Talk:The Berry/Archive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Berry is a newspaper in Cambridge. Like TCS and [Varsity|Varsity (Cambridge)] it aims to provide Cambridge students with a forum to discuss their political views and give comments on current affairs. The Berry is non-partisan and accepts the best of all submissions. If you look at the Lent 2007 edition there is a range of articles. The newspaper also tries to foster debate. In the current issue there are two debates. One over private education and one over Israel. 10,000 copies of the newspaper are printed and distributed across the University. At least 30 Cambridge students have contributed to the current edition, either through providing articles, or helping with the editoral side. At the fresher's fair in October, more than 200 students expressed interest. This is clearly not a 'non-notable' publication.
It is true that the editor, Roland Foxcroft, created this article. However, as with all wikipedia articles it is subject to revision by any user of the site. In my opinion the article gives a fair, and brief overview of what the newspaper is and does. If any user wishes to make changes then they are free to do so.
Robert Palmer - rlnp2 @ cam.ac.uk
This is not a place for playing out personal vendettas. MikeMorley was technically right that this was created by the paper's Editor. However, being a Cambridge student, he knows too well that it is a paper which matches the circulation of Varsity and TCS in Cambridge, and it is, thus, a notable subject. Yet, instead of editing the page in a positive way to try and make it seem more impartial, he has tried to bend the rules of wikipedia to attempt to get the page deleted. This is part of long term conflicts, which are private student affairs and not the business of the Berry. These can be seen in his persistent editing of the Union page (which, coincidently, is a conflict of interest in itself, as he is a Director of that society. Funny how that conflict seems not to bother him). I've tried to resolve the issue by providing references to varsity articles and CUSU publications, so that the notability of the topic is no longer questionable. Nevertheless, I would specifically warn users not to get involved in what is clearly a very petty dispute and, if they feel the text of this article needs to be amended to take it away from the Editor's view, to do that, rather than try and get an article on an important aspect of Cambridge deleted!
-- This was an unsigned contribution entered from the terminal olorin.chu.cam.ac.uk (Churchill College Cambridge).
The above personal attack against user MikeMorley is unacceptable and in direct violation of Wikipedia policies. See No Personal Attacks. As such it is humerously ironic that said individual starts with the statement "This is not a place for playing out personal vendettas." Wikipedia is not a directory or an encylcopedia, see What Wikipedia is Not. Furthermore, content on Wikipedia should be noteable and written by neutral individuals without a conflict of interest, see Conflict of Interest and NPOV. In looking at his history, user MikeMorley is an established editor on Wikipedia and he was only folllowing standardly accepted policies when questioning the noteability of article and the COI of the editors. The above attack totally misses the point that it was site administrator, not MikeMorley, that ultimately flagged the article for having issues with noteability and self-promoting contributions. The above individual should take their own advice and not use Wikipedia for playing our personal vendettas against people!
If a subject is truly notable, then individuals totally unconnected with the organisation will eventually write about it. If it requires those currently running this paper to create and maintain the page then it's obviously not that noteable. The Berry isn't, yet, a particuarily noteable publication, is very young and dosen't have enough history and encyclopedic content to justify an article. The current article reads like an advertisement and/or directory entry for The Berry and this is not what Wikipedia is for. Furthermore, none of the specific indivudals named in the article are noteable enough to justify their own entry on Wikiepdia. Such information, especially when entered by the same people, is generally considered to be self-promotional. Such information would be best placed on a private website.
-- An independent view of the situtation from a Cambridge Student
I really suspect the true independence of the Cambridge student - I don't believe that there are that many students in Cambridge, with knowledge of wikipedia, who know enough about the Berry to stumble across this page 'by chance', yet not enough to find it notable, know about the situation behind the postings, can try and trace IP addresses to colleges, happen to know a 'Mike' studying the same subject at the same uni as MikeMorley (according to their profile) and actually care sufficiently to get involved in a petty edit war.
Notability is not subjective, but objective. There are more than the minimum two references required to ensure its notability. This is, actually, more than those present on a number of pages edited by MikeMorley without him raising a problem.
As a user I haven't, nor has rols_foxy, tagged any pages for deletion. The edits made by both of us have been positive. We have not tried to pretend newspapers with circulations of 10,000 should be removed simply as we did not get on with Buggins. Nevertheless, when clear inconsistency exist, an unhealthy interest in getting pages deleted is present, and using a deletion strategy to address a problem which is just centred round the impartiality of text, I do not believe it fulfils the ctriterea for a personal attack. Indeed, when the initial tagging was a personal attack upon the Editor, it is possibly more to be seen on the lines of a defence.
Yet, if your final sentence is to be acknowledged, then how about leaving the Berry wikipedia site alone and allowing readers to change it, as required? We can all be happy: MikeMorley as he no longer feels insulted, you no longer need to go round tagging pages and writing long contributions to the discussion so have time for your degree, the Berry's readers as they get their additional information and those involved do not feel that their hard work is undervalued, or used as a pawn in a private dispute.
I say, live and let live.
-- This was an unsigned contribution entered from the terminal olorin.chu.cam.ac.uk (Churchill College Cambridge).
The above individual continues to stage personal attacks against another legitimate editor. This is unacceptible and against Wikipedia policy. User MikeMorley was acting as a quality editor and his actions were verified and followed up by a site administrator that came to the same conclusion. I am not MikeMorley as has been indicated in the above attack. Incase anyone cares, I am a Cambridge student and the article was brought to my attention by someone involved with this publication. I am quite familiar with Wikipedia's policies and practices and everything I wrote above I sure would be verified by additional 3rd party sources.
For the tag regarding 'self-promotion', 'non-noteability' and 'CoI' to be removed then the editors need to address those issues and not attack other users. Tagging an article that has issues in these areas is not a personal attack, it is an action in line with Wikipedia procedures for preserving the integrity and quality of this reference resource.
The article editors have now provided some 'references' however, there are some serious isssues with some of these references. Namely, the only reference that actually discusses The Berry in any detail is the CUSU directory entry. It should of course be pointed out that The Berry writes and maintains this webpage (as any student organisations controls their own entry). As such, for quite obvious reasons one can not cite material written by themselves as a reference for establishing why they are notable. The remaining references cite the fact that the cited indivduals are involved with the publication but it dosen't provide a foundation for establishing that the publication itself is very notable. Actual references that are not connected to, written by, ect. the subject of the article are needed to establish notability. (i.e. Published information from the major political parties, a 3rd party directory entry (not written by The Berry) discussing the publication, discussion of the publication in the mainstream media ect.).
The current Berry article as it stands is essentially just a self-written self-promoting directory entry that lists the students currently invovled with the publication. I'm of course not fundamentally opposed to The Berry having an entry on Wikipedia, but the article needs to meet the accepted Wikipedia standards. As the article history shows, Wikipedia site administrators have already looked at the article and come to the same conclusion.
Things like just making lists of non-noteable individuals that currently work on The Berry, which takes up a large part of the current article, don't add any meaningful content to Wikipedia... especailly when it requires those named to add the information. Unless the individual in question is noteable enough to have their own separate page about them, then they're probably not important enough such that putting their name in the article really adds anything to it. Most student societies and organisations address this issue by listing "notable former members, staff, officers" ect. and then linking those mentions to the persons entry in Wikipedia. If The Berry is still around in 20 years then by that point there will probably be people to list as such; however, the current listing of people is just an obvious act of self-promotion.
If this article can be re-written to meet Wikipedia standards, establish notability and remove acts of self-promotion then I'm sure it will be welcomed. The more quality content the better! but people on here really really need to get a grip and stop using this fantastic reference resource as a forum for their own unhealthy obsessions and named attacks on other individuals. Administrators have already concurred that this article has problems... please focus your attention on constructively addressing those issues and stop attacking others! ;-)
-- The same independent view of the situtation from a Cambridge Student
This is getting tiresome. I didn't imply that the 'independent' was MikeMorley, just that he had too unhealthy interest to be truly independent. And that his userpage refers to a Mike which sounds very much like the same MikeMorley - doing the same subject at the same uni, incidently getting involved with this debate shortly after MikeMorley attempted to get this speedily deleted.
Anyone reading this by now (and I do pity you if you are) will see that this is simply an effort to attack the Berry through trying to selectively apply wikipedia rules, and is against the spirit of knowledge and cooperation wikipedia aims for. In my last post I requested that we 'live and let live' - this offer of peace was refused.
The newspaper articles cited as references quite clearly refer to the Berry in detail, and its Editors, as well as other members of its committee. I will, again, note, that a newspaper with references in other papers, with a distribution of 10,000, with key MPs as sponsors and supporters fulfils the same notability criteria as Varsity (Cambridge) and The Cambridge Student. Again, these fail to even have two references, so I challenge the 'independent' individual to attack their notability. I will not, as I think that they are both very clearly notable publications. I think it is bizarre to try and claim that these three papers are not notable.
Furthermore, I hope that the 'independent' individual will, thus, act to remove the list of committee members on the Cambridge University Conservative Association site, under the same logic. Somehow, I happen to think that he will not, though I challenge him to do so. I will not, of course, as I am not fundementally opposed to it.
It just stinks to me of the same attempts to intimidate and bully the Editor and undermine the paper as have been occuring in the 'real' Cambridge world, and perpetrated by a very small number of people trying to attack Roland, primarily for reasons not even associated with the Berry. Though I do not claim that the 'independent' student has been directly involved in this (for I cannot if I do not know who he is), a group of people have defaced the paper, made a point of using it to mop up drinks at parties and generally been rather unpleasant. If any admins want proof of this, I will happily e-mail it to them.
The sickening thing is that a large number of other people work hard on the publication. Roland is, according to the newest edition, leaving anyhow. Attacking the Berry is simply a whimpish attack by people scared to take on the man himself.
I know that 'independent' student is striving to gain the moral high-ground, and might well do so with his superior knowlegde of the wikipedia community. I am just a relative newcomer. Yet, if he really wants this silliness to stop, he will not, again, respond with an attack on the paper's notability, but accept yet another offer of peace.
My God, grow up Children.
