User talk:Bob.Churchill

Welcome!

Hello, Bob.Churchill, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, please be sure to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~) to produce your name and the current date, or three tildes (~~~) for just your name. If you have any questions, you can post to the help desk or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Samw 18:21, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bob! I'm a BHA celebrant and quite active as an editor here. Hope all's well with you. Let me know if I can help with anything. Guy Hamilton = Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Guy! --Bob.Churchill (talk) 16:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As a general point of advice - noting the thread below - you may find that it's often not a good idea to start off by making significant changes to opening paragraphs of major articles. Firstly, introductory paragraphs are supposed to summarise the article content, so it's often best to look at, and maybe edit, the main article text first - obviously drawing on reliable sources rather than opinion. Secondly, you'll often find that introductory paragraphs have already been argued over at length and in detail on the article talk pages, so that if you think a wording is incorrect or imprecise it's often better to raise your concerns on the talk page - either before you edit, or if your changes are contested in any way. Regards, Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. (Though in this case I did look at the Talk page and see some consensus that "The lede is a mess", even after some revision earlier this year "It still needs work", hence going ahead. I'd raise any major changes in Talk, yes.)

It's certainly not perfect. A draft on the talk page is probably the bbest way to go. Johnbod (talk) 11:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COI[edit]

I hope you've read this. As an employee, and especially Communications officer, of a organization to promote Humanism, you have a COI in editing on the subject. I suggest that whenever you do so you declare your interest on the talk page. Johnbod (talk) 10:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John. I put a prominent disclosure to this effect on my user page. I can put "See my user page for disclosure" or similar whenever making a non-minor edit on a pertinent page if that's not excessive? --Bob.Churchill (talk) 11:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I'd seen your user page disclosure, which I appreciate. I'd put a standard note on the talk page spelling it out when you edit closely-related articles. I suppose it depends on the scale of the edit & the particular article, & sometimes that sort of edit in the edit summary would do, but I'd err on the side of caution. WP can be very unforgiving to those felt not to have adequately disclosed. Johnbod (talk) 11:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, I think that humanism is such a broad subject area that asking for a COI disclosure on such an article is akin to asking anyone who says they go to church to declare a COI on any articles to do with, say, Christian art. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who is PR officer for a church should certainly declare an interest if they edit Christianity; I note Bob is editing during his working hours. Johnbod (talk) 11:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who, me? Work belongs in my distant past. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, Bob - changed. Johnbod (talk) 12:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both for the thoughts. I do think, to lean on Guy's analogy, my role at IHEU equates to more of a COI on the subject of Humanism than being a member of a congregation does on Christianity; on the analogy I'm more like a paid pastor or as John says a church PR officer or something. I'll err on the side of caution, especially where discussion on modern (secular) Humanism or the organisations are concerned. I obviously don't want to skew the page; I think it's important that this page exists to tie together the historical development of Humanism; not to obfuscate in favour of a particular view but to show that is a messy and diverse history. The main problem is it's a bit rambling. I'll go to the Talk page. --Bob.Churchill (talk) 11:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]