Talk:Richard Worth

Removal of hearsay and unproven allegations

Upon reading this article it was clear that a number of allegations that were initially made relating to Worth's resignation have since either been withdrawn or were unproven. While it is clear that Worth lost the confidence of the Prime Minister, it would probably be unfair to have the full history of unproven allegations remain as a feature of the article, due to its potentially libellous nature.

Since Worth has left Parliament and no longer is a MP, it would also seem that the event is no longer current, so it would be important to remove any "events in play" that have since subsequently become old news and/or unproven.

I look forward to responses on the changes, which are hopefully considered more neutral.

DavidCondonNZ (talk) 22:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

These allegations were widely reported in the news media, and are clearly highly relevant. We need to be careful to report them in the same terms as the media used. The article appears to be relatively restrained in which allegations are reported. I see you added that Worth denied the allegations. Please provide a source for this, so we can be clear on exactly which allegations he was reacting to.-gadfium 23:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems unfair that unproven allegations are reported in significant depth but that the allegations were withdrawn or not proven. If the allegations are not to be removed because they were widely reported, there should be sufficient commentary on how the allegations were withdrawn and or unproven. The 3 July Herald article makes clear that Worth denied the allegations http://www.nzherald.co.nz/patrick-gower/news/article.cfm?a_id=320&objectid=10582179, and http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-national-party/news/article.cfm?o_id=266&objectid=10577946, where he denied doing anything wrong and denied committing a crime.

Could I suggest that we take another shot at re-writing the paragraphs to state more clearly that all allegations were unproven? To have several paragraphs outlining the nature of allegations and then one line at the end where it states that no allegation is arguably libellous and would demonstrate a POV. DavidCondonNZ (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Worth denied committing any crime, but the article does not suggest he committed a crime, only that the police were investigating an allegation. For the police to investigate does suggest to me that some crime was alleged, but I am not sure what crime this might be. The subject of the police investigation appears to have been a "sexual encounter" in a hotel room. The sources do not say what in this may have been a crime, and the article does not say what the investigation was about.

I suggest you add a sentence or two giving Worth's explanation, but you must not make claims he did not himself make (that were reported in a reliable source). You cannot therefore say as you have done above that Worth denied the allegations, according to the Herald article of 3 July he 'denied committing any crime and said "my conscience is clear"'. I trust you can see the difference.

I would like to see other editor's opinions on this.-gadfium 01:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah - I see what you mean. I will make a couple of changes accordingly, and see how other editors feel. DavidCondonNZ (talk) 02:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Help linking to a file

I've uploaded an Image of Richard Worth to WikiMedia, but can't work out how to have it appear as an embedded image in this page. The Image is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Worth,_New_Zealand_MP.jpg

Added. Thanks for the photo.-gadfium 18:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

There appear to have been two series of edits by a User:Richard_W_Worth who appears to be the subject of this page:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Worth&diff=280739020&oldid=280707924
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Worth&diff=257418875&oldid=257229387

The first of these has effectively been undone already, but I'm about to rewrite the second, since they appear to breach Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. The user has been warned on their talk page.

Stuartyeates (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If the user continues I would recommend a ban. Bactoid (talk) 05:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think banning is warranted. One edit was adding useful information to the article. The other was something I would have preferred he make a request on this talk page about, since it involved a paragraph critical of him. I don't think the rewording was objectionable and I would have accepted that from a neutral editor. I note that no one has substantially altered the text of the paragraph since, so it appears no one else objects to the new wording. While the edit removed the reference, I suspect that this would be due to unfamiliarity with the Wikipedia interface rather than bad faith.-gadfium 06:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that these edits have now been picked up by the Media. In this case tvnzBrian | (Talk) 06:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

As an aside one would hope that our elected officials would have better things to do ... like running the country! Bactoid (talk) 07:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Mention of wikipedia in Hansard

These matters were discussed in the house. This link is to the uncorrected hansard:

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/QOA/6/2/3/49HansQ_20090402_00000243-5-Internal-Affairs-Minister-Ministerial.htm

Stuartyeates (talk) 22:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The above link no longer works. The debate can be seen at [1].-gadfium 01:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Or an even deeper link at http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/portfolios/internal_affairs/2009/apr/02/ministerial_requirements#labour_12 Lanma726 (talk) 02:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed addition

I'd like to propose adding this new section to the article. I've used Hansard rather than theyworkforyou links, because Hansard is more authoritative (I believe). I've not made the addition myself, since as the discoverer of the COI, I could be seen to have a COI myself.

Wikipedia Conflict of Interest Controversy

On 30 March 2009, someone using the name Richard W Worth made a pair of edits [2] [3] which removed a reference which showed Worth in a partially negative light and changed a potential conflict of interest to a perception of a potential conflict of interest. On 1 April 2009, these edits were noticed and the issue received media coverage.

The matter was raised twice in the house under parliamentary privilege, both times by Labour's Pete Hodgson, on the 2nd and 8th of April respectively:

Why did the Minister tamper with his own Wikipedia entry earlier this week, and does he intend to take the advice Wikipedia gave him yesterday afternoon that he should consult Wikipedia’s conflict of interest guidelines?

Dr Worth fiddled his own Wikipedia entry—this is interesting—was caught, and was told off by Wikipedia. That was done instead of doing proper housework, like going to the Brookers website for the nation’s law directory and correcting his own entry, which even today says Dr Worth is a consultant for Simpson Grierson—as he holds the job of a Minister of the Crown!

In neither debate was there a clear denial or admission that the user of the Richard W Worth account was Worth.

I think the incident is too minor to be added to the article. TV3 news last night gave a list of his previous misdeeds which included the camel riding incident in Egypt when he should have been attending a war memorial service, and the visit he made to a victim in hospital, neither of which we currently mention, but it didn't include editing his Wikipedia article. Also, we shouldn't make the article simply a list of mistakes he might have made.-gadfium 03:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right gadfium. I've just seen the press template over at Talk:Sam Lotu-Iiga, and that seems to be a much better way of handling this (and keeping it on the talk page). Stuartyeates (talk) 20:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with gadfium - it is too minor to be included. More notable stuff should be included first. Also, it smacks a little bit of blowing our own trumpet. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

References

Order of Post Nominal Letter

The subject's post nominal letters were shown as OBE VRD KStJ. The New Zealand Order of Wear shows the KStJ is higher than the VRD so have changed order to OBE KStJ VRD. ---- Karl Stephens (talk) 10:55, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

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Review of content request

I am the subject of this article. There are two issues: 1. The balance of the article relating to allegations against me which are wrong, unfair and damaging. They were withdrawn by the complainant after a high level and extended police investigation and a decision by the police to take no action. 2. Although the article was reviewed in March 2020 by an editor it is not up to date with my post Parliamentary career. How is that best resolved? 115.189.93.51 (talk) 02:37, 31 March 2020 (UTC)Richard Worth

Hi Richard. Following your comments I have reviewed the article in its entirety. I have made some amendments to the article, and I'll comment on them here.

• Accuracy: I consider that almost every fact in this article is accurate - that is, it is backed up by independent, reliable sources. There are four sentences for which I did not find sources: these are now marked as "citation needed". One sentence is marked as "better source needed" as the current source is not an independent one. The article also has some additional material I uncovered in my research.
• Fairness: It is my personal opinion that the article as it stands fairly represents the events of 2009, at least as they are known to the public. I have reworded the Resignation section substantially and the last paragraph makes it clear how all allegations resolved.
• Damage: It's my intention that if I have achieved accuracy and fairness then readers will have a true picture of the public facts.
• Coverage after Parliament: I searched a number of media sources but could not much coverage of activity after Parliament. As such there is little I can add to this section. However, if you are aware of any secondary coverage (ie information not put out by the subject or those associated with the subject), I'd recommend that you include it here on this talk page.

I hope this satisfies your queries. I of course invite other editors to similarly review the article for accuracy and fairness. HenryCrun15 (talk) 02:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)