Talk:John Franklin Alexander Strong

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A fact from John Franklin Alexander Strong appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 September 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that according to U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening, Alaska Territorial Governor J. F. A. Strong was not reappointed to the post because he was not a United States citizen?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/September.

Wikipedia

Reversion of edit

In case you haven't followed my activity on Wikipedia, I do real research (i.e. the hard, old-fashioned way) for a hobby, and have major issues with the notion that whatever one finds via Google is somehow synonymous with reliably sourced material. From reading the page you referred to, it became rather obvious that its purpose was to promote Morris Communications, and they could really give a rat's hind quarters about anything regarding the paper's history.

As to what I wrote: after the Empire was sold, it remained in the hands of the Troy family until 1954. It also underwent another name change before its present name was adopted.

If you really desire, I'll flood the page with citations, but not right now. As an economic refugee in Obama's America, my source material and my Internet access resides in different places. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this in mind by the time I come back around here. RadioKAOS (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

RadioKOAS, I will spare you my personal professional and academic credentials as they do not matter. Proof by authority does not function on Wikipedia because it is a trivial matter to create false credentials and extremely difficult to verify the existence of legitimate ones (see Essjay controversy for one of the better known examples). Wikipedia instead utilizes a trust model based upon verifiability of claims via reliable sources. If you invest the time and effort, you will discover all information in the article body has accompanying citations showing from where the information came. This means the reader then does not need to worry about who wrote the text or if they actually know anything about the article subject. Adding new uncited information material to this article where the first check of a third-party source provides contradictory information only leads the reader to question the accuracy and truthfulness of not only the new material but the article as a whole.

As to the economic concerns, I have found the little slips of paper near the catalog computer of most public libraries are large enough not only for recording call numbers but all the information needed for a citation (Yes, large note pads are more convenient but not required). It is even possible to acquire several such slips in a single visit if additional note taking space is needed. Such a system not only has the advantage of allowing you to provide proper citations but also makes it possible for you or others to more easily access the original source at a later date. --Allen3 ^talk 13:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

>Proof by authority does not function on Wikipedia...

And the notion that Google is the only research tool one ever needs has produced some rather frightening historical revisionism.

Anyway, you want proof? Here it is. Excerpted from Alaska Newspapers on Microfilm, 1866-1998, jointly published in 1998 by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alaska State Library, p. 108:

Juneau Empire
...
History: Began on February 11, 1980. It is the current title of a newspaper that began on November 12, 1912 and had several different titles: ALASKA DAILY EMPIRE (November 12, 1912 - December 7, 1926), DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE (December 8, 1926 - July 21, 1964), JUNEAU ALASKA EMPIRE (July 22, 1964 - July 7, 1968) and the SOUTHEAST ALASKA EMPIRE (July 8, 1968 - February 8, 1980)
...

This was excerpted as it appears in print. BTW, if anyone's concerned, the copyright notice grants reproduction permission for non-commercial purposes. In less than a minute of searching, I found a PDF version of this book here [1]. The same entry would be found on p. 193 of the PDF version.

Also, I have the September 9, 2010 issue of the Empire in front of me, and below the date it says "Volume 99, No. 214." Hopefully, they've gotten with the rest of the newspaper world and publish a PDF version of the print newspaper, so this shouldn't be hard to verify, either.

>the first check of a third-party source provides contradictory information

Going back to the Empire website and the reference to their "75th anniversary," the only possible explanations I have for that was that either it was a typo or someone was under deadline pressure and they cobbled together whatever they had lying around on their hard drive. At any rate, I immediately spotted it as being unreliable information in spite of the source. Hence, this effort.

Hopefully, that settles that. I have to go look for the reference as to how Troy and co. acquired the paper from Strong, so that will come later. Thank you and good day. RadioKAOS (talk) 19:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bigamy

All sources I have seen show he was not only a foreigner but a bigamist as well. The latter was censored out of the article and I put it back in as it was fun and informative.Ericl (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]