User talk:Grahamrhind

A belated welcome!

Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Grahamrhind. I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page, consult Wikipedia:Questions, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.

Again, welcome! ww2censor (talk) 14:06, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Grahamrhind. 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. MrOllie (talk) 21:30, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Grahamrhind (talk) 11:14, 15 February 2017 (UTC) Graham Rhind:[reply]

I can see no conflict of interest in any of the contributions that I make to Wikipedia.

My aim has always been to improve the content of the Wikipedia pages related to my expertise. I got fed up of having to tell people to avoid Wikipedia because it was chronically inaccurate and outdated. The changes I have made have increased the accuracy of those pages, which I hope Wikipedia would applaud. I admit to being in an awkward position because I have been the recognised world authority in addressing and postal codes for over 20 years and have published the authoritative resource for that information since 1994. This means that when I make changes the authority I would usually have to quote would be myself and my book. It's not a good situation, but I want the pages to be accurate, and I understand that there is an acceptance of edits on Wikipedia when they come from authoritative resources.

I do not edit under pseudonyms or anonymously - it's all open and above board. The suggestion that there is a conflict of interest suggests I get something from making these edits and adding links. I do not. There are no pay per click advertising on any of my pages and it costs me more money to put this knowledge online than I get from the small amount of fixed advertising on some pages of my sites. Unfortunately, I can't live on contributions, as Wikipedia does :-)

I get pushed to add references but when I do I get my knuckles rapped because they can't be from my own work. Does it boil down to, others can add links to my pages but I can't? I do understand that the rules are there to prevent misuse, but again, I understood that there is an exception in cases of known authoritative sources.

Also, there is inconsistency here. You remove my links but retained links such as http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/ - also private (also a fine resource, as it happens). Why? Why assume I get something from those links and Frank does not?

I have found the Talk section pointless, I'm afraid. A case in point. The map showing postal code lengths at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_code is chronically inaccurate and completely out of date. I suggested updating it using the authoritative resource (yes, my map, sorry ...) in 2013, and the response was positive, but it's still there and still providing completely incorrect information.

I would request you reconsider the edits that you made. I do want to keep those pages accurate but will give up and leave them to rot again if it means having to have these discussions too often.