Supplying information for the Housmans World Peace Database

The database editor is grateful to the many people around the world who help by supplying information. The production of the database relies on this help — it’s very much a co-operative effort. You are encouraged to send in information, comments and suggestions at any time.

If you want to update the information about an organisation already listed

Please make clear whether or not you represent the organisation concerned. If not, what is your source for the information, and how recent is that source? Do you know when the change happened? Is there any published confirmation of this information, either in print or on the internet? Check here for details of how to contact the editor.

If you want to suggest another organisation for inclusion

Are you connected with the organisation? If not, what is the source of your information? To speed up the validation of a new entry, please if possible send printed documentation which shows both the organisation’s contact details and also some information about its background and its work.

Guidelines for contributors

Addresses:

Please bear in mind that no organisation can be considered for inclusion unless its publishable contact information includes a postal address.

Phone numbers:

The database is for international use, and many special phone numbers — such as freephone numbers, premium rate numbers, mobile numbers, and other non-geographical numbers — are not universally dialable from every ordinary phone line in every country. Furthermore, many such numbers incur a greatly increased cost for the caller, and hence discriminate against poorer fellow-activists. For these reasons, you should always supply an ordinary geographical phone number as the main contact number to be shown in the database.

Mobile phone numbers are occasionally acceptable in certain circumstances, such as: if you’re in a country where the owner of the mobile phone receiving a call pays the extra charge (beyond that of a call to an ordinary landline), rather than the extra being paid by the caller — this is the case in the USA and Canada; if you’re based in a part of the world where the infrastructure is such that a mobile phone is the only feasible option.

Languages:

Because of possible ambiguities, such as with accented characters, when information is sent by fax or e-mail, it is important that information sent other than in English (especially if it’s in a less common language, with which the database editor might be unfamiliar) should be sent in printed form whenever possible. Please also see the section “Which language?” on the page explaining more about the database.

Supply of information by phone:

If you want to supply information to the editor by phone, rather than sending it in writing, then you must speak to the editor directly; messages left on the Project’s answering machine are only acceptable in the case of minor corrections to existing database entries.

Use of information supplied

Information received — providing there has been time to validate it, and collate it with other related information — will normally be considered for inclusion during the preparation of the next new edition of the database. However, because of the inevitable time pressures, and because the database work relies on much voluntary labour, no guarantee can be given as to when information will be published. Furthermore, the ultimate decision about whether any specific information will be published at all, and if so in what form, lies with the editor.

Responding to requests for information

All groups currently listed in the database, and some others, are from time to time sent a form to fill in, asking them to confirm the accuracy of the information held about them. It is important that these forms are completed fully and clearly, and returned by post as soon as possible. Any organisation which repeatedly fails to return these forms may disappear from published versions of the database, even if information about their existence is available in other ways.