Talk:Faversham/Archive 1

Faversham's delights
Much though I love Faversham, the section describing the town trade is getting a bit gushy - we don't want this to turn into a brochure. --Cunningham 12:15, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Brewery difficulty during WW1
"The years during the First World War saw an uncertain time for the brewery. In the first instance, was the scarcity of labour from 1915 which soon became evident, as a number of employees turned to offers of higher wages elsewhere, including the local ammunitions works."

This may benfit from rephrasing and/or additional material. Was the "scarcity of labour" described in the second sentence the sole cause of the uncertainty referred to in the first? If so, then "In the first instance" is not necessary. Otherwise, it would be of interest to have details of other difficulties faced during these years, e.g. is there evidence that more severe licencing laws had an adverse commercial imapct? Countersubject 13:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed section on 'Chavs'
I removed this section entirely, because:

(i) It was libellous, and posed a threat to the fairness of a criminal trial. It named a particular family as the worst chav family in the area, and in this context named a family member in connection with a murder case that has yet to come to court. If a juror were to read this they could be adversley prejudiced.

(ii) Apart from this it was largely assertive generalisation.

The first problem is a gross abuse of Wikipedia.

It would be interesting to have a section on working class culture in Faversham and perceptions of it, including the 'Chav' phenomenon, but this was a non-starter. Countersubject 10:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Something is only libel if it is false. There was nothing false in what I wrote about the charged man and his family, from any point of view.


 * 2) It named a family member, just as every local paper and many national papers, as well as many websites have published. It is news and is public. Your reasoning makes no sense.


 * 3) Generalization? What else do you expect? How can you write about a group of people such as chavs without generalizing?


 * 4) "Working class" is not the same as "chav."

Kombucha 11:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

You wrote that the family concerned is "infamous", which means famous for something considered bad. You reinforced this by saying that the family has a very poor reputation. Under English law that is libellous. You are entitled to claim a defence of justification, but to do so you must show the assertion to be true, or that you had reasonable grounds for believing it to be so. You have not done so.

You refer to the arrest of family members in connection with a murder in the same sentence as you make this unsupported assertion, and go on to name the family member who has been charged with the murder. It is within this context that what you wrote is potentially prejudicial. Countersubject 17:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly, I said they were "infamous," meaning that in people's opinions they were bad. I stated the general consensus of opinion in the area, nothing posing as a fact about the family. It is not libelous. It is impossible to support everything you say. How do you expect me to support the fact that most people in the area regard the family as trouble? Random interviews in the street?
 * If you read what I wrote properly you will see that there are none of my opinions given there, just irrefutable facts and general opinions in the town. Kombucha 19:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think there are three related problems here. The first is an apparent unfamiliarity with the nature of Wikipedia. It is an encyclopedia, not a sopabox, or place to insert your own opinions, experiences, or arguments. As such, policy requires that editors should write from a neutral point of view, and that they should cite verifiable, authoritative sources, especially on controversial topics. What you wrote didn't conform to this policy, and if it wasn't possible for you to make it do so, then it would have been better not to publish.

Secondly, "infamous" is prima facie a perjorative term, especially when coupled with details of a murder case.

Thirdly, whatever our private views of individuals, you and I are protected by a legal system that assumes innocence until proven otherwise. This protection is reinforced with constraints on the publication of opinion that may prejudice the jury, and I'm glad it's so. We ought to take great care that we don't carelessly diminish this protection, not the least because some day we may rely on it ourselves. Countersubject 09:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that '"Working class" is not the same as "chav"', but the reverse tends to be true. You may find the Wikipedia Chav article of interest. Countersubject 12:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Before you respond, read this properly, because I am fed up of repeating the same thing.

Kombucha 12:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I did not state MY opinions. I stated the GENERAL opinion in the area, and I presented it as an OPINION. If it was presented as fact, it could be considering libel. It was not, however, so it cannot be considered to be libelous.
 * I wrote from a neutral point of view, I wrote how other people tend to feel. I did NOT say what I thought.
 * I included some web pages that sited Faversham as an area that contained many chavs. They were there to back up the statement about people's opinions of Faversham. There are thousands of articles that countain sections on "speculation" or say "some people think/say/suggest" etc.

POV tag
I've added this due to a plethora of phrases such as "The parish church... is another gem... whose acoustics make it an exceptional venue for musical performances.", "There are hopes that imaginative uses may be found for the rest of the interesting town-centre former brewery buildings;", etc. There's also an exceptionally high number of uses of the word exceptional! Dancarney 23:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the point about the church acoustics is probably OK as the church is an exceptionally large one (2nd largest in Kent I think after Maidstone) and so the sound in there will be unusual compared to most churches. Probably needs rewording though, as you say. Agree that "There are hopes that imaginative uses may be found for the rest of the interesting town-centre former brewery buildings;" doesn't sound very encyclopedia-y though. And it's pretty bad writing to keep using "exceptional" all the time so agree that could be improved. Helen-Eva 08:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

population
what is the population size?? 129.12.200.49 22:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2001 census figure is now showing. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Structure
The article strikes me as having very long sections of text that are rather off-putting on the screen. Could we break it up a bit - maybe into more sections or with some more pictures?Helen-Eva 08:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just reorganised the text according to WP:UKCITIES. More input will be needed though to advance the article. --Jza84 | Talk  12:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Explosives industry
This section is very interesting, but I think it's too long for this article, so I'm tagging it to split off into a new page.Dancarney 11:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, I also reached that decision, but did not have the time to do anything about it.Pyrotec 12:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Interesting, most if not all of the Sources section are explosive related, so they aught to move too.Pyrotec 12:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation
There's no R in the way that the place's name is pronounced by local people, nor in standard English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)