From: "Brad Verity" <royaldescent@hotmail.com
I'll post my two cents on the whole matter once I've finished
reading all the threads in the archives and taking a look at the
Medieval Lands database firsthand. I must say that so far Medieval
Lands seems like one big Medieval Mess.
I've read the thread in entirety now, all 137 messages. It's very sad
- I wish I had paid attention to it at the time. I would have tried
to diffuse the exchange, but who knows whether that would have made
any difference. It seems to me from what I read is that it was a
conflict between Peter and Chris that had been building up over 11
months.
I didn't go far into the Medieval Lands database. I did read the
entire 8-page Introduction, which is inoffensive enough to an amateur
genealogist like myself. The stated goals seem worthwhile, the scope
is commendable, and the general format (links, chapters, etc.) user-
friendly. I know nothing about European St(ammishlie? Clearly, I
can't even spell it), and have no idea whether or not it's a decent
secondary source from which to build this database.
From the post-1300 England pages though, it's clear that only
secondary sources were relied on (and from the footnotes, mainly CP it
seems), with many of the flaws and errors they contain carried over.
I don't know what the rush was on the part of Cawley and FMG to get
this out in public view, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of
the doubt that it was with good intentions and would prove useful for
amateur genealogists such as me, perhaps fairly new to medieval era
research, to have all of these families, countries, etc. compiled
together in an easy-to-use format. That said, the post-1300 England
section as currently posted in Medieval Lands I already have from my
own 15-odd years of compilation research. It may be of use to those
just starting out, just as PA3 is a useful bibliography compilation
with a nice format (except for the lack of specific statement
citations). But if it's not going to be upgraded by Cawley for quite
some time, I agree that it's confusing to a casual websurfer and
counter-productive to the stated intent of the Introduction.
As for Douglas Richardson's charges that he was not cited by Cawley -
I agree that he definitely should be in the John of Lancaster case
(which, in my opinion, is the best pre-1500 research Douglas has ever
done). I disagree that he needs to be cited in the Alice Arundel/
Segrave case. He did no research of his own there - merely pointed
out in a newsgroup post that CP had overlooked the work of an earlier
researcher. Pointing this out may be a service to other current
unaware researchers, but doesn't _necessitate_ citation in a footnote
- the proper way is to cite the original research and sources. The
author can choose to say something like "I'd like to thank Douglas
Richardson for bringing my attention to this source", but really that
is probably better withheld unless Douglas approached the author
specifically with the material. An author's general acknowledgement
of the usefulness of PA3 or SGM newsgroup postings - in a section
Introduction or Bibliography - should be enough to cover if those
works pointed to earlier sources.
Plagiarism is something else entirely. If Douglas's posts, or
portions of, are being lifted verbatim without any credit, that is
both illegal and immoral. From the portions of the post-1300 England
sections that I read, however, outright plagiarism doesn't seem to be
occurring.
Cawley's competence in fulfilling the task he's set forth (as laid out
in his Introduction) has been shown to be extremely lacking, by
Stewart Baldwin, Peter Stewart, Francisco Tavera (?), Todd Farmerie
and several other SGM participants. The fact that it's been a year
and we still have only the 1st Edition online, with no apparent
updates, doesn't bode well.
From: Peter Stewart <p_m_stewart@msn.com
On any rational assessment there must have been at least two
persons
to blame for his disappearance: myself _and_ Phillips.
From: "Brad Verity" <royaldescent@hotmail.com
Peter doesn't have the power to ban anyone from SGM, a fact which
all the trolls delight in and exploit. Chris chose to leave the
group. Leaving off reading the posts Peter was making at the time
may have helped Chris make that choice, but in the end, it was his
choice.
Yes, here is Chris's last statement on the newsgroup:
"I have been responding to your stream of vitriolic personal attacks
and insults with as much patience as I've been able to muster, but we
all have our limits. I've reached my limit, and I just don't have the
patience to continue responding politely while you keep insulting me.
Obviously it was a mistake to try. I should have ignored you from the
start. So I am not going to post any more here on this subject. It's
very sad that it's no longer possible to take part in discussions here
without being called a liar and a hundred other names, and I must
admit I don't have much appetite for any further participation in this
forum. But I'll think about that."
To be fair to Peter, at no point in the heated exchange beforehand did
he tell Chris to leave SGM, stop posting, or say he wished that Chris
would go away. He did make this one comment after Chris made the
statement above:
"SGM will lose nothing but a passenger if you do depart."
And I'm going to have to strongly disagree with Peter here. Chris
Phillips was a longtime participant on SGM, who brought his enthusiasm
and logical thinking to many a complex topic. His website is an
amazing resource for those doing research in the field - a compilation
of hundreds of online resources for the medieval English period. He
used his thorough knowledge of the scope of what he'd compiled to
point SGM participants to sources that would help further their
research. And if he had an interest in a topic discussed, he
frequently took the time to track down an otherwise unavailable
primary source (from the National Archives for example) and post it
online for everyone following the topic to benefit.
He has a handful of personal original research topics he pursues, but
those, as he's admitted, aren't his main focus. He, like me and many
others on SGM, was a compiler, as his website ably demonstrates. One
of his pet projects is his page of Corrections to CP, and he takes it
responsibly and seriously. He doesn't take anything at face value and
just post whatever is brought in front of him - he won't post a
correction until he has followed it up himself and determines if it is
sound.
From: Peter Stewart <p_m_stewart@msn.com
I was irate and unkind, admittedly,
Thank you for making that admission, Peter. I'm only halfway
through reading the thread on Medieval Lands that Will Johnson
linked to yesterday, but, yes, I do agree with your self-assessment.
I don't want to overwhelm with examples of a heated exchange that took
place a year ago. There's a lot of water under the bridge since.
I'll just bring up, in addition to your statement above, this other
one, which you made in a previous post.
"As I have said several times, this is the most disgraceful episode of
hypocrisy and wishful denial of the obvious that I can recall on SGM.
You have degraded yourself in front of everyone for the sake of
clinging to your dishonest presentation of a product that I advised
you
11 months ago to be nothing like the claims made for it."
Hyperbole from the heat of the moment aside, this does sum up the root
of your side of the argument. Chris clearly had much more enthusiasm
for Medieval Lands than you did, and seemed eager to present it to SGM
once it was up on FMG's website (and after their AGM meeting when
Cawley gave a presentation of it). Then because of issues with
content and Cawley's misinterpretation of several sources, lots of
people in SGM proceeded to rain on the parade, with you eventually
being the loudest thundercloud.
I don't know that Chris deserves "wishful denial of the obvious",
"hypocrisy", and "dishonest presentation" since, as he said repeatedly
over and over, it was the scope of the project he was excited about,
and never once touted the competency of the person behind it. In
fact, as the incompetence of Cawley became more and more clear, from
more and more people, Chris never took to arguing that the mistakes
weren't so (he even said he didn't have the expertise to do so).
His argument with you eventually (once it reached the Peter Orsino's
wives material) boiled down to the level of Cawley's self-awareness of
his incompetence. Granted this could be viewed as obtuse (like
arguing over the speed of the train bearing down on you while you're
tied to the tracks), but I feel Chris's point did get lost in the heat
of the exchange (and the clear weight of Cawley's incompetence). If
someone is unaware of their own or someone else's incompetence, how
can they be dishonest? Chris believed in the worth of the Medieval
Lands project despite your (valid) reservations that you had shared
with FMG in the post you later shared with SGM. You had said to FMG
(being unaware of the scope of Cawley's incompetence) that there was
some value in putting it on their website. They chose not to follow
your recommendations on how they should present it (which was
unfortunate), they presented it, and Chris told SGM about it.
Misguided, as it turns out, but not dishonest. Chris is no expert on
pre-Conquest non-English genealogy, and wouldn't be in a position to
judge whether Cawley was a competent enough researcher or not to reach
the goals he had set for himself with this database.
but that doesn't alter the fact
that he was deliberately obtuse, irresponsible at first and evasive
later, or the inexcusable aftermath that he has not fronted up
since -
publicly or privately, either of which would have put an end to the
matter - with the outcome of his promised consultation with Charles
Cawley.
I wrote couple days ago:
"Heated debates on the newsgroup can be exhausting. I know firsthand
- I've had enough of my own with Douglas. And if they become
emotional and personal, I completely understand leaving the newsgroup
altogether. Once that happens, life has a way of taking over and
steering one off onto new pursuits."
Peter, you've admitted to becoming irate (an emotion) during the
exchange, and Chris certainly got emotional as well. In fact, I was
surprised at how strong his tone during it became - he is usually a
truly gentle man. I hold to what I said and respect his decision to
stop participating in SGM altogether. I do hope and wish that someday
he will choose to return.
I also hold that Peter is not responsible for Chris's decision to
leave SGM, though he certainly was the trigger. You can't hold the
storm responsible for a person's decision to take shelter from it.
As to how this all boils down to Peter's current tactic with Hines and
Brandon, which is why I piped in with my original two (and now a
million and two) cents to begin with - he can try and trigger their
leaving SGM as long as he wants. I'm skeptical it'll work because I
believe that they take the newsgroup much less seriously than Chris
did, and Peter himself does. But if he achieves his stated goal - SGM
will certainly be better for it.
It's not a battle that I choose to follow closely, and not one that I
suspect many SGM members wish to follow at all. So, as Peter says
repeatedly, use your delete button or kill-file option, and the
channel will suddenly turn back to medieval genealogy.
Cheers, ------Brad