Talk:John Hanson

Beware of myths

John Hanson's biography and history contains more vague and inaccurate details that almost any other figure of the revolution. There is also no modern, researched biography for him. Early 18th century accounts, and various genealogy sites contain demonstrable errors and outright fiction. Some of the existing Wikipedia article repeats these. I had hoped to re-write into a clean one, but the trail is cold. I'll wind up doing it in pieces and it will be some time before we can be proud of this article. As changes are made, most deleted elements deserve at least some note on this page or an archive of it. Wish me luck, Thanks, Lou I 07:26, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Working with all the Hanson data I can find, cross checking it, and then applying reasonability checks makes the process stated above much harder than I had thought. His biography on the U.S. Congress web site even contains inaccuracies. So, I'm going to try a different approach. I'm going to start an article for John Hanson (myths). If I explore (and explode) as many as possible there, this will be a short article but will contain only verifiable facts, and point to the myths article. I'll probably write most of the myth one first to avoid excessive editing here. Lou I 07:04, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi,

I am a casual Wikipedia user and thought I would throw in these observations. I hope I found an appropriate place to do it.

The following two activities are listed in this article as achievements and in the myths article as myths. Presumably they are not both right.

• Established the Presidential Seal, and still used by all Presidents on official documents and other related items.[citation needed]
• Proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving holiday —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.107.240.253 (talk) 19:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

These are various Internet-perpetuated myths, now removed from the article. Thanks.

When was he born?

Why does Encyclopedia Britannica say that John Hanson was born on April 13, 1721? Is this another myth? (An unlogged in user).

This is one case where Britannica is just wrong! The 1721 date belonged to his cousin. I'm going with two sources here: 1st is his grave, 2nd is his congresssional biography (link on first page). This is briefly discussed in the myths article as well. Lou I 16:52, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Annotated Code of Maryland, Title 13, Section 401 ("John Hanson's birthday") says:

"The Governor annually shall proclaim April 13 as John Hanson's birthday and dedicate that day to the statesman."

The state of Maryland seems to be confused about the matter as well if April 3rd is indeed his birthday. Jacob1207 03:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

PLEASE NOTE: Added Note by R. Philip Dean: I think the attribution to his birthday is most probably similiar to Queen Elizabeth of England. She has an "OFFICIAL" birthday and an actual birthday. A state proclamation as to when one will celebrate the birth of a person isn't necessarily the actual date they were born. Similiar in this country to the Washington & Lincoln birthday as well as that of Jesus. We know Jesus (if you believe in Him) wasn't born December 25 nor resurrected on Easter, which is actually governed by a pagan holiday. Just my thought... I could be wrong!

The April 3 vs. 13 confusion might be attributed to the changeover from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which would have occurred in the British Empire during his lifetime. It wouldn't explain the confusion about the year, however.

One should also remember that in those days, when many children were born at home on farms and far from the places where any official records were kept, there might have been substantial delays between a time a baby was born and the birth was recorded. If several children were born in the same extended family at that time, errors or confusion could easily occur.71.131.186.165 06:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I adjusted the birth date in the article to the Gregorian Calendar date. His birth records would have listed the date in the Julian calendar. We need to add 10 days to get the Gregorian Date. -- MiguelMunoz 00:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's get a few facts straight. He was born on 3 April 1715, under the Julian Calendar. In the 18th century, the gap between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 11 days, not 10 days. Hence, under the Gregorian calendar he was born on 14 April 1715 - see [1] and [2]. Why Maryland chose 13 April as the official celebration date is mystery. Maybe they mistakenly calculated the Gregorian date, or maybe it was just an unintentional near-coincidence. But whatever, it was destined to confuse a lot of people, who probably have it fixed in their heads that Hanson was born on 13 April (NS), when in fact he was born on 14 April. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The Dictionary of American Biography, the American National Biography, and A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature give Hanson's year of birth as 1721. For our purposes, this is definitive. This John Hanson was known in his lifetime as "John Hanson, Jr.", probably to distinguish him from an older relative (not his father). If there indeed was a John Hanson born in 1715, that's perhaps the other, "senior" John Hanson. —Kevin Myers 05:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Was he really black?

Can somebody tell me why Dick Gregory at http://www.dickgregory.com/dick/14_washington.html claims that John Hanson was black?

Of course, it also says he was the first President of the United States, which isn't true. He wasn't even the first President of the United States in Congress assembled. -- Zoe

About a third of the referenced column repeats inaccurate or fabulistic history, and it contains almost half of the Hanson errors or myths that are floating around. It also contains one that was new to me, that Hanson was partially black. The Hanson family of his time was mainly English, with some French Heugenots. I think the myth comes from the fact that his grandfater (also John) came to Maryland as an indentured servent. When he arrived he owed six years service to pay for his passage. There is a court record of the sale of his indenture. Lou I 07:26, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC

There was a John Hanson who was a senator in Liberia, and that may also be a source of misconception that the John Hanson who presided over congress was black. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson_%28politician%29. -- Matt Battison

The Hanson in the main article looks mixed to me! People may not know this, but Europe was blacks so calling someone something other than a Germanic tribe name DOES NOT mean they were white, simply because they come from Europe, as Europe is not the white man's homeland! Blacks still ruled parts of Europe during Hanson's time, but were largely figureheads (in mulatto form) as whites consolidated power in Power. Just check out Queen Charlotte to see this mulatto mix, then her mostly white offspring. This is usurping via mixing. This is the REAL story of Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.211.201.227 (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Afrocentric nonsense. 71.206.140.2 (talk) 07:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Was he really Swedish?

There was A Hanson (no relation) involved in Swedish colonial ventures in Delaware, whose son returned to fight with Gustavus Adolphus. The rest of the story, and the relation to this Hanson family were invented in the 1820s. It got picked up and repeated then expanded in other literature, and even engraved on walls. No truth to the story.Lou I 07:26, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Anon editor, 213.216.199.10, has added back in the information about the sweedish origin. I have left a message on users talk page about this and offered links backing this up, but today the user has gone back and re-added the myth to the article and also to the article on Hakkapeliitta. Viper Daimao 15:51, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the origins were from Finland, not from sweden unlike it's normally supposed. The Hanson family first moved from Finland to Sweden and then into the States.194.157.18.210 22:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No he was of English descent not Swedish or Finnish, Hanson is an old Saxon English patronymic surname, anything with son on the End is Old English believe me its the English version of the Scottish mac, or Irish O, for example Johnson, Anderson (believed to be scottish but NO its old English), Simpson (believed to be Scottish again NO English), Thompson, Richardson, (Very English), Harrison (EXTREMELY ENGLISH), Jefferson (Welsh? Noooooo English), Edson (English), Swedish version of Hanson is Hanssen or Hansson.109.154.0.180 (talk) 10:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

please focus on WP:RS versus personal reflection TEDickey (talk) 10:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Was he really the first President?

In the first paragraph of the article, the word "mistakenly" should be removed for the reasons given below to avoid ambiguity.

Hanson was the first person to be elected to the new post ('president', as created by the Articles of Confederation as opposed to 'president' of the Continental Congress. Samuel Huntington was never elected to this new post. Moreover, the new post had truly executive powers which were specified in the Articles (de jure). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.67.96.142 (talk) 17:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll try not to split hairs, but Hanson's predecessors presided over Continental Congresses that did not represent thirteen unified states. Once the Articles of Confederation were passed, the thirteen states were recognized by their own ratification as a nation, the United States, however weak the central government might have been. Hanson certainly held the office of president, at the time, whether "in Congress Assembled" or not, and whether or not that office functioned entirely as the current office of president does (which, we agree, it did not). The Congress that Hanson presided over represented the United States, so in turn, does it not follow that he was the nation's president? It seems that most people want to deny that Hanson was the first U.S. president, simply because it is too inconvenient for them to go back and write in the history books that Washington was the first U.S. president under the current constitution. The powers of Elizabeth I don't exactly resemble the powers of Elizabeth II either. Does anybody try to put forth the argument that either Elizabeth I was not, or Elizabeth II is not, the Queen? -- Matt Battison

No he wasn't. He was just the presiding officer of the Confederation Congress. Anyone who believes that he was the first U.S. President is wrong and has no idea what they are talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.155.94 (talk) 03:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifing that will help a LOT of people. 2600:8807:268A:5800:C06D:98FF:FEEE:691F (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

"He was just the presiding officer of the Congress." Exactly! He presided!! Along with his title of "President of the United States in Congress Assembled" made him by definition president! Why is it that no one seems to comprehend the definition of "president"? Btw, Hanson was the third president - Samuel Huntington was the first. Why people try to distort history is incomprehensible. Solri89 (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

When my parents took the examination to become US citizens in 1958, one of the questions was "Who was the first President of the United States?" And the correct answer was "John Hanson". JHobson3 (talk) 11:38, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Did you not read what was above you? look up and read. 2600:8807:268A:5800:C06D:98FF:FEEE:691F (talk) 16:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Contested Neutrality

Because of this, some of his descendants, along with some amateur historians, claimed that he was the first President of the United States.

The use of "amateur" is unnecassary to establish the evidence as questionable. Opinionated adjectives such as this should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTRHStudios (talk • contribs) 14:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

There are professional historians, there are amateur historians. Those are not opinions, but descriptions. Professional historians tend to have advanced degrees in history, and have writings that have been cited or reviewed by their peers (see WP:Sources). With amateur historians, the opposite. In this article, it is important for readers to understand that the "Hanson was the first president" claim does not come from the ranks of professional historians. If there's a better way to express this succinctly in the lead without using the word "amateur", let's hear it. —Kevin Myers 00:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is it important for readers to understand that the claim does not come from the ranks of professional historians. When you use the adjective you call into question the neutrality of the article. Also the distinction between "professional" and "amateur" historians may be valid in some respects, but it is not a universal validation worthy of an encyclopedia, as it will favor some schools of thought or institutions over others. It also reduces the quality of the article making it subjective to the whims of any "professional" historian who might decide to throw their weight behind the claim. A better way to make the distinction if the editor feels the need to make one, would be to reference a notable historian,article or historic society publication citing or characterizing the claims as ideas that arise from "amateur" conclusions/perspective or research. It seems like this article needs its own "myths" or "controversial place in history" section or something as the article is riddled with conflicting or debunking information right alongside of the authoritative "facts." That I think can make it a really confusing article. I suppose it this man is more well known because of the conflicting or unreliable sources of information, then I guess thats understandable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.87.234 (talk) 01:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

"Professional" is probably not the best word here. We're talking about the distinction between scholarly research and popular pseudo-research. Scholarly research recognizes the historical John Hanson, a white guy who held a title that involved the word "president" but did not hold the office of "President of the United States" in any way comparable to the institution laid out in the Constitution. Pseudo-research -- for various reasons -- present him as the True First President, perhaps as the descendent of black slaves. These are WP:FRINGE claims. If we present them at all, it should be in the context of what reliable sources have to say about the claims. We have the same non-issue issue at National Monument to the Forefathers: Scholarly research sees it as a monument built by 19th century Masons to honor 17th century Brownist refugees having no direct connection to the "Founding Fathers" (18th century, wealthy land owners, with many Deists and agnostics in the mix). Kirk Cameron, a high school educated actor, wants it to be the "key to transforming our nation and securing our children's future" -- the key (spoiler alert!) is the Bible. A colleague of mine steadfastly ignores what he calls "slop" as "not even wrong". As a result, we don't have academics bothering with Cameron, much as we don't have many responses to some of the more absurd claims about Hanson. You won't find a peer-reviewed journal article addressing whether or not Hanson was the "First President of the United States" for exactly this reason. You'd sooner see Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing whether or not the Moon is made of green cheese. - SummerPhD (talk) 03:47, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

broken links and resulting now unsourced statement removed

I had to remove the following. It contains bad links to expired source sites, so its now an opinion.

"This idea is sometimes paired with the claim that Hanson was actually a black man, using a photograph of Senator John Hanson of Liberia to support the claim." ---Jf (talk) 20:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Just because you can't find a source live online doesn't mean it's invalid. In this case, we'd want to link to an archived copy of the page via WP:WAYBACK. —Kevin Myers 23:42, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

References

Primary Research Citings

The amount of misinformation in this Hanson biography is mind boggling. I have found a dozen serious fallacious that stem, primarily, from wiki authors quoting 19th Century biographies (including the Biographical Directory of Congress) over and over again rather than going to the primary source. Unfortunately, this Wikipedia site pops up first on a John Hanson search so it is essential that we work together to rebuild some credibility to this posting. To keep it simple, lets start with a statement that is undeniably specious and appears in the opening paragraph: "In November 1781, he was the first person to be elected as the presiding officer..." There were actually two elections under the Articles of Confederation before John Hanson and after Samuel Huntington resigned his Presidency. On July 9th, 1781, the Delegates in Congress elected Samuel Johnston as President under the Articles of Confederation. It was not until the following day, July 10th, 1781, that Johnston declined the office with the Journals stating: “On July 10th, 1781: Mr. Johnston having declined to accept the office of president, and offered such reasons as were satisfactory, the house proceeded to another election and the ballots being taken, the Honorable Thomas McKean was elected.” Here is an image of the actual 1781 Journals, open to the proper day, that were exhibited at the November 26-28th, 2012 Continental Congress Festival This "first person to be elected" entry, as anyone can see by the link to the actual 1781 Journal, is a fallacy that needs to be removed. To maintain the sentence structure one might correctly state: "...he was the first person elected under the Articles of Confederation to serve a full one year term as the presiding officer ..." because neither McKean or Johnston served a full year. So What do you think? Can this change be made as a first step to reestablish some credibility to this Wikipedia entry? If so, I will offer another. Stas.klos (talk) 01:16, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the wording on that was bad, thanks for pointing it out. We cannot use the blogs you cited as sources, however, but we can get what we need by citing Stiverson and Levering. I've also removed various other unreliable oddities that have accumulated in the article in recent years. —Kevin Myers 23:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

In May and June of 2015 we finally got the National Archives, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Library of Congress to abandon its 102 year old claim that John Hanson was the first President of Congress to serve under the Articles of Confederation. We were able to accomplish this with primary sources found in their own holdings. They have since updated their websites and exhibits and the links to the changes can be found here - http://www.johnhanson.org/p/federal-government-finally.html. We are now pleading with the State of Maryland to cease and desist funding and purporting that John and Jane Hanson were the first President and First Lady of the United States – just one of MD’s acts can be found here - http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013rs/fnotes/bil_0000/hb0120b.pdf. Someone should add a section to this page about the misinformation purported by Hansonites, Maryland, and Congress that officially commenced during the Proceedings in the Senate and House of Representatives Upon the Reception and Acceptance from the State of Maryland of the Statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and of John Hanson, Erected in Statuary Hall of the Capitol: January 31, 1903, which was ordered, in 1903, by the United States Congress to be printed by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The printed work totals 111 pages and can be found online here -http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/000500/000587/pdf/msa_sc5458_51_4812.pdf Stas.klos — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.164.168.65 (talk) 20:46, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

References

President of the United States in Congress Assembled

It is specious to label John Hanson as a President of the Continental Congress. Although you have changed my edits of John Hanson back to a Continental Congress President, perhaps you can leave this post on the talk page to help your readers discern which listing - President of the Continental Congress or President of the United States in Congress Assembled is correct. A brief case that the Continental Congress expired with the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and the offices had significant differences is as follows:

Although the Articles of Confederation was passed by the U.S. Continental Congress on November 15th, 1777, this Constitution of 1777 required the unanimous ratification by all the 13 states. Maryland was the last state to adopt the Articles of Confederation, completing its ratification on February 2, 1781. On February 22, 1781, it was unanimously resolved by Congress that:

The delegates of Maryland having taken their seats in Congress with powers to sign the Articles of Confederation: "Ordered, That Thursday next [March 1, 1781] be assigned for compleating the Confederation; and that a committee of three be appointed, to consider and report a mode for announcing the same to the public: the members, [Mr. George] Walton, Mr. [James] Madison, Mr. [John] Mathews."

The March 1st, 1781, enacted Constitution of 1777 provided for a unicameral governing body called the United States in Congress Assembled (USCA) to govern the United States of America. The USCA was charged " .. to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years."

On March 2nd, 1781, the Delegates, who were duly elected after each State had ratified the Articles of Confederation, convened in Philadelphia as the United States in Congress Assembled with Samuel Huntington presiding as the first USCA President. Additionally, George Washington continued to serve as General and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Continental Army.

The Constitution of 1777 Presidency, although similar to its predecessor, was a different and weaker office then that of the U.S. Continental Congress Presidency.

For instance, the Continental Congress Presidents, who served from September 5, 1774 to February 28, 1781, presided over a government that could enact legislation binding all 13 States with only a seven state quorum as opposed to the nine state minimum required by the Constitution of 1777. Additionally, Continental Congress Presidents, who decided what legislation came before Congress, often found themselves as the sole vote for their state, giving them a 1/7th to 1/13th vote over crucial legislation, appointments, judicial decisions, and even military orders enacted during the Revolutionary War. After March 1, 1781, the Constitution of 1777 mandated that two or more delegates must be present from each state for that delegation to be marked present and be eligible to vote in the new USCA government. Therefore, on March 2nd, 1781, the first act of the USCA was to disqualify both New Hampshire and Rhode Island from voting in the new assembly because they each had only one delegate present.

On May 4, 1781, to further weaken presidential powers, Congress passed the "Rules for conducting business in the United States in Congress assembled." that stripped the President of his power to control the congressional agenda which, was a tactic that the presiding officers (especially Henry Laurens) had expertly wielded as Continental Congress Presidents. These new USCA rules even went so far as to eliminate the President's prerogative to continue the debate, before a second to the motion was brought to the floor.

"Rule 10. When a motion is made and seconded it shall be repeated by the President or If he or any other member desire being in writing it shall be delivered to the President in writing and read aloud at the table before it, shall be debated."

There are numerous other examples on the differences between the two offices that range from the USCA's Committee of the States experiment to govern the USA by a "Board of Directors" without the USCA President at its head to John Hanson's success in championing the congressional resolution that moved the bulk of his presidential correspondence duties to USCA Secretary Charles Thomson. Moreover, USCA Foreign Secretaries Robert R. Livingston and John Jay took over most of the U.S. Presidential duties of entertaining foreign diplomats and dignitaries under the Articles of Confederation government.

John Hanson served as the President of the United states in Congress Assembled and not as President of the Continental Congress. To view the primary sources supporting this fact go to http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c_Pu5PAiP_g/UOX0C4AiqhI/AAAAAAAADe0/tvVawnkqk5M/s1600/AA+AC.jpg and for documents signed by John Hanson as President of the United States in Congress Assembled please go here -- www.johnhanson.net. -- Stas.klos (talk) 14:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Title

We have recurring disputes on this page regarding Hanson's title under the Articles of Confederation. We need coverage in independent reliable sources specifically and directly applying a title or titles to Hanson. If you find a reliable source in the article that disagrees with the information you are adding with a reliable source, do not replace one with the other, add the new information and source. Will we end up with conflicting information? Yes, we will. Life is like that.

Wikipedia does not judge what the truth is. Instead, we report what is verifiable. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Citing sources (such as the Articles of Confederation) that do not mention Hanson to establish Hanson's title is original research, more specifically synthesis: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources."

We need reliable sources specifically and directly applying a title to Hanson to include it in the article. - SummerPhD (talk) 22:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The following titles are now sourced in the article: "president of the Continental Congress", "president of the Congress of the Confederacy" and "president of Congress". To remove any of these, please demonstrate that the sources given are not reliable. To add others, please cite a reliable source applying the title to Hanson. Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 23:10, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Birth/death dates

As above, we need reliable published sources for these dates. (Be sure, of course, that we aren't merely arguing about new style/old style dates too.)

If a family Bible, commemorative plaque placed by persons unknown or whatever give a date, we really have no use for it. This goes to verifiability (which we are here to report), rather than truth (which may or may not agree with what can be verified). - SummerPhD (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

First President of US

I found the pejorative description of "amateur" historians to be rather judgmental and qualifying for WikiVoice. It seems to poison the well with regard to the opinion. I don't find the .ps of "[A]ll biographies of Hanson have been written a) by writers who were not professional historians, and b) to describe the life and times of the 'first President of the United States." to be sufficient justification. Perhaps better wording can be used that avoids editor opinions regarding the experience or seriousness of the publication authors. Morphh ^(talk) 01:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see by the revision history, I'm not the only one to disapprove of this. I can say that I have no bias on the matter, it's just not appropriate and violates NPOV WP:IMPARTIAL and uses terms in WP: AVOID. It's fine to say this is a minor opinion and to describe who holds that opinion, but it is not correct to characterize the holders of that opinion in a derogatory way as to bias the opinion. Morphh ^(talk) 01:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I reworded it to make it clear the historical majority opinion and removed the opinionated terms regarding the amateur historians. They may be amateur historians, but we can't say that opinion in WikiVoice. We can say as fact that Ralph Levering stated they were amateurs. Avoid stating opinions as facts. WP:YESPOV Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity. Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Morphh ^(talk) 01:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your attempt to improve the article in an unbiased manner, but it's a mischaracterization of the issue to call it a dispute between a "majority opinion" and a minority opinion. The dispute is between trained historians who make their living doing history (usually "academic historians") and people who have not been professionally trained as historians and don't make a living doing history (i.e. "amateur historians"). It would be a different story if the "minority" opinion was put forth by even one history professor, or one writer with an advanced degree in history, or an author with a Pulitzer Prize in history, or someone who has had writings published in a peer-reviewed history journal. That's not the case here, and we do our readers a disservice by trying to disguise this fact with euphemisms like "majority opinion."

I suppose the article won't be stable as long as editors have the impression (mistaken in my view) that "amateur historians" is pejorative rather than descriptive. Maybe our guide for how we characterize the issue could be Shakespeare authorship question, which is a featured article. The idea that Shakespeare didn't write his plays is fringe history not taken seriously by scholars; the idea that John Hanson was the first (or third) "real" president of the United States is fringe history not taken seriously by scholars. If the much-more-visible Shakespeare article can find neutral language to accurately describe the issue for our readers, I'm sure we can too. —Kevin Myers 02:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You're still stating an opinion as fact in Wikivoice, as amateur is a subjective term and primarily used as a pejorative. It needs to be rewritten. I agree that the theory is fringe, but even in an article about a fringe theory, you still describe the adherents in a neutral and balanced way per policy. You don't take one side's characterization of the adherents and state it as fact; you state it as the opinion of those who hold it - attribution. It violates WP:NPOV and using the term "claim" violates WP:AVOID. Don't revert it - improve it. I'll try to add some additional language that tries to avoid the mischaracterization you describe. Morphh ^(talk) 13:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

So "fringe" is objective and neutral but "amateur" is subjective and pejorative? I find that to be a very odd argument. —Kevin Myers 05:03, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't like it myself and would prefer to remove the word fringe, but I was using the example from the Shakespeare article you linked. However, I do think there is a difference between labeling the authors and labeling the argument. Morphh ^(talk) 21:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. A followup: Which policy or guideline says that we can label an argument but not the author of that argument? —Kevin Myers 06:27, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

You can label a person, it's just a lot harder and requires attribution. You fall into areas of WP:BLP, which requires stronger evidence when describing / criticizing a person. For example, it is perfectly acceptable to say in the "Death and legacy" section "historian Ralph Levering stated "They're not biographies by professional historians;". We're attributing the opinion. This is a lot different than saying in WikiVoice as fact - these authors are amateur historians. Labeling the viewpoint as fringe is easier because it's simple to identified as a non-mainstream fringe argument. Saying it is non-mainstream or a tiny minority view is pretty much a statement of fact. I think the term fringe could be seen as a pejorative and subjective though, which is why I don't care for it. But I rather have a pejorative statement of fact about a subject, then a pejorative statement of opinion (presented as fact) on a person. Even our WP:NPA describes this idea: Comment on content, not on the contributor. I'm fine with removing the term "fringe" or replacing it with something else. I'll try to rewrite it again. Morphh ^(talk) 20:01, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Dispute title Founding Father

@User:Randy Kryn: John Hanson is considered a Founding Father by whom? Since you didn't add a citation, we have no way of telling. So please apply one so we can discuss what your source is and then what other sources have to say. Allreet (talk) 10:13, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I noticed Wikipedia's own page entitled [Founding Fathers of the United States] stipulates "As a result, signers of the following documents are generally considered to be Founding Fathers of the United States: Declaration of Independence (DI), Articles of Confederation (AC), and U.S. Constitution (USC)." John Hanson is listed below that statement in a table suggesting he was a Founding Father based on his signing the AC. The source is a 1958 book by Saul Padover.Belain1737 (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2022 (UTC)