Talk:Society of Merchant Venturers

Removal of "critical" comments from this article & need for citations
Several edits have been made today to this article removing any criticism from this article. It is important that Neutral point of view policy is being maintained, and further references to information, both positive and negative, about the society would be helpful.&mdash; Rod talk


 * User:Ohnoitsjamie found this excellent source, referenced in the current version of the article as


 * It's the full text of a 1903 book written by John Latimer.


 * I'd use the book myself to expand the article some more, only my head's pretty much already exploded from reading the blasted thing. It's heavy going.


 * Michael F 1967 (talk) 21:21, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Schools, colleges and/or evening classes
My father - born 1918 in Bristol - talked, occasionally, about attending evening school at the MV school or college in Bristol, after work [as an apprentice]. He has been dead for these ten years: if anyone else can flesh this out [perhaps before all his classmates and sucessors pass away, too] it may be good.

Autochthony wrote - 2042z 18 May 2010. 81.156.52.159 (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Added the "reorganise" maintenance flag
I have added the "reorganise" banner on this page. Readability of this article could be enhanced through better use of sentences and paragraphs. Sections could also be organised in a more logical order. A good reorganisation may contribute to a better flow of the article. Hayley007 (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Info on SMV's advocacy of Edward Colston?
I came to this article expecting to find some information on SMV's continued defense of the Statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, as well as their efforts to water down criticism on the plaque. If that's the organization's main political activity these days, why is there no information in the article? &mdash;dgies tc 16:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Me too. I doubt very much that this information, or anything referring to the debate will appear, or if it does, will be quickly deleted. This article is highly sanitised, as you might expect from apologists for slavery. Perhaps interested parties may refer to this article. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/08/edward-colston-statue-history-slave-trader-bristol-protestStephen A (talk) 23:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * A section on recent events involving the statue was added to the article at 16:44, 8 June. Per WP:WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM, that paragraph is probably sufficient for now. OhNo itsJamie Talk 01:08, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I have just carried out a couple of edits to reflect the notability of Edward Colston and Statue of Edward Colston and their association with the Society of Merchant Venturers. These are good faith edits, which I believe to have a neutral point of view. I'm sure that more informed editors will come along and make future improvements, but if you suspect that bad-faith editors are attempting to vandalise this article and whitewash Merchant Ventures's attempts to protect the Victorian fiction of Coulston being a local hero, please contact the editors that Wikipedia have been authorised to protect pages and mediate disputes.
 * This is an evolving story and the Society of Merchant Ventures are probably going to be forced to publicly explain their long association with Edward Colston and the way that his name is plastered across Bristol. So I would expect some good quality secondary sources to be published which allow for this aspect of the Society to be developed much more accurately. Big Mac (talk) 13:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I've reverted this edit that moved material into the lede; for one, I think we need to be wary of WP:RGW; secondly, the source for that isn't particularly strong (and is now only accessible via archive.org). The other recent additions look appropriate in terms of neutrality and weight to me. OhNo itsJamie Talk 14:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

About the lead.
The second lead paragraph strikes me as problematic, since it gives a sanitized view of the society. It ends with the phrase 'charitable agendas' which is what'll stick in the reader's mind, but that phrase is supplied by the society's own on-line advertising rather than a reliable secondary source.

By 'sanitized', I mean that this society was set up for the sole purpose of monopolizing the sea trade from the port of Bristol, and later lobbied for access to access to the slave trade - but the lead makes no mention of such matters and so gives a biased impression of the society.

Such matters are fundamental to the purpose and history of the society, and I feel that it's important for them to be mentioned in the lead in order to provide some balance.

Michael F 1967 (talk) 20:05, 10 June 2020 (UTC)