Talk:Nikki Turner (public health advocate)

This is a new page
Hi folks, this is a new page. Please feel free to give feedback on how it can be improved or anything that needs attention. Realitylink (talk) 22:40, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks like page was created Aug 14, 2020. How is it a “new page”? RobP (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a brand new page. I wonder if Realitylink "moved" from his sandbox and it kept the entire edit history? Sgerbic (talk) 02:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yup. Seems so! RobP (talk) 02:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh my goodness, all the history of my sandbox covering previous articles! This looks pretty insane. Hopefully, that doesn't create issues in the future? Should we delete and create a new page?Realitylink (talk) 20:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, so this still appears to be my sandbox. I can't delete from the sandbox without taking out all of the text.  This is going to be problematic.  Realitylink (talk) 00:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Importantly, of course, we do need to deal with the tags. I can't quite see how it is an essay or just my opinions - they are Turner's thoughts and ideas. But we do need to work together to improve our articles so I am happy if folks want to come here with suggestions or even make some changes. I would hope nothing too radical needs to change, but will get guided by much wiser heads than mine! All good. Realitylink (talk) 20:30, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * You said the article contains Turner's thoughts and ideas. An encyclopedic article about someone should give clear facts about the person and summarize what other people have written about them. The very first sentence after the lead is "Raised in a nurturing, caring family of modest means, Turner, from a young age, had a strong sense of fairness and an awareness that there was a great deal of suffering in the world due to poverty." That full of opinion and flowerly language and is sourced from a "meet Dr. Nicki Turner" page which is clearly not an independent and neutral source. There are more such statement sourced to the same place; to start cleaning up this article you should remove everything that is taken from any source related to the subject and stick to independent sources. MB 22:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, I accept that and will make changes around the text associated with this reference, which will better be suited to being an external link I am thinking. I am interested in what other sources you think are not suitable on the page?  Or examples of the flowery language that can be changed or deleted.  And, you may be someone in Admin who can help me with a logistical thing.  I wrote the page in my sandbox and then stupidly moved it live, not thinking that of course, it remains my sandbox with months of edit history from other projects I had worked on.  This is not a good look.  I want to delete the current page and then set up a new one- possibly with a slightly changed name: Nikki Turner (academic medical practitioner).  I did try the deletion tag thing but got advised that it is better to go direct to admin. Are you able to help?  I am not in anyway vandalising; more about getting the current page as a stand-alone article.  Kia ora   Realitylink (talk) 20:41, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Realitylink I believe this is a worthy subject but am finding this page a little wordy, not in encyclopedic style and lacking citations. I will do some editing over the next days but changes will be up for discussion.JulieMay54 (talk)

Thanks for that. I am wondering about the lack of citations though. There seems to be a lot! But, happy to take guidance. Cheers Realitylink (talk) 06:36, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Some great editing has been done by obviously experienced folk. Very much appreciated. I have gone through all of the Wikipedia criteria referred to in the tags and feel confident that they could be removed. What is the feeling amongst those of you who have contributed to the article over the last week or so? I would respectfully suggest that if there is a genuine consensus, we remove the tags.Realitylink (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the Multiple Issues tag from this page because I believe the issues have been addressed and the page improved. I'm open to discussion. JulieMay54 (talk)


 * As an uninvolved person looking at it for the first time, the article reads to me like a press release or a professionally written cv. --John B123 (talk) 21:53, 9 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for coming into the discussion John. Well as the writer of the article, I can assure it is not a professionally written CV! By 'press release' do you mean it is promoting the subject and lacks secondary references? Early on in the process when the tags went on, I did what seemed like a reasonable moderation of use of sources that could be seen in that way and feel that what is there now is well referenced.  I guess we all do have our own style to some degree but hopefully, the tone of this article is now more encyclopedic. I appreciate the feedback.  Realitylink (talk) 22:31, 9 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I actually think the article is well referenced. It's the terminology and writing style that makes it come across as promotional, for example: As a general practitioner and paediatric specialist, Turner has been actively involved in primary care ...; active primary care is what GPs do, why the need to make it seem more grandiose? (on a side note, specialists are generally thought of as providing secondary care) The "Research and outreach" section only details research, there's nothing about outreach, nor can I find anything on Google that supports her being an outreach worker. Whilst I'm not suggesting anything she has achieved should be downplayed, equally it should not be worded in a promotional way. As an encyclopaedic article it should be written in a more neutral manner. --John B123 (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * A couple of fair points raised there. I can easily change the first bit.  Can you see any other phrases that could be toned down?  In the section on research, the outreach title was added on by another experienced editor and I thought it did reflect the work Turner does outside of her practice or research environment - for example Te Whanau of Waipareira Trust is very much on the ground with families and her work in the area of poverty affecting child health could be seen as outreach?  Not sure about the word...it is a good discussion and I appreciate the feedback and very happy to make tweaks if they are going to improve the article.Realitylink (talk) 01:24, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Second half

 * The first half of the article looks fine to me now. The second half is way too long and detailed. An encyclopaedia is supposed to summarise the key themes in someone’s career, not provide a blow by blow account of every paper, conference and symposium. It needs cutting by 60-70%. Mccapra (talk) 13:45, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That editing you did was helpful and a good example of too much detail. One discussion point that is not raised often is the difference between a live encyclopedia like Wikipedia and the traditional ones in that we can keep them updated. That can become what you call 'blow by blow', but can also be an opportunity to show how a person's life, thoughts and actions are developing.  I agree that the second section does need work though, so thanks for that.Realitylink (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Also the second half relies too much on news releases and primary sources. All that has to go. Mccapra (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * News releases do reflect her as media spokesperson though and are not self-promoting in this case. Happy to hear your take on that.  Primary sources are difficult to define - I have tried to make sense of the Wikipedia guidelines and get stumped.  Are peer-reviewed research papers primary sources?  Does everything need to be from an independent neutral third party?  Newspaper articles which are understandably commonly used are not often strictly neutral either. Perhaps you can give a few examples of what you see as primary sources in the article and we can have a discussion about whether or not they are appropriate? Realitylink (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

As the original writer of this article, I have taken on board some of the great feedback above and begun to summarise key sections. I am comfortable that the page loses nothing from this. Realitylink (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Possible deletion notice
Hi, I am unsure why this article is being considered for deletion. There was a previous discussion and suggestions made to improve it and these happened. I cannot see any reason why it should be deleted. It has good references.Realitylink (talk) 08:42, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Dr Turner is the head of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, the organisation that advises the New Zealand Medical profession and the New Zealand government. Similar to the Centre of Disease Control in the USA in a way. Perhaps the editor suggesting it is not from New Zealand, so does not have a lot of exposure to the NZ Health systemOffaWorldOrder (talk) 10:21, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Article update
Kia ora folks. Looking over this page, I can see that an update and bit of tidying would be good. I think the lede is almost ok, but the points introduced do not really follow into the main article, so doing that would improve it. I don't want to add a lot more content - just a couple of referenced updates of positions she holds and perhaps a few media statements about child vaccination during COVID-19. I will keep the earlier feedback and discussion in mind with a genuine desire to improve the article. I will work in a draft format and later, post a link to that so you can see where I am going prior to uploading anything into the article. Feel free to jump in here with comments. Realitylink (talk) 20:45, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Right so I have moved the draft re-write across to the page now. Comments are still welcome.Realitylink (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

The draft has now been taken down after almost a month up for discussion. A few points from there have been added to the main article.Realitylink (talk) 01:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)