User talk:Blueboar/drafts

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[edit] Editing

I've put stuff in italics as well in-line as suggestions, but I most notably removed the last line on "root ritual", because given that even in the oldest jurisdiction in the world there is no standard, I don't want ot give any sort of precedence without proof. Masonically speaking, everyone knows about these rituals' existence to a greater or lesser extent, but it's too specialized for this type of article. The cited sources will have more info on that. MSJapan 02:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Morris, it turns out his PhD is in Mathematics, not History. The problem I saw is that he fudges "institution" and "constitution" to claim PA as the oldest jurisdiction in the US (because they had private lodges and no GL). However, what matters is the date of the GL, and as far as UGLE and the documents are concerned, that's MA. So I want to see if he fudged anything else before we use it. Hodapp knows where it's at, so use him. MSJapan 02:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Good edits... Thanks. I still think we need to list some of the various "workings" in some way. They illustrate (and hammer home) the fact that the differences are significant enough to give names to ... simply telling the reader that there are differences is not enough ... puting a name to those difffenrences tells the reader: "hey, we really mean it... there ARE differences... Really!" Blueboar 03:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, well, let me look around on Paul Bessel's site; he has a much more extensive list of rituals than I can come up with, and we can ref it that way without passing a judgment on anything. MSJapan 03:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Morris, it turns out his PhD is in Mathematics I thought that was common knowledge, or I would have mentioned it before.

With respect to the governance issue, we already state it in the FM article so no need to have an independent reference we can either internally link or use the same reference again. I would agree with the point about UGLE though but it does appear to be the most well developed GL website. Admittedly it might be that the caveat is surplus, we could just state that many rituals exist.

If someone can get hold of the Heredom article by de Hoyos which talks about where PH rituals come from that would be useful, I'm not convinced by the online reproduction because in the footnote it identifies that it's not complete.

Do we want to talk about exposures?

ALR 10:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as exposures go... I think that depends on where we want to go with this start. At the moment I am thinking simply of using this as a section that can be added to existing articles. In which case, I don't think we need to discuss exposures (and the case of the Obligations article exposures and hoaxes are already mentioned). If, on the other hand, we want to expand upon this foundation, and actually create an entire article on "Masonic Ritual" then yes, we should discuss exposures, hoaxes, etc. Blueboar 15:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Exposures are a far broader issue since they encompass the entirety of the ritual, plus they go way way back (within ten years of founding, I think). If we do a broader article, we could incorporate it (though I'm not exactly sure what to say about that hasn't already been adequately mentioned by Morris or Hodapp), but it might be pushing a bit if this is only a small section. As for Morris' PhD, when people claims "Ph.D." on a book and do not list their credentials therein, it makes me suspicious (Rex Hutchens did the same thing on the recent SRRS book, which was an annotated lecture of Pike's on symbolism), because said degree means nothing if you're far afield of your study area. I think I wasn't aware of Morris' field because I'm not in SMJ, nor have I flown out to QC meetings to ask him. MSJapan 17:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

On Morris... I am not so sure we should discount Morris entirely. He IS a well regarded name in Masonic Studies, even if his degree is not in the field. You may disagree with some of his theories and conclusions,(I do that with many historians)... but that does not mean he should be written off entirely. As for the PhD... I have a fealing that sticking that on his books is more a publisher's decision than something he insists on. It's like sticking "33rd degree"... it sounds impressive to the purchaser so publishers like to do it. Blueboar 01:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, so no need to discuss exposures. I'm happy with that, although wrt the PH article it might come into play. I've been looking at that one in the last few days and it needs some work, but probably better on your side of the pond since you've probably got more exposure to it.ALR