Talk:CraFarms

Edits reverted

The farming business was built over 35 years through hard work and dedication to the farming industry. By using techniques that were often against the grain of conventional farming the Crafar's were pioneers of large scale dairy farming in New Zealand. They were responsible for many innovations around cowshed designs, pasture management and maximising output while minimising input through being resourceful and not always taking the easy way out

I have reverted this edit as no verifiable source has been cited and if there was a reliable source for such a statement, then it should be in the body of the page.

It should be noted that the majority of the effluent charges brought against the Crafar's were incidents involving sharemilkers on the relevant farms failing to meet their contractual obligations to manage the effluent efficiently. On many of the farms owned by the Crafar group the effluent systems are state of the art with millions of dollars being spent of upgrades and maintenance over the years. Prior to the receivers taking over the farms there was 1 full time effluent system manager who's sole job was travelling to all the farms, inspecting and maintaining the systems. He was supported by a team of up to 6 highly skilled staff who were on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the event of an emergency. Also, there were 4 20,000l effluent tankers/spreaders available which could be moved on high speed tractors to any farm with a serious problem. The mainstream media has portrayed the Crafars as poor managers of their effluents systems based on the following prosecutions of which several are only technical breaches of consent conditions, NOT failure of systems or spills.

I removed this para as it is speculative, unverified and arguably non-neutral.

The High Court judge Justice Stevens was reported saying the case concerned "commercial environmental pollution by conduct involving negligence of a high order".NZPA (2007-09-26). "$35,000 dairy fine upheld". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 2010-05-28.

I reverted the deletion of this as it was a direct quote of the judge and therefore a reliable source.

Farmers Weekly noted that another prosecution was pending as the 4500-cow Taharua Ltd farm on the Rangitaiki Plains, and its managers, Sam and Davina Webb, were facing three charges of unlawfully discharging dairy effluent.

I reverted the deletion of this as it was factual and a reliable source was provided

In March 2009, the National Business Review reported that Allan Crafar and the CraFarm group, had been labelled the "poster boy for dirty dairying" by many in the industrySwann, Allan (2009-03-13). "Fonterra's five biggest challenges: Part V – "Dirty Dairying"". The National Business Review. Retrieved 2010-05-28.

Again I reverted the deletion of this as it was fact that NBR reported the phrase 'poster boys' and a reliable source was provided.

I also reverted the deletion of section on Animal welfare incidents. The section was neutrally stated in the form "A said B about C" with reliable sources provided.

Mrfebruary (talk) 10:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Misleading media portrayal?

Hi Lite worker, Thank you for your comment left on my talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mrfebruary&redirect=no#Crafarms_article

I have copied it to the discussion page

"Hi MrFebruary, I have noticed you have made substantial contributions to the Crafarms Wikipedia article. From the history it looks as though you have written the entire article and based it almost entirely on how the media has portrayed the events surrounding the Crafar's. I was an employee of the Crafar group for 15 years and have tried to correct some of your misleading information and add some factual information based on first hand experience. I would appreciate it if you would allow my voice to be heard as the media has done a very poor and innacurate job of reporting about this family, giving very good people a very bad name. I'm sure if you took the time to get to know these people and investigate the real facts behind these cases you would change your tune. Also, I'm sure that if it was your family involved you would show a little more compassion. As I have no desire to stir up political, media and legal trouble, I have omitted several very relevant facts which have not been reported in the media at all as I know certain government organisations are trying hard to cover up the mess they made and are pretty happy to let the Crafar's take the fall for it. Hence the reason I deleted the animal welfare section entirely rather than rewording it with facts. I hope you appreciate my discression as I will surely appreciate yours.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liteworker (talk • contribs) 06:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)"

Dear Liteworker, Welcome to the world of wikipedia editing. I see you started editing on 17 January, 3 days ago. Wikipedia works by having policies that are generally followed by editors collectively. In other words, if one editor departs from a wikipedia policy such as 'neutral point of view', then usually other editors will revert the edits and discuss on the talk page of the article in question.

The wikipedia policies appear everytime some one clicks the 'edit' tab in order to start editing an article. The following messages appear underneath the editing box.

"If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here."

"Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources. Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view."

The word "encyclopedic" is linked to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_encyclopedia A few key messages from that page are: "Wikipedia is not for unverifiable material" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV "Wikipedia is not a place to publish your opinions" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOR The word "verified" is linked to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability , the key point of which is "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

On the basis of that last policy in particular, it is not appropriate for you to delete material from wikipedia that is clearly verified (from a linked source on the www that readers can check for themselves) that you don't personally agree with. I accept that there may be other views of the Crafars, and that it is desirable for them to be be reflected. This should be done by a referring to a verified source. As noted above "Wikipedia is not a place to publish opinions or unverified material"

On that basis I intend to revert your edits to the Crafar Farms page that are not in accordance with wikipedia policy. Mrfebruary (talk) 11:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)