Talk:Robert McCarrison

Untitled
The McCarrison Society is a UK Charity, formed as described on the page. It holds copyright to a series of publications on the life and work of "Pioneers of Modern Nutrition", our quotes, of which Sir Robert was verifiably one, along with Cleave, Trowell and probably Sinclair (when I can find the copy). These are already referenced on Wikipedia, without pages in some cases, and I have added external links to our content on that Sinclair page. It (the Society) also provides from amongst its officers, editorial effort in the production of "Nutrition and Health", an Internationally known, peer reviewed Scientific Journal which carries no advertising and is referenced on Medline.

The McCarrison Society is a non-campaigning, Science based body with no commercial or political affiliation and therefore IS in a minority. Its President, Prof Michael A Crawford PhD, CBiol, FIBiol, FRCPath, is frequently consulted by UK Govt and the EU govt on the Prevention of physical and mental illness by good nutrition rather than their cures, and this is another minority approach of which the Society is guilty.

I note that my link to the Society's website front page has been removed, I trust temporarily. I am merely the webmaster and moderniser.Trevor Bennett

Trevbennett (talk) 12:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Promotion" is by no means limited to for-profit entities. See also WP:NOBLECAUSE. I do, however, want to thank you for your open acknowledgement of your possible conflict of interest here. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  14:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Moving right along...
Hi folks. I have no vested interest in any of the related argy-bargy that I find here and elsewhere in Wikipedia. I can tell you that I heard of Robert McCarrison many years ago, although I never tried tracking down his works, as my life took a different direction. However, the point is, I recognise this fellow's name, as should anyone who delves into the history of various health studies. So this fellow has some notability. Never mind that I never pursued tacks specific to McCarrison: I knew of him (and various other notables) without even trying - just as a by-product of various researches. Given the amount of information that is now available on the internet, limited though that is in relation to the amount of information that exists out there to be researched, there is bound to be information available on this fellow. If the primary source of information you utilise for this article comes from one 'interest group', you can expect to attract some criticism of the sort I see here and in the editing history. I wouldn't make it myself, but I understand why others would.

How do you address that? My suggestion, and my own approach to such scenarios, is to broaden the range of sources. Doesn't invalidate information from the 'interest group'. Indeed it enhances the utility of it. I can't see myself having time to contribute from those sources and do justice to the article, but other editors genuinely interested in developing the article can. To that end, after saving this, section, I'll create a 'Further reading' section, and list one book title that I've just come across, where McCarrison is mentioned as one of the pioneers of organic farming. It's pretty certain too that a citation will be findable in the London Gazette for his knighthood. So I'll have a quick go at that (let's see if I'm right). Regards Wotnow (talk) 06:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC) ✅ Specific citation added for knighthood. Wotnow (talk) 06:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I've also added a citation for the C.I.E. in 1923. You'll note that I called the section 'Bibliography' rather than 'Further reading'. That's because at this stage that's what the section should be called, given listing of publications expected to be drawn upon, which is what I suggest if you want to develop this article. Regards Wotnow (talk) 07:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

One thing I will remove in due course is the following statetment: "As of 12 April 2010, this article uses content from The McCarrison Society, which is licensed under the CC-By-SA and GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed. The original article was at 'Sir Robert McCarrison'."

Prior to removing it, any material in the article that comes from the relevant website will be cited. That, and avoidance of copy-right violation are the only criteria that matter in this regard. It is of no help or use to anyone to have a broad statement pertaining to material from source X, and have no citations at the relevant points in text. Indeed it is counter-productive. Those editors making the same broad-brush attribution to Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 make exactly the same type of mistake, as I've noted elsewhere in Wikipedia. As soon as such an article is developed beyond the existing text - and by definition any stub article needs developing - it becomes difficult to know which bits of text are attributable to what source. That is why citation is so critical, right from the start.

So I will endeavour to utilise some material from the McCarrison Society website, or provide citations for material that I can verify as coming from that website. The objective of that will be to show how it can be done. However, after typing this, there will be a brief hiatus while I attend to other things. Regards Wotnow (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I should note that I have no intention of omitting some reference to the society. It matters that it is acknowledged, via citations and say, an external link: just as any other valuable information source does. So I definitely intend to do that justice. Wotnow (talk) 19:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I am at a stage where I will attempt to provide some citations in the article. At time of this message, I do not know how much time and effort that will take, nor the sustainability of my effort relative to other pressing commitments. My initial approach will therefore most likely comprise attempts at stand-alone sentences or paragraphs. The objective there will be that I, or if I run out of time, other editors, can compile and expand such sentences or paragraphs, and thus develop the article. You can expect, during any attempt to develop this article, by me or anyone else, phases where it looks like it is a bit disjointed or otherwise needs work. Rather than jumping the gun with tags, it is better to either assist in the development of the article, even with small efforts, or show patience to any editors who do make an attempt. Regards Wotnow (talk) 23:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing I will do prior to the above exercise, is to add citation tags to existing, unattributed text. This is not my usual style - to pepper an article with tags - but is simply to differentiate any cited text from that which still requires citing. I will endeavour to replace those tags with citations as I find them, paying particular attention to material from the McCarrison Society website. In that exercise, it is almost certain I'll have some success. It is also possible I'll not succeed for some text, or that I'll have to modify the text to reflect that which I find in a citation. However, as mentioned above, a large part of that exercise on my part will be to show how it can be done, so that others can capitalise on my effort. Wotnow (talk) 23:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

✅ I have now taken care of the citation tags, bar one. I've created a 'Legacy' section, containing a sub-section for the McCarrison Society. I've put the verbatim text from the McCarrison Society's website within that section, with appropriate quotation formatting and citation. I've formatted a link to the homepage of the Society within the 'External links' section. Having done those two things, I've removed the redundant statement.

Regarding the McCarrison Society. It would be reasonable to create an article about the society. I think you'll find sufficient material not only by the society but also about the society, as my own brief exercise indicates. The BMJ archives contained quite a few mentions about various McCarrison Society meetings, although not always headed as such - often in 'news' type headings. But using 'McCarrison Society' as a search term should bring most of these up. Having said this, you'd do yourselves an injustice to create an article that was just a stub, and/or subject to criticism of 'advertising', or just being a mouthpiece for the organisation.

How would I address that? I'd keep building on material in the sub-section, until it grew sufficiently large to 'split' into an article. I'd also include critical commentary or observations for balance, just as I've demonstrated with the quote from New Scientist, which nicely provided both a criticism and a counter to that criticism. Ya gotta love that magazine - at its best it's an absolute gem. Even at its worst it's still worth purusing.

On the current article, there's more that can be done of course, but at least it looks like it's moving right along... Regards Wotnow (talk) 04:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Messageboxes and related update
An update regarding the tags. I see there has been some general fixes via bot edit, none of which I see as unproblematic in themselves. I will note a couple of points here. By the time of my last edit, I had in mind to update the situation regarding the messageboxes.

But I needed a break first. I may or not may not make the effort of tracking down resources look easy, but anyone who has tried will know that it still takes time and effort - hence the huge number of encyclopedic Wikipedia articles (not the agenda-related ones - they're a different matter) which need developing and which, if Wikipedia ultimately fails, will be a large part of the reason. At any rate, I had in mind right from the outset that I should do something about one or two of the messageboxes. But one doesn't do that by complaining. The only way is to have a go at building an article to the point that one can justify removing or amending said messageboxes. Meantime, the bot edit combined them into one. No problem there. It's probably cleaner to have one messagebox rather than three, and I can still deal with the matter.

Of the messageboxes, one which I can now justify removing is the "conflict of interest" one. I am not party to any such conflict of interest. I'm neither a 'promoter' of the McCarrison Society, nor an 'opponent'. Being intrigued by McCarrison's work, and realising now, why it was that I heard of him many years before (because of his work), is not the same as being a proselytizer. As a neutral editor, I have of course acknowledged the Society, as one should. I have placed such acknowledgement into a 'Legacy' section, where I think it best belongs - the society is itself a legacy from McCarrison. Not only that, but I have made sure that the statements coming from the society are properly attributed to the society. I have also taken away the sentence that gave the impression that the Wikipedia article was somehow a licenced extension of the society.

I did have a look for other material to add to the legacy section, and there possibly is. But although I tried various search term combinations one problem I had was finding material that is independent enough of the society to constitute being descriptive. I have no doubt such material exists, including probably material related to the society (e.g. some meeting notices from BMJ regarding significant topics). But that takes time and effort. The National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, India, openly acknowledges McCarrison's legacy, so I placed a sentence there. It should be expanded on somehow. But a point to note regarding these is that any such expansion can't just be a mouthpiece for the organisations, as I said above. The websites themselves, and any advertising arrangements in whatever media by whatever method, are the places for the selling of such organisations, no matter the nobleness of the cause. This is the crux of Orange Mike's point. Wikipedia commentary can use quotes from such organisations, but they need to be somehow descriptive, as I've endeavoured to do. It's all do-able folks. It just takes effort (that's a paradoxical sentence! It's the effort that prevents sufficient people contributing to Wikipedia in the way that it needs. But that's no reason for those who do contribute to give up. Even if a cause appears lost, one doesn't succeed by giving up - although one may commit to failing in a noble fashion by refusing to submit right to the bitter end).

So having said that, I'm going to remove the neutrality messagebox as well. This leaves the 'Wikifying' messagebox. That remains applicable in the general sense, although at this stage is now probably too general. I just had a look through the various messageboxes on offer, and have found a suitable one that simply asks for more information. That's really what this article needs. It needs people to follow my lead and just expand, expand, expand, the article. Although there is very likely material out there that can be utilised, the material I have listed is ample for now, and there's no real excuse for not capitalising on it, other than lack of interest. And that itself is understandable, but is not now, and never will be, an excuse for tagging or argy-bargy. Those things won't save Wikipedia.

One final comment. I've long struggled to see what is the difference from bot edits which "fix" dashes. I think I see a difference. A slight increase in the gap. I'm going to have to ask someone about that. Is it a genuine, technical 'fix'? Or a cosmetic fix? But that's another matter: one of education for me. Wotnow (talk) 22:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)