User talk:Goodnewt

Bead Hill

Hello. Please do not keep deleting coordinates for Bead Hill from the List of National Historic Sites of Canada in Toronto. Rouge Park management does not control the content of Wikipedia. If you keep deleting it, you may end up being blocked from further editing. We typically do not delete publicly-available information that is consistent with our content guidelines, simply because a landowner wants us to delete it. However, we are certainly open to considering your request. First step is to contact the editor who added the coordinates to determine where (s)he got the information (which I have already done) -- the source of he information and the degree to which this information is publicly available will presumably be of interest to other Wikipedia contributors. Other similar discussions that I have seen here on Wikipedia have turned on the degree to which the information is available and verifiable. I will alert you once I have a response. The next step will be raise your concern (that the publication of the coordinates could negatively impact the archaeological resources at the site) with a wider group of contributors and reach consensus on the appropriate course of action. I hope that helps, and hopefully we will reach a satisfactory resolution for you. I don't anticipate that this process will take very long. Feel free to leave me a note on your talk page (here) or my talk page if you have any questions or comments. Cheers, --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

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Thank you for your message - I certainly have no intention of controlling content, I make use of wikipedia on a regular basis, and appreciate having such a vast amount of unbiased information so easily available. I do work for Rouge Park, where this property exists, however this particular site is not open to the public. My concern is the extreme sensitivity of this site, that in its current condition has no protection and can be easily compromised. I endevour to keep this information off the web, and have made numerous requests to other websites to remove such specific details, often succeeding. My goal is simply to protect the integrity of this important, and extremely sensitive cultural heritage feature, and National Historic Site until a time when we can work with our First Nations friends to celebrate the story.

If there's any way that you can assist in the matter, I would be extremely grateful. I'm new to how all the editing takes place here, and appreciate your objective to keep content free and unbiased, so I'm hopeful that we will be able to reach a mutually agreeable resolution.

kind regards, michelle Goodnewt (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem. We'll see what the original contributor has to say, and then we'll go from there. Skeezix1000 (talk) 00:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm quite anxious to get this issue resolved, and am currently working with the land owners (there are two, I work for one) to do whatever is necessary to protect this extremely sensitive site. Has there been any word from the original poster? Thanks! Michelle

Hello. He did reply to me on the 13th and 20th, confirming he posted it and believing that it should remain. I am going to initiate a discussion on the general Cdn messahe board here in the next day or so, and I will place a link to the discussion here so that you have an opportunity to explain your concerns. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yikes, by putting it up on a discussion board, will it open this issue up to a huge audience? My intent is to not draw attention to this site. I'm having trouble understanding why the landowners - The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, and the Province of Ontario, don't get to have any say in whether something confidential on their property gets to remain private, purely to maintain the integrity of the site. As it is, anyone going to those coordinates will be trespassing, so promoting the location isn't all that useful anyway. I'm happy to celebrate Bead Hill, and what makes the site so significant, it's simply revealing the coordinates that is entirely inappropriate. What other avenues do we have here, other than some random person having more rights than a landowner? I hate to be cranky about this, but it is something that is hugely important, as it is a designated National Historic Site, an important part of Canada's cultural heritage at risk. Will I be able to chat directly with the poster through this discussion board? I'd love to hear their point of view. Thanks again for your help on this. Cheers Michelle --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodnewt (talk • contribs)

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Certainly not a huge audience. I would post the issue at the bulletin board here on Wikipedia for editors who work on Canada-related articles (WP:CANTALK). I wouldn't reproduce the coord, and it would be a smaller audience than the number of readers who routinely see the coord in the list in question. This is an unsual request, we work on a consensus basis around here, and there isn't really a way around it. While I am happy to remain neutral on your request and to faciliate discussion, I am not comfortable removing the information absent some degree of wider input.

I would add that it is important to remember that information doesn't become confidential simply because someone wants it to be. This information is publicly-available -- nobody hacked a computer to get it. As for the rights of landowners, landowners are perfectly entitled to keep a site closed to the public, but they are not entitled to control what people write about it. I'm not saying that your request is an unreasonable one or that we should not grant it -- simply that there is a process here that needs to be followed, and on its face this is not a "open and shut" case.

I apologize - I ought to have let you know earlier that the editor who added the coord is Yoho2001. At first, I wasn't sure it was him that had done it, so I did not want to start giving out names. But he has since confirmed it was him, so there is no harm in you contacting him. The discussion on his talk page is at User talk:Yoho2001#Bead Hill. I still think the issue needs to be raised with the larger group (absent a clear consensus that they should not be included, there is nothing to stop other editors from reinserting them in the future even if you and Yoho2001 were to reach agreement). I hope that helps. I will raise the issue over at the discussion board once you give the okay. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)