Talk:Emperor Norton

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Emperor Norton article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: 3 months

Emperor Norton is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 3, 2004.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 19, 2004	Refreshing brilliant prose	Kept
October 7, 2006	Featured article review	Demoted
July 7, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
November 5, 2022	Featured article review	Demoted
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on October 12, 2005, October 12, 2006, September 17, 2009, September 17, 2013, September 17, 2018, September 17, 2023, and September 17, 2024.
Current status: Former featured article

Biography: Royalty and Nobility

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by WikiProject Royalty and Nobility (assessed as Low-importance).

United States: Old West Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject American Old West (assessed as Low-importance).

California: San Francisco Bay Area Low‑importance

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	San Francisco Bay Area portal This article is supported by San Francisco Bay Area task force (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is a selected biography on the California Portal.

Micronations High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Micronations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Micronations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MicronationsWikipedia:WikiProject MicronationsTemplate:WikiProject MicronationsMicronations
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Judaism Low‑importance

	Judaism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Judaism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Judaism-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JudaismWikipedia:WikiProject JudaismTemplate:WikiProject JudaismJudaism
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

There is a request, submitted by Catfurball, for an audio version of this article to be created. For further information, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.

The rationale behind the request is: "Important".

Is the title erroneous?

should the page be called 'Emperor Norton' if he was in truth not the emperor of anywhere? Sebimus (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should count, as in the 1870 census, his profession was listed as "emperor," so he was technically recognised as an Emperor by an official body. [1]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52b7952ee4b07e8bce6a436c/t/5f989d9ac5d3e32f08a60ebe/1603837340465/US_Census_San_Francisco_3rd_Ward_1_Aug_1870_p81.jpg Oofoofow (talk) 17:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Has nothing to do with the title being real or not, the fact is that "Emperor Norton" is his WP:Common Name, and that is what governs how we name articles. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 18:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's like saying Lady Gaga's article shouldn't be called such as she is not a regally recognised Lady. 2.24.145.91 (talk) 10:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did Kamehameha V actually recognise Norton as ruler of the United States?

In the "Foreign diplomacy" section of the article, it says that Kamehameha V of Hawaii recognised Norton as ruler of the United States, but this seems highly fake. I've had to remove one source listed on the subject because it didn't say anything on the matter, and the next source is a book from 1988, 108 years after Norton's death. How sure are we actually on this claim? Oofoofow (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great question! We definitely need to find some contemporary sources that support this. The fact that this "factoid" is repeated by many publications, including that of the American Historical Association, is certainly interesting, but not enough to responsibly support the claim. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 19:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm beginning to think that the claim about Kamehameha V is apocryphal. The article's current section on Kamehameha — including the language that has Kamehameha "opting to only recognize Norton as sole leader of the United States" — was added by User:SirFlemeingtonz on 27 October 2020, citing "Emperor Norton & Hawaii" (1988), by David W. Forbes, and a 2012 blog article on the New York Times Public Library website. As it happens, the Forbes source is not a book but a fine-press 6-page pamphlet printed in a limited edition of 300. I recently acquired a copy of this pamphlet. Neither source mentions Kamehameha recognizing Norton.

The American Historical Association article from December 2023 says that Kamehameha "recognized [Norton] as the sole leader of the United States," a verbatim lift from the Wikipedia article, strongly suggesting that this is where the author got the "information." I strongly suspect that other sources also are just copying and pasting from Wikipedia.

I added a "Citation needed" template to flag this as potentially unreliable — but I would be in favor of deleting the claim if no reliable source is forthcoming. Johnlumea (talk) 15:54, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the American Historical Association article is likely an example of citogenesis. Given that you've demonstrated that it fails V I wouldn't be opposed to removing it immediately instead of waiting. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:45, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Immigrated vs emigrated ?

Shouldn’t it say he emigrated, not immigrated? 2A0E:1D47:CE05:1C00:D1B3:C63E:DD38:6038 (talk) 16:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. He emigrated from England. He immigrated to San Francisco. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 17:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This highlights an historical conundrum: Exactly from whence did Joshua Norton immigrate to San Francisco? He sailed from Liverpool to Boston in February 1846, suggesting that he left Cape Town at the end of 1845. But, after his arrival in Boston on 12 March 1846, the trail goes cold for 3½ years. On a few occasions, Norton claimed to have arrived in San Francisco aboard a ship from Rio de Janeiro in November 1849. But, although there were a couple of ships arriving in San Francisco from Rio in November 1849, there is no contemporaneous documentation connecting Norton to any specific ship. And, even assuming that he was aboard one of these two ships, we don't know where he was immediately before boarding the ship that brought him to San Francisco. Had he been living in Rio? Elsewhere in South America? Johnlumea (talk) 18:57, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Original research

Parts of this article are obviously based on original research and cite primary sources. Please read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

Some given sources are online projects by the authors of the article, which basically means pseudo-sourcing.

Plus: parts of this article are obviously written from a more or less fannish perspective.

All these things need to be changed, otherwise they will be deleted. Plsease use trustworthy secondary sources only for the article, do not specualte on anything. Thanks. 15:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC) 95.90.124.125 (talk) 15:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your edits and comments seem pretty heavy-handed and rude for someone who's been making Wikipedia contributions under this "name" for a grand total of six weeks.

The truth is, virtually every one of the article's references that pertains to Emperor Norton's biography is original research — whether by Robert Ernest Cowan (1923 and 1938), Herbert Asbury (1933), Allen Stanley Lane (1939), Patricia Carr (1975), William Drury (1986), Gladys Hansen (1990s), myself, or one of the various "content farm" pieces written over the last decade or so that just crib from one or more of these sources. Take all references to these sources out and there will be very little left on the "biography side" except for the occasional newspaper column trading in legend and hearsay.

If you wish to push the hardest possible line against original research, I suggest that — in order to be consistent — you nominate the article for deletion. Otherwise, please leave the article alone. Johnlumea (talk) 19:25, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Original research in WP context means: research of WP writers. So no, not every cited article is original research. Please read the link above. And no, the article shall not be deleted - why should he? He meets the relevance criteria easily. He should just be written according to WP standards, nothing more. WP is not a project, where someone owns an article, and it is not a project for pet topics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

Please make yourself acquainted with WP rules for reliable sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources It is easy to see, how this article repeatedly violates these rules. I suggest you read all three articles linked here.

Lastly, I apologize if I seem rude, that was not my intention. 95.90.113.203 (talk) 15:30, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stop trolling this article with your ridiculous idiosyncratic edits. You are making it worse. Johnlumea (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if it looks like trolling. Maybe we should ask a third opinion? 95.90.113.203 (talk) 17:14, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stop trying to remove relevant information from the lead section. We must continue to tell the reader that Norton suffered a major financial setback prior to declaring himself emperor. That's the proximate cause of his lunacy, and the reader should know it up front. The guideline at WP:LEAD says we should summarize the article body in the lead section, so of course the lead section will have some redundancy. Binksternet (talk) 17:06, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Must" we? I would say that this is psychologizing, i.e. building a connection between two things, that might be there or might not be there. Nobody can say if these troubles where the cause of his lunacy (or his eccentricity), and nonetheless: it is not, whats important about Norton, what made him famous, or even what might be the cause of the things he did. It is basically some sort of original research to say so, and it is not a neccessary part of the lead according to WP standards.

And nonetheless, there are a lot of things now twice and thrice in the lead section. See: "Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880) was an English-born resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". Commonly known as Emperor Norton, he took the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" in 1866.

(...) Norton proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States" in September 1859,"

I would say that it is not neccessary to tell the reader twice within three paragraphs, that it happened 1859, and four times, that he called himself Emperor. That is simply stretching out the lead beyond foolproof, hammering home the point. And I would say, that it is not neccessary to bold his name and title three times in the lead. (I eliminated two of the three.) 95.90.113.203 (talk) 20:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ignoring arguments wont make them go away. ;) 95.90.113.203 (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Asked for third opinion: Wikipedia:Third opinion#Active disagreements 95.90.113.203 (talk) 11:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In biographical articles on Wikipedia, it is common practice to present the basic dramatic arc of the subject's life in the introduction. From the fact that Joshua Norton is best known for declaring himself Emperor and for what he did in that role, it does not follow — as you seem to insist — that pre-1859 details are dispensable for the intro. Your own edit of the longstanding intro left Joshua in Boston in 1846 before saying in the very next sentence that he declared himself Emperor (without saying where) and that he was "treated deferentially in San Francisco." But, given that Joshua was born and England and raised in South Africa, the fact and timing of his arrival in San Francisco — and San Francisco as the locus of his declaration — is foundational to his biography. Leaving out that orienting information from the intro begs too many questions from the reader who is discovering Emperor Norton through this article. Brevity can be the soul of wit. But, being too brief can be the soul of confusion. Johnlumea (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to look into this and share your thoughts. I agree that we need to guide the reader to San Francisco before declaring Norton emperor in that city. Our friend using IPs from Leipzig is welcome to reduce perceived redundancies, but the logical flow must remain. Binksternet (talk) 23:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]