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Wikipedia talk:Article size

Tables and lists
After a recent (and correct edit), a pargraph in the guideline now reads:

I propose that it would make more sense to remove ""tables and lists", and remove the newly added second sentence. Some articles (including some of our longest) consist almost entirely of lists (sometimes formatted as tables).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:34, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Your final sentence is true, but I'm having trouble seeing why the previous one follows from that. Could you explain? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:20, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * What's not clear? The "readable" article content at a long list  the list.  The current wording a) creates a loophole such that list articles are not subject to length limits at all, and b) another loophole whereby an article that consists of, say, 75% a list ignores the entire list for purposes of length calculation. I doubt anyone actually agrees that's a good idea. Hell, it could be a [bad] excuse to convert prose material into inappropriate lists/tables, just to skirt the length guidelines.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:10, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I am inclined to concur that tables and lists should be treated like normal wikitext. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:40, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It is unclear to me why tables and lists should be treated by normal wikitext for the purpose of article size. Size limits are to to with readability, and tables are for data presentation. I am unaware of people who look up lists to read from beginning to end. Tables and lists are reference material, while articles are a presentation of information about a particular subject, which I judge to be completely different subjects.  As an engineer, I have a steam table book written in the 50s (prior to computers and the internet) that is almost entirely tables about temperature and pressure for various fluids.  I do not believe anyone would read the book from beginning to end as a subject matter description of steam temperature and pressure, one would just go to the table needed for the particular values. The point I am trying to make is that tables and lists should not be subject to readability limits, but certainly should be subject to technical limits, such as maximum character limit, or limits on how may citations can be included before the article breaks, or general reports on slow-down on download speed on limited access machines such as commonly used smartphones in nations with more limited data carriers.  But putting a size limit on tables and lists based on the subjective readability limits would not be a good idea.  It is not a loophole, it is a different perspective. Mburrell (talk) 21:58, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As people have noted in the paragraphs above, though, people mostly don't read articles top to bottom, either. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:46, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree with Mburrell. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  11:40, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree too. Also, at least with tables, collapsing them can put them out of sight and out of mind. Riposte97 (talk) 22:15, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Ah, okay, I misunderstood. I don't object to the principle but we may need to deal with the fact that the added sentence is true wrt the tools often used for assessment of this issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:12, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * MOS uses the term appendix (sometimes, footers) to refer to the bottom matter (another term!) that we'd like to exclude, so maybe we could borrow that. Mathglot (talk) 09:23, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, but it still shouldn't include "tables and lists" which are part of the main-body content of the article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:24, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Disagree entirely that tables and lists should be added; the issue is readable prose, and tables are skimmed. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  11:39, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Tables and lists wouldn't be considered the readable prose in prose articles, but they would be considered the readable prose, or whatever is closest to that, for list articles. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem with tables and lists is that we don't have an automated tool for counting the "readable prose" in them. The reason is that we have not determined a way of counting the text in them. We need to agree on this first. Only then can we consider size limits. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  18:22, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

On this point, I recommend Faked death as an example of the problem. It's 1,000 words if you exclude "lists". It's 4,000 words if you don't. In this instance, the latter is the correct/relevant number. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:20, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I think we may be running into an "I know it when I see it" problem. Correct me if my assumption here is wrong, but I think we would all wish to exclude the tables of (mostly) figures in List of municipalities in Alberta for purposes of prose calculation (because it ain't prose), but does anyone really want to exclude the table content in Reliable sources/Perennial sources? The content of that table *is* prose (well, col. 5, anyway), and I want to count it for any prose calculation. (Yes, I know that's not an article, I just don't have a sample article at hand with long prose sections, and I'm too lazy to look now; please help me out by linking one.) Admittedly, that makes automated counting solutions more complex and that's unfortunate, but I don't think it would be fair to either include tables in both of those pages in the count, or to exclude tables in both. They require separate treatment, imho. Agree? Disagree? Mathglot (talk) 08:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

 * I agree that we want to count the full article content but not simple lists and data tables (e.g., undescribed lists of notable people, tables of sports scores, names of songs in an album).
 * I think that the problem should be solved in documentation, rather than code. That means that we say something like "You can use Prosesize, but be aware that it undercounts the words in articles that have significant material formatted as lists or tables."  Also, perhaps we should document the "exact numbers not important" part.  When we say "10,000 words", we mean something like "9,000 to 11,000 words" – not 9,999 to 10,001 words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Just adding a link to Doctor Who (series 4), which has plenty of prose table content, replacing my poor example above. This link is thanks to helpful Teahouse responder User:Deltaspace42, who also points out that "pretty much all pages about episodes of TV series contain such table[s]". As I wasn't entirely sure that such tables existed in mainspace, it's very helpful to have this example, and to find out that it's representative of an entire class of articles. Mathglot (talk) 04:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Quality and the 15,000 guideline
Hi everyone, guidelines say articles over 15,000 'readable' words, "Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed." 15,000 comes from a compromise relating to a 2007 change to do with 100 kilobytes. I.e. 15,000 is not based on what would lead to higher quality, more readable articles, hence the readability discussion above. I've read the links helpfully posted by @Peter Isotalo and not found anything useful on readability. But what about using verifiable evidence on quality, which is very related to readability. Quality is not mentioned once in the article size guidelines? I looked at recently promoted featured articles - October 2023 - and found the largest was about 12,000 words. We could analyse 'recently' promoted featured article maximum length to help improve the guidelines, or put them on a better footing? Grateful for evidence on quality and readability, Tom B (talk) 20:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

 * The problem is that quality is a different thing than quantity. Badly written text is badly written, no matter whether it's 1500 or 150000 words long. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:24, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a semi-informal 10k limit for FAs, so this is to be expected; there's no causality. DFlhb (talk) 10:35, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * hi @DFlhb, thank you, there is a formal length requirement yes, but no exact number as you intimate. I was surprised to find a recently promoted article at 12k, that might effectively be the informal limit? For me and others there is causality, the informal limit aids quality, Tom B (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

 * Quality nor readability are not sensible reasons to sub-divide articles because quality has nothing to do with size while readability has to do with the chunking and navigational structure of topics at multiple levels – sentence, paragraph, section, page, topic, category and so forth.

 * The real issue is the technical size of the page and this seems to be most affected by the amount of templates rather than the amount of prose. For example, the popular page Deaths in 2023 has an edit note that "References should be in format, as full citations make the page too slow to load, and too big to edit."
 * Andrew🐉(talk) 12:37, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Andrew Davidson, thank you, we have a simple disagreement: you say quality has nothing to do with size, I say it does. For me the Napoleon article increases in quality from to 1,000 words, to 8,000 and starts decreasing before about 12,000 words. I got it promoted to GA at 8,000 words and it got demoted at 18,000. Don't most think the quality decreases at some point? We just disagree when? I appreciate it will be different amounts for different articles. I don't think technical size is the big issue any more. The consensus appears to be that readability is now key? Some think we should remove the limit, some like me think we should reduce it e.g. to 12,000, but I'm open to evidence, others might think the 15,000 guideline is fine. Everyone thinks their position will improve quality or not effect it? Tom B (talk) 16:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Tpbradbury said,
 * That reminds me of Salieri's, "Too many notes" in Amadeus. In some cases it may, but not all, and it's not purely a function of length, imho, but of other factors. I believe that there are various human factors involved, one of which is the icons related to quality article awards. I notice many user pages with a string of GA or FA icons, and while I respect the work involved and applaud the improvement to the encyclopedia by these volunteer editors, once an article achieves the award, what happens then? Do these editors continue watching, improving, pruning, maintaining quality as the article grows from 8k to 18k after the award, or do they move on to something else? I'm not ashamed to say that I'd probably move on; I think that's human nature in large part (although I'm aware that some articles have long-term, non-OWNy watchers that remain active and I think that's commendable).
 * I think another human factor that affects quality that is size-related in a way difficult to quantify is the basic structure of the article as manifested by the choice of section headers, how many of them there are, how deeply nested, and how much content in them. Section headers are the musculo-skeletal system of an article, and the larger it grows, the more difficult it becomes to move sections around, or to disassemble them and reorganize along different lines. Partly this is simply mechanical: moving a top level section with 22kb of content to a different point in the article requires finding the begin and end points, cutting it, finding the destination point, and pasting it. If you've done this, you know it's tedious to prepare and a bit white-knuckly to execute even for the tech-savvy, and probably scares away many editors as not worth the effort. Better tools designed for manipulating article sections could mitigate that problem.
 * Far more difficult imho, and less amenable to new tools, is analyzing the section structure of an article, realizing that it could be improved by a different organization, designing a new structure, and moving the article towards that goal. That's not so hard for a small stub, but as it grows beyond a stub and gains section headers, my impression is that there are fewer and fewer editors willing to take a 40,000-foot view and reorganize the basic structure. When the original content is extremely poor in quality, WP:TNT is an option, and I've done this two or three times with buy-in at Talk, but if quality is not at the extreme end of bad and merely 'poor', there may be opposition to it which may make it impossible to carry out. The result is that articles tend to suffer from a kind of atherosclerosis as they grow, making it harder and harder to do a complete overhaul even if you could find a wiki-surgeon willing to tackle it, and it happens much earlier imho than the size limits mentioned in the table as split territory.
 * I think this paradigm, if accurate, puts a lot of pressure on editors to get the basic organizational structure of the article right fairly early on while it's still relatively easy to adjust in order to avoid sclerosis later, but that doesn't always happen. Maybe a new type of reviewing team could help, sort of like Afc but with the goal of having a second look at articles around the time they transition from stubs to start class with a view to establishing a solid section structure amenable to future growth before the article grows too big and locks in something less than optimal. Mathglot (talk) 21:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In answer to your first question: most of us remain watching the articles as stewards or shepherds. Libel, nonsense and vandalism gets reverted but additions are not removed unless they are unreferenced. (I had a particular problem with Frank Borman when IPs started posting that he had died. I had to revert them until the news was reported in a RS.) FAs are comprehensive by nature and rarely grow although some topics like Batman by their nature require ongoing updates. Occasionally you get called back to an old FA when there is an FAR. GAs though can be substantially updated or rewritten.
 * As a rule, articles will increase in size as new material is added since old material is only removed when a subarticle is created. A recent case of what you are talking about is John von Neumann. He was a polymath, which is to say a complicated subject from our point of view. Normally biographical articles are organised chronologically. The article had grown organically as a result of a series of editors (including myself) who had very different interests and areas of expertise. The readers were probably just as diverse. The obvious path to the article's growth was to create a series subarticles on the different areas of von Neumann's interest, wherein readers could find the detailed information that they were looking for. The problem was that this would involve major restructuring of the main article and considerable work setting up the subarticles and then summarising them. The issue that was then debated at length was whether this was worth the effort when the only issue was the size of the article (15,000 words). Hawkeye7   (discuss)  00:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That article is an example in similar space to what Mathglot discusses. The main issues in the John von Neumann article case were not size per se, they were issues with factual accuracy and writing quality. Even after substantial reworking, the most recent major edit to that article was to delete a subsection as being apparently fundamentally misguided. The length there served as a warning that brought the other issues to light, but presumably also made maintenance difficult in the preceding period as it was an increasingly large amount to monitor. CMD (talk) 02:29, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That article is an example in similar space to what Mathglot discusses. The main issues in the John von Neumann article case were not size per se, they were issues with factual accuracy and writing quality. Even after substantial reworking, the most recent major edit to that article was to delete a subsection as being apparently fundamentally misguided. The length there served as a warning that brought the other issues to light, but presumably also made maintenance difficult in the preceding period as it was an increasingly large amount to monitor. CMD (talk) 02:29, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Removing kb limits
My understanding is there is strong consensus to remove the kb limits thus: But @Onetwothreeip reverted with "I am sympathetic to some kind of change like this, but really need a strong consensus". I thought we only needed consensus, but I'm not used to guideline changes. Is there consensus to remove the kb limits or good reasons to retain them? Tom B (talk) 15:48, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

 * I'd be in favour, but I think we need to make sure that WP:SIZESPLIT has the same units, so as not to confuse people. When we added the word counts earlier, some people suggested a transition period of a few years to ease people referring to the old kb units. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A few years? Tom B (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Given that people rarely look at guidelines they're familiar with, I think a year may be quite reasonable. I would prefer a change now, as the word limit suggestions are easy enough to interpret. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * When asked i have told my students  for years about page length over kb (as the academic world does) . "Articles should range between 8,000 and 10,000 words, or approximately thirty-five pages in length, and would include a 150 word lead." Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 16:20, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to remove the byte guideline. Each article's word count is not going to be immediately apparent. It is right that the word count is the more prominent guideline, but the byte count is simply an equivalent to that. However, I would support a change that makes it clearer that this table applies to articles that are predominantly prose content. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Au contraire; few (even experienced) editors understand how to calculate readable prose, and quite often misquote the KB when referring to size. I support removal of the confusing and dated KB bits. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:09, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I would think that calculating readable prose is simply a matter of counting how many words there are in the prose of the article. I accomplish this myself by copying and pasting the text into something that counts words. Saying that a certain article kilobyte size of a prose article is generally equivalent to a certain amount of words should be complementary to the word count guideline. If it's being misquoted or confused, we should rewrite the guidelines or add clarification instead. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Rewriting doesn't help considering the most frequent misapplication of this guideline is by people who don't read it. They look at the page, see the KB, and apply that without any knowledge of how readable prose is calculated.  I see this routinely (and we're still seeing it, even on this page).  Removing KB is the way to go here, as it is not a good approximation of readable prose. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  12:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * My impression is that few or no people have defended using kb size as a metric in the discussion so far. Granted it's not a huge number of participants. And it might be worth thinking about having a guideline on kb size as well, given technical issues ... but on a different page. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:02, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I support Tom B's edit. We really need to accept that Wikipedia is NOTPAPER. Traditional size limits are a thing of the past, with the exception of mobile users.

In fact, I support removal of any form of maximum total word or byte length for articles and instead support "ease of access limits" on section size. It should be possible to easily hop to a section and open it using a mobile device. AFAIK, unduly large sections might be problematic. (Maybe not, so let's discuss that.) Section size is more of a concern than total article size. Finding info by searching is not a problem, including trillions of bytes. OTOH, "opening" an unduly large section might be a problem for some users. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 17:19, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Remove KB, keep readable prose word limits; we've covered this at length elsewhere on this page. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  13:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

 * Counting the number of words has become much easier than it used to be. The Prosesize script is available in Special:Preferences.  It adds a "Page size" item to end of the Tools section (sidebar or dropdown menu, depending on your skin). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * While these tools are great, they are unfortunately not accessible to the majority of Wikipedia editors, who are not going to know how to use them. That is why guidelines like these are important. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have any examples of the guideline being misapplied in such a way? Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * So that I don't have to troll back through my contribs for an example, look no further than a spinoff from the discussion here, which uses overall size in KB, rather than readable prose in words, for articles that don't necessarily need to be split. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  22:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Onetwothreeip: you don't own this guideline. You are the only one to disagree with simplifying in this direction, please stop reverting. This is not a major change in the guideline, as the conversions is mostly constant between articles. Getting readable prose in kb or words requires mostly the same tools, so that's not an argument against simplifying either. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a major change to the guideline. I said there was "not much" recent discussion, meaning not enough. There have only been a few participants on this when this is a part of the guideline which gets quoted very often. I support change in this area, but the kB equivalents are useful for editors who cannot or don't want to use tools to find the exact word count. Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * They would still need the exact same tools to find the kilobyte equivalent is a readable prose, right? We've had a transition period where we showed both. We have no one objecting to this removal of confusing kilobytes, not even you. That's not make Wikipedia more bureaucracy than it already is. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Your revert summary said there has not recent discussion, but that is untrue. So why did you revert? Tom B (talk) 11:47, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Following from above, we can avoid going to a full community discussion by refactoring the table to include the kilobyte measures as supplementary detail equivalent to the word count measures, while still emphasising the primacy of the word count measures. Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

 * WP:CAREFUL, please. There's nothing like consensus for a change in the discussion here. Suggest a RFC. VQuakr (talk) 20:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Do we really need an RfC for removal a unit that continues to confuse? I think one or two more people engaged in this discussion should be able to establish a consensus strong enough for everybody to be happy. @VQuakr: would you be willing to weigh in yourself? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:05, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, a RFC is absolutely warranted to establish consensus for a change to a guideline like this. Personally I think the kB measurement is fine, though supplementing with words to match the format that the existing page size tool produces might be helpful, but the discussion on this has been sprawling and fragmented. A RFC would help not only to establish consensus but to distill the reasoning in a more terse, readable format that might help me refine my personal position. Or to put another way, we need a WP:SIZE guideline on sizing guideline discussions. :) VQuakr (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There's no need for an RfC over something so minor.
 * I agree with SandyGeorgia that kB limits mislead some users; I've seen it repeatedly. The total page kB is more prominent and easier to find than the prosesize kB. DFlhb (talk) 21:46, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Mmmkay but there isn't consensus for a change, so correct we don't need an RFC as long as you're good with the status quo. VQuakr (talk) 22:18, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I count 5 editors for, 3 editors who didn't express a clear view but seem to lean 'for', and only you and 123IP opposing. DFlhb (talk) 12:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * User:VQuakr: Personally I think the kB measurement is fine what do you see as the added value of the kB unit? In terms of consensus, I read 5 people explicitly supporting, one or two who are not explicit but seem to defend arguments in favour of simplification (?), onetwothreeip saying they are sympathetic to the change, and objecting mostly on procedural reasons, and you. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I count 5 editors for... right, this isn't a sufficient level of involvement to change a guideline per WP:CONLEVELS. VQuakr (talk) 17:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * VQuakr, you're the 1 editor who wants to revert back and include kb limits? it's not worth an RFC because one editor wants to include info everyone else wants to remove? Tom B (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No, I am not the "1 editor" who disagrees with this proposal. VQuakr (talk) 18:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Who are the other editors who want retain the kb limits pls? Tom B (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You started this section, no? Surely you are aware of the participants in the ensuing discussion, which makes me think maybe I'm not understanding your question. But it seems moot regardless, as there hasn't been enough involvement yet to establish any consensus for a change. To recap, you started this section with My understanding is there is strong consensus to remove the kb limits..., even though such a consensus did not and does not exist. Editing policies and guidelines is both hard and methodical, which is why I've suggested a RFC. I'm frankly not understanding why there is resistance to that, as it is a quite routine step in making this sort of change to a guideline. If you, Femke, and others are correct that this is a slam-dunk proposal then it will garner wide support, so a RFC will just help your case by getting a sufficient level of involvement in the approval of the proposal. VQuakr (talk) 18:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Let's keep focussed on content. VQuark, what do you see as the added value of having the kB in there?
 * We can start an RfC, but I see editor hours as something precious that I do not want to call on unnecessary. This removal of a confusing unit does not change the guideline in any practical sense, so I do not see the need for an extraordinarily level of consensus. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Neither words nor kB are confusing units of measurement. While I agree this doesn't substantially change the spirit of the guideline, it literally does change it practically speaking; we're changing the units of measurement and there seems to be resistance to the idea of retaining both per the discussion above. Agreed there is no need for an extraordinary level of consensus, but there is a need for consensus. We've got a guideline that has referenced kB of readable prose for well over a decade; more than a half-dozen editors' involvement is warranted before changing. VQuakr (talk) 19:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * In case you missed it, there is a recent example from a smart and experienced user confusing the easily accessed markup size with readable prose size in kb. If experienced users get confused, how do newer users navigate this? The resistence about retaining both is therefore warranted.
 * Let's agree to disagree on the level of consensus. Not sure if I want to open an RfC.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You're conflating readable prose size vs units of measurement. We care about readable prose, not raw page size, whether we're measuring in kB or words. No, I do not find a single example of someone being temporarily confused remotely convincing that there is a problem or that the proposed change is a solution. I'm also not clear on how your final sentence The resistance about retaining both is therefore warranted logically follows from anything you've said prior. VQuakr (talk) 19:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, I now understand. I thought you meant "there is resistance against retaining both", which I agreed with but found a confusing statement given your preceding comments. About is ambiguous here; I should have done a bit more thinking before replying. Funny, to have a misunderstanding of this kind when talking about a guideline with a similar ambiguity for the poor reader. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I realize this discussion is a couple of months old at this point, but I wanted to push back on the opening statement:

I strenuously object to any change which results in the appearance of prose size (or equivalent expressions such as readable prose) as the sole column header or sole yardstick of article size. Doing so leads to complete absurdities, such as assessing our #1 longest article in main space with over 35,000 words, as having only "45 prose words" if prose size is the measure. Please see WT:Splitting for details. I've restored word count in the column header pending discussion of this. There is nothing wrong with taking multiple measures into consideration, and that is what should be done here; there is absolutely nothing wrong with considering raw kb count as one of those measures. Mathglot (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

 * Well, the problem is that kb counts are misleading people into thinking the HTML/code size is important. "kb" doesn't necessarily mean HTML, but a lot of people are interpreting it as such. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I fully understand your reasoning, but I support the change, as word count is plain English, and readable prose is not. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:40, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed; but playing devil's advocate for a moment against my own position, the opposing argument might go: "Perhaps so, but prose words is well-defined and we can generate a replicable, exact count with a tool, whereas word count is poorly defined: what does it even include?" There is some validity to that, but I think the weakness of prose words and the absurd example resulting from its weakness outweighs that argument. In the end, I don't think we have any one statistic that by itself is sufficient to make the call about splitting, and we should recognize that there are multiple factors involved. Imho, ultimately the table should have additional columns, to provide more information for making a good decision. Mathglot (talk) 09:36, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

 * You’re moving to fast forward 24.35.154.137 (talk) 23:06, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Collapsed per WP:TALK: not improving the article. Your Teahouse comment was equally pointless. Mathglot (talk) 00:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 * yes a simplifying change. the risk is that people count the references etc, but hopefully the readable prose definition underneath will mitigate, Tom B (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Aside on markup size
(and others) I think a reasonable solution would be for the table to indicate that an article of 15,000 is on average a certain amount of kilobytes in markup size, and so on for each. This would provide an easy equivalent for editors to use, maintain consistency with guidelines, and promote the primacy of considering length in terms of word count. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:16, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That's not feasible. There is no one-to-one conversion between markup size in kb and readable prose length (in either kb or words). Some articles are strongly cited, with detailed citation information. Others are only partially cited, or have a very short citation style. A strongly cited article can easily be three times the size as a weakly cited article for the same word lenght. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:52, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that markup size isn't relevant to a discussion about article length, which whether in words or kB is a discussion about readable prose not raw size. VQuakr (talk) 17:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Femke, that is why I am saying that the conversion should be a rough average, essentially an estimate. We could even include a range, but we don't need to include for outliers. Markup size is an indication of readable size whether we like it or not, and often the most accessible indication. Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There is going to be a correlation on average, but it varies such a large amount that it's doubtful the average will be at all helpful for application to an individual article. (I would also suggest that the two are confused enough already, and that further confusion does not aid discussion of prose or actual issues with markup size such as WP:PEIS.) CMD (talk) 05:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. An average may be interesting, but it has no proscriptive relevance to any weird "paper mind" (those who don't fully understand and apply NOTPAPER) ideas of an "ideal" article's size. Articles will naturally fall along the X-axis of a bell curve with extremes on each side, and no attempts should be made to shorten long articles in an attempt to make them more "average" in length. Both very short and very long articles have their place. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 06:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This would have no effect on your key point, however for the sake of accuracy, article size by no means follow a bell curve. I'd wager there's a Y-maximum at around X=9kb followed by a slow decline with a long tail, ending at 844kb. Mathglot (talk) 20:54, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Some articles are also very markup-heavy for other reasons, such as lots of .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Extending 's thought with something I haven't seen mentioned on this page, namely that the raw byte count in in the history is not the number of characters you see when you look at the wikicode in the Preview window (even with visible spaces and newlines); it is strictly the number of bytes. The number of characters may be lower, as the byte count is bytes are not characters, and beyond the simple ASCII character set many characters take two or three bytes to be expressed in UTF-8. This is more likely to be a factor when non-ASCII characters are used in the article, including articles involving foreign scripts, mathematics, symbols, and other non-ASCII characters, which may requires two, or three bytes to express in UTF-8. Mathglot (talk) 11:19, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia talk:Article size


text:
Domangart mac Domnaill

Domangart mac Domnaill (died 673) was a king in Dál Riata (modern western Scotland) and the son of Domnall Brecc. It is not clear whether he was over-king of Dál Riata or king of the Cenél nGabráin.

Domangart is not listed by the Duan Albanach but is included in other sources, such as genealogies of William the Lion, and that of Causantín mac Cuilén found with the Senchus fer n-Alban. In these genealogies he is noted as the father of Eochaid mac Domangairt.

The Annals of Ulster for 673 report: "The killing of Domangart, son of Domnall Brecc, the king of Dál Riata." Some king-lists state that in his time the Cenél Comgaill separated from the Cenél nGabráin.

It is not clear who succeeded Domangart as king of Dál Riata, if he was such, or as king of the Cenél nGabráin. Known kings after Domangart include Máel Dúin mac Conaill and Domnall Donn of the Cenél nGabráin and Ferchar Fota of the Cenél Loairn is assigned a long reign of 21 years by the Duan Albanach and other king-lists, and this would place the beginning of his rule close to the death of Domangart.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Domangart mac Domnaill


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Conall Crandomna

Conall Crandomna was king of Dál Riata (modern western Scotland) from about 650 until 660.

The Senchus fer n-Alban makes him a son of Eochaid Buide and thus a member of the Cenél nGabráin. The Duan Albanach has him succeed Ferchar mac Connaid of the Cenél Comgaill, which had not yet separated from the Cenél nGabráin. He was co-ruler with Dúnchad mac Conaing until 654, after which he was apparently sole ruler.

His sons Máel Dúin mac Conaill and Domnall Donn may have been kings of Dál Riata.

His death in 659 or 660 is reported by the Annals of Ulster. He was probably succeeded by his nephew Domangart mac Domnaill

title: Conall Crandomna


text:
Dúnchad mac Conaing

Dúnchad mac Conaing (or Dúnchad mac Dubáin) (died 654) was king of Dál Riata (modern western Scotland). He was joint ruler with Conall Crandomna until he was defeated and killed by Talorgan son of Eanfrith, king of the Picts, in the Battle of Strathyre. Sources differ on Dúnchad's patronym and thus his presumed ancestry.

The death of Dúnchad mac Conaing in battle is reported in the Annals of Tigernach in 654: "... there fell Dúnchad, son of Conaing, and Congal, son of Ronan". John Bannerman proposed that this Dúnchad was the same person as the Dúnchad or Dúngal who is found as joint ruler with Conall Crandomna. Dúnchad mac Conaing appears in the Senchus fer n-Alban: "These are the sons of Conaing, son of Áedán .i. Rigallán, Ferchar, Artán, Artúr, Dondchad, Domungart, Nechtan, Ném, Crumíne.

However, the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech list Dúnchad mac Dubáin as king, while the Duan Albanach associated one Dúngal with Conall. Dubán may be a hypocoristic form of Dub, and represent a byname ("little Black"). An alternative reconstruction made Dúnchad a descendant of Áedán mac Gabráin's passed-over brother Eoganán.

He is presumed to have had at least one son, Conall Cáel (died 681), and it is possible that he was the grandfather, or great-grandfather by some readings, of Fiannamail ua Dúnchado and an ancestor of Dúnchad Bec.

title: Dúnchad mac Conaing


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Ferchar mac Connaid

Ferchar mac Connaid was king of Dál Riata (in modern Scotland) from about 642 until 650.

He was a son of Connad Cerr and thus probably a member of the Cenél Comgaill, although some older reconstructions make him a member of the Cenél nGabráin. His death appears in the Annals of Ulster for 694 along with a number of other entries which appear to be misplaced by 45 years. The Duan Albanach grants him a reign of 16 years, which may mean that he ruled jointly with Domnall Brecc before becoming sole king, but the reign lengths of the Duan are problematic and this may be an error.

Ferchar is the only descendant of Connad Cerr known to have held the kingship of Dál Riata. The genealogies in the Senchus fer n-Alban do not include Ferchar and his kin.

title: Ferchar mac Connaid


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Domnall Brecc

Domnall Brecc (Welsh: Dyfnwal Frych; English: Donald the Freckled) (died 642 in Strathcarron) was king of Dál Riata, in modern Scotland, from about 629 until 642. He was the son of Eochaid Buide. He was counted as Donald II of Scotland by the scholar Fraxinius.

He first appears in 622, when the Annals of Tigernach report his presence at the battle of Cend Delgthen (probably in the east midlands of Ireland) as an ally of Conall Guthbinn of Clann Cholmáin. This is the only battle known where Domnall Brecc fought on the winning side.

Domnall suffered four defeats after he broke Dál Riata's alliance with the Cenél Conaill clan of the Uí Néill. In Ireland, Domnall and his ally Congal Cáech of the Dál nAraidi were defeated by Domnall mac Áedo of the Cenél Conaill, the High King of Ireland, at the Battle of Mag Rath (Moira, County Down) in 637. He also lost to the Picts in 635 and 638 and lastly to Eugein I of Alt Clut at Strathcarron in 642, where he was killed.

A stanza interpolated into the ancient Welsh poem Y Gododdin refers to these events:

I saw an array that came from Pentir,

And bore themselves splendidly around the conflagration.

I saw a second one, rapidly descending from their township,

Who had risen at the word of the grandson of Nwython.

I saw great sturdy men who came with the dawn,

And the head of Dyfnwal Frych, ravens gnawed it.

Domnall's son Domangart mac Domnaill was later to be king of Dál Riata and from him the later kings of the Cenél nGabráin were descended. A second son, Cathasach, died c. 650, and a grandson of Domnall, also called Cathasach, died c. 688.

title: Domnall Brecc


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Connad Cerr

Connad Cerr (Connad the Left-handed) was a king of Dál Riata in the early 7th century. He was either a son of Conall mac Comgaill or of Eochaid Buide. Connad appears to have been joint king with Eochaid Buide in the 620s.

He is named as king of Dál Riata in 627 when he won a victory over Fiachnae mac Demmáin, king of the Ulaid at Ard Corann. Connad was killed at Fid Eóin, fighting against the Dál nAraidi led by Máel Caích, brother of Congal Cáech. While the Annals of Ulster have the battle in 629 and the Annals of Tigernach in 630, both place the death of Connad before the death of Eochaid Buide.

Connad's son Ferchar was later king. An entry in the Book of Ballymote associates Connad's descendants with "the men of Fife".

title: Connad Cerr


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Eochaid Buide

Eochaid Buide was king of Dál Riata from around 608 until 629. "Buide" refers to the colour yellow, as in the colour of his hair.

He was a younger son of Áedán mac Gabráin and became his father's chosen heir upon the death of his elder brothers. Adomnán's Life of Saint Columba has Columba foresee that Eochaid, then a child, will succeed his father in preference to his adult brothers Artúr, Eochaid Find and Domangart.

In 616, Eochaid Buide gave shelter to Acha of Deira and her children after her husband Æthelfrith was killed at the Battle of the River Idle, fighting her brother, Edwin of Northumbria. While at his court, they adopted Christianity. When Acha's sons returned to reclaim the kingdom at the Battle of Heavenfield, they brought Christianity with them. Her daughter Æbbe established a double monastery at Coldingham.

In the last two years of his reign, 627–629, Eochaid was apparently co-ruler with Connad Cerr, who predeceased him. Eochaid was followed by his son Domnall Brecc.

Eochaid's other sons named by the Senchus fer n-Alban are Conall Crandomna, Failbe (who died at the Battle of Fid Eoin), Cú-cen-máthair (whose death is reported in the Annals of Ulster for 604), Conall Bec, Connad or Conall Cerr (who may be the same person as Connad Cerr who died at Fid Eoin), Failbe, Domangart and Domnall Donn (not the same person as Domnall Donn unless his obituary is misplaced by 45 years like that of Ferchar mac Connaid)

According to the Fled Dúin na nGéd, Eochaid Buide was the grandfather of Congal Cáech. The story has anachronistic features as it has Eochaid alive at the time of the battle of Mag Rath (securely dated to within a year of 637), but it is chronologically feasible that Congal Cáech could have been the son of Eochaid's daughter if the identification of Cú-cen-máthair and the dating of his death is correct.

title: Eochaid Buide


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Áedán mac Gabráin

Áedán mac Gabráin (Aodhán mac Gabhráin), also written as Aedan, was a king of Dál Riata from c.  574 until c. 609 AD. The kingdom of Dál Riata was situated in modern Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and parts of County Antrim, Ireland. Genealogies record that Áedán was a son of Gabrán mac Domangairt.

He was a contemporary of Saint Columba, and much that is recorded of his life and career comes from hagiography such as Adomnán of Iona's Life of Saint Columba. Áedán appears as a character in Old Irish and Middle Irish language works of prose and verse, some now lost.

The Irish annals record Áedán's campaigns against his neighbours, in Ireland, and in northern Britain, including expeditions to the Orkney Islands, the Isle of Man, and the east coast of Scotland. As recorded by Bede, Áedán was decisively defeated by Æthelfrith of Bernicia at the Battle of Degsastan. Áedán may have been deposed, or have abdicated, following this defeat. His date of death is recorded by one source as 17 April 609, in Kilkerran.

Neighbours
Áedán was the chief king in Dál Riata, ruling over lesser tribal kings. The Senchus fer n-Alban records the sub-divisions of Dál Riata in the 7th and 8th centuries, but no record from Áedán's time survives. According to the Senchus, Dál Riata was divided into three sub-kingdoms in the 7th century, each ruled by a kin group named for their eponymous founder. These were the Cenél nGabráin, named for Áedán's father, who ruled over Kintyre, Cowal and Bute; the Cenél Loairn of northern Argyll; and the Cenél nÓengusa of Islay. Within these there were smaller divisions or tribes which are named by the Senchus. Details of the Irish part of the kingdom are less clear.

Looking outward, Dál Riata's neighbours in north Britain were the Picts and the Britons of the Hen Ogledd, the Brittonic-speaking parts of what is now Northern England and southern Lowland Scotland. The most powerful Brittonic kingdom in the area was Alt Clut, later known as Strathclyde and Cumbria. Late in Áedán's life, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia became the greatest power in north Britain.

In Ireland, Dál Riata formed part of Ulster, ruled by Báetán mac Cairill of the Dál Fiatach. The other major grouping in Ulster consisted of the disunited tribes of the Cruithne, later known as the Dál nAraidi. The most important Cruithne king in Áedán's time was Fiachnae mac Báetáin. Beyond the kingdom of Ulster, and generally hostile to it, were the various kingdoms and tribes of the Uí Néill and their subjects and allies. Of the Uí Néill kings, Áed mac Ainmuirech of the Cenél Conaill, Columba's first cousin once removed, was the most important during Áedán's reign.

Reign
Adomnán, the Senchus fer n-Alban and the Irish annals record Áedán as a son of Gabrán mac Domangairt (died c. 555–560). Áedán's brother Eoganán is known from Adomnán and his death is recorded c. 597. The Senchus names three other sons of Gabrán, namely Cuildach, Domnall, and Domangart. Although nothing is known of Cuildach and Domangart or their descendants, Adomnán mentions a certain Ioan, son of Conall, son of Domnall, "who belonged to the royal lineage of the Cenél nGabráin", but this is generally read as meaning that Ioan was a kinsman of the Cenél nGabráin, and his grandfather named Domnall is not thought to be the same person as Áedán's brother Domnall.

Áedán was about forty years old when he became king, following the death of his uncle Conall mac Comgaill in 574. His succession as king may have been contested; Adomnán states that Columba had favoured the candidacy of Áedán's brother Eoganán. Adomnán claims that Áedán was ordained as king by Columba, the first example of an ordination known in Britain and Ireland.

In 574, following the account of Conall's death, the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Tigernach record a battle in Kintyre, called the Battle of Teloch, or Delgu. The precise location of the battle is unidentified. The annals agree that "Dúnchad, son of Conall, son of Comgall, and many others of the allies of the sons of Gabrán, fell." In 575, the Annals of Ulster report "the great convention of Druim Cett", at Mullagh or Daisy Hill near Limavady, with Áed mac Ainmuirech and Columba in attendance. Adomnán reports that Áedán was present at the meeting. The purpose of the meeting is not entirely certain, but one agreement made there concerned the status of Áedán's kingdom. Áedán and Áed agreed that while the fleet of Dál Riata would serve the Uí Néill, no tribute would be paid to them, and warriors would only be provided from the Dál Riata lands in Ireland.

The reason for this agreement is thought to have been the threat posed to Áedán, and also to Áed, by Báetán mac Cairill. Báetán is said to have forced the king of Dál Riata to pay homage to him at Rosnaree on Islandmagee. Áedán is thought to be the king in question, and Ulster sources say that Báetán collected tribute from Scotland. Following Báetán's death in 581, the Ulstermen abandoned the Isle of Man, which they had captured in Báetán's time, perhaps driven out by Áedán who is recorded as fighting there c. 583. Earlier, c. 580, Áedán is said to have raided Orkney, which had been subject to Bridei son of Maelchon, King of the Picts, at an earlier date.

Áedán's campaigns on the Isle of Man have sometimes been confused with the battle against the Miathi mentioned by Adomnán. The Miathi appear to have been the Maeatae, a tribe in the area of the upper river Forth. This campaign was successful, but Áedán's sons Artúr and Eochaid Find were killed in battle according to Adomnán. This battle may have taken place c. 590 and been recorded as the Battle of Leithreid or Leithrig.

The Prophecy of Berchán says of Áedán: "Thirteen years (one after another) [he will fight against] the Pictish host (fair the diadem)." The only recorded battle between Áedán and the Picts appears to have been fought in Circinn, in 599 or after, where Áedán was defeated. The annals mention the deaths of his sons here. It has been suggested that this battle was confused with the "Battle of Asreth" in Circinn, fought c. 584, in which Bridei son of Maelchon was killed. This battle is described as being "fought between the Picts themselves".

A number of Welsh traditions point to warfare between Áedán and King Rhydderch Hael of Alt Clut, the northern Brittonic kingdom later known as Strathclyde. Hector Munro Chadwick and subsequent historians suggest Áedán was initially in a long-term alliance with Rhydderch and his predecessors, but that it eventually collapsed into conflict. Adomnán reports that Rhydderch sent a monk named Luigbe to Iona to speak with Columba "for he wanted to learn whether he would be slaughtered by his enemies or not". A Welsh Triad names Áedán's plundering of Alt Clut as one of the "three unrestrained plunderings of Britain", and the poem Peiryan Vaban tells of a battle between Áedán and Rhydderch. The lost Irish epic Orgain Sratha Cluada is usually thought to refer to the attack on Alt Clut in 870 by Vikings, but MacQuarrie suggests that it may refer to an attack by Áedán on Rhydderch.

Degsastan and after
Degsastan appears not to have been the first battle between Áedán and the Bernicians. The death of his son Domangart in the land of the Saxons is mentioned by Adomnán, and it is presumed that Bran died in the same otherwise unrecorded battle.

Of the roots of this conflict, Bede mentions only that Áedán was alarmed by Æthelfrith's advance. Wherever the Battle of Degsastan was fought, Bede saw it as lying within Northumbria. The battle was a decisive victory for Æthelfrith, and Bede says, carefully, that "[f]rom that day until the present, no king of the Irish in Britain has dared to do battle with the English." Although victorious, Æthelfrith suffered losses; Bede tells us his brother Theodbald was killed with all his following. Theodbald appears to be called Eanfrith in Irish sources, which name his killer as Máel Umai mac Báetáin of the Cenél nEógain, son of High-King Báetán mac Ninnedo. The Irish poem Compert Mongáin says that the king of Ulster, Fiachnae mac Báetáin of the Dál nAraidi, aided Áedán against the Saxons, perhaps at Degsastan. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions that Hering, son of King Hussa of Bernicia, was present, apparently fighting with Áedán.

After the defeat of Degsastan, the annals report nothing of Áedán until his death around six years later, perhaps on 17 April 609, the date supplied by the Martyrology of Tallaght, composed c. 800. The Annals of Tigernach give his age as 74. The Prophecy of Berchán places his death in Kintyre and says "[h]e will not be king at the time of his death", while the 12th century Acta Sancti Lasriani claims that he was expelled from the kingship. John of Fordun, writing in the 14th century, believed that Áedán had been buried at Kilkerran in Kintyre.

Áedán's descendants
Áedán was succeeded by his son, Eochaid Buide. Adomnán gives an account of Columba's prophecy that Eochaid's older brothers (listed as Artúr, Eochaid Find and Domangart) would predecease their father. Áedán's other sons are named by the Senchus fer n-Alban as Eochaid Find, Tuathal, Bran, Baithéne, Conaing, and Gartnait. Adomnán also names Artúr, called a son of Conaing in the Senchus, and Domangart, who is not included in the Senchus. Domangart too may have been a grandson rather than a son of Áedán, most likely another son of Conaing. The main line of Cenél nGabráin kings were the descendants of Eochaid Buide through his son Domnall Brecc, but the descendants of Conaing successfully contested for the throne throughout the 7th century and into the 8th.

It has been suggested that Gartnait son of Áedán could be the same person as Gartnait son of Domelch, king of the Picts, whose death is reported around 601, but this rests on the idea of Pictish matriliny, which has been criticised. Even less certainly, it has been argued that Gartnait's successor in the Pictish king-lists, Nechtan, was his grandson, and thus Áedán's great-grandson.

Less is known of Áedán's daughters. Maithgemm, also recorded as Gemma, married a prince named Cairell of the Dál Fiatach. The names of Áedán's wives are not recorded, but one was said to be Brittonic, and another may have been a Pictish woman named Domelch, if indeed the Gartnait son of Domelch and Gartnait son of Áedán are one and the same.

title: Áedán mac Gabráin


text:
Conall mac Comgaill

Conall mac Comgaill was king of Dál Riata from about 558 until 574.

He was a son of Comgall mac Domangairt. It is said that he gave Iona to Saint Columba. The Duan Albanach says that he reigned "without dissension", but there is a report of an expedition by Conall and Colmán Bec mac Diarmato of the Southern Uí Néill to Iardoaman in the Annals of Ulster for 568. The much longer entry in the later and less reliable Annals of the Four Masters reports: "A sea fleet was brought by Colman Beg, son of Diarmaid, son of Fearghus Cerrbheoil, and by Conall, son of Comhgall, chief of Dal Riada, to Sol (Seil) and Ile (Islay), and they carried off many spoils from them."

The Senchus fer n-Alban says that Conall had seven sons: Loingsech, Nechtan, Artan, Tuathan, Tutio and Coirpe. However, Connad Cerr is taken to be a son of Conall, and the death of Conall's son Dúnchad is noted in the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Tigernach, leading the army of the "sons of Gabrán" in Kintyre.

title: Conall mac Comgaill


text:
Gnus

Gnus, or Gnus Network User Services, is a message reader which is part of GNU Emacs. It supports reading and composing both e-mail and news and can also act as an RSS reader, web processor, and directory browser for both local and remote filesystems.

Gnus blurs the distinction between news and e-mail, treating them both as "articles" that come from different sources. News articles are kept separate by group, and e-mail can be split into arbitrary groups, similar to folders in other mail readers. In addition, Gnus is able to use a number of web-based sources as inputs for its groups.

Features
Some Gnus features:
 * a range of backends that support any or all of:
 * reading email from the local filesystem, or over a network via IMAP or POP3
 * reading web pages via an RSS feed
 * treating a directory of files, either local or remote (via FTP or other method) as articles to browse
 * reading Usenet News, including the Gmane and Gwene mail-to-news archives of mailing lists
 * searching local or remote indices of emails or news items, e.g. via Notmuch
 * simple or advanced mail splitting (automatic sorting of incoming mail to user-defined groups)
 * incoming mail can be set to expire instead of just plain deletion
 * custom posting styles (e.g. a different From address, .signature etc.) for each group
 * virtual groups (e.g., directory on the computer can be read as a group)
 * an advanced message scoring system
 * user-defined hooks for almost any method (in emacs lisp)
 * many of the parameters (e.g., expiration, posting style) can be specified individually for all of the groups
 * integration with the Insidious Big Brother Database (BBDB) to handle contacts in a highly automated fashion.
 * integration with other Emacs packages, such as the W3 web browser, LDAP lookup code, etc.

As part of Emacs, Gnus' features can be extended indefinitely through Emacs lisp.

To quote the Gnus Manual:

 * "You know that Gnus gives you all the opportunity you'd ever want for shooting yourself in the foot. Some people call it flexibility. Gnus is also customizable to a great extent, which means that the user has a say on how Gnus behaves. Other newsreaders might unconditionally shoot you in your foot, but with Gnus, you have a choice!"

Note that the composition of HTML email messages (as users of more WYSIWYG editors may be used to) is not included by default; the lack of this "ability" is counted as a feature by Gnus' traditional user base.

History
Gnus is a rewrite of GNUS by Masanobu Umeda, which ceased to be developed in 1992. In autumn 1994, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen started the rewrite under the name (ding) which is a recursive acronym for ding is not Gnus, intending to produce a version for which the interface and configuration would work almost exactly the same, but the internals would be completely revamped and improved. The new version proved to be popular and has undergone constant expansion and enhancement. Ingebrigtsen is also programmer of eww.

Versions
In general, users receive Gnus bundled with their copy of GNU Emacs and only need to worry about version numbers if they want to upgrade to newer versions themselves instead of receiving updates through Emacs or their operating system's packaging system.

The following versions have been released: The odd minor version numbers, like 5.3 and 5.5 are for the Gnus versions bundled with GNU Emacs. The even version numbers are the unbundled releases. So for example, Gnus 5.5 is similar to Gnus 5.4, but bundled with Emacs 20.1.
 * Gnus 5 ((ding) Gnus) – November 1995
 * Gnus 5.1 rebranded 5.0.13 bundled with GNU Emacs 19.30/19.31
 * Gnus 5.2 (September Gnus) – May 1996
 * Gnus 5.3, a rebranded 5.2.38 bundled with GNU Emacs 19.32 and all later versions of GNU Emacs 19.x
 * Gnus 5.4 (Red Gnus) – January 25, 1997
 * Gnus 5.5, a rebranded 5.4 bundled with GNU Emacs 20.1 (September 17, 1997) and also included in XEmacs 20.4
 * Gnus 5.6 (Quassia Gnus) – March 8, 1998
 * Gnus 5.8 (Pterodactyl Gnus) – December 3, 1999
 * Gnus 5.10 (Oort Gnus) – May 1, 2003
 * Gnus 5.11, a rebranded 5.10 bundled with GNU Emacs 22.1 (June 2, 2007). 5.10/5.11 development from the "Oort" development branch wrapped up around 2008. Some 5.11 versions, such as that packaged by Ubuntu Linux as "5.11+v0.10", are actually based on the later "No Gnus" development branch.
 * Gnus 5.13 (No Gnus) - bundled with GNU Emacs 23.1 (July 29, 2009)
 * The "No Gnus" development branch began January 4, 2004, and wrapped up in early 2012, with version 0.19.
 * Gnus 5.14, Ma Gnus (or 真 Gnus), is the current development version, v0.7 first released in May 2013.

Development is done using "named versions", whose first letters run backwards in the alphabet; "No Gnus" v0.19 was released in early 2012, and development transitioned to "Ma Gnus". No named version ever reaches 1.0, instead when it is considered stable enough for general release, it sheds its name and gets packaged with as simply "Gnus ". Entering the "V" command in the Groups buffer of a running copy of Gnus will usually cause it to divulge a version number, but there is no easy way for an end user to know if, for example, "No Gnus 0.9" is older or newer than "Gnus 5.10.8".

After being developed separately for 22 years, the developer of Gnus announced that further development would take place inside Gnu Emacs' git tree. A side effect of this change is that support for XEmacs and older versions of Gnu Emacs will be dropped.

title: Gnus


text: Wikipedia:Texvc

title: Wikipedia:Texvc


text:
James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond

Lieutenant-General James FitzThomas Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, KG, PC (19 October 1610 – 21 July 1688), was an Anglo-Irish statesman and soldier, known as Earl of Ormond from 1634 to 1642 and Marquess of Ormond from 1642 to 1661. Following the failure of the senior line of the Butler family, he was the second representative of the Kilcash branch to inherit the earldom.

His friend, the Earl of Strafford, secured his appointment as commander of the government army in Ireland. Following the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, he led government forces against the Irish Catholic Confederation; when the First English Civil War began in August 1642, he supported the Royalists and in 1643 negotiated a ceasefire with the Confederation which allowed his troops to be transferred to England. Shortly before the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he agreed the Second Ormonde Peace, an alliance between the Confederation and Royalist forces which fought against the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

During the 1650s he lived in exile on the continent with Charles II of England. After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, Ormond became a major figure in English and Irish politics, holding many high government offices such as Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

Birth and origins
James was born on 19 October 1610 at Clerkenwell, London, the eldest son of Thomas Butler and his wife Elizabeth Pointz. His father, who was known by the courtesy title of Viscount Thurles, was the eldest son and heir apparent of Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond, called "Walter of the rosary beads". His father's family, the Butler dynasty, was Old English and descended from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177.

James's mother, Lady Thurles, was English and Catholic, a daughter of Sir John Pointz of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, and his second wife Elizabeth Sydenham. James's birth house in Clerkenwell belonged to him, his maternal grandfather.

James was one of seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters, who are listed in his father's article. James was not only the eldest son but also the first-born as his eldest sister was born after him in 1612.

Early life
Shortly after his birth, his parents returned to Ireland where they were welcome to Black Tom, the 10th Earl of Ormond but not to Walter his heir apparent, who had opposed James's father's marriage into the English Poyntz family, who were Catholic but only gentry.

Black Tom died on 22 November 1614. James's grandfather Walter succeeded as the 11th Earl and James's father became heir apparent with the courtesy title of Viscount Thurles. While the title was secure, the Ormond lands were claimed by Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond, who had married Elizabeth, Black Tom's only surviving child.

In 1619 his father perished on his way from Ireland to England in a shipwreck near the Skerries off the coast of Anglesey. James inherited his father's courtesy title Viscount Thurles. The year following that disaster, his mother brought young Thurles, as he now was, back to England, and placed him, then nine years old, at school with a Catholic gentleman at Finchley — this doubtless through the influence of his grandfather, the 11th Earl. His mother remarried to George Mathew of Thurles.

On 26 May 1623, King James I, made Thurles a ward of Richard Preston, Earl of Desmond, and placed him at Lambeth, London, under the care of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury to be brought up as a Protestant. The Ormond estates being under sequestration, the young Lord had but £40 a year for his own and his servants' clothing and expenses. He seems to have been neglected by the Archbishop — "he was not instructed even in humanity, nor so much as taught to understand Latin".

When fifteen Thurles went to live with his paternal grandfather (then released from prison) at Drury Lane. His grandfather, the 11th Earl of Ormond, was now an old man and did not interfere much with his Protestant religious education. This was very important for Thurles's future life, as it meant that, unlike almost all his relatives in the Butler dynasty, he was a Protestant. This strained his relationship with the rest of his family and dependants, as they suffered from land confiscations and legal discrimination on account of their religion, while he did not.

Now having more means at his command, Thurles entered into all the gaieties of the court and town. At eighteen he went to Portsmouth with his friend George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham intending to join the expedition for the relief of La Rochelle; a project abandoned upon the Duke's assassination.

It was during his London residence that he set himself to learn Irish, a partial knowledge of which proved most useful to him in after years.

Marriage and children
About six months after his visit to Portsmouth, Thurles first saw at Court, and fell in love with, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Preston, only child and heiress of Richard Preston, Earl of Desmond and his wife Elizabeth. Charles I gave his consent by letters patent, on 8 September 1629. At Christmas 1629, they married putting an end to the long-standing quarrel between the families and united their estates, one of which was Kilkenny Castle

James and Elizabeth had eight sons, five of whom died in childhood, and two daughters. Five children survived into adulthood:
 * 1) Thomas (1634–1680), predeceased his father, but had a son who would become the 2nd Duke
 * 2) Richard (1639–1686), became first and last Earl of Arran of the 1662 creation and predeceased his father
 * 3) Elizabeth (1640–1665), married Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield and had affairs with James Hamilton and the Duke of York
 * 4) John (1643–1677), became the Earl of Gowran
 * 5) Mary (1646–1710), married William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire

With Strafford
Thurles's career began in 1633 with the appointment as head of government in Ireland of Thomas Wentworth, the future Earl of Strafford, by whom Ormond was treated with great favour. Writing to Charles I, Wentworth described Ormond as "young, but take it from me, a very staid head".

On 24 February 1633, Thurles, on the death of his grandfather, succeeded to the earldom as the 12th Earl of Ormond. Lord Ormond, as he now was, became Wentworth's chief friend and supporter. In January 1635 he became a member of the Irish Privy Council. Wentworth planned large-scale confiscations of Catholic-owned land, both to raise money for the crown and to break the political power of the Irish Catholic gentry, a policy which Ormond supported. Yet, it infuriated his relatives, and drove many of them into opposition to Wentworth and ultimately into armed rebellion. In 1640, with Wentworth having been recalled to attend to the Second Bishops' War in England, Ormond was made commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland. The opposition to Wentworth ultimately aided impeachment of the Earl by the English Parliament, and his eventual execution in May 1641.

Fighting the rebellion and the Confederates
On the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Ormond found himself in command of the Irish Royal Army based in Dublin. Most of the country was taken by the Catholic rebels, who included Ormond's Butler relatives. However, Ormond's bonds of kinship were not entirely severed. His wife and children were escorted from Kilkenny to Dublin under the order of the rebel leader Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, another member of the Butler dynasty.

Early in 1642 the Irish Catholics formed their own government, the Catholic Confederation, with its capital at Kilkenny, and began to raise their own regular troops, more organised and capable than the feudal militias of the 1641 rebellion. Also in early 1642, the king sent in troop reinforcements from England and Scotland. The Irish Confederate War was underway. Ormond mounted several expeditions from Dublin in 1642 that cleared the area around Dublin of Confederate forces. He secured control of the Pale, and re-supplied some outlying garrisons, without serious contest. The Lords Justices, Sir William Parsons, 1st Baronet of Bellamont and Sir John Borlase, who suspected him because he was related to many of the Confederate leaders, recalled him from command, but he succeeded securing much of County Kildare in February 1642. Next, he managed to lift the siege of Drogheda in March 1642. In April he relieved the royalist garrisons at Naas, Athy and Maryborough, and on his return to Dublin he won the Battle of Kilrush against a larger force. On 30 August 1642 he was created Marquess of Ormond. He received the public thanks of the English Parliament and a monetary reward, and in September 1642 was put in command with a commission direct from the king.

In March 1643, Ormond ventured with his troops to New Ross, County Wexford, deep in the territory of the Catholic Confederation, and won a small but indecisive victory there (Battle of New Ross) before returning to Dublin. Nevertheless, Ormond was in a difficult situation. The Confederates held two-thirds of the island. The English Civil War, which started in September 1642, had removed the prospect of more reinforcements and supplies from England, and indeed the king desired to recall troops. In addition, the Scots Covenanters, who had landed an army in the northeast of Ireland at Carrickfergus to counter the Catholic rebellion in that part of the country in early 1642, had subsequently put northeast Ireland on the side of the English Parliamentarians against the king; and the relatively strong Protestant presence in and around Derry and Cork City was inclined to side with the Parliamentarians as well, and soon did so.

Ormond Cessation

Isolated in Dublin in what was now a three-sided contest, with the king desiring to reduce the Irish Royal Army, Ormond negotiated a "cessation" or ceasefire for a year with the Confederates. The truce began on 15 September 1643, By this treaty the greater part of Ireland was given up into the hands of the Catholic Confederation (leaving only districts in the north, the Dublin Pale, round Cork City, and certain smallish garrisons in the possession of Protestant commanders). This truce was vehemently opposed by the Lords Justices and the Protestant community in general in Ireland.

Soon afterwards, in November 1643, by the King's orders, Ormond dispatched a body of his troops into England to fight on the Royalist side in the Civil War, estimated at 4,000 troops, half of whom were sent from Cork. In November 1643 the king appointed Ormond as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was sworn in on 21 January 1644. The previous occupant of this post, Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, had never set foot in Ireland. Ormond's assigned mission was to prevent the king's Parliamentarian enemies from being reinforced from Ireland, and to aim to deliver more troops to fight for the Royalists in England. To these ends, he was instructed to do all in his power to keep the Scottish Covenanter army in the north of Ireland occupied. He was also given the king's authority to negotiate a treaty with the Catholic Confederation that could allow their troops to be redirected against the Parliamentarians. In August 1644, the cessation with the Confederates was extended for another year.

Negotiations with the Irish Confederates

Ormond was faced with the difficult task of reconciling the various factions in Ireland. The Old (native) Irish and Catholic Irish of English descent ("Old English") were represented in Confederate Ireland—essentially an independent Catholic government based in Kilkenny—who wanted to come to terms with King Charles I of England in return for religious toleration and self-government. On the other side, any concession that Ormond made to the Confederates weakened his support among English and Scottish Protestants in Ireland. Ormond's negotiations with the Confederates were therefore tortuous, even though many of the Confederate leaders were his relatives or friends.

In 1644, he assisted Randall Macdonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim in mounting an Irish Confederate expedition into Scotland. The force, led by Alasdair MacColla was sent to help the Scottish Royalists and sparked off a civil war in Scotland (1644–45). This turned out to be the only intervention of Irish Catholic troops in Britain during the Civil Wars.

On 25 August 1645, Edward Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, acting on behalf of King Charles, signed a treaty in Kilkenny with the Irish Catholic Confederates without first airing the terms of the treaty with the Irish Protestant community. Irish Protestant opposition turned out to be so intense, that Charles was forced to repudiate the treaty almost immediately out of fear of ceding almost all Irish Protestant support to the other side in the English civil war.

On 21 October 1645 Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, the papal nuncio landed in Ireland. On 28 March 1646, Ormond, on behalf of the king, concluded the First Ormond Peace, another treaty with the Confederates that granted religious concessions and removed various grievances. However, the Confederates' General Assembly in Kilkenny rejected the deal, partly due to the influence of the pope's ambassador (nuncio) Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, who worked to dissuade the Catholics from entering into a compromise. The Confederates called off their truce with Ormond, and arrested those among their number who had signed the treaty with Ormond.

Ormond then judged that he could not hold Dublin against the Confederates. He, therefore, applied to the English Long Parliament and signed a treaty with them on 19 June 1647 delivering Dublin into the hands of the Parliamentarians on terms that protected the interests of both royalist Protestants and Roman Catholics who had not actually entered into rebellion. At the beginning of August 1647, Ormond handed over Dublin, together with 3000 royalist troops under his command, to the Parliamentarian commander Michael Jones, who had recently arrived from England with 5000 Parliamentarian troops. Ormond in turn sailed for England on 28 July 1647, remarking of his surrender that he "preferred English rebels to Irish ones". On 8 August 1647 the combined royalist and parliamentarian troops won the major Battle of Dungan's Hill against the Confederates.

First exile
Ormond attended King Charles during August and October 1647 at Hampton Court Palace, but in March 1648, in order to avoid arrest by the parliament, he joined the Queen and the Prince of Wales at Paris.

Commander of Royalist Alliance
In September of the same year, the pope's nuncio having been expelled, and affairs otherwise looking favourable, he returned to Ireland arriving at Cork on 29 September 1648. His aim was to unite all parties for the king.

The Irish Confederates were now much more amenable to compromise, as 1647 had seen a series of military disasters for them at the hands of English Parliamentarian forces. On 17 January 1649 Ormond concluded a peace with the rebels on the basis of the free exercise of their religion.

On the execution of Charles I, he proclaimed his loyalty to Charles II, who made him a Knight of the Garter in September 1649. Ormond was placed in command of the Irish Confederates' armies and also English Royalist troops who were landed in Ireland from France.

However, despite controlling almost all of Ireland before August 1649, Ormond was unable to prevent the conquest of Ireland by Cromwell in 1649–50. Ormond tried to retake Dublin by laying siege to the city in the summer of 1649, but was routed at the Battle of Rathmines in August. Subsequently, he tried to halt Cromwell by holding a line of fortified towns across the country. However, the New Model Army took them one after the other, beginning with the Siege of Drogheda in September 1649.

Ormond lost most of the English and Protestant Royalist troops under his command when they mutinied and went over to Cromwell in May 1650. This left him with only the Irish Catholic forces, who distrusted him greatly. Ormond was ousted from his command in late 1650.

Second exile
He left Ireland for France sailing from Galway on 7 December 1650, but stopped over at Gleninagh Castle, on the southern shore of the Bay of Galway, from where he then started his passage to France on 11 December. He sailed on a small frigate, the Elizabeth, which the Duke of York had sent him from Jersey. Caught in winter storms, they reached Perros in Brittany after three weeks. Ormond was accompanied among others by Inchiquin, Bellings and Daniel O'Neill.

A synod held at the Augustinian abbey in Jamestown, County Leitrim, repudiated Ormond and excommunicated his followers. In Cromwell's Act of Settlement of 1652, all of Ormond's lands in Ireland were confiscated and he was excepted from the pardon given to those Royalists who had surrendered by that date. His name heads the list of over 100 men who were excluded from pardon.

Ormond, though desperately short of money, was in constant attendance on Charles II and the Queen Mother in Paris, and accompanied the King to Aix and Cologne when he was expelled from France by the terms of Mazarin's treaty with Cromwell in 1655. In April 1656 Ormond was one of two signatories who agreed the Treaty of Brussels, securing an alliance for the Royalists with the Spanish court. In 1658, he went disguised, and at great risk, on a secret mission into England to gain trustworthy intelligence as to the chances of an uprising. He attended the king at Fuenterrabia in 1659, had an interview with Mazarin, and was actively engaged in the secret transactions immediately preceding the Restoration. Relations between Ormond and the Queen Mother became increasingly strained; when she remarked that "if she had been trusted, the King had now been in England", Ormond retorted that "if she had never been trusted, the King had never been out of England".

Restoration career

On the return of Charles to England as King in 1660, Ormond was appointed a commissioner for the treasury and the navy, made Lord Steward of the Household, a Privy Councillor, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset (an office which he resigned in 1672), High Steward of Westminster, Kingston and Bristol, chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, Baron Butler of Llanthony and Earl of Brecknock in the peerage of England; and on 30 March 1661 he was created Duke of Ormond in the Irish peerage and made Lord High Steward of England, for Charles's coronation that year. At the same time, he recovered his enormous estates in Ireland, and large grants in recompense of the fortune he had spent in the royal service were made to him by the king, while in the following year the Irish Parliament presented him with £30,000. His losses, however, according to Carte, exceeded his gains by nearly a million pounds. See also Act of Settlement 1662.

On 4 November 1661, he once more received the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, and busily engaged in the work of settling that country. The main problem was the land question, and the Act of Explanation was passed through the Irish parliament by Ormond, on 23 December 1665.

His heart was in his government, and he vehemently opposed the Importation Act 1667 prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle, which struck so fatal a blow at Irish trade; and retaliated by prohibiting the import into Ireland of Scottish commodities, and obtained leave to trade with foreign countries. He encouraged Irish manufacture and learning, and it was due to his efforts that the Irish College of Physicians owes its incorporation.

He had great influence over the appointment of judges: while he naturally wished to appoint to the Bench men of legal ability, a record of loyalty to the Crown was also generally required. It is interesting that he was prepared to appoint judges of Gaelic descent, like James Donnellan, and even some who were known to have Roman Catholic leanings. He was criticised for favouring old friends like John Bysse who were considered too infirm to be effective, but this also shows one of his main virtues, loyalty: as Elrington Ball remarks, those whom Ormond had ever loved, he loved to the end. Himself a merciful man, he encouraged the Irish judges to show a similar spirit of clemency; as he remarked, a man who has been reprieved can later be hanged, but a man who has been hanged can never be reprieved. In general, the judges followed his example and, by the standards of the age, were merciful enough.

Ormond's personality had always been a striking one, and he was highly regarded. He was dignified and proud of his loyalty, even when he lost royal favour, declaring, "However ill I may stand at court I am resolved to lye well in the chronicle". Ormond soon became the mark for attack from all that was worst in the court. Buckingham especially did his utmost to undermine his influence. Ormond's almost irresponsible government of Ireland during troubled times was open to criticism.

He had billeted soldiers on civilians, and had executed martial law. He was threatened by Buckingham with impeachment. In March 1669, Ormond was removed from the government of Ireland and from the committee for Irish affairs. He made no complaint, insisted that his sons and others over whom he had influence should retain their posts, and continued to fulfil the duties of his other offices, while his character and services were recognised in his election as Chancellor of the University of Oxford on 4 August 1669.

In 1670, an extraordinary attempt was made to assassinate the duke by a ruffian and adventurer named Thomas Blood, already notorious for an unsuccessful plot to surprise Dublin Castle in 1663, and later for stealing the royal crown from the Tower. Ormond was attacked by Blood and his accomplices while driving up St James's Street on the night of 6 December 1670, dragged out of his coach, and taken on horseback along Piccadilly with the intention of hanging him at Tyburn. Ormond, however, succeeded in overcoming the horseman to whom he was bound, and escaped.

The outrage, it was suspected, had been instigated by Buckingham, who was openly accused of the crime by Lord Ossory, Ormond's son, in the king's presence, and threatened by him with instant death if any violence should happen to his father. These suspicions were encouraged by the improper action of the king in pardoning Blood, and in admitting him to his presence and treating him with favour after his apprehension while endeavouring to steal the crown jewels.

In his estates in Carrick-on-Suir in County Tipperary, Ormond was responsible for establishing the woollen industry in the town in 1670.

In 1671 Ormond successfully opposed Richard Talbot's attempt to upset the Act of Settlement 1662. In 1673, he again visited Ireland, returned to London in 1675 to give advice to Charles on affairs in parliament, and in 1677 was again restored to favour and reappointed to the lord lieutenancy. On his arrival in Ireland, he occupied himself in placing the revenue and the army upon a proper footing. Upon the outbreak of the disturbances caused by the Popish Plot (1678) in England, Ormond at once took steps towards rendering the Roman Catholics, who were in the proportion of 15 to 1, powerless; and the mildness and moderation of his measures served as the ground of an attack upon him in England led by Shaftesbury, from which he was defended with great spirit by his own son Lord Ossory. While wary of defending Oliver Plunkett publicly, in private he denounced the obvious falsity of the charges against him – of the informers who claimed that Plunkett had hired them to kill the King he wrote that "no schoolboy would have trusted them with the design of robbing an orchard".

In 1682 Charles summoned Ormond to court. The same year he wrote "A Letter, from a Person of Honour in the Country, in answer to the earl of Anglesey, his Observations upon the earl of Castlehaven's Memoires concerning the Rebellion of Ireland", and gave Charles general support. On 29 November 1682, an English dukedom was conferred upon him, and in June 1684 he returned to Ireland, but he was recalled in October in consequence of fresh intrigues. Before he could give up his government to Rochester, Charles II died; and Ormond's last act as lord lieutenant was to proclaim James II in Dublin.

Ormond also served as the sixth Chancellor of the University of Dublin between 1645 and 1688, although he was in exile for the first fifteen years of his tenure.

Subsequently, Ormond lived in retirement at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, a house lent to him by Lord Clarendon, but emerged in 1687 to offer opposition at the board of the Charterhouse to James's attempt to assume the dispensing power and force upon the institution a Roman Catholic candidate without taking the oaths. Ormond also refused the king his support in the question of the Indulgence; James, to his credit, refused to take away his offices, and continued to hold him in respect and favour to the last. Despite his long service to Ireland he admitted that he had no wish to spend his last years there.

Death, succession, and timeline
Ormond died on 21 July 1688 at Kingston Lacy estate, Dorset, "not having, as he rejoyced to know, outlived his intellectuals", i.e. not having become senile. Ormond was buried in Westminster Abbey on 4 August 1688. His eldest son, Thomas, 6th Earl of Ossory, predeceased him, but Ossory's eldest son James succeeded as 2nd Duke of Ormond (1665–1745).

The anonymous author of Ormond's biography in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.) wrote that with him disappeared the greatest and grandest figure of the times, and that Ormond's splendid qualities were expressed with some felicity in verses written on welcoming his return to Ireland and printed in 1682: ":A Man of Plato's grand nobility,
 * An inbred greatness, innate honesty;
 * A Man not form'd of accidents, and whom
 * Misfortune might oppress, not overcome
 * Who weighs himself not by opinion
 * But conscience of a noble action."

title: James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond


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