Talk:International Alert

Conflict of Interest
I declared a connection in a previous edit summary. I wish to provide a comprehensive account here.

First and foremost: I have never interacted with International Alert, the organisation, in any way. I am not knowingly acquainted with anybody who works for or with International Alert. I have never attended any of its events, visited its premises, nor applied for or received any funding from it.

I do not have any reason to think that will change, but if it ever did, I would declare so.

I only heard of International Alert about 5-10 years ago, by reading one of Leo Kuper's obituaries. Leo Kuper passed away 22 years ago, at which point I was still very much a child. I met him several times during my childhood, but he never mentioned International Alert to me, and neither did anybody else, which is why I only heard of it from the obituary.

I met Michael Young and his daughter several times during my childhood. Michael Young passed away 14 years ago, when I was a very young adult, and I think it is at least a decade since I met any member of his family. I know people who know them, but I do not know them myself.

I see Adam Kuper once or twice a year.

To re-emphasise: no-one I have ever met who was already consciously aware of International Alert's existence ever mentioned it to me: not Leo Kuper, not Michael Young, not Adam Kuper. Other members of my family to whom I have mentioned it since I became aware of it gave me the impression that either they had never heard of it, or else that they had thought that it had petered out or had otherwise simply forgotten about it.

That is, to repeat, the reason why I ended up learning of its existence only by reading about it in Leo Kuper's obituary. (Which, I might add, is a position any obituary-reading Wikipedian could find themselves in.)

When I read that obituary, 5-10 years ago, I had, obviously, no idea whether anything had come of International Alert since it was founded, or if it had just been a flash in the pan. So, I Googled it, and learned that it was still in existence and moreover had a Wikipedia article. That prompted me to read a little more about it, outside Wikipedia, as time allowed. This reading led me to the view that International Alert met WP:NGO, but I could also see that whoever had created the first Wikipedia article about International Alert had not bothered to demonstrate that it met WP:NGO. Principally, the article lacked reliable independent sources and inline citations, and did not clearly demonstrate International Alert's notability.

I made a few minor improvements to that article, and hoped the Wikipedia community - and preferably someone much more knowledgeable about International Alert than I am - would work to further improve the article rather than deleting it. Sadly, the community did the opposite. Unfortunately, the deletion discussion occurred during a period earlier this year when I was busy with life outside Wikipedia, and additionally I did not (IIRC) have the article on my watchlist. As such, I was not aware of the deletion discussion. Therefore, I was not in a position to contribute to that discussion, nor to attempt to improve the article so as to meet the concerns of the editors who proposed the article for deletion, before the conclusion of that proposal.

When I noticed, a few days ago, that the article had been deleted, it seemed that the most constructive step I could take would be to be bold and start essentially from scratch, with a new stub or start class article written in accordance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, so that other editors would have something to build on. I hope that the community views this as a reasonable thing for me to have done. Now that I have done that, I intend to stay pretty much hands-off, both to reduce the risk of any real or perceived WP:BIAS, and also because I am, by nature, a WP:WikiOgre.

Therefore, I would very much welcome improvements to the article from other editors. I also want to emphasise that if any editors have any relevant concerns that I have not already addressed above, I would be happy to address them here or on my talk page.

Thank you for your patience in reading this! zazpot (talk) 16:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

"Advertisement" template
I notice that User:Toddst1 placed a template at the top of the article stating that it reads like an advertisement. I think this concern could be levelled at many Wikipedia articles about NGOs, but to alleviate it in this particular case, perhaps a good start would be to create a "Criticism" section in the article, which could in the first instance be populated based upon this source (i.e. the reference named "cmi-1997" in the wikitext of the article)? zazpot (talk) 22:04, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * ❌ if you have any specific proposed changes, list them here and another editor will review them. st170e talk 14:35, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposed changes
I would like to request that this page is re-written to provide more in-depth and accurate up-to-date information about International Alert. I know the original author zazpot has already stated his hope that the article will be improved by other editors. Given the scale of the changes that I think are required I'd like to propose that it would be more effective to re-write rather than build on it.

In brief, I would like to develop the following sections for the page: History, Vision and mission, Regional programmes (with sub-sections), Thematic work, Events and initiatives, Funding, Patrons and Trustees, and External links.

As a first time editor, I'd really appreciate some guidance on where is most appropriate to share my new proposed text for all these sections so this can be reviewed fairly (given they are wholesale changes rather than minor edits). As an employee of International Alert I aware that I am a Conflict of Interest editor. However I have followed Wikipedia's guidelines and policies when writing the text that I now want to share.

Thanks in advance for your support with this! Talwyn1 (talk) 16:14, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Talwyn1, the list of sections you mention sounds, on the face of it, potentially more appropriate for an organisation's website than for an organisation's Wikipedia page. That's just my interpretation, though; other editors might view things differently. In any case, if you want to draft something for consideration by other Wikipedia editors, the usual mechanism is a userspace draft. In the case of a CoI, once you have drafted your proposed edit, you should file an edit request to see if any editor without a CoI is willing to make your proposed edit. Hope that helps! zazpot (talk) 17:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


 * That's really helpful, thanks zazpot! I'll work on submitting my proposed edits now.Talwyn1 (talk) 17:19, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I didn't realise when reviewing this that it had already been found non-notable at WP:AFD. In that case, it should have gone through AfC, so an experienced editor could decide whether it makes it on to Wikipedia. You wouldn't have known how best to approach it though. Pinging experienced editor who closed that AfD,, to see if they have any suggestions on where to go from here. Boleyn (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking into this Boleyn. Did you get any suggestions on how to proceed? I have drafted proposed changes on my Sandbox page but am unsure on how to now file the edit request - as advised by zazpot. I'd appreciate any more guidance on what steps to now take to resolve this. Talwyn1 (talk) 13:46, 27 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi,, I'm afraid I heard nothing and this is well out of my area of expertise. If you post at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest, you should be able to find someone to help you. They may have to tell you to try on a different forum, but we'll get there in the end :) Boleyn (talk) 16:12, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

May 2018
User:167.98.65.155 recently made three edits to the article. Because I a have a (disclosed, albeit non-financial and fairly distant) connection to the subject of the article, I have not reverted those changes. However, I ask 167.98.65.155, or an uninvolved editor, to rectify the following concerns about those edits, preferably by reverting all three and then redoing the good parts in a better manner:


 * Insufficiently granular. These changes cut across multiple aspects of the article.
 * Inadequate edit summaries. At least two of the edits make substantial changes not mentioned in the summaries, and one of the edit summaries arbitrarily asserts that some of the existing citations were unnecessary, but does not give any basis for that claim.
 * Unjustified removal of footnotes.
 * Unjustified removal of infobox contents.
 * Unjustified insertion of trivia (e.g. a list of board members, including non-notable ones).

Zazpot (talk) 00:05, 27 May 2018 (UTC)