User talk:Godhramm

A lengthy welcome
Welcome to Wikipedia. I've added a welcome message to the top of this page that gives a great deal of information about Wikipedia. I hope you find it useful.

Additionally, I hope you don't mind if I share some of my thoughts on starting out as a new editor on Wikipedia: If I could get editors in your situation to follow just one piece of advice, it would be this: Learn Wikipedia by working only on non-contentious topics until you have a feel for the normal editing process and the policies that usually come up when editing casually. You'll find editing to be fun, easy, and rewarding. The rare disputes are resolved quickly and easily in collaboration.

Working on biographical information about living persons is far more difficult. Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy requires strict adherence to multiple content policies, and applies to all information about living persons including talk pages.

If you have a relationship with the topics you want to edit, then you will need to review Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, which may require you to disclose your relationship and restrict your editing depending upon how you are affiliated with the subject matter. Regardless, editing in a manner that promotes an entity or viewpoint over others can appear to be detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia and the neutrality required in articles.

Some topic areas within Wikipedia have special editing restrictions that apply to all editors. It's best to avoid these topics until you are extremely familiar with all relevant policies and guidelines.

If you work from reliable, independent sources, you shouldn't go far wrong. WP:RSP and WP:RSN are helpful in determining if a source is reliable.

If you find yourself in a disagreement with another editor, it's best to discuss the matter on the relevant talk page.

I hope you find some useful information in all this, and welcome again. --Hipal (talk) 20:08, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

your edit of "Heritage Foundation" on founding trustee J. Frederic "Fritz" Rench
As you know, both of your edits have now been reverted (by User:Hipal. He is objecting to two things: 1) that mentioning Rench is some sort of "promotion." and 2) that your source of that book looks to be "poor." Your source in reference 109 is impeccable, and is also used as the source for mentioning all of the notable trustees (in the "notable trustee" section).  Can you please do the following to help address the "poor source" complaint by User:Hipal? Copy-quote the text from page 77 of that book "Moment of Truth: ..." that mentions Rench and his involvement with the founding of Heritage into the Talk page of the Heritage article (under my comment on this matter). This should address the issue of perhaps both the "promotion" complaint and the poor source complaint.  There cannot be any dispute about the fact that Rench was indeed a founding trustee, so seeing the text from that book is certainly sufficient in my mind for the inclusion of your information.  However, I would say, I would somewhat reword the way you make the introduction of Rench in the article to be more filled out and clearer to the audience. But this is a trivial matter compared with the objections of User:Hipal. So first things first. Can you copy the relevant text quotes from that book (page 77) into the Talk page? We can then proceed from there (if you are still interested in advocating for your edit). Thanks. L.Smithfield (talk) 03:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Now that I think about it (and after checking out reference 109), I am having a hard time seeing why all emeritus trustees cannot be listed in a section of its own within the Heritage article. What is the big deal on that?  There are not that many emeritus trustees that exist in the first place!  Is someone trying to conserve a few bytes of space on Wikipedia for some strange reason?  Also Rench is indeed a founding trustee. Does that not make him notable enough for that reason alone?  Anyway, just some further thoughts on the matter. L.Smithfield (talk) 03:47, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * This should be taken to the article talk page.
 * Before offering any quotes, please show how the source(s) are reliable. --Hipal (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Which source (of the two) are you questioning, or both: the webpage showing the trustees on the website of the Heritage Foundation, or the book referenced ("Moment of Truth: ...")? Both of these sources would seem to meet the requirements of Reliable sources. How does one or both of these sources not meet the reliability requirements? What would be your suggestion for further showing that these sources are reliable? Thanks for any further help on this matter. L.Smithfield (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * This should be taken to the article talk page.
 * Both of these sources... Do explain on the article talk page. --Hipal (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interest in my editing. As a new user I need to check a few of Wikipedia's editing rules, and there are a few real problems in my previous edits.
 * First of all, before I can do anything else I need to declare a COI since I'm personnaly related to JF Rench. I also need to check what makes a content "promotional" or not, eventhough I woudn't gain anything from the recognition of JF Rench's work. I noticed someone recently added his name as a founder (he wasn't even mentionned before) and I wanted to make a small contribution.
 * Regarding the section "Notable board of trustees members", the primary source being the same as the other board members (the Heritage website) can't be more reliable, I tried adding the reference 109, page 77 of the book written by Marc Nuttle (an influential political advisor) in order to justify my edit, but the real issue here as I understand it is that this section should be containing only personalities known from a wider range of people, which is not the case for JF Rench, therefore I am not going to edit this section anymore.
 * As for the "Early years" section, as soon as my COI is clear I am going to add the following statement, with Hipal's permission of course :
 * "Rench drafted the original prospectus, budget, and business plan in 1969. His plan enabled Heritage to attract corporate investors beginning with Coors, who became the primary funder of the Heritage Foundation in its early years."
 * The source is the same as the one metionned in the original statement (reference 8), but only Coors was mentionned in the article.
 * My first edit mentioned JF Rench's friendship with Paul Weyrich which doesn't seem relevent. Godhramm (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I will leave this matter in your hands. Certainly, there can be no dispute that Rench was a trustee. So as I saw it, the matter rested on the quality of your other source (that book reference). The objection by User:Hipal seemed too broad and vague, and not really helpful for furthering clarity on the matter. But your relationship to Rench (COI) was -- and is -- a real problem (I did not know about that). Did User:Hipal know about that? If he did, that would explain his objection on the grounds of "promotion," which otherwise seemed quite vacuous. As you know, your COI in this matter might preclude you from contributing anything on Rench at all. Best regards. L.Smithfield (talk) 21:28, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Godhramm. Thanks for the explanation.

As I mentioned in my welcome to you, it's best to work from references that are both independent and reliable.

Rench is still alive, correct? --Hipal (talk) 21:47, 23 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Hipal, yes Rench is still alive. This might make a difference regarding the quality of the source between the mentions of Rench and Coors (Lee Edwards' book The Power of Ideas), but I still have to read more about Wikipedia's policy to understand. Anyway, because of the COI I will leave it to other editors, since I might overestimate the relevance of my edit. Godhramm (talk) 22:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)