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Talk:John Kendrick (American sea captain)

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Clean up

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Does anyone agree with me that this article needs to be shortened/tightened? It concerns a notable historical figure and readability may be improved by a judicious edit for length. Comments please! --Stormbay 21:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Expanding and overhauling

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I'm in the midst of greatly overhauling and expanding this page. Got a ways to go yet, but plugging away bit by bit. If it gets too long, which it probably already is, the "Columbia Expedition" part can be spun off into its own article and a much shorter summary version put here. I will probably try to do that myself at some point. A page about the Columbia Expedition (which perhaps could be better named), could be written in a way not quite as focused on just Kendrick but others as well, so it could perhaps serve for other related pages like Robert Gray (sea captain), Robert Haswell, Joseph Ingraham, Columbia Rediviva, Lady Washington, and many others. I'd like to make a map showing the routes Kendrick took (and perhaps Gray as well). I will try to do all these things over the next few months, but if I fail then this comment here might serve to remind me, or at least let others know what I was planning. Pfly (talk) 06:36, 18 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Edit for Neutral Point of View

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I've removed language in the intro that seemed to violate the policy on neutral POV. This article necessarily digs into controversies that have been debated for over 200 years. I've read many of the journals from which these stories are drawn and while there are many points of view, much boasting on the one hand and finger-pointing on the other, in my opinion there is nothing that rises to the level of slander. I'm also concerned about this article having 69 references to "Morning of Fire". Scott Ridley's book has explicitly chosen one point of view (Kendrick's), and usually references the major controversies (such as Kendrick's death) only as end notes. Fine for a book, but maybe not the best for a Wikipedia article? Cranberrydavid (talk) 22:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm finding "Morning of Fire" very difficult to fact check. It's narrative style freely combines documented events with speculation which does make it quite readable, however although it has a large bibliography and many end notes, they're referenced nowhere within the text. This often makes it impossible to determine what is documented and what is speculative, so I question whether it is a reliable source for the purpose of verifiability. I'll try to clean this up further using verifiable sources as I get time. I'd also like to condense the article to something like 30-50kB to be comparable to George Vancouver and Robert Gray (sea captain). Cranberrydavid (talk) 16:51, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for doing what you've been doing. When I was doing the major expansion of the article I kept trying to find sources other than "Morning of Fire" for exactly the reasons and problems you describe. It wasn't easy though, and it took a bit of time before I realized how much speculation and guesswork was in "Morning of Fire". I tried to avoid using things that are clearly Ridley's opinion or guesses, but a lot of that slipped in anyway. I fully admit I bit off more than I could chew and in the end put up stuff I knew was problematic in terms of the source, but had reached a point of exhaustion and decided it was better to put up lots of stuff that could be reduced, fixed, corrected, removed, etc, rather than throw out the many drafts I had written or leave the page only half expanded. I'm not sure if that was the right decision, and I'm not trying to make excuses. It may be I made things worse than they had been. I certainly have a habit of erring on the side of writing too much, and I am probably overly obsessed with the general maritime fur trade topic.
Looking for other sources can be frustrating, since most depend heavily on Robert Haswell's journals, which, if I'm not mistaken, are known to be biased or at least not the most reliable primary source. I know our job as Wikipedians is to report what RS say and avoid or be careful with primary sources. It is tricky when most RS themselves depend on a single, problematic primary source. Or so it seemed to me. Still it is completely true that I went overboard here and got caught up in wanting to "rescue" Kendrick's reputation to some degree, despite knowing this isn't what Wikipedia is for. I tried to avoid that urge, but in hindsight I see more clearly how much I indulged it anyway. I apologize for that. It may well be that "Morning of Fire" should not be used as an good RS and much or most of the article that depends on it removed. In any case, my plan was to take a break for a while, then come back and work on improving things, removing speculative parts, finding other sources, and just generally copyediting with the goal of shortening the page and sticking more closely to facts. You've made a great start at doing exactly that. Thank you! Pfly (talk) 09:20, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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