Talk:The Duke of Edinburgh's Award

DEAS

Isn't this the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme? DEAS? Its present in India too. I was a participant for a short time. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 5, 2005 15:12 (UTC)

Well, it calls itself the "Duke of Edinburgh’s Award" but yes, people often call it the "Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme". Add a redirect if you think it would help. -- ALoan (Talk) 5 July 2005 16:42 (UTC)

I've added the necessary redirects. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 6, 2005 06:08 (UTC)

Still a stub?

Is this article still a Great-Britain and Award stub, like it says at the bottom of the article? I agree it's not a very extensive article, but compared to other stubs, it's quite a bit bigger. So, I would remove the stub signs. What do you guys think? Goingin 14:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree- without violating NPOV and including personal experiences this article actually contains all relevent information, and is certainly long enough to remove stub status. I have today(!) completed my silver DofE and connot think of anything to add. For those interested my skill was Bridge (card game) my physical recreation was climbing and my service was CCF. My practice expedition was in the Cevennes in the South of France and the real thing was in the Lake district Oli 13:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the stub warnings --Goingin 09:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Scouting?

Why is this under Wikiproject Scouting? It doesn't really have anything related to scouting. Daniel (‽) 18:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and I'm the project director. I'm removing the tag.Rlevse 18:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The Award shares alot in common with the main award sceme in scouting, many of the objectives are the same. Sometimes people also choose to undertake the community section of their awards by helping out with a scout group. It is also becoming common for the award to be done through schools. Would a section on this be appreciated if i wrote something? GoHike 14:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This award is required in both Scouts and Guides New Zealand to get the top award. The Queen Scout or Queen Guide. It is relevent to the Wikiproject Scouting 203.98.31.34 02:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Similarly the award is integrated into the UK Scout award system, although you can achive the Queens scout award without registering with DofE.Rankersbo (talk) 07:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Subcategory?

I'd just like to ask for some advise, I have written an article for the Cardiff University DofE Society and would like to link it to this article. I feel possibly the best way of doing this would be to make The Duke of Edinburgh's Award a subcatagory and then placing my artical within this. Would that be an aceptable way of doing this? GoHike 14:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge

This would be a merge, if I understand what you are saying, as Fabrictramp (talk · contribs) proposed recently. I support the merge because the article Cardiff University DofE Award Society does not assert Notability or provide references. :: maelgwn - talk 06:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been bold and carried out the merge. alex.muller (talk) 16:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the section shouldn't exist at all, Cardiff's DoE branch is in no way more notable than any other. I recommend the section be removed completely. Grunners (talk) 20:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I actually agree with you – I've come across plenty of these kinds of groups, and I'd support you if you were to remove it. If there's no apparent dissent here (and judging by how infrequently the article is edited, there wouldn't be) you should go ahead and make the edit. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 21:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Done Grunners (talk) 00:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Time frame

This section seems rather chatty, perhaps it's lifted from some writing elsewhere, not sure. ++Lar: t/c 14:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Have tried to wikify the section as best I can without removing any of the basic content Bleaney (talk) 02:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

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Dubious

This article seems confused as to whether it is talking about:

• An award
• A programme
• An organisation

It is also confused as to whether it is talking about something in 1 country or on a global scale

The entire tone of the article is promotional rather than informative.

Op47 (talk) 12:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree about the confusion. I don't fully agree about the tone being "promotional rather than informative." Although we must be cautious about conflict of interest, I'm not sure how the description of the requirements for a reward (which I assume is not-for-profit) could be "toned" differently. Perhaps you could elaborate? Thanks. Cresix (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

When I first read the article, I felt that the tone was not quite right, as if I were reading a promotional leaflet. Normally, I would not bother to tag the article and either allow other editors to sort it out or sort it out myself. However I noted that an editor had tried to correct this and was immediately reverted by an employee of the DofE with the edit comment "We prefer the less formal version!". Therefore, I placed the tone tags (and the many other tags) in the hope that other editors would not be disuaded from dealing with the problems. Op47 (talk) 09:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

(Dofedave (talk) 11:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC))The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is both a charity AND an Award that a young person achieves once they have undertaken the training programme. I think it is factual and informative, and is clear that it refers to the DofE in the UK, which influenced the growth of other programmes around the world, and which are linked to on the page. (I am a Scout Leader and my son is doing his Gold DofE Award)

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is both a charity AND an Award that a young person achieves once they have undertaken the training programme. Fine, then perhaps that ought to be in the article as well as to indicate how one is to distinguish between the award and the charity.

I think it is factual and informative. I am not disputing this, I am disputing the tone with which the article has been delivered. Take as an example the point answered above. "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is both a charity AND an Award" would have done. The rest of the answer is half as long again and appears to promote your agenda and ultimately hides the required answer. Another example would be the mini biography of John Hunt.

and is clear that it refers to the DofE in the UK. I am just a passing reader and did not understand this. I am just giving feedback that this is not the case.

which influenced the growth of other programmes around the world. Fine.

and which are linked to on the page. What are you referring to here? The UK DofE has copious links. The other countries just have links to articles on that country (apart from Canada and Israel).

(I am a Scout Leader and my son is doing his Gold DofE Award). I am happy for you, but I am not sure what this has to do with the matter at hand.

The kind of thing that I would be interested in seeing in this article from you would be:

• Who's idea was it?
• Why did they do it?
• What did the Duke of Edinburgh have to do with it?
• i.e. some of the history before the award became notable? Op47 (talk) 09:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Op47, I continue to agree that the article requires a lot of cleanup, but I still don't think the "tone" is inappropriate, and I especially don't agree with tagging the section with a "tone" tag simply because one COI editor made a change. There are a number of eyes on this article who do not have a COI. What specifically, beyond an edit by an employee of DofE, makes you think the tone is inappropriate? I understand the suggestions for content change above, but I want to know what you consider an inappropriate tone. Cresix (talk) 14:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The list

Regarding the list of award associations what does everyone think about stating the specific name of the organisation in that country (wherien it differs from the standard one anyway? Threadnecromancer (talk) 02:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Threadnecromancer p.s. what is an independent operator? I think the article is somewhat unclear as to whether the Award's program exists in those countries or not.

International confusion:

Two recent additions have erroneously appeared on this page, which is about the DofE in the UK. the two items relate strictly to the Award in australia and have therefore been moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Award_Association 15 Jan 2014

I made the additions but have no objections to this move. Thanks. BlueSalix (talk) 15:03, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Sri Sathya Sai

a Reference has been added to show that the above organisation is not currently Licensed by The Duke of Edinburgh's Award in the UK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.239.176 (talk) 14:18, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This seems to be original research so I've undone it, however, I'd be happy to discuss reinserting it. BlueSalix

I have re-inserted it as it is incorrect. Link added to published Trustees' Report which lists all current licensed organisations (talk) 14:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC) http://www.dofe.org/media/viewfile.ashx?FilePath=About%20us/DofE%20_Annual_Review_2012.pdf&filetype=4

Link added to the organisation's Annual review which shows the above is not a licensed organisation of the DofE, as the entry originally stated in error. User:DofEDave —Preceding undated comment added 16:06, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The link you've added says there are 675 licensed organizations, but does not include a list of all 675 organizations. Therefore, it fails establish Sri Sathya Sai is not currently a licensed organization of the DofE. While I, ultimately, think it's pretty safe to assume it's no longer licensed, it's unencyclopedic to make concrete statements without RS to back them up. BlueSalix (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I found a link on their website which has a list of DofE organisation operators - I haven't counted them though. http://www.dofe.org/go/lo/.94.195.239.176 (talk) 12:53, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to MERGE. BlueSalix (talk) 00:58, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

---

>

This is a very short entry and the award program is closely linked to the DofE International Awards which is even shorter and currently has virtually no references (a citation tag has been active on the page for more than a year). I propose merging these two pages. BlueSalix (talk) 15:02, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

These are two entirely separate Charities so they should remain distinct to avoid confusion. User:DofEDave 15 Jan 2013 —Preceding undated comment added 15:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The article is about the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards, which both organizations grant. The separation of the two organizations appears to be a legal convenience only in the same way many international corporations maintain two distinct statuses of incorporation (i.e. we have a single entry for Royal Dutch Shell, not separate entries for Royal Dutch Shell Portugal, Royal Dutch Shell Canada, etc.); they are two organizations founded by the Duke of Edinburgh, they both grant awards called "Duke of Edinburgh" awards, and they are both headlined at events by Prince Edward. I'm sure the nuances of their legal status can be explained in the merged article. BlueSalix (talk) 14:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

They are, however, two distinctly separate charities. The International Award (IA) is run in 140+ countries, which all operate separately, and have different names - such as the President's Award. The IA is the body above all of these national operators. If the IA page and the DofE (UK) page were combined, this would be inconsistent with all other national operators in the 140 other countries - to combine all these into one article would seem unnecessary and not easy for readers to find the article for the country or Award they were looking for. There are many charities who have Prince Philip or Prince Edward as their heads (NB: PE does not head the DofE in the UK), and these charities would obviously not be merged. Dofedave (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be WP precedent for having international awards programs grouped into a single article, instead of a separate article for each and every nation, most notably the Rhodes Scholarship. I think you're overstating how scandalized readers will be in having to search for the information they need; we're not talking about thousands of words of text here. These are two fairly concise entries. Anyway, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. BlueSalix (talk) 17:12, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Due to the low traffic these pages receive and the high likelihood that no one else will come along to make a comment on the merger proposal, I have randomly selected, (using the Special:Random/User feature, 7 users whom I have personally invited here to provide input so that a consensus can be reached and the proposal either closed or acted upon. These users were randomly selected and I have no prior contact with any of them (per WP:CANVASSING). They are: User:GeorgeLouis, User:Aratse, User:Jacksonjunior, User:Northernhenge, User:Kishorekumar 62, User:Daniel Case, User:Cowbert, BlueSalix (talk) 10:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment, problem being there are 3, yes 3 awards in Northern Ireland someone who has done the DOE programme, the DOE, the International award or Gaisce – The President's Award. All are interlink, but all are seperate. Murry1975 (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's much of a problem. It only took you 20 words to explain it to the point that I understood the situation perfectly. I'm sure a single, robust, well-sectioned and appropriately sourced article would be able to account for this and be more beneficial than several disparate skeleton articles. BlueSalix (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• Merge to create a new article about the various youth schemes around the world associated with the Duke of Edinburgh. The current article seems to attract some interest but the International Award Association one looks very quiet. By creating a generic article we could also discuss any D of E associations that are not notable enough to have their own articles. (The award is massive in the UK - I'm surprised the current article isn't better developed.) --Northernhenge (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
• Merge. I can't see anything in the IAA article at present that merits a standalone article. Maybe one of the two controversies is more directly relevant to the association than the award, but that's precious little to base a separate article on. Daniel Case (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inbetweeners

The quote BlueSalix is using is irrelevant and is just one quote pulled at random for no apparent reason. There are plenty of other memorable quotes and plot synopsis elements which could also be used and which had indeed been added by a contributor and deleted by BlueSalix. The important element here is that this episode revolved around The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and any further description of the episode's content, and quotes, is surely best left to the episode's entry on Wikipedia. User:DofEDave Dofedave (talk) 15:33, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

The quote is not "at random for no apparent reason." The quote is directly in reference to the namesake of the DofE awards so is an important reflection on how they are characterized in popular culture; it offers a succinct and concise encapsulation of the way the scheme was referenced in the episode and is known among fans of the show as an iconic line. It's quite normal to include an encapsulating quote in an "in popular culture"/"cultural references" section of a WP article. For instance: Washington Generals cultural references. Also, I should like to note that the original way this was written - prior to my edit - is extremely promotional and makes it sound like this episode of the Inbetweeners was a somber documentary on the DofE awards, to wit: "Episode 5 of series 2 of The Inbetweeners is titled "The Duke of Edinburgh Awards." In it, Will McKenzie is picked by the headmaster to oversee the school's participation in the awards, with the team undertaking voluntery work in an old people's home." BlueSalix (talk) 17:20, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Delete Controversy Section / Add Notable Recipients

Since the other two points of controversy have been, correctly, moved to the IA page, there is no longer a wide body of "controversy" attached to the awards and I would like to suggest, in keeping with WP:CRITS, the entire controversy section be deleted. If necessary, the content can be incorporated into the History section. Also, would anyone support adding a "notable recipients" section? It seems there are enough reasonably well-known recipients of DofE awards to make this a useful addition. BlueSalix (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

This makes sense to incorporate it into the 'history' area as you suggest, as it was obviously a key moment in the organisation's history. I also agree that adding a 'notable recipients' section would be good... assuming the entries could be backed up of course!94.195.239.176 (talk) 12:57, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I am unhappy with the controversry section as it stands (and looking back at how it was a few days ago doesn't make me any happier). So: agree. Also, I'm not sure whether there's any relevance to the "Popular Culture" section: this is about a TV program and nothing at all about the DoE. Nick Levine (talk) 12:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a new talk section can be started vis a vis the popular culture portion of the page - or at least this can be continued in the above section - so we can keep this discussion sorted neatly? BlueSalix (talk) 15:03, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

New section created. Nick Levine (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

While it's only been one day, given the low attention this page seems to receive, I think three persons in favor after 24 hours is reasonable to establish a consensus; unless anyone objects I think the changes should be made now. BlueSalix (talk) 13:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with combining controversy into history now... I also agree with NickLevine that the popular culture entry doesn't really fit well on this article.94.195.239.176 (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Popular Culture

Given its contents, I'm not sure whether there's any relevance to the "Popular Culture" section: this is about a TV program and nothing at all about the DoE. Nick Levine (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Including, when available, an "in popular culture" section is fundamental to Wikipedia articles. Per WP:POPCULTURE: such sections can positively distinguish Wikipedia from more traditional encyclopedias. See, for example: Royal Navy ("in popular culture" section), Antonio Vivaldi ("in popular culture" section), New York Public Library ("in popular culture" section), Harlem Globetrotters ("in popular culture" section), etc., etc. This article isn't supposed to be a publicity pamphlet for the DofE awards, it's intended to be an accurate and comprehensive (though not exhaustive) summary of what it is, and how it's perceived and reflected in the zeitgeist. To expunge a one-sentence acknowledgment that the awards scheme was the entire name and plotline of an episode of one of the highest-rated TV shows in recent history would be extremely bizarre and break WP precedent. BlueSalix (talk) 23:09, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Update It's been a week now and, since there doesn't seem to be consensus to keep this section, I'm deleting it. BlueSalix (talk) 20:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Merger Redux

I propose Gaisce – The President's Award be merged with this article. BlueSalix (talk) 01:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose, as per BlueSalixs' point above "The article is about the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards, which both organizations grant", Gaisce only give the Presidents Award. Gaisce maybe an associate member of the IAA, they where formed three years prior to joining - I have corrected the entry on that page. As I pointed out above those participents in Northern Ireland can choose between the three awards. Murry1975 (talk) 10:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment First, to clarify, per the previous merge, all awards programs titled or modeled after the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards - operating under a variety of nation-specific names - have been merged into this article with the shuttering of the separate stub entry "International Awards Association." While this entry was previously about the organization "Duke of Edinburgh's Award," it is now about the actual award called "Duke of Edinburgh's Award," which operates under a variety of names in different nations and is granted by a multitude of sponsors. If these two articles are not merged, then the largest such program - that of the UK - will be one in a list of awards in this article, while tiny little Ireland will have its entirely own article, which would be a bizarre state-of-affairs.

Second, it bears noting that the entire DoE program in every country is almost totally absent any secondary RS. Both of these articles rely almost exclusively on primary sources to the awards websites themselves and I have had great difficulty finding any secondary sources outside celebrity gossip mags reporting on the appearance of various tertiary members of the Fam at awards events. Common sense would dictate the awards are notable, however, it's a very unusual and problematic situation since, if we were to judge it solely on the breadth of RS (which I'm not suggesting we do), the awards essentially don't exist, or are at most a PR vehicle for jobless princes like Phil, Andy, and Ed. I've done my best to legitimize this article by uploading several (CC BY) images but we're really rolling a boulder uphill on this one. BlueSalix (talk) 16:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

But its not a DOE award, you cant do the DOE award in Ireland- you can do the DOE in the other IAA countries. Also "tiny little Ireland will have its entirely own article", BlueSalix, "tiny little Ireland" has its own articles on here in many comparitive feilds, so thats not an encyclopedic problem. Murry1975 (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)