Talk:Whitby Lifeboat Station

Whitby lifeboat sacking

Moved from User talk:Ojsyork § Whitby lifeboat sacking

The joy of all things (talk) 19:28 1 January 2023(UTC)

There is one thing I need to discuss with you. To quote Wiki - Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced.

I'm referring to this... "In 2018, two crew members from Whitby were sacked after a picture of a fellow crew member was superimposed upon a pornographic image. This doctored photo was then printed upon a mug that one of the crew members kept on the boat. Despite heavy criticism from those sacked, as well as supporting parties, the RNLI upheld the dismissals after an appeal."" This is completely misleading and incorrect. The Telegraph reference requires subscription to read. So I would ask you to check this out, bizarrely, the Daily Mail updated version, and consider whether what is on the Station page is fair. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5836995/Lifeboat-men-sacked-pornographic-mug-lose-appeal.html

Maybe the whole reference to two crew members need to be deleted altogether. MartinOjsyork (talk) 22:56, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I hope you don't mind, but I have moved this into a new section, so we can keep track of what has been said and to separate out the two strands as they relate to different subjects.

The information is not poorly sourced (see this ref) as The Daily Telegraph and my ref (BBC News) are considered Reliable Sources. One of the facets of Wikipedia is that we have a neutral point of view and just report the facts without bias (or as much as is possible). The quote from the wikipedia guidelines of "Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced" relates to using unreliable or poorly sourced information about a person (or persons) which could lead to legal issues. So if the source for the two sacked members had been YouTube or Facebook, then that would have fallen under WP:UGC which is unreliable. The information is accurate as to what is reported in the sources. If we had strayed from this policy, say we said something in the paragraph which supported one side over the other, then that would be biased and not WP:NPOV.

The same is true of using flowery language and Peacock terms - "Whitby Lifeboat station is the best lifeboat station in the RNLI." We'd need to state why it is the best lifeboat station in the RNLI with an appropriate source. What is stated in the paragraph is okay in my opinion as it accurately represents what is reported in the sources. If the individuals had been named on the article page when their names were not included in the sources, then that would be very bad indeed. Because this is an encyclopedia, we try to maintain facts with as little bias as possible.

Interestingly, the Daily Mail is wholly unreliable according to Wikipedia's standards (Wikipedia:DAILYMAIL quote: "The Daily Mail has a "reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication"".)

I know how you feel, I recently left the Royal Air Force after more than 25 years of service, and the reports of sexual harassment etc in the service really bothered me. But I stayed away from that because of a conflict of interest (WP:COI). Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 23:43, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Firstly I have deleted my message from the previous thread.

Regarding Whitby and sackings, through my RNLI connections, I shall just say that I know that things were far more serious that laid out in the newspapers, and that the RNLI don't sack volunteers on a whim. Whilst I'm absolutely not a fan of the Daily Mail, they seem to have captured more of the detail than some others this time around (even though their first attempt was total sensationalism). I won't go into more detail here, except to add that it also involved a school visit. I'm sure you can imagine..

Deleting the text may not go down well, especially by those who still feel hard done by, but its been a while now, so maybe time that its forgotten about, and not recorded against the station history.

MartinOjsyork (talk) 09:47, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Ojsyork Please ask questions about specific stations etc at their respective talk pages, as many more editors will see and possibly weigh in. I personally, see nothing wrong with the paragraph about the sacked lifeboatmen at Whitby, and it is hard to see which side you are in favour of actually! The joy of all things (talk) 19:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

When I first asked this thing about Whitby, I pointed out about the Wiki requirement - "Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced".

I realise the source is attributed to The Daily Telegraph, which is fine, even though I happen to know it does not cover all the specific detail, (and by definition is poorly sourced by the Daily Telegraph), BUT ESPECIALLY is that it is Contentious material about Living People.

I don't think it does anyone any favours, keep popping up.

It's not good for the guys involved. It's not good for the RNLI. It's not good for Whitby Lifeboat Station who I'm sure wish to move on.

I was hoping you might take the initiative.

But I couldn't have been any clearer. I think it should go, and now I will delete it.

I would prefer you don't reinstate.

MartinOjsyork (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

It is not contentious as we have reliable sources. We are not here to be good for the RNLI, neither are we here to be bad about the RNLI. As the matter has been widely reported in open source media, your reasons for deleting do not apply. The rule states Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced. It is neither poorly sourced, nor unsourced. The joy of all things (talk) 22:14, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

References