Talk:Ranks and insignia of the Confederate States

Untitled

This table needs more images. Crested Penguin 07:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Robert E. Lee

Lee always wore the uniform insigna of a Colonel, which was his offical rank in the United States Army. The only way that you cannot know this is if you are completely braindead, have never taken a history class, visited a library, or watched a Civil War movie, in which case you should not be editing this wiki page.

Ergo, this fact is what scholars consider "common knowledge" and does not need a citiation.

From the "Harbrace College Handbook": "You need not cite sources to what most would generally consider COMMON KNOWLEDGE, like the fact that Lincoln won the Presidential election of 1860 or that the Civil War began in April 1861." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6002:6:5489:3696:24D7:3041 (talk) 00:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes, the old, "You disagree with me, therefore I'm going to launch personal attacks at you even though I have no idea what I'm doing," method. Setting aside your atrocious spelling, your sophomoric attitude, your obvious inexperience, the fact that Wikipedia doesn't actually have a "common knowledge" standard, the fact that General Lee's rank insignia is only "common knowledge" to those of us who are Civil War aficionados and not to the average observer who may be using this page as a reference, the fact that his "offical [sic] rank" in the U.S. Army has nothing to do with his rank in the Confederate Army, the fact that there were actually several CSA generals who wore no wreath around their stars (and were thus technically wearing the insignia of a Colonel), the fact that the line is frankly an irrelevant non sequitur that doesn't belong in the article anyway, the fact that you're trying to teach what you call "English 101" to a professional writer, and the fact that you appear to be trying to start an edit war over your ego all make me feel perfectly comfortable in reverting the edit, tagging it as vandalism next time you do it, and just solving the problem by removing the offending line entirely as being irrelevant to the article in question anyway. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 01:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure buddy, you're a "professional writer". You're not a professional anything, as your hotheaded attitude would never be accepted anywhere in the real world. The only one making "personal attacks" here is you. I did not add the line about Lee's uniform, so calling it irrelevant doesn’t bother me. All I did was remove a ridiculous "citation needed" footnote and you went ballistic. I hate to burst your bubble, but no one is going to be using this page as a reference. As a Professor of Economics and History, I can assure you that Wikipedia is not an accepted source in any accredited university. It is very simple. Nothing you do on this website matters. So go ahead, toil in obscurity for as long as you want to. Maybe someday you'll grow up and learn how to act as adult or not. I really don’t care. I have better things to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6002:6:5489:3696:24D7:3041 (talk) 01:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

You might want to look up the term "ballistic", because you're using it incorrectly; indeed, one of the rules of professionalism in the modern world is that with a marked increase in written communication, it is wise not to assume tone-of-voice when reading non-verbal communications.

While I am aware that you didn't add the offending line (and that had you been paying attention you would have noted that I removed it not as a slight to someone I neither know nor care to but as not being particularly germane to the article's subject matter), it is worth noting that the reason fellow editors generally insist upon citations is not so much to improve the credibility of Wikipedia as it is to improve its utility; populist research may be - by definition - academically tenuous, but appropriate sourcing does provide the reader with acceptable sources for statements made on this website, and the true academic utility of Wikipedia is not as a source but as a bibliography.

However, I'm sure I'm hardly the only one who is glad you apparently, "have better things to do," because if you think that a disagreement over style and sourcing constitutes a ballistic personal attack but that calling someone "braindead" or telling them that they should "try reading a book" simply because they have the temerity not to take the word of an anonymous IP address as tantamount to an academic citation, then I must say your rather bizarre view of the world will not be missed.

As for "toiling in obscurity", thirty seconds worth of what most college freshmen would refer to - for better or worse - as "research" would reveal my real name to you, and another fifteen seconds would demonstrate that while hardly a paragon of fame - praise be - I'm not exactly obscure either; the fact that you claim to be a professor but a) apparently have no desire to exercise actual research skills, b) are naïve enough to think that college students aren't using Wikipedia despite prohibitions against doing so, and c) think hotheadedness would not be accepted in what you bizarrely refer to as the "real world", all make me wonder if you've ever actually met a real academic; Certainly I've seldom seen a more hotheaded and unnecessarily combative profession than academia. It is worth noting that not having the spleen for such a Machiavellian profession, I am not an academic but rather a political communications strategist (yes, professional politics is indeed less cutthroat than academia), and that while I am notoriously sarcastic I am not considered hotheaded by anyone I've ever met; it would be something of a professional handicap, after all.

Might I suggest developing the ability to avoid broad assumptions based upon scant evidence? It is such a shoddy trait for an academic to possess, after all. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 04:46, 10 September 2013 (UTC)