Talk:National Pest Management Association

Improving Stub Content
Thinking about building out this stub page, starting with the info box (I know NPMA has a more current logo for one). I noticed it's pretty bare bones, and just wanted to check if anyone else would mind. Gundersen53 (talk) 18:52, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Went ahead and added a new, robust Infobox for the article. I reworked the very sparse Intro copy to include supporting references and some internal linking. Also created a reference naming convention to be employed moving forward for ease of use. Obviously there's much to do to take this from stub to useful article --especially including more authoritative references. I'll continue to research and update as my schedule permits. Gundersen53 (talk) 18:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Latest updates: First, I fixed an issue in the External Linking section. The PestWorld.org site (oriented towards the consumer audience) was listed as the official site. Though definitely an NPMA property, the actual official site is NPMAPestWorld.org, which is oriented towards the members of the National Pest Management Association (that's why I initially listed this as such in the Infobox).Gundersen53 (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Latest updates: I added a link to the NPMA's official Early Childhood Education website, which was discussed in the Community Relations section. I also formatted the References into two columns, since the list was starting to get a little long. Gundersen53 (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Latest updates: I removed the "stub" status on the article. It should now qualify as full article content. If you disagree, please reach out to me. Thank you. Gundersen53 (talk) 19:57, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

New Section: Mission
Next, I took a cue from the much more robust American Bar Association page (one of the better association wiki pages I've come across). I added in a Mission section to display the stated goals of the association. This may be a useful reference moving forward to ensure that the organization is adhering to its own standards. I referenced both the NPMA's official mission statement as well as their publicly state goals (as presented at PestWorld 2012 Conference in Boston). Moving forward, I'm planning to build out a proper Leadership & Governance section in a similar style to the one that appears on the ABA wiki page.Gundersen53 (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Improved Categorization
To make this article easier to find, I added additional fields of Categories to reflect Establishing Date, Country location (US), association type (Professional association) and industry (Pest control). I also categorized this as an Organization stub in order to better open this up for active editing.Gundersen53 (talk) 14:04, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

New Section: Leadership and governance
To bring this article more in line with successfully created association wiki content, I've added a Leadership and governance section to the National Pest Management Association page. This is designed to function similarly to the Leadership and governance sections of the American Bar Association and New York City Bar Association pages, reflecting leadership structure and current board members. As such, it will need to be updated annually.

Now that a Leadership section has been established, I'll start thinking about how to present membership, the other side of that organizational coin, within the article. I'll need to do a little more research before drafting that.Gundersen53 (talk) 14:10, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

New Section: Membership
This new section is designed to function similarly to the Membership sections of the National Association of Convenience Stores and National Biodiesel Board pages. Having done additional research into the NPMA's membership offerings, I've distilled the informational content down into a concise section that should not contain any claims or promotional language. As such, I focused on the varied types of NPMA membership (student vs. pest control company for example), actual member resources, and consultation services. Sources are, of, course, provided. Due to the national reach of the association, I'm considering focusing next on what the NPMA provides for the public good; I'll pause to research that area before additional edits. Gundersen53 (talk) 12:06, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

New Section: Community relations
Following research, I prepared and included a Community Relations section to the article to describe the various initiatives that the NPMA provides for the public good. These include national infestation tracking, public and childhood pest education and scientific research. References are included, and this section is rife for expansion. As I was researching this section, I also came across a good deal of materials related to the NPMA's stance on public policy with respect to pests, pesticide and environmentalism. I'd like to include a section on that next to round out the article, but that will require a much more extensive dive into the topic. Gundersen53 (talk) 13:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

New Section: Public policy
Coming out of the Community Relations research, I came across a lot of material related to the NPMA's public policy initiatives. I did deeper research once I saw the abundance of available information, in order to support a full article section. This section includes information on the NPMA and its focuses on pesticide regulation, environmental protection, workforce safety, and integrated pest management (IPM). I also cross-referenced their partners related to their environmental GreenPro certification.

After working on this page for the better part of a month, I'm off to other subjects. I've done my best to build this out from stub to full article, supported and referenced. I leave it in the hands of other Wikipedians to further improve this, but hopefully I've left this better off than what it was when I found it. Gundersen53 (talk) 19:55, 24 September 2013 (UTC)