User talk:Lawrence Wollersheim

January 2014

Hello, Lawrence Wollersheim. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Lawrence Wollersheim, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:

• Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
• Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
• Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
• Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. Widr (talk) 16:28, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

November 2023

Hello, I'm Ingenuity. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, FACTNet, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 23:15, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Lawrence Wollersheim. 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 conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations 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);
• 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. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 23:20, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Explanation and suggestions

@Lawrence Wollersheim: I'm going to try to present a more personal explanatory response than those above.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a bio for companies and people. The senior-most guiding principle is that we write summaries of what third-party reliable sources have written about a subject. FACTnet's history with the Church of Scientology is well covered in reliable sources, which is why the current Wikipedia page is mostly about that. I am not aware of any media coverage or books or other reliable source writings about your more recent activities, nor those of the FACTnet organization, which is why there is little written about that on the Wikipedia pages FACTNet and Lawrence Wollersheim.

Wikipedia also requires writings from third-parties, and abhors using a person's or company's own website to be the source of information that makes it onto a Wikipedia page, except for the most basic of information (for example: when something happened, someone's name spelling or birth date, company name changes, etc.), and policy requires us to cite a source for everything that is written on a public-facing Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is less of a directory or press bio, and more of a "What has been written about whom" website, giving priority to majority viewpoints and very little attention and coverage to minor or obscure viewpoints.

It also has strong policies against allowing people to edit their own Wikipedia articles, which is why your edit was summarily reverted.

If you have some links to third-party writings about your more recent (or post-Scientology) activities, or want something changed on the page, feel free to post the information and request on the article's talk page (Talk:Lawrence Wollersheim or Talk:FACTNet). One of the editors (who has subscribed for notifications to changes of the particular article) will read your message and edit the page according to Wikipedia guidelines.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me by posting a reply, or send me an email through the Wikipedia system.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)