Dpembert

Welcome!

Hello, Dpembert, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Bennerley Viaduct, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms of use and our policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Best practices for editors with close associations
• Plain and simple conflict of interest guide
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
• Simplified Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome!

Please confirm here if you have a direct/indirect connection with Bennerley. Please do not edit further until making a declaration. Thank you.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 20:45, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

David Pemberton's employments and interests

Please see my public LinikedIn page for my employments and interests here.

Where permitted, I will attempt to add/correct cited facts and primary citations relating to the structures referenced by Wikipedia and owned by Railway Paths. The principal structures are listed on Railway Paths' website here. Their exact locations may also be viewed on the public map here. I do not seek to add opinion or correct or remove the opinion of others.

Railway Paths' land and structures are owned in trust for public benefit. It is a registered charity 1070003 and company limited by guarantee 03535618.

In editing Wikipedia I am seeking to further the charity's third object:

3) THE PRESERVATION, RESTORATION, MAINTENANCE AND PROTECTION FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT OF SUCH OF THE STRUCTURES, BUILDINGS, PLANT AND EQUIPMENT ON ANY LAND WHICH MAY AT ANY TIME BE VESTED IN THE COMPANY OR IN RESPECT OF WHICH THE COMPANY MAY HAVE AN INTEREST AS ARE OF HISTORIC, CULTURAL, ARCHITECTURAL, CONSTRUCTIONAL OR SCIENTIFIC INTEREST.

Readers of this post will need to reach their own judgement as to my: conflict of interest, legitimate interest, and factual authority.

Dpembert (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

ThanQ for semi-identifying in the first instance when registering a new WP account; with a narrow-topic, this is know as a Single-purpose account. Your confidence in writing and formatting prose suggests you are not new to Wikipedia (or alternatively similar publishing using html-based systems); have you any previous Wikipedia experience that you may wish to disclose, either as a named account or under IP address(es)? Non-WP publishing does not need to be disclosed. This is just an intermediate acknowledgement; as annotated generally above, please continue to refrain from directly-editing Bennerley. Thank you.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I have no prior experience with editing WP. I studied history at university and I lecture at masters level so I am familiar with citing sources and writing for peer review. Dpembert (talk) 14:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I am now going to ping-in Nick Moyes (who is an administrator on English-language Wikipedia and has an interest in the area) for further guidance on the CoI situation; normally the default-arrangement is that direct-editing is strongly discouraged, but any proposed changes should be requested on the article Talk page with supporting information; I am unaware of any exemptions. You can edit other articles where there is no conflict with your professional background.

Also, as a general rule from a cursory glance:

• Secondary sources are preferred to the Primary sources you have been inserting; existing sources should not be deleted or overwritten: "Improved citations using sources of record rather than news media. Added brief update..."

• Sections (or other content) should not be deleted (particularly by newbies), eg.: An acceptable alternative would be to delete the section on COVID-19 as the works were stopped for just a few weeks, in....

  These are just what jumped out at me (rules-of-thumb); in anticipation of complications, I did not/ have not pored-over the actual changes.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 16:02, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

*For clarity I didn't delete the section on COVID, I added to it. I suggested the article could be improved by deleting it as it was a transient issue, but it would be impolite of me to make a deletion myself when the facts are actually correct.

*I don't understand why secondary sources are preferred. The matter of if a structure is listed or not is the record of that listing by Historic England, hence citing their online register rather than the BBC news article. If one is to believe the BBC news article, Railway Paths acquired the viaduct in 1998, the primary source (being HMLR Title NT359061) proves it was in 2001.*

Dpembert (talk) 16:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• I've used primary sources inline with policy, 'A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.'

Dpembert (talk) 17:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) 'A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward... but not to contradict existing material without discussion, and overwrite the existing source without formal challenge. This is getting very complex. I appreciate you didn't delete - it was just my way of showing that you'd considered changing the page-history. Wikipedia is a 'live' entity, and changes will beget further changes. That's why we have Watchlist. Contributions from individuals are donated, applied together with reference sources at the time, but submitted in a para-phrased form; these contributions are theoretically copyrighted to the individual, but are released for re-use by anyone, elsewhere. That's why the history of contributions needs to be maintained (traceability). I made a mistake recently in not para-phrasing a small section of text that was inadvertently copy-pasted and uploaded. The admin was wise enough to recognise this one error in a whole new article and didn't slaughter me, but needed to delete the copyright violation from the public view, with the change history / date-timestamp still visible but greyed-out. I still have the draft saved to a cloud so I can restore appropriately, even though there's no public view to prompt me.

The secondary sources are supposed to have done their due-diligence - fact checking - and supposedly are reliable. This is becoming more of a muddied, grey area with new media - internet-only sites which are dependent on press-releases; you have highlighted an anomaly that only someone involved could recognise (see WP:PSTS). This should be referred to Talk, not changed in real time by someone involved. It's good to have an abundance of sources in case of Link rot. WP:BURDEN indicates responsibility is incumbent on the changing-editor; new editors don't reationsalise realise the complexities. Often, drive-by editors change the prose and meaning by slipping-in their personal thoughts and commentary (original research) preceding the existing inline citation box; if missed at the time, this can be discovered when someone later flags it, confirmed by trawling through the history = much downtime = Law of Diminishing Returns. I got to go. --Rocknrollmancer (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll stick to making suggestions via the Talk pages. I'll also declare my interest and single-purpose account.

Dpembert (talk) 18:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello David, and greetings from Derby. I was pinged here by Rocknrollmancer, and am happy to offer you any advice you need to help you make useful contributions here, and to stay within Wikipedia's policies. Obviously, as Director of Railway Paths Limited, you have a clear Conflict of Interest and there is an obligatory requirement for everyone to declare the connections they have with articles they edit. It's not acceptable to expect them to visit your LinkedIn page to determine that, or to "draw their own conclusions" about your rationale for editing here. That's for you to make clear and explicit, please, per this policy.

I'm quite OK with you citing Historic England pages to provide factual information on sites your company owns, such as Bennerley Viaduct, but I'd like you to always be clear about your involvement. Please don't remove old citations, but feel free to add information from, and references to, sites other than your own. The key thing I'd ask you to appreciate is that this is an encyclopaedia, not a means for promoting any organisation. So long as you can add content in a neutral and verifiable manner, you are welcome to edit here, or to ask others to change content via an WP:EDITREQUEST. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 01:44, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello Nick Moyes, Thank youu for your advice. I have added to and copied the information on my interests above to my user page; please let me know if it's OK. I'm not clear how I use the Talk pages to correct facts/references rather than re-write pages using templates, perhaps I misunderstood the WP:EDITREQUEST. Will what I have done on the Torksey talk page work? Wikipedia is the first port of call for many jouranlists and citizen journalists, it negatively impacts our charitable work when the ownership of our heritage structures is misreported - that's all I'm trying to change, I'm fine with people saying whatever they like about them otherwise. Best wishes, Dpembert (talk) 08:51, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Thx Nick. David, I've added a strikethrough spelling correction above for one that got away; the convention is not to alter it without such annotation when there has been a response, and to only correct one's own. I'm aware that journalists access WP for expedience from contact with BBC regional staff in 'my other life' back in 2014, ferinstance. Often, it's difficult to write comprehensively and accurately - recent examples are Intu Derby with editors wanting to rename it and change the content too soon (before the announced-timeframe was complete), and similarly at Attenborough Nature Reserve with ownership changes announced well before the actual legal changes were complete. I know perhaps a notional 10% of what others need to know in their roles 8¬( ; Nick helps out at the Teahouse, a dedicated area for new user queries that you could cast an eye over. The broken RPL citation you mentioned at Talk Torksey can be found at Wayback machine (others are available!) and often are updated (can be by bot), being formatted into the ref as an archived version. Again I've only glanced, but is a reason not to delete or overwrite refs with another source, annotate using {{deadlink}} instead. rgds, Steve--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 21:32, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello Rocknrollmancer and Nick

I highlighted the link because the ref describes it as the 'Sustrans Torksey Bridge page'; from its URL it can be seen that it was a page on the Railway Paths website. Following the link on archive.org to the page available at the time its a Railway Paths page about work to the viaduct that the charity was undertaking at the time. Without getting into a debate about apostophes... 'Sustrans Torksey Bridge page' is incorrect about the ownership of the page and the bridge.

You say in the Torksey Talk page that you 'do not believe that this in any way' impacts charitable work. I said it above as a general statement about misreporting of ownership of our structures. I feel that including the quote from my user talk page on the Torksey talk page introduced a potentially ad hominem aspect to the talk. My interests are clearly declared. I'm happy to be challenged about them on my user talk page.

I want to comply with all Wikipedia policies and processes. I'm only trying to get the facts right, I'm offering solid evidence for those facts, e.g. H M Land Registry titles. I hope I have promptly followed all of your suggestions and requests. What am I doing wrong? I feel like I'm being pounced on.

Dpembert (talk) 08:25, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm losing interest with the continued quasi-legal critique over WP content, claiming that the dates are wrong; more so since I found CoI editing at Sustrans. From LinkedIn:

Digital Marketing Officer, Fundraising and Retail
Sustrans
Full-time Dates Employed Jun 2017 – Present Employment
Duration 3 yrs 10 mos
Responsible for planning, delivering and evaluating multi-channel fundraising, retail and B2C marketing campaigns
Working with the Fundraising team to optimise the supporter journey
Managing the charity’s digital channels, including Google Ads, Facebook advertising, email, social media, surveys, website and content
Building working relationships with partner organisations, designers and teams across the organisation
Responsible for the charity’s B2C email marketing campaigns to over 100,000 subscribers and donors
Managing 2 marketing officers

The interaction between RPL and Sustrans in unfortunate, and confusing, viz: Railway Paths is the sister charity to Sustrans and manages our property holdings. "Holdings"?

The following two links show the disparity in two versions of the Primary source Railway Paths website; the first (archived as at Feb 2020) states 1999 'ownership' (in inverted commas); the second (current) states 2001 ownership. The Wikipedia article was correctly written in accordance with the source material at the time; often it's difficult to discern what changes were made, when and why to Primary sources, but I would strongly suggest you direct your efforts inwards before launching any more criticism. As I've stated earlier, too much downtime and Law of Diminishing returns to expect others to do it for you. I've also clarified Martholme Viaduct (following your Talk comment) where I believe the content was written correctly.

Wikipedia editors are volunteers - there's no compulsion on us to do the bidding of others, or even to continue when it's becoming tedious; furthermore, it's not incumbent on WP volunteers to trawl-through Primary sources in this way, for what is a minor, grey-area likely-created by RPL staff as evidenced. How many more examples where the dates or other published details have been changed? Leave that with you to ascertain.

This will be my last post here; thanks for the ad hominem reaction - the second time (of two, total) in about six months. The previous was from a multiple-identity socking sequence when the person/s were blocked, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Frider443/Archive and scroll down for the greyed-out identities. I've also just found what may be another sleeper username, so cloud and lining.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 16:56, 14 March 2021 (UTC)