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The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. |
Page includes the following inaccuracies:
2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 ( talk) 22:07, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
The user below has a request that an edit be made to
The Inter Faith Network. That user has an
actual or apparent
conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is high. Please be very patient. There are currently 168 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies. |
I am new to Wikipedia editing, please forgive any poor use of markup etc.
This page seems to fall short of Wikipedia NPOV standards. Aside from errors of fact (to be detailed below), the range of sources, and in particular omissions, appears to present fringe views as the only extant views of the organisation.
General proposed changes
Change tense to present. The charity is not closed, but has announced a decision to move toward closure after 22 February if funding is not received. (see: https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/interfaith-charity-prepares-close-six-month-delay-government-funding/governance/article/1861144)
Specific proposed changes
− | The Inter Faith Network | + | The Inter Faith Network established national [https://www.interfaithweek.org Inter Faith Week] in England, Northern Ireland and Wales in 2009. It took inspiration from [https://scottishinterfaithweek.org/ Scottish Interfaith Week].<cite class="citation web cs1">[https://www.interfaithweek.org/about/history "Inter Faith Week history"]<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">February 16,</span> 2024</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Inter+Faith+Week+history&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.interfaithweek.org%2Fabout%2Fhistory&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AThe+Inter+Faith+Network" class="Z3988"></span> The Week is open to participation by all kinds of organisations, and various inter-religious events took place each year, run mainly by other institutions and groups unconnected to the IFN. IFN officials participated in meetings hosted by the Church of England and Lambeth Palace with members of the British royal family and government officials. |
− | + | History |
− | The Inter Faith Network | + | The Inter Faith Network is a charity which was founded in 1987 by its first Director, Brian Pearce. In 1990, Harriet Crabtree joined the IFN staff, becoming Director/ Executive Director in 2007.<sup>1</sup> |
− | The IFN | + | The IFN began to seek and receive UK government funding from 2001. Between 2001 and 2023 it received several million pounds from government. |
− | ...and that IFN member bodies had written... | + | ...and that two IFN member bodies had written... |
− | The newspaper reported on the Inter Faith Network that "Michael Gove's department is concerned about the failure of a taxpayer-funded interfaith group to explicitly condemn Hamas's attack on Israel". | + | The newspaper reported on the Inter Faith Network that "Michael Gove's department is concerned about the failure of a taxpayer-funded interfaith group to explicitly condemn Hamas's attack on Israel". The Inter Faith Network's Co-Chairs sent a response to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph explaining that: "Your paper published, this weekend, the second of two articles by Will Hazell which claimed that there was disappointment in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about ‘a failure to condemn Hamas’. As a UK charity whose purposes concern inter faith relations in the UK, and which must comply with the Charity Commission’s guidance on ‘political’ campaigning, IFN cannot make a simple statement of that kind. IFN has a longstanding policy on the making of statements which precludes direct comment on overseas events. Recent legal advice has confirmed the appropriateness of the policy." (https://www.interfaith.org.uk/uploads/Letter_from_IFNs_Co-Chairs_to_The_Editor%2C_The_Sunday_Telegraph_3_January_2024.pdf) |
− | Satish Sharma, General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples | + | Satish Sharma, Former General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples |
− | On 7 February 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Inter Faith Network announced "an in principle decision to move towards closure of the | + | On 7 February 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Inter Faith Network announced "an in principle decision to move towards closure of the organisation. That will be confirmed, on 22 February and greater detail provided subsequently – unless by that time the funding offered by the Government on 7 July 2023 for work from July 2023 to March 2024, subject to conditions, is made available or funds at an equivalent level are received from other quarters." |
BCY001 ( talk) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to say something about the editing and proposed edits by the users BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24
Both are plainly Inter Faith Network supporters with vested interests and BCY001 has admitted that they are a paid Employee of the Inter Faith Network
However, despite this and WP:COI user BCY001 who is an Inter Faith Network Employee has continued to add contested editing tags to the article.
First of all it is important to make the basic and obvious point that the Inter Faith Network is a controversial organization. If it weren't a controversial organization the UK government wouldn't have very publicly cut off its funding citing "reputational risk" and "serious concerns" by the state. There is an abundance of WP:RELIABLE reliable secondary sources about these various controversies over years (not just primary sources off the Inter Faith Network website) which other wiki editors have noted are peer-reviewed books and journals published by respected academic publishers, and national newspapers - such as multiple Sunday Telegraph articles written by its in-house political correspondents.
A very well attested political tactic of the Inter Faith Network Director and Co-Chairs and Employees is the tactic of using WP:WEASEL weasel words under the guise of wanting to improve accuracy of something said about the IFN, like on this Wikipedia page, but actually aiming to force a reliable source they don't like to be discarded entirely, and then to use this to discard the source entirely and then replace it and say something entirely FALSE. I've seen this IFN tactic over and over again in the way Inter Faith Network supporters with a conflict of interest respond to well-sourced comment by national newspapers, books and journals.
Here are a couple of examples:
Under their proposed Edit 4, user BCY001 the Employee of the Inter Faith Network objects to the suggestion that Harriet Crabtree was a Director from 1990 up to the present for 4 decades, which I believe is the essential point. She has been a Director of the organization as Director under whatever internal job title for her directorship for 4 decades and exercised control over the Inter Faith Network.
BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 instead try to undermine this well attested basic fact by picking holes in relation to the precise Director job title for Crabtree used by authors in reliable sources and Wikipedia editors during the 4 decades of her directorship - as Director/Deputy Director/Executive Director. Instead BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 would try to use this tactic to claim that Crabtree was NOT a Director during this time and they prefer that the plainly MISLEADING AND FALSE statement is edited in instead which BCY001 proposes "In 1990, Harriet Crabtree joined the IFN staff becoming Director / Executive Director in 2007". The untruth of this has already been exposed by user Harderland citing Crabtree's self-published CV on LinkedIn.
In fact, Harriet Crabtree in reams and reams of correspondence since 1990 and before 2007, has never referred to herself as anything other than "Director" of the Inter Faith Network and her designation "Executive Director" was only put in place more recently to distinguish her paid job title from the government regulatory title of "Directors" of the Inter Faith Network who are the unpaid Directors of the company and charity "The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom". BCY001 would have a MISLEADING AND FALSE statement in the wiki article replace the true one, which somehow implies that Crabtree only became a "Director" of the IFN (whatever the exact Director job title) in 2007 - something that an Employee of the Inter Faith Network would naturally know to be wholly untrue.
So this is the first example of weasel words and picking holes with a view to actually changing a true edit to a false statement. Another example is the outrageous suggestion implied by BCY001 under their proposed Edit 9 that an academic publication about the Inter Faith Network that is published by a respected academic publishers should be removed ENTIRELY because BCY001 claims that Brian Pearce and Harriet Crabtree were not "salaried Directors" of the Inter Faith Network. Is BCY001 as an Employee of the Inter Faith Network seriously suggesting that throughout the period from 1987 for Pearce and from 1990 onwards for Crabtree they never drew any salary and just worked for free as full-time Directors of the Inter Faith Network on a voluntary basis??? Working full-time as the Director of an organisation that has been funded in several millions of dollars by the UK government??? Seriously???
It is known that following his RETIREMENT Pearce would come back and offer advice, etc, to the Inter Faith Network, something very common in many organizations, and likely recent charity accounts will reflect the old man coming back to the office as a volunteer. But the evident weasel words being used here have the same aim as the above example, and is the same political tactic I have seen from those with a conflict of interest relationship with the Inter Faith Network - pick niggly holes in a reliably sourced statement or opinion as a political tactic in order to force it to be discarded in entirety and then replace it with an entirely FALSE statement.
Actually, the large amounts of money paid to Harriet Crabtree by the Inter Faith Network charity over the years are a subject discussed in independent and reliable sources, and potentially warrant inclusion in the wiki article. In any event, the government funding to the Inter Faith Network has been terminated and the Trustees are tomorrow due to confirm their decision to close the organization. KingKuru ( talk) 11:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
"The Inter Faith Network was a political-religious group which was founded in 1987 by Director and Deputy Director, Brian Pearce and Harriet Crabtree, the latter then continuing and remaining in post as sole Executive Director throughout the whole four decade history of the organisation."
References
This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. |
Page includes the following inaccuracies:
2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 ( talk) 22:07, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
The user below has a request that an edit be made to
The Inter Faith Network. That user has an
actual or apparent
conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is high. Please be very patient. There are currently 168 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies. |
I am new to Wikipedia editing, please forgive any poor use of markup etc.
This page seems to fall short of Wikipedia NPOV standards. Aside from errors of fact (to be detailed below), the range of sources, and in particular omissions, appears to present fringe views as the only extant views of the organisation.
General proposed changes
Change tense to present. The charity is not closed, but has announced a decision to move toward closure after 22 February if funding is not received. (see: https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/interfaith-charity-prepares-close-six-month-delay-government-funding/governance/article/1861144)
Specific proposed changes
− | The Inter Faith Network | + | The Inter Faith Network established national [https://www.interfaithweek.org Inter Faith Week] in England, Northern Ireland and Wales in 2009. It took inspiration from [https://scottishinterfaithweek.org/ Scottish Interfaith Week].<cite class="citation web cs1">[https://www.interfaithweek.org/about/history "Inter Faith Week history"]<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">February 16,</span> 2024</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Inter+Faith+Week+history&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.interfaithweek.org%2Fabout%2Fhistory&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AThe+Inter+Faith+Network" class="Z3988"></span> The Week is open to participation by all kinds of organisations, and various inter-religious events took place each year, run mainly by other institutions and groups unconnected to the IFN. IFN officials participated in meetings hosted by the Church of England and Lambeth Palace with members of the British royal family and government officials. |
− | + | History |
− | The Inter Faith Network | + | The Inter Faith Network is a charity which was founded in 1987 by its first Director, Brian Pearce. In 1990, Harriet Crabtree joined the IFN staff, becoming Director/ Executive Director in 2007.<sup>1</sup> |
− | The IFN | + | The IFN began to seek and receive UK government funding from 2001. Between 2001 and 2023 it received several million pounds from government. |
− | ...and that IFN member bodies had written... | + | ...and that two IFN member bodies had written... |
− | The newspaper reported on the Inter Faith Network that "Michael Gove's department is concerned about the failure of a taxpayer-funded interfaith group to explicitly condemn Hamas's attack on Israel". | + | The newspaper reported on the Inter Faith Network that "Michael Gove's department is concerned about the failure of a taxpayer-funded interfaith group to explicitly condemn Hamas's attack on Israel". The Inter Faith Network's Co-Chairs sent a response to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph explaining that: "Your paper published, this weekend, the second of two articles by Will Hazell which claimed that there was disappointment in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about ‘a failure to condemn Hamas’. As a UK charity whose purposes concern inter faith relations in the UK, and which must comply with the Charity Commission’s guidance on ‘political’ campaigning, IFN cannot make a simple statement of that kind. IFN has a longstanding policy on the making of statements which precludes direct comment on overseas events. Recent legal advice has confirmed the appropriateness of the policy." (https://www.interfaith.org.uk/uploads/Letter_from_IFNs_Co-Chairs_to_The_Editor%2C_The_Sunday_Telegraph_3_January_2024.pdf) |
− | Satish Sharma, General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples | + | Satish Sharma, Former General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples |
− | On 7 February 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Inter Faith Network announced "an in principle decision to move towards closure of the | + | On 7 February 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Inter Faith Network announced "an in principle decision to move towards closure of the organisation. That will be confirmed, on 22 February and greater detail provided subsequently – unless by that time the funding offered by the Government on 7 July 2023 for work from July 2023 to March 2024, subject to conditions, is made available or funds at an equivalent level are received from other quarters." |
BCY001 ( talk) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to say something about the editing and proposed edits by the users BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24
Both are plainly Inter Faith Network supporters with vested interests and BCY001 has admitted that they are a paid Employee of the Inter Faith Network
However, despite this and WP:COI user BCY001 who is an Inter Faith Network Employee has continued to add contested editing tags to the article.
First of all it is important to make the basic and obvious point that the Inter Faith Network is a controversial organization. If it weren't a controversial organization the UK government wouldn't have very publicly cut off its funding citing "reputational risk" and "serious concerns" by the state. There is an abundance of WP:RELIABLE reliable secondary sources about these various controversies over years (not just primary sources off the Inter Faith Network website) which other wiki editors have noted are peer-reviewed books and journals published by respected academic publishers, and national newspapers - such as multiple Sunday Telegraph articles written by its in-house political correspondents.
A very well attested political tactic of the Inter Faith Network Director and Co-Chairs and Employees is the tactic of using WP:WEASEL weasel words under the guise of wanting to improve accuracy of something said about the IFN, like on this Wikipedia page, but actually aiming to force a reliable source they don't like to be discarded entirely, and then to use this to discard the source entirely and then replace it and say something entirely FALSE. I've seen this IFN tactic over and over again in the way Inter Faith Network supporters with a conflict of interest respond to well-sourced comment by national newspapers, books and journals.
Here are a couple of examples:
Under their proposed Edit 4, user BCY001 the Employee of the Inter Faith Network objects to the suggestion that Harriet Crabtree was a Director from 1990 up to the present for 4 decades, which I believe is the essential point. She has been a Director of the organization as Director under whatever internal job title for her directorship for 4 decades and exercised control over the Inter Faith Network.
BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 instead try to undermine this well attested basic fact by picking holes in relation to the precise Director job title for Crabtree used by authors in reliable sources and Wikipedia editors during the 4 decades of her directorship - as Director/Deputy Director/Executive Director. Instead BCY001 and 2A00:23C6:1492:3701:8036:809A:2C16:FC24 would try to use this tactic to claim that Crabtree was NOT a Director during this time and they prefer that the plainly MISLEADING AND FALSE statement is edited in instead which BCY001 proposes "In 1990, Harriet Crabtree joined the IFN staff becoming Director / Executive Director in 2007". The untruth of this has already been exposed by user Harderland citing Crabtree's self-published CV on LinkedIn.
In fact, Harriet Crabtree in reams and reams of correspondence since 1990 and before 2007, has never referred to herself as anything other than "Director" of the Inter Faith Network and her designation "Executive Director" was only put in place more recently to distinguish her paid job title from the government regulatory title of "Directors" of the Inter Faith Network who are the unpaid Directors of the company and charity "The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom". BCY001 would have a MISLEADING AND FALSE statement in the wiki article replace the true one, which somehow implies that Crabtree only became a "Director" of the IFN (whatever the exact Director job title) in 2007 - something that an Employee of the Inter Faith Network would naturally know to be wholly untrue.
So this is the first example of weasel words and picking holes with a view to actually changing a true edit to a false statement. Another example is the outrageous suggestion implied by BCY001 under their proposed Edit 9 that an academic publication about the Inter Faith Network that is published by a respected academic publishers should be removed ENTIRELY because BCY001 claims that Brian Pearce and Harriet Crabtree were not "salaried Directors" of the Inter Faith Network. Is BCY001 as an Employee of the Inter Faith Network seriously suggesting that throughout the period from 1987 for Pearce and from 1990 onwards for Crabtree they never drew any salary and just worked for free as full-time Directors of the Inter Faith Network on a voluntary basis??? Working full-time as the Director of an organisation that has been funded in several millions of dollars by the UK government??? Seriously???
It is known that following his RETIREMENT Pearce would come back and offer advice, etc, to the Inter Faith Network, something very common in many organizations, and likely recent charity accounts will reflect the old man coming back to the office as a volunteer. But the evident weasel words being used here have the same aim as the above example, and is the same political tactic I have seen from those with a conflict of interest relationship with the Inter Faith Network - pick niggly holes in a reliably sourced statement or opinion as a political tactic in order to force it to be discarded in entirety and then replace it with an entirely FALSE statement.
Actually, the large amounts of money paid to Harriet Crabtree by the Inter Faith Network charity over the years are a subject discussed in independent and reliable sources, and potentially warrant inclusion in the wiki article. In any event, the government funding to the Inter Faith Network has been terminated and the Trustees are tomorrow due to confirm their decision to close the organization. KingKuru ( talk) 11:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
"The Inter Faith Network was a political-religious group which was founded in 1987 by Director and Deputy Director, Brian Pearce and Harriet Crabtree, the latter then continuing and remaining in post as sole Executive Director throughout the whole four decade history of the organisation."
References