Talk:Sugar Mountain Farm

Foundation date

Suggested edit: The start date listed in this entry lists a date that doesn't appear to be supported by any cite. The incorporation date (which is probably when they became a commercial entity doing business as a pig farm is 2007 by the owners own statement, which is probably the best date to list. The property may have been used for other purposes prior to this date (growing trees) but this entry is about a pig farm and that activity didn't start until much later. Even the 2007 start date should be supported by some outside source. Incorporations are a matter of record; shouldn't be too difficult to get that nailed down, maybe even online. If Mr. Jefferies had a business license prior to that date that would also work to establish a proper starting date. Bruceki (talk) 13:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Incorporation was done merely at the request of the farm's insurance agent when switching to a new carrier in 2007 and has nothing to do with the founding of the farm. This entry is about the farm. This farm does a number of things. One of those things is pastured pigs. Another thing that this farm has done since its inception (1989) and for decades before under the previous owner is sustainable forestry under the Vermont Current Use program (trees) and maple syruping. Thus the origin of the farm name "Sugar Mountain Farm" = Mountain for Maple Sugaring. The proper date for the founding of the farm would 1989 when the land was purchased and the farming began under the current owner and farm name. This is supported by the deeds and purchase and sale agreements recorded at the town office.

This brings up another small correction and that is the acreage of the farm is 892 acres by the deed and town appraisal for tax purposes so that should be adjusted to 892 or to 1,076 which is the acreage based on the Vermont state approved Current Use forestry plan for the farm. 70 acres of that is used for pasturing of various livestock including the pastured pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and sheep as well as growing of a few acres of crops and orchards for livestock feed - the crops and orchard fruit are not sold but are part of what the farm does to raise it's own livestock feed. The variance in 892 acres to 1076 acres is normal in rural areas. In urban areas measurements of properties tend to be exactly measured as they are small, square and easy to survey but out in the country property deeds are often +/-10%. Measures of acres on large parcels out in the rough mountain terrain tends to be inexact. We can pick a number in the range of the two, say 1,000 to split the difference, or use either the higher end point of 1,076 acres per the Current Use forestry plan which is what is used by the state of Vermont or the deed of 892 acres which is what is used by the town for the assessment. All the documents are on file at the town office.

This also raises the point that the Products should be updated to include the sustainable forestry since this is a major part of what the farm does. The word forestry is appropriate and simple as there are many different forestry products including biomass, wood chips, wood pulp, firewood, cedar posts, framing timbers, softwood lumber, hardwood cabinetry wood for furniture making and flooring, veneer logs. The word sustainable is appropriate since the farm is in the Vermont Current Use forestry program and sustainable management of the forestry is a requirement of that program which has plan reviews every ten years by the county forester. Pubwvj (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused, because I do not see a foundation date anywhere in the article. In order to add one, we would need a credible, independent source, such as an article written by a professional journalist, that includes one. CorporateM (Talk) 14:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@CorporateM: In the infobox, it says "Formation: 1992", I assume this is what the debate is about. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done I removed the unsourced foundation date in the infobox. If anyone has a source to suggest to add a verified date we can restore it. CorporateM (Talk) 14:11, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@CorporateM: The town hall has the records. I have a copy of the purchase and sales agreement dated July 28th, 1989. Those documents are publically available but not online. If you would like I can email you a scan of the first and last pages to document the foundation date. Would that work to establish and source the foundation date for the infobox? Pubwvj (talk) 16:17, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Butcher shop

The paragraph on the butcher shop implies that it has been completed. I don't see a cite that says that it's been licenses, or that any pigs have been processed on the farm. According to the cites, work began on the butcher shop in 2008. The based on the kickstarter campaign the estimated completion date was originally 2013, with most of the "rewards" timed for 2012 or early 2013. The schedule has slipped for years, and there's at least a chance that it will never be completed.

Suggested edit: The sentence be changed from "The farm built the slaughterhouse themselves as a do-it-yourself project.[3]" to "the farm is attempting to build the slaughterhouse themselves as a do-it-yourself project" and that the schedule slip get a mention as well. "The project was estimated to be completed in 2013 but is not complete in 2016 and no new completetion date has been offered" Bruceki (talk) 13:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

References

 Done The blogspot source of course cannot be used, but I trimmed some text so that it no longer says the slaughterhouse was finished, only that they began building it. CorporateM (Talk) 14:09, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not the one who wrote the sentence about the butcher shop so I did not imply it was operating. We are nearly finished and that is what it says on my blog. Currently I'm doing the last bit of installation of water supply piping, inspector's office and moving in some last pieces of equipment to their final locations. I expect it to be licensed in May (this month) of 2015 and if not then by June which is when we'll start butchering pigs from our farm. Since we had no bank loans that has put limits on how fast we can build (banks aren't lending to us due to the economy of the times and we're a farm and it's a butcher shop project). We live in a climate where outdoor construction stops in the winter since it gets as cold as -45°F and regularly down to -20°F in the winter - this is a reality of northern Vermont. Where Bruceki is from in warm Washington state they do not have this reality. The other limitation is that we have done almost all of the work ourselves, only bringing in outside help for the septic system and the utility pole electric transformer. Doing it all ourselves saved a lot of money which made the project doable without loans or grants. (We have gotten no government grants or other government funding so this project has no tax payer funding either.) Yes, this is very much a Do-It-Yourself project and of very high quality that has pleased every single one of the inspectors every time they've visited over the years and they have repeatedly said they wished everyone built this well. We have been working with both the USDA and the State department of agriculture since day one of the planning of this project and they are very pleased with what we've done. If you want the blow-by-blow account and up-to-date announcements of the butcher shop progress check out the butcher shop project page on my blog where I have written about the project in exhaustive detail. Oh, and this is in addition to actually doing our own farming - we have no employees, wwoofers or interns. We do our own farm work, weekly deliveries to customers, etc.

If I were to write that sentence myself I would write: "The family is building their own a USDA/State inspected on-farm butcher shop which will begin with meat cutting and sausage making and later expand to smoking, fermenting and on-farm slaughter."

I would suggest Bruceki stick to the facts rather than making things up about the future he knows nothing about and if he wants an education on the topic then he should try and build his own USDA butcher shop so that he can learn about the regulations and construction complexities of building his own meat processing facility. It's fascinating.

Bruceki has also been warned not to place links to his blog and not to stop soapboxing. @OhNoItsJamie: I would request that his links to his blog be deleted as this is not the place for him to soapbox, synth or promote his agendas.

I have added a reflist tag above to make Bruceki's links behave as he has been repeatedly warned about by administrators/editors. Pubwvj (talk) 14:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

pubwvj/Walter, you have removed all references to the missed schedule dates from your blog; the screen shots of your schedule there were published by you a few months ago on your businesses blog. Are you disputing the screen shots as inaccurate in some way? I believe that using a businesses own web page is allowed as we've discussed on this talk page. In any case, it's offered as a support for the argument that the butcher shop is not completed, not as a proposed reference for the article. Bruceki (talk) 15:22, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Wrong, Bruce. Stop making stuff up and lying. My blog has extensive articles about the process of building the butcher shop. There are hundreds of articles in chronological sequence following the construction. I continue to update the main page on the project which links into the other pages. Stop promoting your agenda, stop distorting things, stop exaggerating and stick with the facts. Pubwvj (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Are the screen shots in that post inaccurate in any way? Bruceki (talk) 16:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@Pubwvj: WP:DROPTHESTICK Bruceki (talk) 15:23, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Stop distorting information and I won't have to defend myself against your lies, Bruceki. This wiki page is not the place for you to promote your agendas and aggression against other farmers who do things differently than you. Administrators on Wiki have warned you not to do this. Please stop it. If you want to improve this page then focus on that and stick to factual information with no distortions and none of your opinions. Pubwvj (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Are the screen shots in that post inaccurate in any way? Bruceki (talk) 16:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Pubwvj: if there's any factual error in what I've said I'm open to hearing it. "lies" is not a factual correction.

Here's context and quote from the owner of the farm regarding the schedule slip and estimating that it would be "several more months" in 2013. Given that it's May of 2016, I think that 3 years is a notable schedule slip. this quote is from the comment area of the cite that pubwvj offered, above:

JudiB says: Sunday March 24, 2013 at 14:29 You had originally said estimated time of delivery would be Dec 2012. Just checking to see what it’s now estimated to be. Thank you.

Walter Jeffries says: Sunday March 24, 2013 at 16:02 I wish I knew the exact date. We are very much looking forward to starting to do our own butchering. We would like to be cutting our own meat as soon as possible – spring? Realistically it is probably several more months. We continue to make progress. We’re working on finishing off the interior now and then need to get our inspection approval. The inspectors won’t start that process until the space is finished off and equipped. As we make progress I’ll keep posting updates and when we are ready to start filling meat rewards I’ll start mailing out to people. We’ll be filling Vermont orders like yours earlier than distant shipping once since we’ll have our Vermont inspection first. If you have a change of address or will be away on holiday just let us know. Bruceki (talk) 16:58, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Pubwvj:, @Bruceki: Both of you. Quit it. Wikipedia is not the place for this. Deal with what sources say and nothing else. This back and forth is disruptive if you two can not control yourselves it is likely one or more likely both of you may be banned from this article. My firm opinion is both of you should be banned from the article and I would support such a sanction if it were proposed now. Other editors are working on this article so please take your feud elsewhere. Thank you for your understanding and compliance. Jbh^Talk 17:37, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Agree that both should be topic-banned from this article. The state of the current article is fine now that it's been vetted by numerous other neutral editors. Bruce has been blocked for a week for posting a link to his blog despite final warnings to not do so; if you continue this after your unblock expires, your blog will be added to our blacklist. You are free to soapbox about farms you don't like on your blog; you are not free to do so here. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 14:46, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

COI editing

@CorporateM: @Pubwvj: @Jbhunley: Pubwvj is Walter jefferies and has a declared COI on this topic; he's been warned repeatedly to not edit this topic. Would this edit be sufficient to topic-ban pubwvj? Bruceki (talk) 03:49, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@Bruceki: You can open a case at WP:COIN referencing this and the past issues. I strongly advise against getting into another back and forth with Pubwvj like before though.

@Pubwvj: You have been asked repeatedly not to edit the article. If you have material to add place a request for the edit on the talk page To do that use {{requested edit}}. You can also {{ping}} {{ping|Jbhunley}} at the same time and if I am available I will take a look at it so you might get a little faster response time. Considering the past issues, if you continue to edit this article you will likely loose your editing privileges for not being here to build the encyclopedia but rather to promote your business.

Please note our updated Terms of Use. Please read WP:COIDISCLOSEPAY. You should use {{paid|client=Sugar Mountain Farm|employer=Sugar Mountain Farm}} on your user page and place {{Connected contributor (paid)|User1=Pubwvj|U1-employer=Sugar Mountain Farm|U1-client=Sugar Mountain Farm|U1-otherlinks= Owner of the business.}} on the article talk page. If you have a problem templates I can place them for you. You also must note Paid edit in all edit summaries of edits you make relating to the Sugar Mountain Farm anywhere on Wikipedia cf the article, its talk page, noticeboard discussions etc. Thank you for your understanding. Jbh^Talk 04:06, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@Pubwvj: - Walter, I'll be happy to help you out with the Edit Requests. See WP:EDITREQ for details on making a request. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 11:15, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Request edit on 18 December 2015

user 71.54.193.172 edited the article to remove a reference from a source without offering a cite or source to support their edit. I'd like to see the text revert to the previous version that is supported by the source.

This edit

directly contradicts the statement in this source Bruceki (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know who 71.54.193.172 is but the fact is Sugar Mountain Farm does not pasture males and females separately. Males and females are kept together. I have specifically stated many times that we don't separate males and females. See: http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/03/23/have-your-pig-and-eat-it-too/ I should know since I am the owner of Sugar Mountain Farm. The edit should not be reverted. Pubwvj (talk) 23:54, 1 January 2016 (UTC)