Talk:Dominic Cummings

Passive voice generally deprecated

I've never heard of Dominic Cummings, so this is not a point about him, but I recommend the active voice rather than the passive voice, since readers may wish to know who said something, especially if the speaker has a page entry already. If not, a link shows readers this and encourages editors to make a page. -- Robin (talk) 10:47, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I was quoting the opening line of The Canary article: "Dominic Cummings is an unelected bureaucrat who’s described as 'assistant to the prime minister', with responsibilities for Brexit and domestic policy", but I omitted the "with responsibilities for Brexit and domestic policy" bit.

So isn't Tom Coburg the one who should be credited as the active voice, rather than The Guardian's Patrick Wintour?--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 14:01, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you're correct. I've just given it a tidy, and removed the image caption which had become repetitious. Such colourful 3rd party language can be helpful, but should not be overused lest it drag the article down to a "he said... she said..." trading of insults. -- Robin (talk) 00:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

On that trading of insults theme, Robin, I see The Guardian reported that Dominic Cummings retaliated by calling David Cameron "a sphinx without a riddle".

The tidied lede doesn't say what position Cummings now occupies nor who appointed him. Maybe we should simply adopt the Wikipedia lede:

Dominic Mckenzie Cummings is a British political strategist who in 2019 was appointed Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. From 2015 to 2016, Cummings served as the Campaign Director of Vote Leave, the successful campaign advocating for the UK to vote to leave the European Union in the 2016 EU Referendum. Between 2007 to 2014, he worked as Special Adviser to the then Education Secretary, Michael Gove.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 10:02, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Copying Wikipedia scores as far as simplicity goes, but that is not really the point of an alternative site - if people want to read Wikipedia, that should only ever be one click away anyway. Instead, I recommend using Template:Job to indicate his current job. Using this template not only keeps the job info in a predictable place, it also makes it machine readable. Did you know that you can also declare who appointed him (with )?

Re: insults, there is an endless amount of this already out there, so as I say, while one or two such may spice up an article, they're generally unwanted and lower the tone. -- Robin (talk) 11:25, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Done!--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 22:35, 10 August 2019 (UTC)