User talk:Hughchev

October 2010

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles or other Wikipedia pages, as you did to Upton Grey. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. Nuttah (talk) 13:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not add promotional material to Wikipedia, as you did to Upton Grey. While objective prose about products or services is acceptable, Wikipedia is not intended to be a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Thank you. Nuttah (talk) 15:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for being dense, but is this the place to have a discussion? It really doesn't make it at all clear if so.

Can I ask you, Nuttah, to isolate the area of what I've posted that causes you problems. I have no aim in advertising either the shop or the pub in my village - and it's pretty clear I've not done so, to be frank.

These are amenities that have been uppermost in villagers' minds, and events that are important in the history of the village are worth recording.

Tell me what you consider advertising, and I'm sure something can be done about it.

Hughchev (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Upton Grey, you may be blocked from editing. Please discuss encyclopaedic additions on the article's talk page before continuing Nuttah (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nuttah: I have not the remotest intention of vandalising anything. My intention is purely to publish objective, verifiable information about Upton Grey.

However, you will appreciate that it is indescribably frustrating for me that you remove such information without explaining why.

You seem even to take exception to my naming the pub within the village. Heaven help wikipedia if naming something constitutes advertising.

We are both, I assume, adults. So I implore you to allow a grown-up conversation in which we can establish your objection to my copy. For the life of me I am genuinely perplexed by what irked you within any of what I have written. I have made small changes to accommodate what I imagined you might dislike, but if you don't tell me your gripe, how can we even inch towards a compromise? This way of proceeding does nothing but harm to wikipedia.

I assure you again that I have the best of intentions. Let us work together - in the spirit of the site - and publish objective information.

Hughchev (talk) 16:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, Hughchev's edits were not advertising nor vandalism and do not warrant a warning. I would question the encyclopedic appropriateness of some content added, but would be more inclined to engage in dialogue than in edit warring to sort this out. LittleOldMe (talk) 16:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would call Hughchev edits promotional. An explanation of why the edits were removed, as both promotional and not encyclopaedic is on the article talk page and has been for over two hours. The warning invited discussion. However, despite myself and one other removing the material (and your questioning of the encyclopedic appropriateness) Hughchev has persisted in re-adding the material. Nuttah (talk) 16:36, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support, LittleOldMe. I am to blame inasmuch as I'm new to this business, and don't really know where to post replies/discussions. I think Nuttah had - briefly - responded to me when I thought he hadn't.

The argument seems to have crystallised into my copy being more appropriate for a village newsletter than an encyclopaedia. Well... This is the last addition that got pulled. Can I ask whether this information adds to or detracts from the wikipedia page about a village? here it is:

There are various amenities in the village. These include the Upton Grey Shop and post office, The Hoddington Arms public house, St Mary’s Church, a village hall, a duck pond, and a war memorial to the south of the church.

In recent years, amenities such as the shop and pub have found it difficult to generate enough income to have a secure future.

In September 2010, there was a poll of Upton Grey’s council tax payers to gauge whether there was popular support for a rescue plan for the village shop.

This plan involved the parish council levying a precept (an addition to the council tax) that would raise £6,000. The money, the parish council argued, would be spent on subsidising the fixed costs of the shop, such as electricity and insurance.

In early September, a meeting was held at which the village shop working party – set up by the parish council – might answer parishioners' questions. The mood at this meeting suggested there was widespread, though not unanimous, support for the rescue plan.

The results of the poll were released in early October 2010: turn-out was 70% and, of those who voted, 82% were content to pay the precept. Those figures meant that a majority (just over 57%) of all parishioners had voted for the council tax levy.

Ok. There are three key policies and guidelines here. WP:GNG, WP:V and WP:OR. The first two say that any material on Wikipedia must be sourced to publications independent of the material and, to be notable enough for inclusion, be covered to a significant level. For a topic such as you are adding as a stand alone articles it would require something like newspaper coverage in multiple national papers. For material in an existing article the bar can be lowered, but would still require a reasonable level of coverage. The third policy says that Wikipedia cannot contain any original research. Unless you can source 'In recent years, amenities such as the shop and pub have found it difficult to generate enough income to have a secure future.' to an independent reliable source it cannot stay. Nuttah (talk) 16:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Who'd have thought this could generate such strength of feeling.

Right: decline of the rural pub: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313160/Last-orders-village-life-900-pubs-shut-2009-key-servcies-disappearing.html

or http://www.govtoday.co.uk/Communities-and-Local-Government/Sustainable-Communities/rural-pubs-on-the-decline.html

Decline of the country shop (and pub): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8111736.stm

Unsurprisingly, I cannot find references to the specific businesses I'm talking about, so if you prefer to make the point more general, that's fine by me. How about:

In recent years, many rural shops and pubs have found it difficult to generate enough income to have a secure future.

Are we edging towards an agreement here?

Please read the guidelines and policies. What you are suggesting is now synthesis, which is still OR and still very much not allowed. Wikipedia has been around many years, most things that could be added have been discussed endlessly and the policies and guidelines reflect consensus. If you want to add material about the shop and pub in Upton Gray you need sources about those specific businesses. If you want to add general information it goes in general articles such as pub. Nuttah (talk) 17:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the counsel of despair. I began this afternoon thinking I might be able to improve a threadbare entry on my village, and I'm ending it wishing I'd never bothered to try and help out. It's actually really, really sad, though that's not relevant to this discussion.

I understand the need to avoid advertising and promotion, which I think we now agree isn't the problem. But I've read enough wikipedia articles to know that zillions do not meet the standards you are applying here. You'll counter by saying that those articles shouldn't be there, no doubt.

I'm probably going to regret saying this, but I don't see a single reference in the current Upton Grey page, so it does stick in the craw that you are applying standards to new material but not old.

Despite the accusation of vandalism, I have only the furtherance and dissemination of accurate, objective knowledge as my motive. It's a shame that we have wasted so much time - and nothing to show for it.

I am about to make a change to the village amenities once again. It will be dry stuff.

Right. Here's a link that should prove that the pub in Upton Grey is/was called the Hoddington Arms: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2020392 And here's one that proves there is/was a shop in Upton Grey: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1655502 And a third that proves the church in Upton Grey is St Mary's: http://www.achurchnearyou.com/upton-grey-st-mary/ And finally one that proves there's a duckpond: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/44101

Blimey...