Henke 2022s

I Misread a Section of Lundahl (2022d). The [Citation Needed Markers] Were Not Mr. Lundahl’s. However, There’s Still No Excuse for Mr. Lundahl Cutting, Pasting and Using Untrustworthy Wikipedia Articles, Especially Those with [Citation Needed] Markers

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

Also see my September 15, 2022 correction at Henke (2022b).

In Henke (2022b), I originally made the following statement:

“In Lundahl (2022d), he placed several [citation needed] markers in his paragraphs along with the footnote numbers [5], [6] and [7], as shown in his following paragraphs:

‘The chief manuscripts of the Lives date from the 10th and 11th centuries, and the first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1470.[6] Thomas North's 1579 English translation was an important source-material for Shakespeare. Jacob Tonson printed several editions of the Lives in English in the late 17th century, beginning with a five-volume set printed in 1688, with subsequent editions printed in 1693, 1702, 1716, and 1727.[citation needed] The most generally accepted text is that of the minor edition of Carl Sintenis in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (five volumes, Leipzig 1852–1855; reissued without much change in 1873–1875).[citation needed] There are annotated editions by I. C. Held, E. H. G. Leopold, Otto Siefert and Friedrich Blass and Carl Sintenis, all in German; and by Holden, in English.[5]

Two of the lives, those of Epaminondas and Scipio Africanus or Scipio Aemilianus, are lost,[7] and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers.[citation needed]’ [my emphasis]

Obviously, Mr. Lundahl later planned to add citations to support his claims. However, because he did not carefully proofread his own work before sending it to me, the citations were never added. This is totally unacceptable and frustrating.”

Lundahl (2022h) then corrects a mistake that I made by noting that the [citation needed] markers were not his creation, but they came from him cutting and pasting from a Wikipedia site:

“No, I didn't place them there. The paragraphs quoted are from something I had marked, by use of blockquote, as a quotation. It is a quotation from wikipedia. On wikipedian articles you often do find markers [citation needed] due to editor number 10 finding a statement inserted by editor number 8 suspicious or likely to raise suspicions in others, and inserting that marker instead of deleting or looking for a reference himself, hoping editor number 8 will return and as editor number 12 insert the references he was not giving as editor number 8. I also introduced the quote from wiki by a statement marking it as from wiki.”

I will admit that Lundahl (2022d) certainly did mention that his quotation came from a Wikipedia article on “Parallel Lives.” Here’s a more complete quotation from Lundahl (2022d) including the bolded phrase that I overlooked in Henke (2022b):

“Plutarch's parallel lives include a parallel between Caesar and Alexander - but worse, they include one between Theseus and Romulus as well - the kind of persons that on Henke's view belong to mythology. And Plutarch lived so much longer after Caesar, that those pretending the Gospels are a myth would have to blush. Definitely time enough for a myth to form, on their view. I will give you wikipedian article reference on Parallel Lives, people with expectations like Henke's have arguably added lots of the "citation needed" that we see:

The chief manuscripts of the Lives date from the 10th and 11th centuries, and the first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1470.[6] Thomas North's 1579 English translation was an important source-material for Shakespeare. Jacob Tonson printed several editions of the Lives in English in the late 17th century, beginning with a five-volume set printed in 1688, with subsequent editions printed in 1693, 1702, 1716, and 1727.[citation needed] The most generally accepted text is that of the minor edition of Carl Sintenis in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (five volumes, Leipzig 1852–1855; reissued without much change in 1873–1875).[citation needed] There are annotated editions by I. C. Held, E. H. G. Leopold, Otto Siefert and Friedrich Blass and Carl Sintenis, all in German; and by Holden, in English.[5]”

Plutarch's Life of Alexander is one of the few surviving secondary or tertiary sources about Alexander the Great, and it includes anecdotes and descriptions of incidents that appear in no other source. Likewise, his portrait of Numa Pompilius, an early Roman king, contains unique information about the early Roman calendar.” [my emphasis]

Here, I fully admit that I misread what he wrote. I was wrong. I thought that Mr. Lundahl had written this section. Instead, he cut and pasted the section from a Wikipedia article called Parallel Lives. I’ve added a correction to Henke 2022b. Nevertheless, this does not settle the issue. Mr. Lundahl still has no excuse for cutting, pasting, and promoting a Wikipedia article that is so poorly referenced. Certainly, Wikipedia articles may help a reader to better understand the general aspects of a topic and provide some useful references. I cited a Wikipedia article on James Randi in Henke (2022b), for example. However, Wikipedia articles should be used sparingly and avoided if peer-reviewed articles and textbooks are available on the topic. Mr. Lundahl should have much higher quality standards and not use webpages that are unfinished or poorly referenced. Lundahl (2022h) further states:

“Kevin R. Henke is a man who cannot read the wikipedia because he cannot get used to seeing a text which has no final edit - something which is true for all articles on wikipedia. This explains mountains on why people of his age and in his position refuse to accept wikipedia as references.” [my emphasis]

That’s correct, I don’t like or use webpages that are sloppily written and poorly referenced. References should pass quality standards before anyone uses them and the Wikipedia “Parallel Lives” webarticle obviously fails to do so. By the way, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022d) never bothered to provide a link to the “Parallel Lives” webarticle, which is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Lives

The [citation needed] markers in the Wikipedia article should have been an immediate clue to Mr. Lundahl that the claims in this webarticle have not been verified and should not be trusted. Instead of just conveniently cutting and pasting a Wikipedia article, he should have consulted some legitimate history books or peer-reviewed articles. He could have started by evaluating the available references in the Wikipedia article rather than using the poorly referenced article itself. Then, he could have taken the time to write a far better summary in his own words.