User talk:Comprehensive Physiology

Hello,

I am new to this and have never had a page, an account, or have edited any wikipedia pages in my life. i completely understand the reasons you have blocked my page and/or username etc. But can someone please help me out here. i want to keep the same user name but would like to try to use the following text as the pages content:

"Comprehensive Physiology contains content from the American Physiological Society's renowned Handbook of Physiology (HoP) series."

Can you please have someone contact me as soon as possible. i would like to know if the above text is acceptable (not promotional) and if i can use the same username.

Thank you, Comprehensive Physiology (talk) 14:43, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. not sure if i did this correctly or if anyone will see this post. Please help if you are able to see this!

Yes, you did this correctly, and I will reply here within two hours. JohnCD (talk) 15:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hey, Comprehensive Physiology! I don't think you're quite understanding the purpose of user accounts and user pages here. So, first: the username. User accounts on Wikipedia are meant to be used by one person and one person only, and the user name chosen for the account should reflect this. When a user chooses a name that is the same as a company, website, or other organization or entity, it makes it appear that the account does not belong to that user specifically, but the company they're named for. This is a problem in a few ways: one, it makes it seem that the account is being shared among the members of the organization and thus there is no one person responsible for the account's edits. This type of account sharing is not permitted. Two, it makes the account appear to demand special authority over the organization's Wikipedia article, similarly to how a company might have an official Facebook or Twitter account. But that's not how Wikipedia works; no one editor, not even the subject of the article or the article's author, has control or ownership over the article's content; articles are owned, so to speak, by the community at large. So, in order to dispel these, we require user names to appear to represent one and only one person, and a user name like "Comprehensive Physiology" just doesn't fit the bill, I'm afraid.

Second: the content. I'm inferring that you want the page User:Comprehensive Physiology to contain your suggestion. But that page is not a real encyclopedia article; it is a user page, intended to introduce information about an editor that may be relevant in dealings with them. Since, as I said, accounts represent specific people and not organizations, putting your suggestions into your user page isn't going to be particularly helpful to that end (not to mention that your user name, and by extension the title of your user page, will probably need to change). If you're instead talking about creating an actual encyclopedia article, which would be located at Comprehensive Physiology, that line would probably be all right for inclusion as part of such an article. But it takes much more than that to create a Wikipedia article; we need references to independent reliable sources to support the information we would include in an article, and it requires multiple instances of significant coverage in such sources to establish a subject's notability (that is, its eligibility to have a Wikipedia article written about it). It's also important to note that Wikipedia articles must be written neutrally, avoiding promotional phrasing and fluff.

Wikipedia is a tough place to get the hang of at first; the rules governing things like notability and reliable sources can be quite complex. But I find that it's worth the effort. If you want to keep trying, then feel free to post an unblock request that includes a new user name by adding the line: {{unblock un|user=*new name*|reason=*reason*}}, where of course you would write your desired new user name in place of "*new name*" and the reason you want to be unblocked in place of "*reason*". Just some advice if you wish to take this route: remember that a new user name must represent you as a singular person, and your unblock reason should include a brief statement of what you intend to do on Wikipedia going forward. It would also be worthwhile to take a glance at the guide to appealing blocks, particularly the '"bad username" blocks' and 'advertising-only accounts' sections. If you have any questions, you can ask them here, and I'll do my best to answer if I can; you can also use another {{help me}}, exactly like you did before, if you'd like someone else to take a look, as well. And regardless of what happens, thanks for trying to improve Wikipedia! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:27, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Writ Keeper has well covered what I was going to say. I am sorry that we do not explain better at sign-on time that Wikipedia user pages are quite different from those on Myspace or Facebook which people use to tell the world about themselves and their concerns.

I would only add that Wikipedia is extremely resistant to being used for any kind of promotion, and for that reason has guidelines on editing with a conflict of interest. That is one reason why usernames representing a group or organization are not permitted. With the best intentions, people close to a subject and keen to tell the world about it often seem unable to see when they are writing promotionally. For instance, your piece included: "authoritative and comprehensive collection... distinguished Editorial Advisory Board... world-class team of Topic Editors... " That is what Wikipedia calls "puffery", and articles written in that PR-speak style get deleted as advertising.

If you are unblocked to change username to a name that will represent only you as an individual volunteer contributor to Wikipedia, you will still have a COI in respect of Comprehensive Physiology and should read the WP:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide before writing about it. It would be a good idea to read it before requesting unblock, and make clear in your unblock request that you agree to work according to its principles. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 16:40, 19 June 2013 (UTC)