Talk:Radio Society of Great Britain

Improvement

Hi, I am going to start improving this page for several reasons (mainly because there is a lack of good information on this subject on the web, because it is such an amateur topic the websites that contained good information seem to dissapear over time). The current plan is to seperate it out into the following sections:

1. the role of the RSBG
   1. and affiliate organisations such as RAYNET which have their own pages
   2. its relationship to the government, military and OfCom

1. Licensing information (classifications etc)
   1. bandwidths allowed + reasons and information
2. Informational services provided by the RSGB

1. The history of the RSGB (such as the changes in licensing)
   1. Possibly starting a stub page for the UK code prefixes including information such as what a G8 is and what a G6 is
   2. reasons for the changes (such as the decline of home-built ham-gear replaced with high quality gear from Japan etc providing better service & less interferance)

and also possibly

1. information about complaints (such as interfereance or missuse of communcations)
2. Starting to document all the information about individual events and developments
3. starting stub pages to contain information about suppliers and groups in the uk
4. starting stub pages containing information on the techincal meanings (including license discussion such as the difference between ERP and power into antenna)
5. providing links for learners and resources that can be used.

This will take me a couple of weeks... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mchicago (talk • contribs) .

- I am sure that if you contact the RSGB you will receive help. Suggest asking the guys at RadCom. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.2.202.178 (talk • contribs) .

Importance Tag

The tag needs to go. This article does assert the RSGB's Importance. The article may need to be expanded, however it no longer needs the tag for importance. Anonym1ty 17:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Changes by Yellowhammer 3 March 2007

User:Yellowhammer has added changes that put a definite Anti-RSGB slant on the article which is not NPOV. I think these changes do little to improve the article and intend to undo them if there are no objections. Dsergeant 08:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

My changes did not aim to put 'a definite Anti-RSGB slant' on the article; rather they were intended to neutralise what seemed to me an excessively pro slant within it. I have been an RSGB member since 1963, have held a licence since 1968 and I do support the society on most matters; however the article to me implied that the society acts with the wholehearted support of the majority of amateurs and that is far from being the case. Highlighting the number of members it has relative to the total of licences in issue is to report a fact (quoted from the RSGB's own report) and that seemed to me a reasonable way of showing the limits of their support and at the same time of moving the resulting article closer to an NPOV. As for 'it represents the interests of the UK's 60,000 licensed radio amateurs...' I would take the view that it can only do that with their consent - and as its membership is less than half of all licensees that is something many have chosen to withhold. However, life's too short etc and I shall not be undoing your changes, though I clearly disagree with them. Yellowhammer 17:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Rather than slapping the criticisms of the RSGB into the body of the current article, it would be far better to start a section Criticism and write clearly and concisely what the criticisms are and cite references. This would make it easier to demonstrate there is criticism, what it is and why without slanting other parts of the article. It would also make it easier for the reader to understand than to lump it altogether and suggest everyone is critical of the RSGB. Anonym1ty 20:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but you'll see that I did not include any criticisms of the society within the changes I made to the article - quite how you could interpret the changes as implying that 'everyone is critical of the RSGB' entirely eludes me. The fact remains that the society is not as universally popular as the original article indicated; to that extent the piece did need improving. A section on criticisms may be useful; I agree that it should cite references but then so should the other sections - at present for the most part they do not and that of course significantly reduces their value here.

Thanks for your comments. There is a delicate line with NPOV in WP which I guess many of us regular editors frequently overstep. It seemed inappropriate to put comments which could be considered criticism right in the opening paragraph of the article, especially since RSGB themselves use the 'represent all radio amateurs' phrase in their own publicity. There are indeed many who do not agree with what RSGB does (as a member for nearly 40 years I cannot admit to be among them) but if there is a place in the article it should be in a later criticisms section. Dsergeant 07:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

It seemed critical to me and did change the point of view of the article. This is not necessarily a bad thing. What didn't work was to put it in with the other content. It made the article hard to understand. The material still has merit but should be introduced in a separate section. Perhaps it was where the information was inserted that made it appear more critical than it actually was. Moving it to its own section would help. Anonym1ty 18:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate link

Why remove the LPWS link ? While most radio amateurs might understandably have a problem with some of the activities promoted by "Laughing policeman wireless society" its website (and in particular the page to which the link pointed) does pose some valid criticisms of the RSGB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.113.68.35 (talk) 17:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Firstly you should have a read of WP:EL which offers guidance to the purpose of external links. In this case the LPWS article did not refer directly to any topic specifically discussed in the article and in fact appeared to express strong POV. Some including me consider it marginal on spam. If in connection with the comments on criticism discussed above somebody adds a criticism section then it may be a relevant external link to support what is written there. Or maybe not. Dsergeant 11:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability tags

I notice user:PanchoS has added notability tags to this page, and in fact virtually every national amateur radio society page in WP, and some of these are threatened with deletion. Except that ARRL appears to have escaped, maybe an indication of the US centricity of WP?... Although the RSGB article could do with a bit of improvement, it is probably in better shape than some of the others. I find it sad that deletion of these pages is even considered, as the national societies do so much for the hobby via IARU. Is there a central place where these notability issues are being discussed? Dsergeant (talk) 18:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I am also confused about the notability tag. Is it saying the country is not notable or that amateur radio is not notable? If these organizations represent the hams in the country to ITU then it seems notable to me. I'm working on removing this tag from all organizations representing countries to the ITU since this tag has been there for 7 years without any benefit to the articles and deletion seems unlikely and inappropriate.

Separately, I'd like to work on a criteria to upgrade articles classes. See Category talk:International Amateur Radio Union member societies. --ssd (talk) 14:57, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Original name of the Society

The article is rather light on supporting citations. I was looking for a reference to site re the original name of the Society. This source (http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-ham-history6.htm) says it was "Wireless Society of London founded in 1913" and this conflicts with the name in the article. Do we have a reliable secondary source?G J Coyne (talk) 17:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully the "Club" vs. "Society" issue has now been clarified coherers (talk) 13:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Advert tag

I tagged this article (I debated for TONE vs ADVERT) because several sections appear to have fluffy prose, a bunch of WP:EL and self-cites, and substantial uncited content about historical details and activities that (on their face, again because no WP:RS) seem irrelevant to an encyclopedia. See the several changes I just made as examples of the kind of writing I found objectionable. Does the extended quote in the "2011 Expenses Scandal" actually serve any more purpose than a mere one-sentence that the money was repaid and the situation is now resolved? The "Future" section is mostly transient events (that are now historical), and again only self-cited. We need independent sources to help decide what information, long-term projects, specific historical events/milestones, etc are of wider interest. DMacks (talk) 06:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. I have mixed views about your changes and certainly do not agree that it reads as an advert. Do have a connection with amateur radio? Much of the content on here has been written by radio amateurs and who are also members of the RSGB. As usual on WP there is a conflict between obtaining reliable independent sources and what is known real information. For instance much of the history is well documented in Radio Communication (since 1925!). The expenses scandal for instance was a major event in the society which led to a complete restructuring of its board and should not be dismissed in a single sentence... Dsergeant (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I have no connection with anything amateur-radioish. Unfortunately we can't use "what is known" unless it's in reliable sources. One of the inherent difficulties in writing articles about niche topics. Writing extensively on what is not covered elsewhere is the whole problem with WP:UNDUE ("depth of detail, quantity of text...in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public."), which is what leads to an article seeming to cover in excess that which is only of interest or known to those within it. If something led to a large restructuring of the organization, that's significant. So say...exactly that. The quote is the main problem... it could be condensed and paraphrased. But is "the structure of the organization" really the main point of this article for our readers (vs its activities, long-term goals, achievements)? If not, then having so much content about it is undue. DMacks (talk) 02:03, 25 October 2018 (UTC)