Jump to content

Talk:James Kinsey

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dispute unsourced Founding Father title

[edit]

No prominent source can be found to substantiate the claim that Kinsey was a Founding Father of the United States. Unless multiple authoritative sources can be found to support this, the title will be removed. Allreet (talk) 06:26, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The signers of the other three founding documents are accepted per sources and various talk page discussions as Founding Fathers, and since there is no dispute that the Continental Association is a founding document, site consistency applies. Besides the defining 2017 Werther article "Analyzing the Founders: A Closer Look at the Signers of Four Founding Documents" in the Journal of the American Revolution here are two other sources which, for consistency and per WP:COMMONSENSE, acknowledge that the Founders include the signers of the fourth: The Founder of the Day article "Signers of the Continental Association" clearly states "Below is a list of the Founders who signed the Continental Association" [emphasis mine], followed by the names of the 53 signers (Founder of the Day also names the Association as one of the four founding documents). The worldhistory.edu "Top 10 Founding Fathers of the United States of America" - section "List of Founding Fathers of the United States" asserts "Also, two broader groups of Founding Fathers capture the signers of Articles of Confederation (the initial version of the American Constitution which was adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781) and the signers of the Continental Association (created on October 20, 1774)" [emphasis mine]. Please add these sources to the pages of the other Association signers you are intent of removing from Founding Father status, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:41, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Randy Kryn: None of these arguments satisfies the need for multiple sources regarding your assertion.
The one reliable source cited, an article in the Journal of the American Revolution, does not say "53 signers of the Continental Association are considered Founding Fathers". Randy conjures this conclusion by leaping from the title to the text for meaning that is not found there. Hardly what WP:VER requires: that sources be "direct" and "clear".
Even if Randy's source was acceptable in other regards, the assertion about "53 signers" is decidedly incorrect because at least two of the Continental Association's signers were loyalists, one of whom was convicted of treason for aiding the British army.
COMMONSENSE does not apply to an extraordinary assertion, one that under WP:VER would require multiple sources.
The claim is extraordinary in that in a single swoop 53 people are being added to the nation's list of Founding Fathers. It's also extraordinary that a claim this far-reaching has no additional historians to support it.
In lieu of respected sources, Randy has provided two websites of a highly questionable nature. Neither one provides any sources for its claims, and the most "reliable" of the two refuses to do so because adding references is "too time-consuming." I'm not making that up.
And finally, I'm not about to add citations that I regard as considerably less than adequate. Allreet (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Will get back to this as I try to keep up with Allreet who has been at his crusade of canceling founders for what seems like months on dozens of pages and tens of thousands of words. For example, he has opened and closed three (3, III) simultaneous RfC's on the same question because he didn't like the results (a Wikipedia record?), and is now looking for a different conclusion (which wouldn't count anyway given the results of three simultaneous RfC "loses") I'll answer further within a day or two, can only juggle so many of his new discussions at a time (which he knows and is maybe - surely? - counting on) but I do ask him now, is he going to add this campaign to the Peyton Randolph page, who, given Allreet's wishes, would lose Founding Father status on Wikipedia? Randy Kryn (talk) 23:45, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Randy Kryn: Please knock off the accusations. You're distorting what occurred in the RfC process and engaging in a personal attack, a rather incoherent one at that. The Founding Fathers page has assertions/POVs that have been applied to dozens of biographies, all based on the dubious interpretation of a single source. As for Peyton Randolph, he has nothing to fear in that regard. Allreet (talk) 14:06, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]