User talk:Mnota

Welcome!

Hello, Mnota, 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:

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! --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

United Way of Canada[edit]

Hello. Thank you for contributing to this article. There are some problems, however, with the contributions you have made (all of which can be fixed!):

Some sections of the article continue to be cut-and-paste excerpts from the United Way website. Wikipedia does not permit that kind of copyright violation. The article needs to be rewritten in a manner that does not violate the United Way's copyright, otherwise your edits will be reverted.
The article is not written in a neutral tone and reads like a promotional pamphlet for the United Way. Phrases like "United Way-Centraide is well known and trusted by many Canadians as one of the most reliable community building organizations in Canada" are considered to be full of "peacock terms" and are typically deleted from Wikipedia articles. You have identified yourself as a United Way employee; in order that you not be perceived to have a conflict of interest, it is important that your edits maintain a neutral, factual tone. That does not mean that the positive aspects of the United Way cannot be stated in the article, but rather that such content must be supported by reliable and independent third party sources and presented minus the peacock language.
Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the goal is to impart neutral facts. Phrases such as "United Way-Centraide is unique in building on a community’s strengths and resources by bringing together all parts of a community to identify and work towards common goals and through developing solutions and results that are sustainable, preventative and holistic" impart very little concrete information, and will inevitably be deleted or significantly copyedited by other editors. Focus on what the United Way actually does rather than inserting buzz-words into the article.
In editing the article, you eliminated all of the wiki markup (internal links, italics, etc.). I can assist you with restoring it, although it would probably make sense to tackle the other issues first.

I would be happy to help you with these issues. However, you seem to want to take the lead on this, so I will step back and let you do so. Any questions can be left on my talk page. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for taking the time to look at my comments and continuing to work on the article. To be honest, I have only just glanced at your changes thus far - it's been a crazy day. I am sure it's an improvement, and I will certainly look more closely in the next few days. Other editors may chime in in the meantime. Have a great day and we'll chat soon. Hopefully you will get involved in editing other articles as well. Thanks again. Skeezix1000 (talk) 22:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even though you have removed the tags, you have not removed the copyright violations, and you may lose the entire article because of this. I do not have time in the next couple of days to help, but please reword most of the text. Much of the prose, and notably the History section, is a word for word copy of paragraphs lifted from the website. This will not be accepted by Wikipedia. This happened to me, and I am trying to help you before the deletionists descend. Please, please, please, fix this worthy aricle. I do not want to see it lost. -Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]