OMS-777

Welcome!

Hello, OMS-777, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Introduction and Getting started
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to take the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit The Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi OMS-777 I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with regular editing. Your extensive edit to Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences was promotional and typical of editing described in WP:BOOSTER. I'm giving you notice of our Conflict of Interest guideline and Terms of Use, and will have some comments and requests for you below.

Hello, OMS-777. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places, or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic, and it is important when editing Wikipedia articles that such connections be completely transparent. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, we ask that you please:

• avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your family, friends, school, company, club, or organization, as well as any competing companies' projects or products;
• instead, you are encouraged to propose changes on the Talk pages of affected article(s) (see the {{request edit}} template);
• when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or to the website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please take a few moments to read and review Wikipedia's policies regarding conflicts of interest, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you.

Comments and requests

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do (and if you are paid, some things you need to do).

Disclosure is the most important, and first, step. While I am not asking you to disclose your identity (anonymity is strictly protecting by our WP:OUTING policy) would you please disclose if you have some connection with the college, directly or through a third party (e.g. a PR agency or the like)? You can answer how ever you wish (giving personally identifying information or not), but if there is a connection, please disclose it. After you respond (and you can just reply below), perhaps we can talk a bit about editing Wikipedia, to give you some more orientation to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog: Thank you for your feedback. I'm new to this (if it isn't obvious), and your notes explain things a little but it's still confusing. But to answer your question, I have nothing to hide - I'll tell you my name, company, home address, daughter's names - anything you want. My association with Albany College of Pharmacy is that they're a client of my marketing firm. Well, that's mostly true - they're pretty much a former client now. We used to be their agency of record but now we only handle tiny projects here and there. As far as being compensated by the College, we are compensated for our marketing and creative work but not the efforts we're trying to put through for the Wikipedia updates. I'm trying to do this as a favor to my friend who is the school's marketing director. He has struggled with these updates in the past but it looks like I'm not able to help him very much. I would appreciate any advice you may be able to give so that I don't repeat the same efforts only to have everything wiped out. Do I take things in baby steps, only making minor edits?OMS-777 (talk) 19:47, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting - when you reply to someone, you put a colon ":" in front of your comment, and the WP software converts that into an indent; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons "::" which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense. And yuo seem to already have this bit down, but at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas "~~~~" which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages. That is how we know who said what. I know this is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 20:58, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again for replying, and for explaining your connection with the college. So yeah, your friend was editing under a COI and in violation of the WP:PAID policy. With regard to you, the key issue is whether you are receiving consideration (which we construe broadly) for editing here. I am not going to get into parsing that in your situation - the key thing operationally is that you have a COI. Please do reflect on whether you are receiving "consideration" for editing on behalf of the college.

To finish the disclosure piece, would you please add the disclosure of your COI here to your user page - something like "I am working on the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences article on behalf of its marketing department and have a conflict of interest on that topic." would be fine. (With regard to other stuff, see WP:USERPAGE for guidance if you like).

I added a tag to the article's talk page, so the disclosure is done there. Once you disclose on your user page, the disclosure piece of this will be done.

As I noted above, there are two pieces to COI management in WP. The first is disclosure. The second is a form of peer review. This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voilà there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world. So the bias that conflicted editors tend to have, can go right into the article. Conflicted editors are also really driven to try to make the article fit with their external interest. If they edit directly, this often leads to big battles with other editors.

What we ask editors to do who have a COI and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is:

a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft through the WP:AFC process, disclose your COI on the Talk page, and then submit the draft article for review (the AfC process sets up a nice big button for you to click when it is ready) so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and

b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. You can make the edit request easily - and provide notice to the community of your request - by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. I made that easy for you by adding a section to the beige box at the top of the Talk page at Talk:X - there is a link at "click here" in that section -- if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies. (which I will say more about, if you want).

I hope that makes sense to you.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting the facts about where the company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content. If you are not sure if something is uncontroversial, please ask at the Talk page.

Will you please agree to follow the peer review processes going forward, when you want to work on the Albany article or any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. And if you want me to quickly go over the content policies, I can do that. Just let me know. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

This is extremely helpful feedback, thank you! It makes a lot more sense now, and I'm glad that there is still a way that I can help this organization and potentially others moving forward. To be honest, at least in my mind right now, I can't imagine wanting to edit anything where I wouldn't have a conflict of interest, but perhaps that will change once I get more into this. I will re-read what you've written and comply to your requests. If I miss something it'll be out of misunderstanding the way Wikipedia functions and not out of non-compliance. Thank you again!OMS-777 (talk) 13:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Glad you are to open to following the norms here. A few notes.

Over the sixteen years of its existence, the WP community has put in place a bunch of what we call "policies and guidelines" through which it realizes its mission to provide the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge, created and maintained by a community of volunteers whose privacy is protected. It takes some time to understand the mission and this forest of policies and guidelines. I can provide a kind of primer on how this place works if you like - just let me know and I will post it below. The links in the welcome message above get you there too - just a bit more scatteredly.

About paid editing, if you haven't seen it, you will probably be interested in Wikipedia:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms, and you should read Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia.

Further on the latter, please be aware that the paid/conflicted editing has caused real world scandal and a lot of ... agitation in the editing community. The community tolerates paid editing. Almost nobody loves it. There is a kind of radical wing that hates it, another radical wing that doesn't care at all, and the vast bulk is in the middle and doesn't much like it but puts up with it, as long as the policies and guidelines are followed and there is not too much drama generated. But some people will be mean to you and you will need to keep yourself together - if you act badly in response to people being mean to you, it will hurt you more than the other person.

That's all for now! Jytdog (talk) 18:43, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional information. And thanks for preparing me for what I might incur if I proceed editing while having a conflict of interest. There are a few things I can say, for what they're worth. As the former president of our regional Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) chapter, ethics mean a great lot to me. They're imperative. I am both shocked and not shocked at the same time of some of the examples presented in the references you provided me. It's indeed unfortunate this has happened (and will probably unfortunately continue to happen), but I know people are always looking for an edge. My "drive" in this instance is to complete something I offered to help with. I can't tell people I've promised help to that I'm sorry I let them down, paid or not. As I've said before, I don't know who would edit this page for the College that doesn't have a conflict of interest - who would know this amount of information to post? How have any other school Wikipedia pages been populated unless by staff, alums or a partner firm? Not just because "that's the way everybody does it," I just want to follow through with what I told our client and my friend (their marketing director) I would do. And FWIW, as I referenced earlier, even though this College has been a client, we are not being paid for this Wikipedia effort. I'm into double-digit pro bono hours and I have no idea if light at the end of the tunnel is anywhere in sight, but I want to see if through and will follow the rules to get the page updated. I guess anybody can say that, but I'm not into this for the money (I'm enjoying it enough to do it for free, for sure).

This being said, if I'm to submit what I've edited already as an AFC, do I have to reformat everything again or does it exist anywhere for me to work from? (That would save me a couple or hours, for sure.)

Lastly, I will look into adding my firm's name to the Participating Communications Firms list. I think this effort is important to support, and more firms should publicly agree to adhere by the community's rules. Thank you again for the information you've provided.OMS-777 (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes! Yes, universities are some of the worst abusers of WP for self-promotion, as I noted above. I will be happy to help you improve the page. It is not so much a question of what anybody "knows" since all WP content needs to summarize reliable sources" which are publicly available by definition. It is true, generally that people are often initially drawn to WP by self-interest but many people broaden out from there and work on other things.

With regard to you joining the PR firm collaboration, I am sure that User: WWB Too (the convener of the effort, whom I have just pinged) will be glad to have you! Jytdog (talk) 02:25, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Jytdog. And hi OMS-777, I'd be happy to fill you in about the multi-agency statement, and our ongoing efforts to normalize relations between COI contributors and volunteer editors. Try me on my talk page, or you can reach me by email via link the righthand column. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:45, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

So, Jytdog, as far as submitting what I've already edited what I'm looking to submit, is there a way to recall and submit that information as an AFC? And how long does that process typically take? (or does it vary broadly?)OMS-777 (talk) 14:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

AfC is just for brand new articles ("articles for creation"). If you want to add content to an existing article, the "peer review" happens at the article talk page - you just post it there and ask for it to be reviewed. With regard to where the content is -- this is an important thing to keep in mind about Wikipedia. The software logs and keeps every change to WP, and every version of every page in Wikipedia. (sometimes things are removed from the history, but only if they are copyright violations or is they are harassment or some other serious policy violations). This is one reason why it is important to keep cool when talking to folks - nothing goes away. But every page has a "history" tab where you can see each version, and while you cannot edit the underlying wikitext of any page, you can see it, and copy it. I went to the history and the Albany page, after you edited it, is here. If you click "edit" you can see the wikitext and copy whatever you like, to add at the talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:22, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, Jytdog, I've copied and posted my original edits to the College's Talk page with a request for peer review. I hope what I did is correct (and I've asked for clarification if I posted in error). Thank you for getting me this far. Any other info would be appreciated (such as, how long might this process take?)OMS-777 (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Hm - I will put the request review tag on it. No telling how long it takes (this is one of the most frustrating thing for PR people. They are used to a world of deadlines, but in WP, there are no deadlines and this is a purely volunteer effort. Very very hard thing for PR people to get their heads around. Last thing - I created a narrative about what WP is and how it works that attempts to orient people as efficiently as possible. if you like, please see User:Jytdog/How Jytdog (talk) 00:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Great, that's all I can ask for. Thanks for your help, and I'll definitely check out your article.OMS-777 (talk) 02:34, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jtydog - I saw your comments on the Albany Pharmacy Talk page, and perhaps I should place this comment there, but thought I should start here first (since we've had this running conversation about editing going for a bit now). In your comment, your first line reads "This contains unsourced content and most of it is sourced from the college's own website." By that did you mean that most of the unsourced content is from their website, or most of the content in the whole draft is from their website? Either way, it's a little confusing as there are only three lines without a citation or Wikipedia page reference. And of all the lines that do have citations, only one points back to their site, and that's for their campus map. I'm not trying to argue or complain, just understand what that comment meant. Also, I see that the article is on the list to be reviewed, which is another reason I didn't want to mess with it or comment on that Talk page (I don't want to interrupt the process). Reading further, I understand your points about what matters - for instance, the long descriptions of the campuses probably should be cut down. I'm guessing there are other parts of the entry that could follow suit. Thanks again for your feedback!OMS-777 (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

They were separate. Most is unsourced. What is sourced, is mostly from the college website. will look again. btw, the talk page is a fine place to ask for clarification about content proposals. Jytdog (talk) 02:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jtydog - there may not be an answer for this, but I'm wondering if there is an order to the queue or if it's simply based on the editors' interests (regarding the Albany College of Pharmacy copy). It's one of a list of 150+, but I'm not sure if there's a way to determine when it will be addressed. By looking at the stats, I can see that roughly (4) articles are edited per day, but it's been over a month now so I'm not sure it's on anybody's radar. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!OMS-777 (talk) 21:19, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your follow up. The edit request queue gets handled like everything else - kind of haphazardly and in volunteer editors' good time. There are all kinds of issues raised by this list but that is how it works. I will try to circle back to your proposal today or tomorrow... Jytdog (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog. It's been some time now so I don't expect there will be any review and commentary of the content I uploaded, but I understand the points made about the content and that it shouldn't be "web speak" as if it came right off their website. I can see some areas I'd change right away. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to take this in baby steps, only making a couple of edits to see if they meet Wikipedia standards before adding anything else. Let me know what you think and I'll work on the copy some more.72.0.146.246 (talk) 20:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)