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Talk:John Gregory (engineer)

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About source reliability

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In creating this page I have included references to Russell Potter's website "Visions of the North." This is self-published and hosted on BlogSpot and as such hits the automated filter when creating a page (and is more generally something of a no-no for Wikipedia!) For the following reasons, I believe this site is appropriate and reliable for Franklin Expedition related material.

  • Potter is a recognized authority on the subject. He wrote the book: Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-year Search, edited May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition (forthcoming), and "Relics of the Franklin Expedition: Discovering Artifacts from the Doomed Arctic Voyage of 1845" by Garth Walpole, and has contributed to numerous other book chapters, documentaries, and articles in periodicals, as well as serving as historical consultant and guest speaker at museums.
  • This site has been referenced in published, reliable sources. See for example David C. Woodman's Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony Second Edition, page xxiv. On page xx Woodman refers to it as "the pre-eminent digital source" for Franklin Expedition news and research. It is thus a news source recognized by other experts in the field, maintained by an expert. Potter's book (while his own) also cites the website (see page 248), and is an academic work published by a university publisher.
  • Potter specifies when there are other contributors, leaving no ambiguity as to whether it is him writing. Theories, hypotheses, personal suppositions, etc. are always stated as such.
  • The information relating to this is still new. Preferably published sources containing it will be able to supersede these references eventually. Potter's own May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition is set for a June 2022 release and may include this information. The birth information is particularly recent, more so than the Stenton et al. text which notes a full treatment of biography is yet to come. As per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works "A self-published source by an expert may include a significant opinion that hasn’t yet appeared in a non-self-published source."
  • The pages are secondary sources, preferable to primary.
  • No unsubstantiated claims about living persons (including the author; i.e. not unduly self-serving)
  • The material is non-controversial
  • The material is not an exceptional claim
  • There is no reason to suspect reasonable doubt, the pages contain visual images from other sources (including primary sources) that match the text.
  • Information on the site is otherwise overwhelmingly accurate regarding Franklin Expedition material
  • The article subject is notable from the other sources, this is not establishing notability
  • Visions of the North has already been cited on other pages on English Wikipedia, including "Franklin's Lost Expedition," an article classified as Good.

Just as a precaution, I have included this in the talk page as it is relevant. If there are any other discussions on this, the talk page may prove useful. This may also be useful for other Franklin Expedition related pages.

Celeverith (talk) 03:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]