proportion of the expository points made in those sections prior to January 5. The reversion on March 16 preserved none of mine. I vetted my proposed changes online before instituting them, but no such reciprocity was extended prior to the Ides of March wholesale revisions by two collaborative authors, exclusive of any other. Additions continue to be made absent of advance vetting or discussion. Invariably, whatever I've proposed has been shot down in discussion, subject to unreasonably extreme standards for compliance, freshly invented challenges, and ultimately, deletion, purges and excisions.
Archaeoastronomy easy ref log
fringe balance 3 online since 15:23 March 31, following 3 deletions by Alun and 3 restores by me. First version posted online at 23:11 March 30
fringe balance 2b everything in section after footnote 108 was erased by Alun Salt at 20:27 March 24 with synopsis rv and deletion of pre-Clovis material from Fringe Archaeoastronomy as it's not Archaeoastronomy. See talk on Precursors and Fringe Archaeoastronomy
fringe balance 2a everything in section after footnote 106 new by Scott Monahan at 21:59 March 22 with synopsis add perspective and balance, what is fringe vs. mainstream, Smithsonian archaeologist Stanford on how brethren can chill novel investigations, TIME Magazine on straightjacket of archaeological dogma, first sentence reworked by Steve McCluskey within half and hour as alternate definition to include pseudoarchaeology, peer review and journals as internal WP topical links
fringe balance 1 everything in section after paragraph ending in the word claims was erased by Steve McCluskey at 20:11 on March 21 with synopsis rv off topic discussion then edit skirmish ending at 20:49 with Steve McCluskey synopsis OK, Fell is out
Reisenauer included in history as it appeared at 20:20 March 24 with minor repairs, first added by Scott Monahan at 18:12 March 23 with synopsis contextual clarification Reisenauer's account of the Egyptian metrology debate which influenced UK astronomers to write about the Great Pyramid years before Lockyer, otherwise cited as UK's first a.a.
new lead w/ pic of Great Pyramid in History sect as it appeared at 1:35 April 10
summarized Politics of Archaeoastronomy as it appeared at 1:01 on April 13