Farm65

Hello, Farm65, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field with your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Ronz (talk) 22:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: Edit a page • Upload and use images • Create your first article Intuitive guide to Wikipedia • Article Creation Wizard Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Help desk: A Wiki Styled page to ask questions on Help directory: A comprehensive list-style help contents page Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons List of policies • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • List of guidelines Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Simplified manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Peer review • Featured content Miscellaneous User pages • Talk pages Awards a registered contributor can achieve and award Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

EAR request

Hi. With regard to your request at WP:EAR I have reviewed your draft again. After making some minor improvements to the prose, I then reviewed all the linked sources. Here's what I found:

• http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/courses-jmgay/SustainableAg.htm is a page that lists resources and has no text. If indeed the Kerr Centre is listed, it is not a reference, and at best this link should be listed as an external link of general interest for sustainable farming and not for the centre for which it has no direct relevance.
• http://www.istl.org/04-summer/article5.html is a personal aczdemic paper, and if indeed the Centre is mentioned in it, it is not a reliable, established published source that asserts notability.
• Horne, Jim; Maura McDermott (2001). Unable to comment as I do not have access to the work cited. Someone will have to go to a library and check this out.
• http://voices.rodale.com/thriving-sustainable-agriculture-in-oklahoma/2011/07/10/ is a blog and therefore not admissible for notability purposes.
• http://swtimes.com/sections/business/area-ranchers-farmers-cope-drought.html: the centre is only fleetingly mentioned in connection with something one of its staff onece said. Although probably a reliable newspaper, the article is not about the Centre and does not confer notability.
• http://www.southernsare.org/Professional-Development: this talks about SARE but does not mention the centre at all.

Unfortunately, together, these links do not support notability per WP:GNG or WP:ORG for organisations. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Organic farming

Since you're clearly trying to avoid WP:COI problems, please be more careful when adding links against a conflict of interest [1]. --Ronz (talk) 22:41, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Ronz. I admit I am puzzled over what constitutes COI-free editing in this regard. The addition I'd made to the References section in the Organic Farming article, while published by an organization I'm affiliated with, is directly relevant to the page topic, it's educational (as opposed to promotional) in nature, and the author has another publication (published by a different organization) already cited in the article. Please explain.... Farm65 (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. There's a lot to editing with a coi. Here's the standard COI note for editors, that summarizes the coi issues nicely:

Hello, Farm65. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may need to consider our guidance on conflicts of interest.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:

• Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
• Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
• Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
• Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you.

As you can see, adding links is one of the main concerns.

Putting aside the coi for a moment, just adding links to a reference section without making any corresponding changes to content or otherwise indicating what the link verifies is inappropriate as well.

What I think you intended to do was add the link as a general reference or resource. In that case if it were appropriate it would go in the External links section, and WP:EL applies.

In the case where you have a coi, the general solution is to bring it up on the article talk page for others to review and decide if it should be added.

Hope this makes sense. While Wikipedia may not be a bureaucracy it can certainly look like it at times. I hope this doesn't dissuade you from contributing. --Ronz (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)