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Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

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Hi Julie. I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia. Based on this comment, you have a conflict of interest with regard to the Design Tech school. 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, Julie Abraham. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

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.
  • 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. Note that Wikipedia's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

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.

Comments and requests

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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 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).

In Wikipedia, that disclosure should go on the relevant article Talk page, and on your user page (which is here: User:Julie Abraham). Something simple like "I am employee of Design Tech High School" would be great. Would you please take care of that?

The peer review" 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 viola there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary. What we ask editors who have a COI to do, is a) if you create an article, submit it through the WP:AFC process so it can be reviewed before it publishes. b) And if you want to change content in an 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.

Will you please make the COI disclosure on your user page, and agree to follow the peer review processes? Please reply here - I am watching this page and will see it. Thanks!

Hi - Thank you. (I think this is how I reply - by going to edit and adding my response). This is a solid ethical procedure and I will add my disclosure to my Talk page. I will be happy to follow your process and appreciate the guidance. My goal is to have an factual rather than promotional entry. I was prompted by an inaccurate entry that listed dtech HS under Millbrae HS with an inaccurate name. I will attend to this this evening as I'm currently at the school with students. I appreciate your swift response.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Julie Abraham (talkcontribs) 17:50, 26 August 2015‎ (UTC)Reply
Thanks for replying! Quick note on Wikipedia logistics, or maybe better, etiquette. 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 intents, 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 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. Will reply on the substance in a second...Jytdog (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Great, thanks again for being willing to follow the COI procedures. Happy to help if you need anything going forward. Jytdog (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Reply

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Hi, thanks for message. You can sign your comments automatically using four tildes ~~~~. Please add your messages to the bottom of the talk page, or they may be overlooked. I deleted your article because

  • The article was a copyright violation. Copyrighted text is not allowed in Wikipedia, as outlined in this policy. That applies even to pages created by you or your organisation, unless they state clearly and explicitly that the text is public domain or CC BY-SA 3.0 licensed . The school website has no such disclaimer. There are ways to donate copyrighted text to Wikipedia, as described here; please note that simply asserting on the talk page that you are the owner of the copyright, or you have permission to use the text, isn't sufficient.
  • Although you added a release note for the text, that needs to go on the school's website that you copied, not here, so that we can see that you have the authority to release the school's copyrights. But in any case the copyrighted text is far too promotional to be useful for Wikipedia's purposes, so there would not be any point in your jumping through all the hoops that are required.
  • it did not provide independent verifiable sources to enable us to verify the facts and show that it meets the notability guidelines. Sources that are not acceptable include social media and other sites that can be self-edited, blogs, websites of unknown or non-reliable provenance, and sites that are just reporting what the school claims or interviewing its management.
  • it was written in a promotional tone. Articles must be neutral and encyclopaedic. Examples of unsourced claims presented as fact include: free, innovative... offers both a rigorous academic and design thinking program in which students harness technology and collaborate to find solutions that address wide-ranging challenges. This goal has attracted a diverse student body... &mdsah; and so on. There is virtually nothing factual about the school, it's all just spam
  • You have an obvious conflict of interest when it comes to editing articles about this subject, as highlighted by Jytdog. Thank you for declaring your interest. If, after reading the information about notability linked above, you still believe that your school is notable enough for a Wikipedia article (and that there is significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources), you could, if you wish, post a request at Wikipedia:Requested articles for the article to be created. See also Wikipedia:Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest.

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Reply