User talk:Doregina

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Doregina. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Murali Pillai, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for article subjects for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{edit COI}} template)—don't forget to give details of reliable sources supporting your suggestions;
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam § External link spamming);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to 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 Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Pauline Muley (talk) 16:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Pauline -

Thank you for your note of 10 June 2024.

2 I have taken care to go through the links you had provided.

3 The most relevant of these links would be the one requiring me to “propose changes”, which was my intention in editing the Murali Pillai page in the first place.

4 Rather than talk and talk behind a Wikipedia wall, I thought it more sensible to make these changes right away, especially as I was able to back up these changes with verifiable sources.

5 Otherwise, for too long, quite a few howlers have remained or cropped up on Murali Pillai’s page. These include:

-         Describing him as “branch secretary to Ong Chit Chung”. Ong Chit Chung was not a political party. The correct description would be branch secretary to the PAP’s Bukit Batok branch office;

-         Reflecting all four of his children’s names and backing that up with two media sources. As it turns out, neither of these media sources mentions any of his children’s names. Also, in general, how relevant are the names of a subject’s children to his Wikipedia profile, especially when some among these children are minors and thus should not, for their safety and privacy, be exposed on Wikipedia;

-         References to his legal profile, which is barebones as it is, are outdated. The subject in question is an equity partner (not partner) and a Senior Counsel, the crème de la crème of Singaporean lawyers, which means he must have accomplished quite a bit above and beyond his peers to be so honoured. Wikipedia should at least reflect that legal standing fully and accurately but as the page stands currently, it is apparent that waiting for disinterested parties to reflect that or, indeed, correct factual errors, is a continuing exercise in patience;

-          One becomes a Senior Counsel in Singapore by doing much more than defend an ex-MP for criminal breach of trust. So, the edits I had made reflected a fraction of the landmark cases for which Murali Pillai made his name as a litigator; and

-         Most perplexing is the utter absence of Murali Pillai’s contributions to parliamentary debate, the development of legislation in Singapore as well as to the residents of Bukit Batok. The subject in question has been one of the most hardworking parliamentarians of Singapore in the past eight years so the mind boggles as to why not a single one of his major proposals, most of which became law or resulted in a change of policies, is reflected in Wikipedia.

6 Like millions of other users, Wikipedia pages are my go-to for reliable and rounded snapshots of many subjects. So, I find it very hard to believe that Wikipedia is willing to tolerate the continued existence of such problematic content in the Murali Pillai profile yet cannot tolerate someone editing these pages in good faith to make purely factual corrections and set the record straight.

7 That, however, seems to have been the upshot of all my edits being wholly blocked on 10 June 2024. May I know, for example, what is objectionable about reflecting Murali Pillai’s name in Chinese characters/pinyin and redacting his children’s names first, for their safety as two among them are minors, and second, because the sources cited by previous editors are factually incorrect?

8 Additionally, and in the interests of balance and neutrality, you would have noted that I took care to include quite a few controversies that Pillai has faced since he became a politician. Surely these should be reflected too in the interests of an encyclopaedic profile? I do not see, for instance, how Dr Chee Soon Juan’s complaint against holding a seniors’ gathering during the Covid-19 pandemic should be reflected in Wiki when there are a host of far weightier controversies to put on record with regard to this subject.

9 While I respect Wikipedia’s policy of being careful to keep every entry neutral, and free of conflicts of interest as defined by Wikipedia, please note that I decided to have a go at editing the Murali Pillai Wikipedia page after being encouraged by Wikipedia’s principles to “be bold” and for Wiki editors/administrators not to “bite the newcomer”. As Wikipedia entries are meant to be a la those for encyclopaedias, I took care to couch everything I edited neutrally, factually and backed up by verifiable sources, save in two instances when, rightly, I should not have cited Facebook sources; and

10 While Wikipedia discourages paid contributions, I learnt from further delving into its policies that they can be published and furthermore, there are Wiki-ways for them to be published, such as through submitting an Article for Creation, or by declaring possible conflicts of interest in writing/editing such content.

11 Given all this, may I learn from you what you would advise be done in my particular situation to enable legitimate proposed changes to Murali Pillai’s profile, largely summarised above, to be published in Wikipedia? The summary and wholesale blocking of all that I edited on the page on 10 June 2024 does not make me think I am too welcome on Wikipedia.

Thank you very much in advance. Looking forward to your advice then.

Kind regards

Doregina 119.74.191.71 (talk) 03:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)