Talk:Walter Goffart

Heavy reliance on critics

I reworded some of this to be more neutral, but by and large it still reads like a hit piece. As with Vienna School of History, a more level-headed approach would be better. The unfiltered use of Rutenburg's whining about multiculturalism and relativism in the EU was especially tiresome. Goffart's views are tiresome to me too, but at least give them a fair and encyclopedia-worthy shake. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:19, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

controversial (?)

The article mentions a controversial theory of his, but I didn't see any information explaining why it was controversial. It would be helpful to have a few sentences noting what the prevailing theory is/was or why his was controversial. Pythagimedes (talk) 05:37, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikiquote

Should we remove the link to Wikiquote? It contains wrong information such as stating that he is a Canadian born in Belgium, rather than an American born in Berlin. This is apparently not a random error but also related to the special selection of strange quotes such as the one implying that Goffart's beliefs can be explained by the fact that he was Belgian refugee. And so on. It verges on being an attack piece. Consider WP:BLP. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:04, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Concerns about systematic distortion, giving an extreme impression

I refer to this part of our text:

Main article: Toronto School of History What we call the Fall of the Western Roman Empire was an imaginative experiment that got a little out of hand. — Walter Goffart Goffart is known as an exponent of a revisionist approach to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, which suggests that the Western Roman Empire did not collapse as such, but absorbed invading "barbarians" in a relatively peaceful transition. He has stressed Roman continuity after the fall of the Roman Empire, arguing that the "Germans" are first found in the Carolingian age, when the idea of a pan-Germanic world became possible.

References

• The word "revisionist", like the term "politically correct", is a typical right-wing populist internet word often used to attempt (once again, as on other articles) by internet pundits working on WP to create a polarized and populist story of "politically correct" academics who other academics supposedly all don't like. Seems very extreme!
• I can not see Wood's book except in snippets, which all seem very positive about Goffart.
• The Noble citation just refers to a normal blurb about Goffart's academic position etc in the forward to a book containing articles by different authors. [1]--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:16, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
• I also can not access Pohl's article, but I have serious doubts that Pohl or Goffart or any serious academic ever said that a "pan" Germanic "world" was ever possible, in any period, or at least not in the way which is implied by the bald statement placed here in Wikipedia voice.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:49, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
• The boxed quote of Goffart (p.35) has clearly been made striking by leaving out all context - again trying to make Goffart look controversial and extreme. What he is referring to is the uncontroversial fact that it was the Roman empire itself who filled its military with non Roman troops, and then gave those troops chunks of the western empire to rule. They were not invaders. Goffart is widely seen as correct about criticizing older historiography for not asking why and how this happened, because of its old obsession with maps with arrows on them, showing invasions. Our text box is not giving any of this information, because it is "being clever".
• "A relatively peaceful transition" also seems to be language intended to inspire mirth, perhaps inspired by the caricatures of Ward-Perkins. Goffart makes it clear (e.g. p.185 in BT) that he means that the military settlements were done in apparently done in a traditional brutal Roman way. Rome had a long history of brutality by its elites, and Goffart agrees that these new elites joined in. What Goffart is criticising is the crazy idea that Rome was something like a peaceful modern state, that was suddenly disrupted by outsiders. These barbarians had been running the Roman military for centuries, and that had consistently been a brutal affair.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Frankenstein quote

I also want to raise concerns about this large quote which combines bits and pieces of sentences from 6 different pages - which in my opinion should not normally be considered an acceptable way of citing scholars. There is a remarkably strong message in the original which is completely missing in our parody. Goffart is not at all saying there were no Germanic (speaking) peoples, or that such peoples had no culture or shared no aspects of culture. He is consistently and clearly saying that his concern is that historians still sometimes write as if there was ONE UNIFIED Germanic people who was able to act in a coordinated way. And he is specifically talking about a certain period. Have a look at WP's Franken-Goffart though:

"Strange as it may seem to hear it said, there were no Germanic peoples in late antiquity... I would be content if "German" and its derivatives were banished from all but linguistic discourse on this subject... The prehistoric Germans never existed... [T]hey are an illusion of misguided scholars. The nonexistence of ancient Germans is perhaps the most important thing one can say about the barbarians of late antiquity... Germanic collectivity exists in linguistics but never existed anywhere else... [A]n "early Germanic world"... had no existence anywhere... There was no Germanic world before the Carolingian age... The history of a language as known to philologists has nothing to do with that of human beings... No discernible benefit comes from our being reminded again and again in modern writings that many of these barbarians at each other's throats probably spoke dialects of the same language. The G-word can be dispensed with..." (Goffart 2006, pp. x, 4, 20, 25, 55, 221. )

The removed words are once again clearly intended to make Goffart look unreasonable by surgically removing context, which can be seen by comparing to the missing bits, and by emphasizing a few words that might not be otherwise noticed:

• p.x: I take issue with misapprehensions of barbarian history, in particular the anachronistic belief ... that the Migration Age is a "Germanic" subject, in which barbarians are synonymous with "Germanic peoples". Strange as it may seem to hear it said, there were no Germanic peoples in late antiquity.
• p.4: "The Germanness of the migrations has serious implications; it determines that the described course of events took place in a very distinct way. The main actors, it tells us, were not peoples disconnected from one another with multiple names and multiple circumstances; instead, the Migration Age was inhabited by a coherent, interrelated, and populous group engaging in collective endeavours of [....]. [next para] I would be content if "German" and its derivatives were banished from all but linguistic discourse on this subject [NOTE: referring to the Migration Age, and thus indicating that there was no single German(ic) collective entity in that period, and that some historians still write as if there was]."
• p.20: "The prehistoric Germans never existed... [T]hey are an illusion of misguided scholars. The nonexistence of ancient Germans is perhaps the most important thing one can say about the barbarians of late antiquity" Was actually one sentence: "The prehistoric Germans never existed under that name; they are an illusion of misguided scholars. The nonexistence of ancient Germans is perhaps the most important thing one can say about the barbarians of late antiquity" NOTE: This surgical edit is clearly intended to change the meaning in a fundamental way and the two fragments are presented as if they come from different pages.
• p.25: The premise of a one-to-one confrontation, however expressed, is false; the unity of Rome's northern neighbours is a verbal fiction. Germanic collectivity exists in linguistics but never existed anywhere else. [...] They existed in small, fragmented groups and had no mechanism for united action [...] Demandt [a historian] and uncounted others in many countries evoke an "early Germanic world" that had no existence anywhere until it took form in the minds of scholars in sixteenth-century Europe NOTE: Again the artificial surgery. If the words unity and collectivity and unified action are properly noted, which is easier when the passage is reassembled, this whole description is uncontroversial!
• p.55: There was no Germanic world before the Carolingian age ; late antiquity did not experience a one-to-one confrontation of barbarian against civilization. NOTE: The same key terms such as "one-to-one", insisting that his concern is not to treat the Germanic peoples as a unified collective, are used over and over by Goffart, but it is always exactly these which WP is consistently removing - making him seem completely different.
• p.221: Superfluous, too, is the unthinking modern transposition into history of a common 'Germanic' language family - a concept borrowed from comparative philology. The history of a language as known to philologists [i.e. old language families] has nothing to do with that of human beings. [i.e. old language connections have nothing to do with political connections] Under Attila's approving gaze, Ardaric-Gepids and Valamer-Goths spilled the blood in central Gaul to defeat Visigoths, Franks, and Burgundians; Herules tried to oppress Lombards; Lombards organized the destruction of the Gepids
• Actually from the next page p.222: There were few if any "Germanic" solidarities; the idea itself is an anachronism. Historians reared on the interminable combats of Christian Europeans among themselves should have no trouble recognizing that, in late antiquity, immediate advantage took precedence over linguistic brotherhood. No discernible benefit comes from our being reminded again and again in modern writings that many of these barbarians at each other's throats probably spoke dialects of the same language. The G-word can be dispensed with..." [No "...". It is was a full stop and paragraph end.]--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:25, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

COI whitewashing of the article

Pre-whitewashing version of article compared to the latest version

Over the past year or so this article has been thoroughly whitewashed, primarily by an editor with an obvious conflict of interest, but also by an editor who based on their edits on other aticles is a strong supporter of Goffart, so instead of having an article disseminating the many very fringe/controversial claims made by Goffart, including claims of there never having been prehistoric Germanic peoples, the whole theory about the existence of Germanic peoples being a nationalistic German construction (with Goffart sometimes conflating the terms German and Germanic), and Rome never having fallen, he is now presented as if his fringe claims are mainstream (in spite of Goffart himself, on the record, stating that he has very little support among other scholars...). IMHO the article should be returned to what it looked like before the whitewashing, and whatever trimming that might be needed done with a scalpel, and not the chainsaw that has been used over the past year. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 18:14, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Your description is a crude distortion and your proposal would amount to a major step backwards. Past versions of this article have been an embarrassment to Wikipedia. The differences between the two versions of the article your link leads to are non-controversial. (He really was born in Berlin and not in Brussels. The new paragraph in the lead even emphasizes the controversy.) You have pointed to no examples of "whitewashing" for other editors to see what evidence you have. Your aggressive and clumsy POV editing across various articles related to Germanic topics is frankly fundamentally opposed to how we work on Wikipedia. Please also keep in mind that this is a biography of a living person.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:57, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Charming as always. You're one of the editors who have done the whitewashing, so there's no surprise that you're defending it, making your opinion of less interest than the opinions of editors who haven't been involved in it. It's thanks to me that the lead states that his ideas are controversial, since I reverted the latest COI-edit, if it had been up to you and your fellow whitewasher there would have been no mention of it at all. As for me not having included any examples of whitewashing, try clicking on the bold link at the top of my post... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 20:14, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Nonsense. You put the word controversial into a paragraph where it already was, so now the word is just doubled. And the link at the top shows two versions which are years apart and different in hundreds of ways. Which of the differences matches your description? Give a specific example please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Hilariously BTW, I am the editor who added the paragraph which you are taking credit for, including the word controversial. [2]--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:35, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you try harder, the text to the left is the old version and the text to the right the new version, making it easy to see not only that large chunks of text have been removed, but also exactly what has been removed and what it has been replaced with. It's also easy to see all changes that have been made to the remaining text, it's even colour coded to make it easier. And anyone who is interested in knowing what has been removed by you and what has been removed by the other editor can easily find that information in the page history. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 20:44, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Other editors can indeed research and confirm what I've said if they want, which is clearly what you're hoping they won't do. But the onus is on you as the person making an accusation. The tagging you've done should be removed if you can't show specific edits which demonstrate your point. The two versions are massively different. The first chance you seem to be suggesting is to switch the birthplace to Brussels instead of Berlin. How is that a reasonable proposal? Another change is that you want his father to be called Walloon instead of Belgian. And so on and on. The revert you are proposing would frankly be ridiculous.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the onus is on the one making the accusation, and the established way of doing it is by providing a diff, just as I have done, it's NOT by posting walls of text, highlighted in colours/shades that make it extremely different to read, as you have done above. And changing the birthplace to Berlin and nationality to Belgian would of course be done right after reverting (it's included in the trimming with a scalpel that I mentioned in my first post above). And last but not least, how about skipping your usual diversionary tactics and commenting on the main things that have been removed? You may be able to steer the average editor off course by your tactics, but it doesn't work on me, because you aren't good enough at it for that. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 22:08, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

You have not given a diff of one edit. You're proposing to revert more than one year's worth of edits and looking through what that would mean I can only see changes which would be crazy, like deliberately giving Goffart the wrong birthplace. You have not given any examples of edits which could be considered controversial. The old version was clearly considered a hit piece by a lot of editors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Reverting to the last good version, before major changes, such as the total whitewashing of this article, and then re-doing whatever minor good edits, such as the change of birthplace, that have been done, is standard procedure in cases like this. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 08:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

No it is not. There is no obvious "whitewashing", but there were extremely obvious problems with the old "hit piece" version. Once again please remember WP:BLP. What would be standard procedure is that you please explain what you mean by whitewashing, showing examples of actual text that has been "whitewashed".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

In your opinion perhaps, but not in the eyes of a neutral bystander. Goffart's theories are very far from the mainstream view, and should thus not be portrayed as being mainstream, by removing all criticism of them from the article, as you and the COI-editor have done. And don't try to portray it is a BLP-issue, as you've already tried at least once, since properly sourced criticism is allowed, and not BLP-violations. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:00, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Which "properly supported criticism" are talking about? Why won't you give an example?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:23, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Once again: I already have, see the diff at the top of this section. Some of it might need some trimming, but there should definitely not be a total removal of all criticism, as done by you and the COI-editor. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:36, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

So we have identified bits of the revert which we agree would worsen the article and need "re-re-verting". But surely the point is that there should be example of text in your proposed revert that would not need "trimming" and that would be a non-controversial improvement? I haven't seen any though.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Anyone who tries to argue that Goffart's views have not had a major impact on the field is deluding themselves and is not sufficiently acquainted with late antique studies. Have they prompted enormous debate and hostility? Sure. In some circles, are they controversial? Perhaps, absolutely. But the idea that Goffart is just some fringe figure and not one of the thinkers who has seriously shaped the direction of both anglophone and Germanophone late antique studies (both in terms of generating a school of a thought and a major debate reacting to that school of thought) must not be sufficiently acquainted with the field, and is, I suggest, likely to be the one coming in to this work with a conflict of interest. His work has influenced generations of historians, both in a genealogical relationship to those who studied under him, and a wider field of scholars who did not study with but were influenced by him, who have gone on to train others who likewise draw on that school of thought.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:618:CC60:89F6:E446:5A7E:FBD9 (talk) 17:56, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• The older version was fine up until "Theories". After that, it was a hit piece, as Mnemosientje pointed out at the time. I find it strange that Goffart is accused of being anti-Germanic and insufficiently pro-Roman at the same time. Srnec (talk) 02:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@Srnec: "up until theories" must not be including the infobox I presume. In this case you are saying the Intro, Early Life and Career sections were acceptable. To be clear though, I presume neither you nor more importantly Thomas are seeing those sections as being bad now either. IMHO the changes in those sections over the last year are improvements and also should not be reverted to. Would you disagree? Perhaps Thomas might be interested to reinsert this one: "Several writers have suggested that Goffart's dramatic childhood might have impacted his interpretation of history." It cites Murray [3] and Wood but I think it changes the meaning (Murray "I leave others to decide"; Wood only says "A Canadian, perhaps significantly of Belgian extraction") and is undue.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

COI tag

I added the COI tag since one of the two whitewashers, using the alias @Dr Jessica Flack:, judging by their edits on a different page has a crystal clear conflict of interest, so the tag can not be removed until the article has been cleaned up, and the tag can definitely NOT be removed by the other whitewasher, @Andrew Lancaster:, as he has just tried to do. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 15:02, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above shows over and over that you see yourself as using the COI terminology to revert my edits, but you've not accused me of any COI. You've been given the chance to name any controversial parts of the article which are a COI problem and you've refused. You can't just make rules up Thomas. That the version you want to revert to is an objectionable hit job is however the subject of a consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Nope, they're two separate issues, I'm not accusing you of having a conflict of interest, like the other editor, "only" of participating in a POV whitewashing of the article. So don't try to accuse me of accusing you of having a conflict of interest, you're not good enough at it to pull that off either. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 18:02, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

In the post above and in your edit reinstating the COI template you call this a POV concern and you refer to my edits. It is undeniable that the edits you want to revert are those of me and other editors who have worked on this WP:BLP article over more than a year and who all expressed the need to change the old version in many ways. You even ridiculed the idea that you would change back the supposed COI edits such as the birthplace correction, and you refuse to name any edit by that edit which has caused a problem. So they are not your problem. Overall, you clearly have a bit of a personal obsession with the (living) subject of this article and no interest at all in accuracy about it. You came here to make your complaints after everyone disagreed with you on the talk page at Germanic Peoples. This is silly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:54, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

It was a typo that I corrected as soon as I noticed it, one hour and 23 minutes before you posted your reply to my comment above, in fact, so when you replied above it said "COI-tag" both in the section title and my post. Don't you read the posts you reply to?. Oh, and while we're at it, anything else you want to try to twist? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 22:26, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

What a charade. It is a POV dispute, linked to similar disputes you've started in other articles over a long time. You want to revert a year's worth of edits by many editors, but in this case you want to use a COI accusation about another editor who corrected, e.g., the birthplace, to justify that. You can not identify any text in the article which you can justify calling controversial. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes I can, and did so already in my first post in that section, so how about sticking to the truth instead of trying to confuse other editors? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:14, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I must have missed something. Which bit of text did you show to be problematic? Please explain.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

BTW, don't want to "twist" anything so I'll just make sure everyone realizes that the multiple "typos" where you put POV instead of COI, over and over, included this one: "Undid revision 1070494454 by Andrew Lancaster (talk) Since you're one of the POV whitewashers it's definitely NOT up to YOU to remove the POV tag (see discussion on talk page)" [4]. Hilarious. What a strangely specific "typo"! It is absolutely clear that the "COI" tag is being abused.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

You seem to have a habit of "missing" most things people who oppose your views write, or at least all things that don't fit in with your world view, and then endlessly repeating false claims about what they've written, or not written, in an attempt to wear your opponents down. What I wrote in my first post in the previous section was that an article about Goffart must at a very least include mentions of "... the many very fringe/controversial claims made by Goffart, including claims of there never having been prehistoric Germanic peoples, the whole theory about the existence of Germanic peoples being a nationalistic German construction (with Goffart sometimes conflating the terms German and Germanic), and Rome never having fallen ...", instead of him being presented as if his fringe claims are mainstream, as it is after having being whitewashed by you and the COI-editor. And the reason why it must be included is that not many people are familiar with Goffart's views, making it easier for POV-pushers like you to rewrite articles here based on Goffart's views if Goffart is presented as being mainstream in his article here. Which of course is why I'm opposed to your whitewashing of him. Capisce? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 10:36, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Your charge of "whitewashing" is insulting. Do you really want the incorrect place of birth, the incorrect name of his thesis advisor, the incorrect names of his major influences, the incorrect reference to the subject's last book, to remain as they were in this biography? Do you really think it appropriate to repeat the adjective "controversial" twice in one early sentence? My edits were aimed at accuracy and style; yours appear to come from a darker place. Dr Jessica Flack (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

OK. That's clear then. You are complaining that some sort of unclearly defined edit needs to be made. It is not a COI case. So why not just propose a concrete edit instead of whining, as long as you have good sourcing? Then we can all see what you are saying. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

If an editor with a clear close connection to the subject of the article makes a wholesale removal of every mention of his fringe views, including sources and all, it is a clear case of COI editing, which is why I added the COI-tag to the article, and if an editor who has previously tried to use Goffart as a source, as if his views were mainstream, helps in that removal of sourced content it's a case of POV-editing, which is why I started the section above this one, so it's two different things at the same time. What I want is for most of the material that was removed to be restored to the article, with sources and all, in such a way that the article adheres to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, and gives a true picture of Goffart's somewhat odd own version of history, a version that has very little, if any, support among other historians. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 14:59, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Well that's as clear as mud, but why can't you just give a concrete example of an actual sentence which has been removed or "white-washed" or whatever, and just show how the sources disagree when looked at seriously? What I see when I compare the diffs is that you want to reinstall factual and grammatical errors and unencyclopedic digressions and cherry-picking citations which are verging upon deliberate fraudulent (for example not only the Frankenstein quote above, but cases such as using an unknown book review which describes a single passage by Goffart as cranky, and trying to imply that this positive reviewer was calling Goffart's work cranky as a whole). FWIW I don't believe this article needs to cover negative remarks about the style of specific paragraphs in Goffart's work at all. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

You seem to have a problem with comprehending even simple English, since any reasonable reader would find all the answers they need in my posts in both this thread and the previous thread. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

No, there is no evidence that you've given any such answers about any specific sentences needing reversion. You never cite sources or stuff like that. There are no other editors saying they have seen any such information. That's logical, because we all know you want to reinstall material which looks horrific when placed under light. So the tag is still there but it is clearly not appropriate. You've made it clear yourself that your tag is pushing to revert many edits by many editors especially me, and you have admitted yourself that you have no reason to accuse me of any COI. You see it yourself as a point of view dispute. This is an abuse of that template. This is nothing to do with a COI concern.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)