User talk:Dr Joseph Shaw

Welcome!

Hello, Dr Joseph Shaw, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

The five pillars of Wikipedia
Tutorial
How to edit a page and How to develop articles
How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! -- Jytdog (talk) 11:41, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Latin Mass Society of England and Wales

You have Conflict of Interest (COI) issues regarding this article. Please read WP:COI for further information. Afterwriting (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society. I am unpaid and my edits have been purely factual. Under the COI guidelines this appears legitimate.

That is not my interpretation of the COI guidelines (but I don't claim to be an expert). This needs to be clarified by other editors, preferably administrators, on the COI noticeboard. Afterwriting (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident in which you may be involved. Thank you. Afterwriting (talk) 06:21, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

some advice

HI Dr Joseph Shaw. Thanks again for disclosing your COI.

It is great to have you here. If you really want to get involved, it turns out that Wikipedia is a pretty complex place. Being an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" means that over the years, Wikipedia has developed lots of policies and guidelines (PAG) to help provide a "body of law" as it were, that form a foundation for rational discussion. Without that foundation, this place would be both a garbage dump of random content and a wild west - a truly ugly place. But with the foundation, there is guidance for generating excellent content and there are ways to rationally work things out - if, and only if, all the parties involved accept that foundation and work within it. One of the hardest things for new people, is to understand not only that this foundation exists, but what its letter and spirit is. (I keep emphasizing the spirit, because too often people fall prey to what we call "wikilawyering") The more I have learned about how things are set up here - not just the letter of PAG and the various drama boards and administrative tools, but their spirit - the more impressed I have become at how, well ... beautiful this place is. It takes time to learn both the spirit and the letter of PAG, and to really get aligned with Wikipedia's mission to crowdsource a reliable, NPOV source of information for the public (as "reliable" and "NPOV" are defined in PAG!). People come edit for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that they are passionate about something (or they have a COI). That passion is a double-edged sword. It drives people to contribute which has the potential for productive construction, but it can also lead to WP:TENDENTIOUS editing, which is really destructive. WP:ADVOCACY is one of our biggest bedevilments. Anyway, I do hope you slow down and learn. There are lots of people here who are happy to teach, if you open up and listen and ask authentic questions, not rhetorical ones. And really, good luck.

PAG are described and discussed in a whole forest of documents within Wikipedia that are "behind the scenes" in a different "namespace", in which the documents start with "Wikipedia:" or in shorthand, "WP:" (for example, WP:ADVOCACY not here ADVOCACY). You won't find these documents by using the simple search box above, which searches only in "main space" where the actual articles are. However if you search with the prefix, you will find policies and guidelines. Likewise if you do an advanced search with "wikipedia" or "help" selected you can also find things in "Wikipedia space". The link in the welcome message above the "Five Pillars" points you to our most important policies and I recommend that you read them all, if you have not already and if you intend to stick around! They guide everything that happens here.

With all that in mind, here are some things that I suggest you read (I know, I know, things to read... but like I said, Wikipedia can be complicated!)

WP:COI - please read this, and follow its spirit
WP:OR - no original research is allowed -instead...
WP:VERIFY - everything must be based on reliable sources (as we define them - see WP:RS for general content and WP:MEDRS for health-related content)
WP:NPOV - this does not mean what most people think it means. it means that you read the most recent and best reliable sources you can find, and figure out what the mainstream view is, and that is what gets the most WP:WEIGHT. Pay special mind to the WP:PSCI section, which is further elaborated in the WP:FRINGE guideline.

WP:CONSENSUS - Wikipedia has plenty of policies and guidelines, as I mentioned, but really at the end of the day this place is ... a democracy? an anarchy? something hard to define. But we figure things out by talking to one another. CONSENSUS is the bedrock on which everything else rests. If you don't understand what is going on, ask the reason under policy and guidelines why what is going, is OK under policies and guidelines-- and really ask, and really listen to the answer, and go read whatever links you are pointed to. Think about it, and if there is something you don't understand, ask more questions. Please only start to actually argue once you understand the basis for the objection. If you and the other party or parties still disagree, there are many ways to resolve disputes (see WP:DR) - it never needs to become emotional - because we do have this whole "body of law" and procedures to resolve disputes.

Anyway, good luck! Jytdog (talk) 11:46, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

discussion at Administrators' Noticeboard

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Here's what the discussion is about: Recently, User:Jytdog told you that it was a conflict of interest for you to edit any articles relating to Catholicism. However, a lot of us other Wikipedians (me included) think that Jytdog was being unfair to you, and that it should be perfectly ok for you to edit Catholic articles. I mean, you don't have a conflict of interest with everything Catholic; you only have a conflict of interest with regards to the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.

I noticed that nobody had notified you of the discussion, and I thought you might want to weigh in. If you do, head on over here. 70.128.120.202 (talk) 01:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]