Talk:esea contemporary

History of the Centre

• I started editing this section originally in 2018 as it was written like a promotion/publicity document & new evidence had come to light with the publication of the Centre's early records. I tried to keep the narrative of the Centre short & to the point.

A recent edited used some references which were based on opinion rather than historical research. As a result I have expanded the history sections up to 2003 with additional references using primary/secondary sources from the period or published articles which are based upon primary/secondary sources from the time. The edit also include additional references to Beccy Kennedy's article using a new ref name. All the references to the article are now under the same ref name. I've also moved some of the text to other part of the history, such as Chan/Willis article which was more appropriate in the section about the opening of the Centre as the CVAA. I still need to do more work on the later sections.

I also returned the history section to a narrative not a critical history, and created a new section 'perceptions of the Centre' to note critical receptions of the Centre. This is not complete & I will add more as I do more research on the history of the Centre. It may also need a better title. Separating this section is common in many articles, such as the Tate's article which has a section called "controversies". K8tmoon (talk) 06:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

K8tmoon Thanks for your work on this article as noted above. I was about to contribute to this article as I noticed some issues with your edits, but as you have clearly been a major editor, I thought it best to give you an opportunity to correct them before editing them. Most of your references were directed to the organisation's own website, which raises the question of whether they are reliably independent - it would be much more appropriate to source information that is independent of the subject, or at least balance self-published sources with independent sources. Please see guidance on self-published sources You have indicated that your edits were an attempt to avoid "opinion" based narratives, but you have then gone on to cite from these sources, statements such as ″it was felt at the time″, without stating by whom such opinions or feelings were held. I can see that the "critical history" you refer to, which was cited from sources independent of the centre has become a positive narrative because of the introduction of these sources which raises concerns about non-bias. Currently, at least 27 of the 61 references are self-published and sourced from the organisations own website and press releases.--ArchivesandLetters (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

ArchivesandLetters The article is still a work in progress & I am still trying to identifying more independent references for the early history of the Company. Unfortunately, apart from contemporary news articles & the primary sources I have referenced, most of the published sources I have found were created to promote the Centre (such as Huttson Lo's history & the 30th anniversary publication). So far I've only located two research papers, Kennedy (2015) & Chan/Willis (2018) which examine the history of the Centre. I've only just got hold of the 2018 article & I haven't had chance to add additional references yet. If you can recommend any other research papers I can add in please let me know.

Most of the materials from the Centre's own webpages are primary sources which have been used 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."(see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). The primary sources I've referenced are all freely available & can be viewed/downloaded by anyone who wants to verify the statements. I have tried to complement them with contemporary news articles/published sources, but it is difficult as many of the published sources were either written by the Centre or haven't use any primary documents in their research. I'll look over this to make double sure I'm following the rules relating to primary sources. There are some links to the Centre's website which aren't primary sources but I am trying to find contemporary news articles to support these statements/events.

Point taken about the narrative history. I did add references to each of these points which show their attribution, but I realise that isn't clear in the actual article. These are all now attributed to the organisation/person who made the statement. I will remove anything which can be seen as an opinion rather than a fact & make sure it is clear if the text is a quote. K8tmoon (talk) 21:39, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

K8tmoon Happy to work on this with you. Since you are focusing on the earlier period of the organisation's development, I will do some research and build up the article in backwards chronology from the present and meet you in the middle. I don't have any specific sources yet, as this is not my main area of expertise, but I am happy to dig around and share relevant information here. Regarding primary sources, if there are not any secondary sources to accompany these statements at all, we may have to consider on a case by case basis whether they are noteworthy, or at least offer context to the secondary sources used. We will need to find some reliable independent sources to justify the inclusion of all this information on Wikipedia. The article cannot be based primarily on self-published sources, regardless of whether they are used to make straightforward statements. Guidence on Primary Sources regarding articles about a business state that "The organization's own website is an acceptable primary source for information about what the company says about itself and for most basic facts about its history, products, employees, finances, and facilities... [but] It is never an acceptable source for claims that evaluate or analyze the company or its actions." So we will need to take some care here if, going forward, the article is to still rely on these sources so heavily.

With regard to news articles and independent published sources, I am unsure what you mean by "haven't used any primary documents in their research" - what is the basis of this claim? If you are suggesting that independent sources are only reliable if they directly reference documents self-published by the organisation themselves, then I think you may be mistaken. Guidance on News Sources is clear that news reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact. In fact, articles that replicate press releases from the organization with minimal change are considered churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release. So if you come across relevant sources, published by well-established news sources feel free to use them; these will help to improve the article overall.--ArchivesandLetters (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Perceptions of the Centre

The section "perceptions of the centre", only lists critical or controversial "perceptions", which leads me to ask why not follow the example of the Tate article given above by K8tmoon and use a subtitle which describes the list more appropriately, such as ″controversies″? The word controversies would also imply that the individual matters are contested, which appears fitting with the new article content. Another option is simply “Criticism of the Centre”. Perceptions on the other hand appear to denote general positions of public opinion which the contents of this section does not offer. ArchivesandLetters (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

If this remains uncontested, I will change the section heading to "Controversies and criticisms of the centre", to better describe the contents of this list.--ArchivesandLetters (talk) 11:47, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Updated, see the edit here --ArchivesandLetters (talk) 14:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest 2021

Following the discussions on COIN (CFCCA) this article has been tagged for Conflict of Interest. Many significant edits were made by an editor who has now declared that they are a senior employee at the organisation which is the subject of the article. The user has agreed to stop editing the article directly and to suggest edits here on the article talk page instead. Some work needs to be done to check the article for neutrality, and reliability of sources, particularly as it was previously noted that the article relies heavily on self-published sources. Currently, about half of the references refer to the organisation's own website and appear to promote a selective history. Please help to find reliable independent sources to improve this article. --ArchivesandLetters (talk) 14:20, 13 June 2021 (UTC)