User talk:Douglas Earth87

Sustainability article
Hi DE. I see you are relatively new to Wikipedia. It is always good to have new editors helping out as there is still a lot of work to be done creating and improving articles. I would like to just make a few points that might be helpful. New editors are encouraged to be bold in their editing and that is a good way to learn how everything works. However, there are some constraints. An article with the rating Good Article (like this one on Sustainability) is regarded of high standard. It means the article has gone through a long process of editing for balance of emphasis, content, weighting of argument and much more. A large number of editors have discussing content among themselves and this has been followed by a review process to assess and rate the article. As a general rule it is a good idea to respect this history by making suggestions for change on the talk page rather than editing such an article directly with major changes. The Lead of an article is especially important and should definitely be edited with great caution. I realize comments like the ones I have just made will be irritating because they seem to be trying to constrain edits that have been made in good faith. Editors might seem to be “owning” articles and excluding outside contributions. I sympathsie with this view but again point out that this article is already regarded as being of a high standard. It is polite to put substantial suggested changes on the talk page to allow for full discussion before they are included in real time. Thank you for your contribution.  Granitethighs  03:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi GT. Thanks for your response and tips for editing and adding text. I appreciate the effort you are making to engage me in debate over the suggested text changes and I hope that with your help we can continue to improve this "good" article. In the definition section of the article, the brief mention of the Earth Charter and some of its core values are useful, but I think the explicit mention of the ethical or value-based definitions of sustainability is important to the definition discourse. As the Earth Charter is already highlighted in the article, I started there, but have also mentioned UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative, all of which can help expand the sustainability definition to include the ethical aspect that I think need greater weight. Here's the paragraph:

Sustainability also entails an ethical dimension. A useful articulation of the ethical values and principles of sustainability can be found in the Earth Charter. The Earth Charter document offers an integrated vision and definition of strong sustainability. There are several other practical guidelines that can help define sustainability values, such as those articulated by the United Nations Global Compact or by the Global Reporting Initiative.

What do you think? Thanks again and I look forward to working with you further on this article. Douglas Williamson 14:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

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Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)