Talk:Sir Arthur Clarke Award

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Did You Know An entry from Sir Arthur Clarke Award appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 8 April 2006.
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[edit] Conflict of interest

This article has been edited by JStone (talk · contribs) and HowardBerry (talk · contribs), both of which are involved with the awards, according to the article itself. Mike Peel (talk) 20:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask why you consider my edits to be a conflict of interest? I designed the award itself and that is it. I have no involvement in anything to do with the judging, voting, event organisation, planning etc. etc. My edits are all fair and honest. I find it disheartening that someone who actually knows about the subject - purely through association - will have their edits called into question. Surely someone who actually knows something about the event is much better equipped to write about it? Howie ☎ 00:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
In fact, looking over the article, can you point out which part of the article doesn't present a neutral point of view? Practically the entire article is just a list of the awards and who won, preceded by an intro about where the awards are held and the design of the award. Which part of it does not represent a neutral point of view? Howie ☎ 00:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
To answer your last question first, the main thing is the comparison of the awards to the Oscars, which appears to be unjustified, and rather similar to the marketing slogan on the official site. There are also fairly prominent external links scattered throughout the text.
The edits I'm concerned about are mostly those by JStone (talk · contribs), rather than yourself; [1] looked a little suspicious though.
Mike Peel (talk) 08:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The comparison to the Oscars comes from a 2006 Guardian article which featured a picture of three Oscar statues with Clarke's head photoshopped onto them, and the headline "Who will win an Arthur?". I don't have a copy, but I believe it was Fred Clarke (Arthur's brother) who pointed it out at the inaugural awards. A quick Google search also comes up with several pages referring to the awards as the space Oscars - although I will agree that some of these naming comparisons will have originated from the official awards website.
I'm not entirely sure what is suspicious about the edit you point out. Mr Stone specified the dimensions of the award and that he wanted them in glass. I proceeded to design it to his specification, and designed the typography and layout of the etched design myself - which was met with approval and has been used every year since.
I hope this helps. Howie ☎ 13:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I too am at a loss to understand exactly to what the supposed conflict of interest is supposed to refer. Despite asking, no real answer has been given to this question, but in the meantime the article has been tagged in a manner that casts doubt on its veracity.
The article mentions our involvement as a matter of fact, not as self-promotion.
I can verify that Fred Clarke showed me the article in the Guardian which made the comparison with the Oscars. As these awards are to recognise the best in their field and have come to be named as "The Arthurs", it does not seem unreasonable for them to be regarded in this manner.
I am somewhat offended by the statement that the edits "looked a little suspicious". Please state exactly what is meant by this phrase with supporting evidence, or else kindly remove it.
Neither Howard nor myself receive any payment for our involvement with the awards, which personally take up about two months' worth of work. The awards were established so that those who have done outstanding work involving space - in some cases over several years - may have some highly-deserved recognition.JStone (talk) 19:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned that, as you're heavily involved with the awards, you will naturally avoid saying anything negative about the awards. At the same time, you will push positive things, as well as marketing-related things. For example, the comparison between the Arthurs and the Oscars is made several times throughout the article. I also noticed that there is no discussion about how the awards have been viewed by the community (apart from the aforementioned comparison). Also, you link to the website for the awards (which, I note, you created) within the flow of the article, apparently as an invitation to readers of the article to submit nominations to you.
Now, it could well be that I'm overreacting here. I have not had the chance to look into the awards in depth. I would encourage you to read through Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, and based on that decide on whether your edits have been a conflict of interest or not. If not, then please feel free to remove the template from the article. Otherwise, please leave it in place, and let another editor (who is not involved with the awards) decide when it should be removed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not avoiding including anything negative - I'm simply not aware of any negative comment. I often search the internet for mention of the awards, but I have never come across any negative references. On the contrary, the Guardian article, for example, was very positive, but I did not include any quotes to "promote" the entry, as that is not what Wikipedia is for.
You mention "marketing-related things", but I am at a total loss to understand this. There is no marketing with regard to the awards; The nominees are invited to the awards event where they do not have to pay for their meal. Apart from the award itself and a certificate, there is no financial gift. The only "marketing" as such is promoting the awards event to sell tables at the dinner; this raises funds to cover the costs of the dinners that we give away, and also includes a donation to Sarvodaya, Sir Arthur's personal choice of Sri Lankan charity. No-one involved with the awards, myself or any of the judges, receive any payment. There is nothing else sold in relation to the awards.
The comparison with the Oscars is made only twice; once because they have genuinely been compared to these awards - there are intended to recognise and reward achievement in various categories - and the other time is actually highlighting a difference. The comparison is also made in BBC News articles, such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4833912.stm
I have not included comments on how the awards are regarded as I felt that would really be "self-promotion" and would not be appropriate. Apart from the Guardian article, I could quote people like Reginald Turnill (the UK's longest serving aerospace correspondent), David Southwood (Head of Science for the European Space Agency), and others.
I think that the reference to how nominations are made is valid. It would be inappropriate for the Oscars as only members of the Academy may submit nominations, but in this case they are open to the public. The mention of the website is included as that is the method for making submissions. However, nominations are currently not open; the reason for the link is for people to find additional information about the awards.
I am worried about your statement that you have not had the chance to look into the awards in depth. This appears to be an admission that you saw the article, saw that it was written by people who are involved with the awards, and, deciding that something may not be quite right, added a comment which casts doubts about the article instead of investigating the facts.
Who would you consider best to provide full and accurate information? As an example, recently an award was announced as being "from the Sir Arthur Clarke Foundation", which is totally inaccurate. The Arthur C Clarke Foundation supports the awards, one of the Directors being on the judging panel, but they do not present them. It is this kind of inaccuracy that can be avoided if I am involved with writing the article.
I have read through the Wikipedia COI guidelines; The article does not contain excessive self-citation; there are no issues regarding financial gain, legal, close relationships, etc. On the issue of self-promotion, I am the Director of the awards and I came up with the idea for their shape. I mentioned this as it is a unique aspect to the awards - they are not cups or statuettes - and I feel it is a legitimate part of the article. I produced this article to let Wikipedia readers know about the awards, which were created to give recognition to with work of others. I am not promoting my own work, but what others have done, and I still do not understand what is "suspicious" about any of this.
I don't know any senior Wikipedia editors. Perhaps you could ask one to look at the article and decide whether or not there is a problem. As it is, this year's awards have just been presented and ordinarily this is when the article would receive the most visitors, but I am embarrased to point anyone to the article whilst the COI banner remains. JStone (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

To clarify some points:

  • I was meaning "marketing-related things" not in a money-making fashion; rather in a publicity-getting fashion. e.g. by repeatedly saying (elsewhere in addition to here) that the awards are similar to the Oscars means that the comparison is more likely to be made by third parties (news outlets etc.).
  • Prior to flagging the article as a conflict of interest, I did not research the article thoroughly to see whether there was a large problem. I only looked at the history of the article, and noted that some of the things mentioned looked suspicious (and by suspicious, I mean in the sense of possibly being a conflict of interest, nothing more). The flag was meant to draw other editors to the article to investigate things further, or to notify editors visiting the page that it might need investigating. As much as I like editing Wikipedia, I do have a lot of other things to do, so can only spend so much time editing articles, and there are a lot of articles I want to edit. Hence in some cases I choose not to be as thorough as I can be. Evidently in this case, that was a mistake.
  • I agree that it is good to have the people that know best about something editing the related article, so long as they can remain unbiased. It seems that on the whole you are remaining unbiased, which is good. That wasn't obvious to me from the outset, but it is now.
  • I know that Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific focuses on only a single award, whereas this has many. As a result, this page will be a bit different in structure than that one. However some cues can be taken from that article to improve this one.

My next action will be to go through the article, tidying it up, and flagging sections that are in need of references. Hopefully we can now move forward and improve the article...

Mike Peel (talk) 18:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Listed at the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Sir Arthur Clarke Award. Anyone interested is welcome to add their own comments at the noticeboard. The editors who are affiliated with the Clarke award have been working here in good faith.

My impression is that he article is too verbose: not every detail needs to be included. Mike Peel has identified Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific as an example of a well-written article about an award. In my opinion this article should be rewritten to be shorter and punchier, and it should defer the listing of every single detail to the award's own website. (We do not need to make room for all the subawards here). More press references would also be good; surely the direct URL for the Guardian article can be found and added to the reference. EdJohnston (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for newspaper references

It is in the nature of award programs, that if they are successful, they will attract press attention. (Why give an award if nobody has heard of it?) So this makes me extra eager to find newspaper or magazine references. I'm still hoping to track down the Tim Radford piece which is said to have appeared in the Guardian in March 2005. From the Guardian's archive I don't think it could be 2005; possibly 2006 is the correct year. I'm hoping someone knows more about it.

Another thing to mention is, in terms of sheer Google hits, there is a British science fiction book award that is better known. The names of the awards seem to be slightly different. The British space industry prize that is covered in the present article is called the Sir Arthur Clarke Award. The British science fiction book award is called the Arthur C. Clarke Award. These prizes seem to be awarded by unrelated groups. I hope someone will have the patience to look through the Google results for more press coverage. EdJohnston (talk) 00:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ed. The Arthur C. Clarke book awards have been going for 20 years now and also give out a cash prize, so they are obviously going to be more notable in comparison to an award that has only been given for three years. Also, as those awards focus on only one particular aspect (writing) they are easier to focus on in terms of what press coverage they get. Anyway, I've found the Guardian article in their online archive (sans picture) [2] although I shall refrain from adding it as I am still under investigation for COI - so I shall leave that to someone neutral. Howie ☎ 02:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the link. I have added it. Aren't there a variety of aeronautics and space magazines? If this award is intended to honor companies and engineers, wouldn't articles exist in the trade press as well?
I think the sentence "The awards are known as the space equivalent of the Oscars" needs to be toned down, since all we know is that the organizers hope they will be so regarded. There isn't an outside publication testifying to that. EdJohnston (talk) 03:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it's more of a case that the awards are a Space equivalent to the Oscars because they offer an award for several different categories of the same industry on the same night, at the same event. They're not trying to be compared on the same level of glamour, celebrity etc. No other Space awards do this; as far as I know the other awards given are usually for one particular thing (books in the case of the Arthur C Clarke Award, the X-Prize is a competition etc.). So these awards are quite unique within the industry in that respect. However, they are - like the Oscars - considered to be very prestigious. Winners and nominees alike have often mentioned the honour of being up for an award and how much of a positive contribution these awards make. I'm sure that there are plenty of quotes from industry sources along those lines that can be referenced. Howie ☎ 12:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
If you can locate any of these quotes it would increase the credibility of the article. Also it's good you mentioned the X-Prize, because creating links between similar awards would be beneficial to our readers. EdJohnston (talk) 13:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes and recognition

I've added in some quotes although I'm not sure really how to place them within the article.

Also here's a few more from industry sources:

  • Dr Chris Welch, Principal Lecturer in Astronautics, said "I am delighted that Alison's dedication, hard work and achievements have been recognised with this award. All our congratulations go to her." [3]
  • "...he (Chris Riley) produced the BBC's blockbuster space drama-documentary series Space Odyssey, winner of the UK’s prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke Award." [4]
  • There are also some wonderful quotes from The Open University's CESPAR pages [5]:

Professor John Zarnecki: "The last time I received an individual award, it was the third form mathematics prize at school." Surely this was a sign that such awards are long overdue. He added, "I am very happy to receive this, and many thanks to the organisers for this award." Professor Colin Pillinger: "It's a huge privilege to have an award with Arthur C Clarke's name on it. Of the three awards that I was nominated for, this comes closest to the area that I worked for." Sir Arthur C Clarke: Sir Arthur's citation said, "It is my pleasure to present this inaugural Special Award to the British Interplanetary Society." BIS Vice-President David Fearn and Executive Secretary Suszann Parry: "I was so surprised to receive this award but also very appreciative." Fred Clarke: was delighted with the event and said that he would work on ensuring that Sir Arthur could be present next year. He said, "I think he'd love to have an excuse to come over, and I can't think of any nicer excuse." CESPAR: All in all, this was a tremendous evening, a very special opportunity for the UK space community to get together and pay tribute to a collection of success stories.

Also [6] and [7] both proudly display - permanently - that they have won an Arthur on their websites. Also the Bang! website gives two mentions to the award (despite not winning it) [8] [9]. The SpaceViz Productions site also mentions their nomination for an Arthur [10] quite prominently.

Howie ☎ 00:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)