Talk:Eskom/Archives/2015

2009 leadership struggle - Resources

Here is a very comprehensive article about the recent leadership struggle at eskom: [1] Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 08:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Too much recentism. This article already has a glaring lack of a history section. We haven't even gotten around to including a historical overview of Eskom's role in the electricity industry, which would include the leadership changes, over various time periods. Lumping in all the recent developments (as was done with the 2008 load shedding) serves to imbalance the article and inflates the importance of recent events. I don't disagree that this info should be added, but it should be placed in context, which at present is completely lacking from the article. Zunaid 13:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the page contains very, very little history. As an STS/SHOT historian, I was disappointed that the entire web community has only managed to produce what is essentially a list of power outages. It's now a 90+ year old organisation, but the page only mentions that the organisation was founded in 1922, and credits Hendrik van der Bijl as "founder" of the organisation. Absolutely no mention of the Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company; General Electric Power Company; the reasons behind the foundation of the Supply Commission; the multifarious changes to the Electricity Act; the parliamentary acts that followed the 1922 Act; how pre-apartheid, apartheid, and post-apartheid government policy has affected the institution; or anything of any "real" significance to the history of the corporation. All that's the online wiki community has done is compile a list of shortcomings over the past 5-10 years and completely ignored anything else. Slightlyyellowbird (talk) 15:55, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Hendrik van der Bijl as "founder" of Escom

I see that HJ van der Bijl is credited as being "founder" of the Electricity Supply Commission. I think that this should be changed, since the Commission couldn't have a "founder" in the traditional sense, because it is a government-owned entity. It came into existence because of the Electricity Act of 1922, not because of van der Bijl's direct action in forming the organisation. Van der Bijl is named as Escom's first Chairman in the Government Gazette of March 6, 1923 that announced the official founding of the parastatal organisation. Does anyone else agree with this? Or should van der Bijl be credited as "founder"? Slightlyyellowbird (talk)

@Slightlyyellowbird: you make a valid point, feel free to change the article and add your source accordingly. Vrac (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Fixed the issue (I had to use a different account name because wikipedia wouldn't accept my user name) Birdisyellow (talk) 15:56, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Only post relevant information

Firstly, this article seems to change fairly frequently. Many of these changes that I've noticed in the list of edits made are minor, but do not actually contribute anything to the discussion. A fair number of them are added by disgruntled Eskom customers who post comments about load-shedding or blackouts based on their feelings about the organisation at that moment in time.

I'm South African too, so I understand why people are unhappy with Eskom, but Wikipedia is not the forum for posting a list of grievances. This is supposed to be a source that is as unbiased as possible. If you have a grievance that cannot be expressed in a manner that gives both sides to the story, and that gives proper citations to show where information is coming from, then go find a news site or blog to which you can add your comments. SmallMossie (talk) 12:36, 15 December 2015 (UTC)