User talk:ECURBEC

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Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

Hi ECURBEC I work on conflict of interest issues here in Wikipedia, along with my regular editing. Your edits to Alexandre Mars were your first edits after you finished the "adventure" training, and were promotional, which creates the perception that you may have a conflict of interest. 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, ECURBEC. 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 which forms all or part of work 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 Mars, his foundation, or any of his companies, 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), I can walk you through how the "peer review" part happens and then, if you like, I can provide you with some more general orientation as to how this place works. Please reply here, just below, to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello and thanks so much for reaching out to me. Sorry for the delay in replying, the time difference is slightly to blame as I am in Dubai. Also I wasn't quite sure what the correct way was / is to reply. You are my first interlocutor. Thanks! As you rightly say, I am new to all this.

I dont know if there is a conflict or not. I am involved on an ad hoc basis with the How to do good initiative and am proud of the work they do. I was involved in helping to make the speaker tour happen. I helped with planning and execution. I did go to the venues and and I did get expenses, although it's all strictly non-profit and tickets were free etc. I met and learnt about Mars from that. Actually I would really like to get an entry for this initiative going as it is notable, but I thought it was premature until I am a bit more wiki savvy.

I absolutely don't work for Mars or Epic although I do admire him and his work. I chose his entry to edit as a practice really as I thought I could usefully expand it. I see you say that this was my first edit. Actually I have been practicing a little bit on the Dubai and Gozo sites, inter alia. Maybe I didn't sign them? Or?

However, the main point is, as we both know, that I don't really know what I'm doing and I would be extremely grateful for your help and guidance.

Perhaps my phrasing is at fault. I see someone else has deleted what I wrote as they took exception to the phrase 'talent for business' and said it has no place in an encyclopaedia. I have thanked them, by the way, and accepted the deletion. I am not here to cause trouble or to undermine this marvellous bank of neutral knowledge, rather to learn and participate appropriately. And I must thank you for assuming that this is the case rather than 'judging'.

Having said that, I am not sure I wouldn't write a similar phrase again as isn't it a simple fact that Mars has a talent for business and it is relevant? His ability to start new companies and make money is what has enabled him to fund and make successful his foundation, which is all about getting other young successful business people to give back too by funding other young people with good ideas?

Anyway I am SUPER happy to be guided in how to put things and wonder if you can help me?

What declaration do I need to make and where? If any?

How do I amend the Mars entry so that it is acceptable? Or?

How do I move forwards to suggest and write up new articles and pages? I am interested in more things about this part of the world, for example.

I hope I have got this right and you will have time to answer me. I dont expect you to do everything for me, of course, but it is really great to have a mentor. {{subst:unsigned|08:08, 15 June 2017 (edit) (undo)

Best wishes ECURBEC (talk) 08:05, 15 June 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 Wikipedia 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 if you hit a return in an indented comment, you need to add the colons in front of each paragraph. If fixed that for you above. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 13:28, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your open and gracious note. Sounds like there are no COI issues, but rather that you are a fan of Mars, and this came through in your edits. We call this "advocacy" and it is distinct from conflict of interest per se. Advocacy is a difficult thing in Wikipedia - people come edit for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that they are passionate about something. That passion is a double-edged sword. It drives people to contribute which has the potential for productive construction, but it can also lead people to abuse Wikipedia - to hijack it from its mission of providing the world with free access to "accepted knowledge." Some people come here and try to create promotional content about their companies (classic "COI"), some come to tell everybody how bad it is to eat meat, some come to grind various political axes... we get all kinds of advocacy (COI is just a subset of it) It all comes down to violations of WP:NPOV and WP:NOTADVOCACY - a lack of focus on the mission, which is to provide the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge, neutrally. A lot of times, people don't even understand this is not OK. I try to talk with folks, to make sure they are aware of these issues.

It is great to allow your passion to drive the subject matter you work on, but the really key thing when you edit, is to always start with very strong sources (see WP:MEDRS for content about health, and WP:RS for everything else) and let them guide the content you generate (not what you already know, or what your passion tells you is true or false). We summarize reliable sources here, giving WEIGHT to what they give WEIGHT to, and we try to avoid colorful language that promotes or denigrates anything. Positive facts, negative facts - whatever is accepted knowledge. I hope that makes sense. Happy to discuss if you have any further questions as your experience here progresses. Thanks again for your reply! Jytdog (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi again, and thanks for the information about indents and also the clarification about advocacy. It is really helpful. I am going to crack on and try and get my stuff into a neutral and appropriate state. I am actually a great believer in 'real' information.ECURBEC (talk) 06:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)