User talk:Johnadonovan

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Hi Johnadonovan. I've noted you've made a couple of edits to the page about Royal Dutch Shell. Can I point you to the Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines page? Although the link to the court documents is relevant, can you please change the URL to one on an official (primary) source, such as a court service? Mnbf9rca 19:51, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Johnadonovan. Thank you again for your latest post to the article about Royal Dutch Shell. You included a lot of information which would (probably) best be described "original thought". Unfortunately, the articles on mondaq.com aren't really in the category of "primary sources" described by WP:RS as they simply contain content from a personal site shellnews.net, and as you're aware, we can't publish anything in Wikipedia unless it has been published externally by a source considered authorative. If you can find quotes on, say, BBC, CNN, FT.com or some other source that would be considered acceptable as a primary source by WP:RS, then please re-add your content. Mnbf9rca 19:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. As you will have realised I am very much a learner as far as Wikipedia is concerned. I have reinserted a cut down version, this time with citations to information published on the Tell Shell Forum. I am not suggesting that the forum is an authoritative source because that would obviously be nonsense given that it is a blog. However it is a matter of fact that the quoted posting (Slow Death of the Tell Shell Forum) with the quoted extracts can still be found on the Forum via the forum archive search facility (not the Shell.com search facility). As proof positive of this fact I have provided a link to the relevant Tell Shell Forum web page. All Tell Shell Forum users have to be pre-registered and are required to supply a verification email address. This means that Shell knew that the postings were bona fide. With regards to timings, I do have an exchange of email correspondence with “Tell Shell” (reprinted below)which confirms the approximate date from which the forum was suspended and that Shell was unable to give an indication of when, if ever, it will be restored. I will happily forward a copy if so desired. My intention is to provide a balanced account of the Tell Shell Forum - the positive and the negative. It is of course in your hands to decide if this objective has been achieved. I do in any event appreciate your patience.

Email Correspondence

Mon 12/12/2005

Dear Mr Donovan,

Many thanks for your email and apologies for the delayed response.

We are still in discussions regarding the forum, so an exact date cannot be advised.

Yours respectively, Tell Shell

Original Message-----

From: Alfred Donovan [1] Sent: 25 November 2005 14:37 To: TellShell SI-PXXC Subject: TS : Tell Shell Forum : Contact us form submission


25/11/2005:14:37 Alfred Donovan alfred@shellnews.net Subject:Tell Shell Forum

Any idea when the forum will be back in operation?

Contents

[edit] royaldutchshell

You addition of so much info to sucks.com has somewhat unbalanced it. I think there are two courses of action open:

  • Start an article on this website which contains this information. It may then have to prove its notablilty through AfD.
  • Separate out the general encyclopaedic content including case law etc from the rds name. Wikipedia is not a place to advertise sites, but you can write about the issues in general face with references to reports about instances from your site.

Stephen B Streater 17:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments and the options you have constructively provided. I will tranfer the RDS content into a separate article. The WIPO decision was an important one. The decision was delayed after we were notified by the WIPO that it was an "exceptional" case.

John Donovan

[edit] Royaldutchshellplc.com

Greetings,

I noticed you're a major contributor to the above article.

I'm not quite convinced of the notability of the article, but thought I'd offer some help to you to try and improve it once notability has been established. As it stands, the article does not, in my opinion, currently represent a balanced encyclpædic article.

If you want any more help, feel free to use my talk page!


WELCOME TO WIKIPEDIA! EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE
Hello Johnadonovan and welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopædia anyone can edit! To get you started, I've included some of the very basics of Wikipedia and some useful links and guidelines for you in the box below.

Meanwhile, if you need any more help, please feel free to ask on my talk page or, if I'm not around, try asking at the help desk.

Regards,

EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME 14:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Here are some of the basics I wish I'd known when I started:

  • Sign your posts on article's talk pages using four squiggles- ~~~~.
  • Use double brackets - [[ and ]] - to create a link to another article on Wikipedia. For example, to link to the Wikipedia article Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, enter [[Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight]], which should produce Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight. Alternatively, you can use [[Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight|other page name]] to produce other page name.
  • Use single brackets to create an external link. For example, to link to Google, use [http://www.google.com] to produce [2] or [http://www.google.com Google] to produce a link to Google.
  • Use an accurate edit-summary - this helps distinguish your edits from vandalism and is a useful reminder to you later!
  • Don't revert a page more than three times - this is known as the three revert rule, and is designed to prevent edit wars. There are some exceptions to this, such as reverting blatant vandalism, but be prepared to apologise if you revert a genuine edit! See the Counter-vandalism Unit and vandalism for more information.
  • Most importantly, be bold, remain civil and enjoy yourself!
USEFULLINKS
  • The Five Pillars, a guide to the basic principles behind Wikipedia guidelines.
  • Wikipedia Tutorial, the place to go for a brief overview of how to edit Wikipedia.
  • How to write a great article, a summary of how you can help write a great article for Wikipedia.
  • The manual of style (MOS), a guide to what Wikipedia articles should contain and how to format them.
  • Help pages, useful information to help get you started with Wikipedia.
  • Help desk, the page to ask any questions about how to use Wikipedia (replies may be a little slow!).
  • The glossary, the page to look up abbreviations used on Wikipedia.
  • Esperanza, a great place to go for some community support and fun. You need quite a few edits (over 150) to become a member, but you can still join in the fun now!.


[edit] RDSplc.com

You asked for advice on the AfD. My advice is just wait. If there is no consensus to delete, the article will be saved and as you say it could be resurrected later. In general AfDs where an article writer (especially a conflicted one) starts posting pages of stuff start to irritate people and go wrong. It is pretty marginal and I am sure when the AfD nears closure (the last 24 hours gives lots of votes) we will get more interest. --BozMo talk 22:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Royal Dutch Shell Environmental and reputational issues

Thanks for your re-contribution to this page. When I first saw the page, I was quite annoyed at the one-sided (anti-Shell) presentation. I became more annoyed when I listed a number of good things about Shell all quite true, only to have them either deleted or spun against Shell. However, I didn't get completely ticked off until I checked out the BP article, and saw people fawning over them. What the heck? All I could think was, "God damn, BP has an effective PR campaign!" BP's record is no better than Shell's; they just promote their "green" credentials more. If these people want to go after an eco-unfriendly oil company, why don't they target Exxon-"Global Warming Is Just A Myth"-Mobil?

Anyways... thanks! I'm sure people will accuse you of astroturfing. They'll probably do the same to me. I'm only editing here because I've done a good bit of research on various oil companies, esp. Shell, and that only so that I could get after my father whenever Shell does something "not nice", so to speak.  ;) (he's a Shell exec). -- Rei 16:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] C'mon

What has IT outsourcing got to do with "Whisteblowers!" it is hardly illegal etc. --BozMo talk 22:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Drop the flattery! I was a senior Shell exec once (I even walked past you when you were picketing Shell Mex House and as I recall you were better looking than me). Mind you there would be a pot and kettle side to condemning people who once worked for Shell. In fact the guy you sued about a marketing thing (not going to name him publicly) ended up working for me in Gas before he moved to Capital One... On the outsourcing story maybe if there is more to come then that is the time to mention it, or tighten the language to improve it? You are familiar I guess with the phrase "damning with faint praise"? I suspect we are in danger of "praising with faint damnation" as it were, especially in the main article where everyone will assume only the most serious stuff gets a mention. --BozMo talk 08:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] COI WARNING

Not withstanding the chitchat above PLEASE STOP adding links to your own website or material from or about it. Linking to articles on your own website or adding material to it is a blatant violation of WP:COI. You HAVE to put the material on the talk page for other people to add. --BozMo talk 16:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your name has been mentioned at WP:COIN

Hello John Donovan. You are welcome to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Royal Dutch Shell. EdJohnston (talk) 18:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

In general what is absolutely clear is that your contributions to the talk pages of all these articles would be welcome. It is a policy grey area (the policy keeps being edited too which is another WP problem) so I suggest we get someone neutral to rule. Another admin has got involved in most of the articles in the last few days so we could ask him. If you are looking for anything in particular tell me and I will try to track down the relevant section on policy. --BozMo talk 07:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Just to comment: Wikipedia is not a news archive

Hi John,

Just to comment that Controversies surrounding Royal Dutch Shell is getting rather long. I don't think making it a list of all negative news stories about Shell is sensible: to be a good encyclopedia article it needs to be punchy and not a news list. It is also hard to argue that "done wrong pleaded guilty got fined" is in any way a controversy? --BozMo talk 11:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. You are welcome to do what you suggest until someone else queries it but "interesting for someone" doesn't necessarily mean we need it here. There will always be a role for your website and I think there is a valid argument that unless we try to keep a complete log of every positive piece of news about Shell (say, every investment which makes the news) as well we are not maintaining a neutral point of view. Sooner or later someone will come and propose some serious deletions and I don't want you to feel upset when they do. My own feeling is that Shell scales to the economic size of Belgium and we miss the point if we include real trivia. --BozMo talk 13:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Royal Dutch Shell environmental issues

Hi there. By now I guess you've figured that you're treading dangerous ground by editing a lot in areas in which you have a conflict of interest. As the Wikipedia guideline implies, this is fine, and in fact I think your interests can do Wikipedia a great service by providing quality in this area. The caveat is that your contributions need to conform to all the usual standards on Wikipedia. I popped by to point out an issue with Royal Dutch Shell environmental issues. As I have said on the talk page, it currently looks totally unreferenced although there are a lot of supporting external links. A lot of this content risks deletion if it looks like it's not sufficiently backed up, so you would do well to properly reference it out. All the best. BigBlueFish (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

See my reply to your new message on my talk page. BigBlueFish (talk) 16:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)