Talk:World War II/Strategic Bombing in Europe

"Many scholars agree that England was virtually on the brink of strategic collapse due to Luftwaffe bombing attacks on airfields and ports" <== Are the internally-produced damage assessments by England's government now available for review? --JWSurf (talk) 15:48, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ugh... not my call to make. This content was mostly authored in early 1990, and it's not been a "top of mind" area of inquiry for me since then.  I hope that perhaps someone else will be able to answer your question more explicitly. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

American journals and the strategic bombing of Germany
An honors thesis about American journals and the their portrayal of the strategic bombing campaign against Germany may be useful additional reading. -- Thekohser (talk) 20:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean by "non authorative reference (i.e., a self published work)"?
QuiteUnusual,

Do you teach or taught at the time in the Department of History of Emory University? Did you exchanged some correspondence with Emory University that corroborates your statement, that you would like to share with the rest of us? What evidence can you present supporting your statement that the reference is "non authoritative"? You mean to say that a "self published work" is one example or synonymous of non authoritative work? Are you saying that Emory University is not the publisher? Are you familiar with the relations between Emory University, its faculty, staff, and students concerning the publisher and rights to their printed work? Do you know anything about Emory University at all?

Off-topic, personal message: You might consider reviewing you Wikibooks user page, where you list "Books I Wrote or Was a Major Contributor To." A book is a book. A wikibook is a wikibook. You did fooled me. You might want to try "Wikibooks I Wrote or Was a Major Contributor To." I'm sure you can walk into someone's office an ask for a second opinion or if this is good advice that you are getting for free. Maybe "It's not just a user page."

Warmest regards,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Vapmachado,
 * Just to let you know I have placed back the OR tag to address the concerns raised by the pages main contributor, Thekohser, raised in the reading room. Honors theses are not usually considered published peer-reviewed  material.  They are graded and accepted (or not) as in terms of a particular students attempt to graduate.  In my short time in academia I have encountered honors theses that ranged from wonderful to atrocious, but were still considered acceptable for the purposes of the student graduating. I would hope people do not generally start using honors theses as scholarly references.  Overall I would generally agree that honors theses as a group should not be called authoritative. QuiteUnusual's interaction with Emory University is not really relevant.  Thenub314 (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thenub314
 * Thanks for letting me know that you placed back the OR tag that you added there in the first place on Sep. 17 with the summary "from comments by Thekohser in WB:RR/G this may contain OR, tagging so someone more knowledgeable in this area can sort it out at some point." (a) You seem to be aware that QuiteUnusual removed the reference I added to the page. (b) Your reason for keeping that reference out of the text is that you do not consider that source a scholarly and/or authoritative reference. Since, from your own words, your objection is a suspicion of OR, (c) it's not at all clear to me what you were referring to when you wrote "in this area." I might be so far off what you meant that I don't even dare to make a guess. Please also forgive my unfamiliarity with (d) your summary "as per authors concerns." I even did a search on it but got no results. If you could be so kind as to confirm my assumptions (a) and (b), and clarifying (c) and (d), we would have some common solid ground to pursue this exchange. Your cooperation is deeply appreciated.
 * Sincerely,
 * Virgilio A. P. Machado
 * Vapmachado (talk) 03:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * a) Yes.


 * b) Yes, as explained in my comment. Let me comment further that my estimation that this work is not an appropriate reference has nothing to do with the merits of the content of the work. It is merely my opinion about its use at wikibooks based on my understanding of the publication process this particular paper went through.


 * c) "This area" being the history of World War II.


 * d) "as per authors concerns" was referring to the concerns raised by Thekohser (who I believe is author reference you added and also main contributor to the current page) that this page possibly violated our OR policy (as explained in the first edit summary you quoted). Thenub314 (talk) 05:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * My reasons are simple. A reference should be to something considered a reliable source. Using the reference tag for something that doesn't meet that standard will suggest to the reader that the source is authoritative and can be relied on (for example, is from a peer-reviewed journal). In this particular case the source did not appear to meet that standard. You will see if you browse my contribution history that I often make similar changes. I will remove the reference tag from any Wikipedia link for the same reason - WP is not a reliable source. It is fine to direct the reader to go and look at an external source, but not to list it as a reference. So, I personally would have put the thesis link in as "further reading" or as a normal external URL without the reference tag to avoid the implication that this was a reliable source. Hope that's clear. QU TalkQu 11:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)