Talk:Negligent damage to Chysauster Ancient Village

Is this honestly claimed to be NPOV? - Montréalais

It certainly doesn't look like it to me, from the title throughought the article. -- Zoe

Actually, you're right. It should be something like "Outrageous Governmental vandalism of significant Iron Age site". This is the moderate title. Negligence is just a euphemism for what actually happened: they tried to bury it and hoped nobody would notice. As a result there is one fewer fogou in existence (only ten more to be destroyed and they can pretend that they never existed at all). There was severe damage to the fogou, we can only hope that the allegedly responsible authority was negligent and not deliberately seeking to destroy a significant historical site (which some have suggested they were in order to save money), and the article does not fully detail the extent to the chicanery which EH got up to try and weasel out of their culpability in this regrettable affair. It should further be noted that Jocelyn Stevens (under whose regime some of the dilapidations began to occur) was the man behind the plot to put a Visitor Centre at Stonehenge, and was outed for suggesting that funds be diverted from the preservation of ancient monuments into the increase of his and a few senior civil servants' salaries. EH is a quango and should be recognised as the highly powerful, dangerous and archaeologically insensitive body which it truly is; this is not exactly the best kept secret to the archaeological community in Britain. Whilst charged with the preservation of a number of key sites, it concentrates on the key lucrative tourist attractions at the expense of other more historically important locations. user:sjc

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Why does this need its own article? Why can't the info here be incorporated into Chysauster Ancient Village (and is there any reason why that isn't at simply Chysauster?) --Camembert

Good point Camembert; however the reason I went for it in a separate article is that damage to significant archaeological sites needs proper and discrete documentation (I think most archaeologists would bear me out on this). There is no reason why Wikipedia should not become the central repository for information such as this: I have on the back-burner a list of approximately 100 sites in the UK which need similar treatment; the damage which occurred to Chysauster, IMV should be a subsidiary to the main article, and treated separately: the list of problems is of historical interest in its own right and extensive. It is revealing about the activities (or inactivities) of quangos, and exposes the facts of the matter which would otherwise be buried along with the fogou. We can further go on from here to create an Archaeological Damage List. We can categorise this by damage type. (e.g. Governmental inactivity, landowner abuse, Viking runic graffiti, etc). Moreover, trying to tie contemporary events to an article which deals with a historic and archaeological site is distracting to the reader and unnecessary in a medium such as Wikipedia which lends itself to proper segregation. user:sjc

PS: Chysauster itself is a locational name which is vastly > than the ancient village site which occupies no more than 60 sqare metres. user:sjc

"but not before considerable damage had been done to the fogou and its subsequent collapse." I know nothing about this topic, but this clause makes no sense to me. Does it mean considerable damage to the subsequent collapse? Huh? Should it read "not before the fogou had sustained significant damage and later collapsed?" But that makes no sense either, what with the "before" and "later." Someone who understands this should edit it for clarity.moink 22:47, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Discussion from Votes for Deletion

• • Not only is the title NPOV, but the entire article is. -- Zoe 22:44 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
    • I think Zoe meant to say POV. If so, I agree. Tokerboy 01:49 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)
      • I second Tokerboy. Two halves
  • So how do you explain the damage to the fogou? Forked lightning? The negligent damage to this site is nothing shy of scandalous. Do a Google and you will find that a significant section (i.e. most) of the UK archaeological community are/were outraged about it. This is a major Iron Age site and was one of very few extant fogous which was allowed to fall into dereliction. It is just as POV to pretend that it was nobody's fault or that it never happened. user:sjc
  • Interestingly, DEFRA & Heritage now conceed that this state of affairs SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. user:sjc
    • If that's true, then say so in the article. I don't have your specialist knowlege of the situation, but it seems to me that the shape of the article should be something like "some damage happened; a great many archeologists blame EH's negligence; EH accept that it shouldn't have happened". If EH deny actual negligence it should say so whether you (or most archaeologists) believe them or not, and the page title should not be allowed to stand (I don't know whether this is actually the case or not). --rbrwr
    • I have e-mailed them for a full clarification of their position on Chysauster. Your argument that just because they at one point denied responsibility should affect the page title is however spurious, and their response should have no bearing on the title or otherwise of the page. They were the responsible authority at the time and failed to act appropriately to preserve a seriously important site. It was pointed out to them by a number of people including prominent archaeologists that their inactivity would result in a collapse of the fogou. They failed to act. The fogou collapsed. If someone points out to you that something adverse is about to happen and you fail to take appropriate action, and that adverse event occurs, there is no other word for it in the dictionary other than negligence. You can't just paper over facts like this. user:sjc
      • I look forward to seeing their response. The NPOV policy isn't about "papering over"; it's about putting the arguments of both sides. If EH's response is weak (which wouldn't surprise me) readers should be left to notice that for themselves. I doubt that they'll admit "negligence" because it is a word that tends to have legal connotations. By the way, you misrepresent my argument - I didn't say "at one point", I said "if they deny" in the present tense, meaning now. It may be naive of me to expect them to either admit or deny anything, but we shall see... --rbrwr
        • I don't think any arguments on both sides change the fact that the title of the article is POV. (You're right, sorry, I didn't mean NPOV above.) The whole thing should be folded into Chysauster Ancient Village or just Chysauster -- Zoe 01:12 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
        • While I can see where you're coming from in this respect, it is a logical fallacy, strictly unneccesary, and inconsistent within the context of Wikipedia to do this. By the same logical token should articles such as the one covering the September 11 attack on the WTC should be folded into the article on the Twin Towers? I suspect not. The title is no more POV than September 11 terrorist attack: it describes accurately and efficiently an (historical) event which occurred (or in Chysauster's case failed to occur). AS a historian I am strongly opposed to revisionism in any shape or form. Such a denial of the events would certainly constitute historical revisionism, albeit of a minor nature, and give considerable succour to altogther more politically motivated revisionists: their argument will be "they could do it with Chysauster; let's do it to the Holocaust", which, btw, is an unashamedly POV article with which I have no problems. user:sjc
          • Could you please move this discussion to the article's talk page? It exceeds the delete or not-level by far. -- JeLuF 22:34 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)~

Done