Talk:Anguilla national cricket team

Neutrality dispute

The "History" section of this article has had a {{POV}} tag since December 2008, but there is no explanation either on this Talk page or in the edit summaries. My assumption is that the following phrase is the problem:

...Sir Allen Stanford an American business man, thought he had an input in cricket.

The above could be read as passing judgement on his motives, though since the rest of the sentence is rather unclear I think there's also every chance that it's simply a lack of clarity here too. Anyway, I'd like to rewrite the History section, though I don't know enough about it to expand it much. Normally I'd just go ahead and do it, but as there's the POV tag I'll wait a short time to see whether anyone objects. Loganberry (Talk) 11:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That is the phrase that worried me. The inference in the wording is that Stanford wasn't being influential even though he thought he was. Problem is that the wording of the sentence doesn't make it very clear exactly what the original editor meant by the statement - the sentence of which it's part is pretty muddled. Whether it was meant as a biased comment or not it needs amending - to clarify the meaning and remove any hint that there is some slur on Stanford's actions (as to whether any slur is warranted, given more recent events - that's another matter entirely!) Grutness...wha? 13:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Certainly agreed that the sentence as it stands is not acceptable. The more I look at that section, the more I think it needs a full rewrite rather than simple amendment. Since we have an article on Stanford anyway, we can leave the discussion of his motives to that and stick to the facts here. (Besides, the section also contains factual errors: although Anguilla did not play major cricket until Stanford came along, they've played any number of minor games dating back to before independence.) I'll try to come up with a little something now. Loganberry (Talk) 13:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

There; what do you think? I make no claims as to its being a great piece of prose, but I hope you'll feel that the POV tag can go now. Loganberry (Talk) 14:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks a lot better - I've removed the tag. One minor quibble, though: the first paragraph of that section talks about the early team "before Anguilla's independence from britain". Given the confusing nature of Anguilla's status around that time, perhaps it would be better to say "Before Anguilla's independence from St. Kitts-Nevis"? Grutness...wha? 01:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Very good point about independence, especially since I made a factual error: Anguilla remains to this day a British overseas territory, so isn't really independent at all. I've chopped that sentence down to the simple "...since the 1970s", which is uninteresting but accurate. Loganberry (Talk) 01:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)