Talk:Fishwick House

Conflict of interest tags - not needed

I am not sure what the fuss is here. The article is based on the New South Wales State Heritage Register entry as clearly cited and attributed. The owner has made some changes, the bulk of which were reverted. As someone who writes a lot of heritage articles, from time to time I do see owners make small changes reflecting changes to the property that have occurred after the heritage listing was written, for which there are unlikely to be any publically accssible sources. While any peacocking or promotional material should be removed in such situations (and the peacocking has already been removed in this case), updated details about the physical building that owners provide are likely to be accurate (it's a private home, not open to the public, so who else would know?). Having met a number of owners of heritage homes, as a group, I think we should see them more as WP:CURATOR (custodians without COI) than "business owners". I don't think the tagging of this article is either helpful to the reader (the surviving changes are minute and probably more accurate than what was in the HR) nor particularly welcoming to good faith new users who are trying to improve the accuracy of the article. Kerry (talk) 23:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Request edit on 10 December 2018

Additional reading suggested by Fishwick house owners. I have read Wiki’s Conflict of Interest page and wholly concur with its intent. I understand that my part-ownership of Griffin’s Fishwick house puts me in a COI position with regard to any editing of its Wiki page. However, given that I have lived in the house for 45 years, helped plan and supervise three major restorations, which were aided by four separate grants from both the Australian federal and NSW state governments, and have for some 20 years been an active member of the Walter Burley Griffin Society (of which my husband is a past-president), I hope you would agree that I am well-qualified to contribute to improving the current Wiki entry which is deficient in a number of aspects, discussed below. I am proposing a series of three edits, for which I now seek your approval in principle, plus the addition of some images. With your concurrence the three edits would be entered onto this page at about two-monthly intervals, allowing me sufficient time to gather high-quality material for you or another editor to upload. All such material will be from objective sources with appropriate documentation and references.

The proposed changes are:

Edit I Reduce its length. Every paragraph in the current entry has been “lifted” word-for- word off the formal listing report prepared by the NSW Heritage Office, yet this entire report is freely available on the internet. My proposal is to select just two or three concise and informative paragraphs to remain in the entry, with the other material to be removed but accessible through links to the HO site.

Edit II Add a section on the prominence & significance of the house. Authoritative sources are on record stating the house to be of international significance, one of the most celebrated early 20th century houses in Australia and amongst Griffin’s most important buildings. Yet the current entry is restricted to its Heritage qualities. My proposal is to introduce a new section comprising explicit references to the importance of the house from books, academic articles, documentaries and reports from professional architectural bodies.

Edit III Increase the number and breadth of its sources. Almost all the article’s references, bibliography entries and attributions are from the 2006 NSW Heritage Office report. Many have little relevance. Since its mid 1990s restoration the house has been prominently featured in 27 books, academic and magazine articles, radio and TV documentaries and exhibitions. Concurrently, interest in Griffin has increased markedly in both the US and Australia. Therefore a very rich amount of important additional material on both Griffin and the house exists but is not currently referenced. My proposal is to prepare a well-balanced list of sources, especially those which would be of particular interest to researchers and students. WallyBG7767 (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2018 (UTC)WallyBG7767 (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Reply 11-DEC-2018

• The following numbered sections correspond to your edit numbered system (i.e., Edit I = #1, Edit II = #2, etc).

1. N As regards the Creative Commons text reproduced from an original source, the license displayed in the article allows that text to be reproduced here in the article. Ideally such text would not be needed, if there were already appropriate sections written by Wikipedia editors available to use. But as the text is being used now, there are no restrictions on its reproduction as long as the texts are properly attributed.
2. Y Although prominence and significance are often subjective traits, the article would still benefit from any well-sourced information in these areas, only as long as it does not constitute original research, which is not allowed here.
3. Y Increasing the number of sources is a good goal, only as long as those sources meet with Wikipedia's guidelines for WP:NPOV, WP:NOT, WP:V and the previously mentioned WP:NOR.

• May I also suggest reaching out to the editors at WikiProject Historic Sites, where you can use the editors there as a sounding board for any changes you wish to introduce to the article.

Your indications that you wish to help with the article are much appreciated, as is your contribution of time. I thank you for your help — and I, as well as other neutral editors, look forward to your future COI edit request proposals.
Regards,  Spintendo  02:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI, the most directly relevant WikiProject isprobably WikiProject Australian historic places. Kerry (talk) 04:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)