Talk:Lord Faulkner

I reverted the edits made on the 31 May by 86.129.134.218 because they appeared to be an attempt to remove certain information from the article. Specifically, they removed any mention of Faulkner's links with the Incepta Group and the gambling industry. Some of the information that 86.129.134.218 put into the article is certainly relevant and valid, but it does need referencing. If 86.129.134.218 would care to add the new information in such a way as not to destroy valid information in the existing article, and includes references for the information, that would be fine. Therefore, I have copied 86.129.134.218's last revision of the article here. --Neoconned 13:24, 31 May 2005 (EDT)

Lord Faulkner of Worcester (http://www.lordfaulkner.net) has been a member of the House of Lords (http://www.parliament.uk/about_lords/about_lords.cfm) since 1999.

During these six years he has played a prominent part in a range of tobacco control debates and campaigns, including those which secured the passage of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, and the moves to make the House of Lords an almost entirely smoke-free environment (which finally succeeded on 21 December 2004). He is now the sponsor of the Liverpool City Council (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill.

Before entering the House of Lords, Lord Faulkner ran his own public relations business, advising a range of charities, trade associations and ethical commercial businesses. His other interests include transport, and sport (especially football). He is Deputy Chairman of the Cardiff Millennium Stadium, and a trustee of the Foundation for Sport and the Arts.

Posts which he currently holds are:
 * Chairman: All Party Parliamentary Betting and Gaming Group Inquiry (http://www.apbgg.co.uk/inquiry.aspx)
 * Trustee: Gamcare (http://www.gamcare.org.uk/)
 * Chairman: The Railway Heritage Committee
 * Vice-President: Transport 2000 (http://www.transport2000.org.uk/)
 * Deputy Chairman: Cardiff Millennium Stadium (http://www.millenniumstadium.com/)
 * Trustee: The Foundation for Sport and the Arts (http://www.thefsa.net/)
 * Trustee: The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation (http://www.roycastle.org/)
 * Past President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (http://www.rospa.com/)


 * I changed the layout of the entry for Lord Faulkner as what appeared previously was inaccurate, and the two press comments do not give a balanced or accurate picture.


 * Lord Faulkner is no longer a paid employee of Incepta and he is a past President of Rospa.


 * I would suggest that "neoconned" takes a look at his website (http://www.lordfaulkner.net) to get a broader and more balanced view of the various issues with which he is involved. In particular, under Parliamentary Questions and Debates, the full involvement of Lord Faulkner with the gambling issue and all its facets can be accessed. User:86.129.134.218 June 1 2005


 * Dear 86.129.134.218, your latest revision of the article is a little better, as you are no longer trying to remove the links to the two articles that you object to. However, you still have excised any mention of the name of the Incepta Group, and the link to the article about it, which seems a little odd given Faulkner's long association with it. And you still aren't bothering to properly reference the information you have added to the article.


 * I certainly agree that the article should mention Faulkner's work on tobacco control. However, as I already stated, you need to properly REFERENCE the information you add to the article. Please take a look at SourceWatch:Article guidelines for guidance on referencing in SourceWatch. Then, it might be an idea to look at some other SW articles to see how references are used.


 * It's not my job to chase up the references for you. If you wish to modify the article in a direction that you believe shows Faulkner in a fairer and more balanced light, it's your job to take the trouble to adhere to our referencing standards. And it's NOT an opportunity for you to simultaneously purge the article of information you find inconvenient.


 * Since your edits so far amount to vandalism, and since you appear to have a particular interest in promoting Faulkner, I am going to protect this article until you've had a chance to get up to speed on referencing. I'll unprotect it once you indicate you're prepared to adhere to our standards. --Neoconned 07:18, 1 Jun 2005 (EDT)


 * Dear neoconned


 * I have looked at the Sourcewatch guidelines as you suggest and this is what it says:


 * "Since the SourceWatch's purpose is to expose manipulation of information and opinions about controversial issues, it is important to provide references to reports that document, as authoritatively as possible, the accuracy and fairness of your facts and analysis."


 * All the information which I supplied was factual, and no opinion was expressed.


 * It can all be verified from the sources which you yourself have used mainly "members'interests" on the UK Parliament's website, or the websites of the various organisations with which the subject of the page is involved, all of which were included. As you no doubt are aware, in the UK politicians have to make a full disclosure of all their interests, both on file and in every speech they make in the House.


 * The point which I made by replacing your copy was that your editorial was in a couple of cases inaccurate and selective in the information which it included.


 * Following my intervention I am pleased to see that you have expanded the entry to give a slightly less biased overview. User:86.129.134.218


 * Your comments are really rather rich, 86.129.134.218. You say that "All the information which I supplied was factual, and no opinion was expressed". Sure - but what about the information you removed? You still haven't provided any justification for your attempts to censor the article. Are the two articles in the External Links section factually incorrect? Would you like to enlighten us? And why are you so keen that the article does not name or link to the Incepta Group? Does that make it more factual?


 * You then say that "It can all be verified from the sources which you yourself have used mainly 'members'interests' on the UK Parliament's website [sic], or the websites of the various organisations with which the subject of the page is involved, all of which were included."


 * Yes, indeed it can all be verified from those sources, but if you actually took the trouble to understand our referencing standards, you'd know that we require inline, in-context references that make it easy for the reader to verify the supplied information.


 * Finally, I'd much rather that YOU updated, expanded, and corrected the article. But since you used the presence of two fairly minor errors (both due to changed circumstances rather than original inaccuracies in the article) as an excuse to censor valid information, without even making an attempt to justify your actions, I end up having to do it myself. Sigh... --Neoconned 16:39, 2 Jun 2005 (EDT)

- 86.129.134.218 - I agree with Neoconned re the need for referencing by contributors. While new contributors may not be familiar with the need for referencing it is a reasonable expectation that once our standard has been pointed out that it is complied with. Adding text to articles should add verifibale information not create work for others. Otherwise it is hard to take the changes as being in good faith. --Bob Burton 00:32, 3 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Additions on anti-smoking and tweaks to Citigate
Dear Bob

I have read your remarks re this page and I hope that my latest edits of this page are referenced as you require. As you rightly surmise I am new to the site.

Dear neoconned

Hope this is more to your liking! Still could put in more references but shall await your feedback User:86.129.134.218


 * Dear 86.129.134.218, sorry for my slow reply. Yes, your edits on June 4th indeed appear to be good faith edits, and are more to my liking. Thanks! However, I don't like what you've done on June 5th. Why replace a link to the SourceWatch Citigate Public Affairs article with a link to CPA's website? If you look around on SW, you'll see that the standard practice is to link entity names within an article's main text to their SW articles. This is done even when the SW article doesn't exist yet (to encourage other SW readers to click the link and create the article). If the reader then wants to visit the entity's website, they can do so from the link on its article page. You've also had another go at removing a reference to the Times article. Unless you're prepared to provide evidence challenging the article's accuracy, I see no reason to do this. I will therefore undo both of those changes, whilst retaining the extra information your 5th June edits added to the article. --Neoconned 21:31, 5 Jun 2005 (EDT)


 * Dear neoconned


 * 1)The removal of the link to the Sunday Times article was not intended - I believe the link to the external site remained. I am not trying to remove the two newspaper articles - just get them in perspective.  As you & I both know there are as many views of a story as there are journalists.


 * 2) I understand what you say about the Sourcewatch practice of linking to other Sourcewatch pages as in the case of Citigate Public Affairs. I prefer to use primary sources where possible -  don't you think it a good idea to have the official website link as well?


 * 3) I used the more general link to "Alphabetical List of Members" for DodOnline as I think you will find the individual pages are for subscribers only User:86.129.124.74


 * Dear 86.129.etc, you said "I am not trying to remove the two newspaper articles - just get them in perspective." I am rather afraid you have caught yourself in a straightforward lie with that comment. Either that, or you have a short memory. This version comparison shows that your initial round of edits on 31 May 2005 completely removed any link to or mention of these two articles, before I revoked those edits. How does that square with the comment you just made?


 * As for the link to Citigate Public Affairs - the problem with 'using primary sources' here is that this primary source is highly unlikely to carry on its website the kind of background info that SW specializes in. We can certainly have a link to CPA's website on the Lord Faulkner article page if you like, under the External Links section. However, the link in the article text is and remains to the SW article, as per the rest of SW and indeed as per Wikipedia.


 * You're right about the DodOnline link, I'll try to find a workaround in order to provide a more direct link. Finally, can I suggest you register a username on this system, rather than using a variety of IP addresses? It would make your edits easier to track, and a username would be more convenient for me and others to refer to than "86.129.etc" !! --Neoconned 10:36, 7 Jun 2005 (EDT)