Talk:Allison Brewer

Correspondence with Allsion Brewer
I received an email from Allison Brewer and have corresponded with her concerning her problems with some of the material on this page. I am pasting it here, with her permission, to use it as a source for changes I will make to the page which outline her disagreements with some information that was reported in the media. - Jord 18:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

From Ms. Brewer, received Nov 17
Hi Jord;

I notice you are a contributor to my biography on the Wikipedia site. I also notice you are a member of the Liberal Party, but try to keep bias out of your articles. I tried to deal with Wikepedia directly, but haven't received a response. I am relatively new to Wikipedia and don't exactly know how to go about fixing factual errors, but there are several on my page. What started out as something fairly accurate, for the most part, has turned into quite a mess that bears little resemblance to real events. For instance, (and this is just a small point) I didn't say, in reference to my decision not to run in Saint John Harbour, that it would be difficult for me to learn French if I had a seat in the legislature. In fact, it would have been easier because I would have had access to French-language training through the government. I tried to amend this, but someone keeps changing it back. More significantly, there is a reference to me making a "number of gaffes" during the recent New Brunswick election campaign, but then only points to one report that was on CBC Radio over one alleged incident. That news story is, in fact, a misrepresentation of what happened and is the subject of a complaint with the broadcaster. I was not on the steps, nor anywhere near the steps of the Legislature that day. I have met with CBC Radio and they are going to correct the error on their website. There were never a number of prominent members of the party asking for my resignation. In the article that's referenced, there was only one referred to. A former party president (who was unable to complete his term) did that through a CBC reporter but the party never did receive a formal call for my resignation from him or from anyone else. After the election, the support for my leadership among the membership was overwhelming. That's what the news story was about. The headline reads: "NDP Faithful defend Brewer, blame party." I also announced my resignation at a Provincial Council meeting in Moncton on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006, not Nov. 6 as it says on Wikipedia. I held a news conference on Nov. 6, but the announcement had been made the day before. It was important to me to tell the party before I told the press. We made the announcement that Party President Pat Hanratty would serve as interim leader at that news conference, but it had been decided the day before as well. It is fair to say he's an activist but more accurate to say he's the party president. These are small points, but become significant in the interests of accuracy. There are a few other smaller errors, but not really worthy of mention right now. Meanwhile, I haven't the time to sit down and figure out how this Wikipedia thing works and how to make my corrections stick. I'm not sure why they keep getting bumped but it is a strange feeling to be reprimanded for making corrections. Wikipedia seems like such a good idea and it would be nice if it were accurate. If it is simply going to record what the media has reported on then it will leave itself open to manipulation. The "steps of the legislature" story is a case in point. It may have served its author well, but the fact is, it never happened as reported. I don't know whether or not you want to help me with this, but it would be nice to hear back from you. I'm sure that, like me, you want to ensure that Wikipedia maintains a neutral point of view.

Allison Brewer

To Ms. Brewer, sent Nov. 17
Hi Allison, Thank you for your email, this is a rather unusual way for people contributing to Wikipedia to communicate and it is in fact the first time I have received an email concerning Wikipedia. Normally, communicating is done out in the open on "talk pages" between individual users. First, let me apologize if I seemed callous in my comments on your talk page about the changes to your article. I had no idea that you were the one making the changes.

I would very much like to work with you to ensure that the article is as accurate as possible.

However, the challenge here is though you may be correct, the news sources have not been publicly contradicted and Wikipedia operates with the guideline of "Verifiability" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability being how we determine whether or not to include information in the entries.

With respect to French as a reason for not running in SJ Harbour, this article implies, but upon second reading does not explicitly state, that learning French was an issue: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2005/10/18/nb_ndpcandidate20051018.html

As closer reading of the article concerning the Legislature steps indicates that it was your staff, not you, who had set up on the steps and they were asked to leave before you arrived. Is this true or do you dispute that as well? If this is accurate, we can make the change, if not, it is difficult to make the change unless there is some proof somewhere. Even if you were to post something on your own website disputing it we could use that as a counter reference. With respect to the rest of it, I think I have cleaned it up. There is no public record of the announcement being on Nov 5, but that it was reported that there was a press conference on Nov 6, thus I have changed it to say it was "publicly announced" on that date. The paragraph about calls for resignation, refers to the former party president, not sure how much of a term he served, but still a former party president, and the candidate with the best showing. It begins however by stating that a number of candidates were opposed to a resignation. I believe that that is a fair paragraph, but have changed the wording to make it clearer. With your permission, I would like to paste this email to the text of the talk page for the article as it our standard practice and so that others could continue to improve the article based on your concerns.

Thanks very much, User:Jord

From Ms. Brewer, received Dec. 20
Hi Jord;

Thank you for replying to me so quickly and sorry for being so long in getting back. Yes, you can post whatever I said through the normal Wikipedia channels. You may have done that already. I didn't have the time to sit and figure out all those things, which is why I contacted you directly.

I guess Wikipedia has taken quite a few credibility hits of late, so I'm not so concerned with my profile. Because so much of what was on my page with regard to my brief political career was either untrue or slanted in the negative, I had some very real concerns, but I guess that's the nature of any unregulated information source. Politics is a bit nasty so it makes sense my profile would follow suit once I entered the game.

I thank you for having made some adjustments. It's still quite a ways from reflecting the reality of those days but it isn't such a big deal any more.

All the best, Allison

Image deleted
As replaceable fair use. Given her awareness of Wikipedia - I imagine just asking her for a freely licensed image would probably be successful. See WP:ERP. ed g2s • talk 20:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think that is likely, her last correspdonce with me indicated she would be leaving Wikipedia - after only using it to complain about some of the content on this page. The image should not have been deleted. - Jord 20:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I couldn't hurt to ask. Furthermore she is a living "celebrity", so creating a new picture is by no means an unreasonable task. ed g2s &bull; talk 11:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ed, I do not think you fully appreciate the status of this individual. She was the leader of a party with no elected representation.  She has since retired from public life and no longer makes public appearances.  Short of looking her up in the phone book, showing up on her door step and taking her picture, I do not think there will be any opportunity to create a free image of her. - Jord 14:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Allison Brewer. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121022115901/http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nbvotes2006/story/2006/08/23/nb-ndp.html to http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nbvotes2006/story/2006/08/23/nb-ndp.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 19:54, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Allison Brewer. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110617011844/http://www.psac.com/documents/publications/17-15-e.pdf to http://www.psac.com/documents/publications/17-15-e.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:36, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm working with Allison
Hello!

Allison and I are boardmembers of the Elderberries, the LGBT Elders association of Atlantic Canada. She came to my place this morning and we had coffee; I'm giving her a hand removing a particularly incorrect part of her page, and will be adding a photo some time soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel MacKay (talk • contribs) 17:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)