User talk:MitchGWilliams

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Microsoft Tunisia Scandal deletion

Hi, considering you tried to remove the deletion template from Microsoft Tunisia Scandal, I'm assuming you want to withdraw your nomination for deletion of that article. If that's the case, follow the instructions in the relevant section of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. In short, you should clearly indicate that's what you mean by adding “Withdrawn by nominator” to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft Tunisia Scandal. User<Svick>.Talk(); 14:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You probably need to stop

You nominated Microsoft Tunisia Scandal though your obvious conflict of interest in doing so is only part of the problem. You nominated it only weeks ago and it was speedy kept because you offered no proper rationale for deleting the article. You've nominated it again with much the same problem (actually, you nominated it for the second time, twice and neither had the request templates or were located in the right place). You probably need to raise this issue at WP:COIN first and find someone who might be willing to help you. But editing the article and trying to have it deleted without even reading what happened in the last deletion discussion isn't going to work very well. Stalwart111 11:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi user:Stalwart111

I followed the 3 steps on marking a page for deletion, if I have not interpreted the process correctly please could you assist?

MitchGWilliams (talk) 11:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You started two different nominations for deletion with two different titles and then added a third to the daily log without links. Anyway, I've deleted two of them and have kept the third which is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft Tunisia Scandal (2nd nomination). But the technical problems with the nomination are only part of the issue. You probably need to have a read of WP:COI, WP:OWN and WP:N for a start. Strictly speaking you own the article as a member of the community and the general Wikipedia-reading public but really, nobody "owns" are of the articles here. As a "Microsoft appointed representative", you really should familiarise yourself with some of the guidelines and policies that might impact on your capacity to be a representative of the brand here. Stalwart111 12:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft Tunisia Scandal (2nd nomination)

I have closed this discussion as speedy keep. This is not the way to challenge the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft Tunisia Scandal which was closed as keep only three days ago. If you want to do that, you should first contact user Mark Arsten (talk), the administrator who closed it, and explain your concerns to him. If he does not agree, you can aply at WP:Deletion review to have his decision reviewed.

Before you do that, you should read the Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide for some background on how issues like this are handled. I will also provide some more advice on this talk page later today. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Advice

The first thing to say is, thank you for declaring your interest so frankly. That will make it much easier for you to engage constructively with Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide will have told you most of what you need to know. Some additional points:

In one of your messages, you asked to contact "the owner of this article". Wikipedia does not work like that: it is a fundamental principle (Wikipedia:Ownership of articles) that nobody owns an article, not its first author and least of all its subject.

The way that content disputes should be decided is by discussion on the article talk page. There is a process described at WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle: if any editor sees a change they believe would improve the encyclopedia, they should be BOLD and make it; but if it is then reverted they should not repeat it, but discuss it on the article talk page, and try to reach WP:Consensus with other editors. ("Editor" means just the same as "user" - there is no separate class of "editors"). If consensus cannot be reached, there are WP:Dispute resolution processes.

Because of your conflict of interest, you should omit the BOLD step, and start with "discuss". What you should do is, explain on the article talk page what you believe is wrong, and what changes you think would improve the article. It will help you in the discussion to understand Wikipedia's three key content policies:

WP:Verifiability: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source"
WP:No original research which includes "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."
WP:Neutral point of view

So, while you are unlikely to get anywhere arguing that sourced material should be taken out because it is unfavourable to Microsoft (Wikipedia is extremely resistant to anything that looks like censorship), you may do better if you can argue that the sources are unreliable (see WP:RS), that there are other RS which state the facts differently, that undue weight is put on certain facts (see WP:WEIGHT) or that conclusions are drawn from the sources which are not explicitly stated in them (WP:SYNTH).

As I said above, you are free to ask Mark Arsten (talk) to reverse his decision not to delete, or to challenge it at WP:Deletion review, but my advice is that you will get nowhere by that route. State your problems with the article on the talk page. I will tomorrow post a notice on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard WP:COI/N which will bring uninvolved editors to look at the article and join the discussion.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:JohnCD, Thank you for your assistance with the above query.

I'm an editor and admin here very experienced with conflict of interest, from companies and otherwise. I'm also one of the people most opposed to removing articles at the request of the subject. But I think this has not been adequately handled, and I'm going to help you with this. The article is not likely to be removed, but it is very likely to be modified and the title is almost certain to be changed. But, when arguing, please do keep in mind what JohnCD said. I need to think about the appropriate place for discussion, and when I do , I'll keep you informed of where the discussion is. DGG ( talk ) 04:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, on the talk page of the article please suggest a better title. Then , suggest additional sources. DGG ( talk ) 04:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you User:DGG, I will talk to my department in Tunisia and get them to suggest any edits that they might have for the article, and will check in with you to see how we go about this in the correct way.

You will see that Mark Arsten has moved the article to the more neutral title Microsoft in Tunisia and has revised and cleaned it up. Also, as I said I would, I have posted a notice at WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Microsoft in Tunisia. This is only a notification intended to bring other uninvolved editors with experience in this sort of situation to help with the article. You are welcome to comment there if you wish, but there is no need: the main thing for you to do is explain on the article talk page any further changes you would like to see. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]