Lammas Tir-y-gafel

April 2020

Hello, I'm Tony Holkham. Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Lammas Ecovillage, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. If, as your user name suggests, you are connected with the project, you may have a conflict of interest, in which case your proposed edits should first be discussed on the talk page of the article. Thanks. Tony Holkham (Talk) 11:40, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, Lammas Tir-y-gafel, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! GirthSummit _(blether) 12:59, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi - just a quick personal message in addition to the automated one above. We encourage people to be bold, but there are a few key policies that you need to read before editing.

• COI and PAID are probably the most important - there are steps you have to take, and certain things that you won't be allowed to do, on articles where you have a conflict of interest. Read these policies carefully please - they are tied into the Wikimedia Terms of Use, which you must abide by if you want to edit.
• Verifiability is key to our articles - assertions must be supported by sources, you can't just write something from personal knowledge or experience - readers need to be able to check that it's true by going to the source, which should be reliable, and ideally secondary and independent of the subject of the article.

I hope that's reasonably clear and helpful. You can ask a question on my talk page, if you need to. Best GirthSummit _(blether) 13:03, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest

Hi Tony. Yes, I'm connected to the project, but I don't think there is any conflict of interest in changing the Wikipedia entry so that its correct:

The nine households of Tir-y-gafel are not leasehold.

In terms of source reliability:

I'm the Secretary of Lammas Low Impact Initiatives Ltd and a Director of Tir-y-gafel Ltd and owner of one of the 9 small holdings of Tir-y-gafel.

My postal address is: Lammas, Tir-y-gafel, Glandwr Pembrokeshire SA340YD

I've not edited a Wikipedia entry before, and I don't really know how it works.

Thanks. Chris Lammas Tir-y-gafel (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Chris. I do understand that you want the article to be up to date (so do I, of course, as an interested editor that lives nearby), but (a) everything needs to have an up to date and reliable source and (b) yes, you probably do have a conflict of interest, even if for the best of motives, and it needs to be declared, per Wikipedia policy. It's how Wikipedia works, and it would help you to read the background links in the message I left you above. I know there is plenty of unsourced (and therefore possibly unreliable) information on Wikipedia, but we are working hard to correct that. By reliable sources, we mean published and independent sources.

As for conflict of interest, if you have a financial or administrative interest in the article's subject, then you should declare that as described in the COI link.

Let me know if I can help more. I will be happy to help search for sources to verify your updated information.

Finally, I would be interested to know why you deleted the Lammas website link. Tony Holkham (Talk) 13:08, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Tony,

Firstly, I'm struggling a little trying to do this with my phone. I have had a look at the links you've provided - thanks.

I deleted the link to the lammas.org.uk website because it is not an 'official' website of Tir-y-gafel a.k.a the 'Lammas Ecovillage' as was stated.

It's also not the 'official' website of Lammas Low Impact Initiatives Ltd (the organisation that submitted the original planning application and until quite recently owned the whole 76 acres of Tir-y-gafel as landlord to the residents).

One problem I face is that a lot of seemingly reliable sources contribute to presenting a story about this place that's either not quite right or just simply wrong, and the person who controls that website has benefited hugely from misrepresenting Tir-y-gafel/ the 'Lammas Ecovillage' and Lammas Low Impact Initiatives Ltd at the expense of their neighbours at Tir-y-gafel.

There have been some pretty serious issues at Tir-y-gafel (and with Lammas Low Impact Initiatives Ltd) that have now been finally resolved.

Would documents published by HM Courts & Tribunals Service be considered as a reliable source?

Or Land Registry?

I hadn't intended to put any details of the problems there were here or how they were resolved on Wikipedia, but I'd like the Wikipedia entry for my home to be correct (and it isn't).

One important reason for me to want this to be done is that a lot of people assume that what Wikipedia (and other sources) say about my home must be true

Obviously, I didn't know about the protocol, and I really appreciate the offers of help I've received.

I recognise that I'm in an unusual position.

Chris

Lammas Tir-y-gafel (talk) 22:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Chris - I'll get back to you tomorrow about this. We will sort it out, which may mean taking the article back a few stages but, like you, I would prefer it to be factual and encyclopaedic. Please indent your comments with one extra colon than the previous comment - it makes the thread easier to follow. Tony. Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Chris - what I propose is this:

I will look at the article and remove anything that is not reliably sourced; any discussion as a result of this can take place on the article's talk page.

In the meantime, on the article's talk page you should declare your interest as we have discussed.

We can then discuss (on the article's talk page) what you believe is in dispute or factually incorrect and take steps to remedy that; that way, anyone else interested in the article will be able to comment if they wish.

Are you happy with these proposals? If so, I will put a note on the article's talk page to that effect, and any discussion on your talk page can end. Thank you for being open about the problems you are hoping to address. At the moment, I cannot comment on the acceptability or not of the sources you mentioned.

Finally, if there is anything too sensitive to be discussed on Wikipedia, you are always welcome to email me (see the left panel on my user page).

Tony. Tony Holkham (Talk) 17:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)