Caesarnonsupragrammaticos

Hello, Caesarnonsupragrammaticos. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the article Robert Cahalan, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. Editing for the purpose of advertising or promotion is not permitted. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your COI when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• do your best to comply with 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).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Melcous (talk) 11:12, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

"Cahalan emailed me when he was having trouble with Wikipedia"

One of the indicators of a conflict of interest is that you are editing an article at the request or direction of the subject. If Cahalan emailed you, then that situation applies here. —C.Fred (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your zeal for objectivity, C. Fred. Actually I applaud it, the Fourth Estate could use a good dose of that and is growing anemic from a lack thereof. So I mean no disrespect when I state that the claim that Bob Cahalan and I have a relationship because he emailed me is a non sequitur.

When I got Cahalan's email, he offered no money and has never given me money. Our relationship, or lack thereof, is the point—not that he contacted someone he knew had already done the research and could easily contribute.

I have done more volunteer work in my time than many a folk. It's important to me. When I lived in DC, ten people could walk by a homeless person on the street and not a word was said. Then I would walk by; and they'd ask for money. Somehow, they had me pegged. Not sure how wise my giving was, but I wondered—what if they really need it. Some of them were possibly spending funds on alcohol. I started questioning whether other charities would better use donations. Trying to put an end to the confusion, I worked to develop a hard, what I called "Metro Face." But it didn't do much good. Neither, though, did it designate a relationship with them. Not comparing Cahalan to the homeless, obviously. Just stating responding to a request does spell a relationship.

Wikipedia asks for volunteer writers/editors too. And I'm certain most people who write for it aren't bosom buddies who can't be objective. Perhaps some write for Wikipedia just for the practice.

I am now spending much more time on this than I planned. I know you're just trying to do your job; and again, I have to appreciate your zeal. But, seriously, please give me something more than Cahalan emailed me; so I can't be objective.

Notes:

1. Please do not mark your edits as 'minor' when they do not meet the criteria, thanks

Thank you for your contributions. Please mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Robert Cahalan, as "minor" only if they are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Thank you. Melcous (talk) 11:12, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

2. Please do not add external links to articles

Hello, I'm Melcous. I wanted to let you know that I removed one or more external links you added to the main body of Robert Cahalan. Generally, any relevant external links should be listed in an "External links" section at the end of the article and meet the external links guidelines. Links within the body of an article should be internal Wikilinks. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Melcous (talk) 11:12, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Melcous and C.Fred I have have posted our conflict on Wikipedia's Administrators Noticeboard. I am supposed to notify you using something along the lines of There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. to do so. I am not sure how to do that, so I am notifying you here. If you would be so kind as to tell me how to use the ANI-notice, I will do that as well.

On another note. Could you, Melcous and C.Fred, explain whether you two have a relationship, and if so, what it is? (I don't assume you have one). Thank you.

You are required to notify editors related to a WP:ANI discussion on their talk pages - there is a big notice at the top of the WP:ANI page that tells you how to do this. In answer to your questions, no I have no relationship with C.Fred whatsoever. As has been kindly explained to you at ANI by NatGertler, I reverted your edits because they added unsourced content, content that was not neutral, and external links into the body of the article, and in the edit summaries I explained this. I posted the COI template above for two reasons: (1) I first discovered the article because of the template you had added linking him to Johns Hopkins University, as I have recently been working on a number of articles edited by editors connected to that institution with clear conflicts of interest; and (2) because the type of editing you were doing is often the done by people with a conflict. It was not an accusation, but a standard template that tells you what you need to know if you do have a conflict. Cheers, Melcous (talk) 22:04, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, please "sign" your posts on talk pages by adding four tildes (~ this symbol) at the end. Thanks, Melcous (talk) 22:04, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Melcous, I took a look at how to notify editors on their talk pages, then made a brief effort to notify you and C.Fred here on this talk page because I couldn't figure the other out quickly. Clearly user error on my part. But frankly, I am frustrated by the time it has taken to prove I don't have a relationship with Cahalan. And I am not inclined to invest even more time figuring out Wikipedia's ropes so I can prove it. If I decide to continue this, thus far futile effort, I will pick up more Wikipedia procedural skills. But at this point, I'm done for a while. Yet as Nate gave me a decent response and Penguin was quite reasonable, I might one day return.

As for the reasons my edits were reverted, multiple of these reasons were posted at the top of the Robert Cahalan Wikipedia page before I made my contribution. So when I saw them still at the top of the page after I made my contributions (on a page that still included some of the older contributions), it was unclear to me whether these were complaints against the previous contributions or mine. The first comments I saw that I knew were directed to me -- focused on a suspected relationship with Cahalan.

And, while I'm discussing comments directed at me, it might be best practice to verify your statement: "I first discovered the article because of the template you had added linking him to Johns Hopkins University. Caesarnonsupragrammaticos (talk) 03:42, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, you are correct, my mistake, that non-existent category was added by the original creator of the article (who had a clear conflict of interest). That is another 'red flag' for many editors here - once an article has been edited by someone with a clear conflict and then shortly afterwards a brand new editor starts making similar kinds of edits, it does look like continued WP:COI editing. I appreciate that you are saying that is not what happened here, but I hope you can also see that your comment that the subject of the article (who presumably was that original editor) asked you to edit the article also added to that impression. If you do decide to continue editing wikipedia (which obviously I would encourage you to do), it is often best to get some experience by editing articles which you don't have any personal connection to in order to 'learn the ropes' - unfortunately because there are so very many people who try to use wikipedia for self-promotion, there is some sensitivity among editors here to the appearance of conflicts. Cheers, Melcous (talk) 07:18, 15 December 2017 (UTC)