User talk:Alvyray

Welcome!
Hello, Alvyray, 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 talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
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License tagging for File:AlvyRaySmith KathleenKing square.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:AlvyRaySmith KathleenKing square.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 08:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Image tagging for File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg. You don't seem to have said where the image came from or who created it. We require this information to verify that the image is legally usable on Wikipedia, and because most image licenses require giving credit to the image's creator.

To add this information, click on this link, then click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and add the information to the image's description. If you need help, post your question on Media copyright questions.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:
 * Image use policy
 * Image copyright tags

Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 18:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg, which you've attributed to alvyray.com/CreativeCommons/AlvyRaySmithPortrait.htm. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either
 * make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
 * Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add OTRS pending to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Non-free content, use a tag such as non-free fair use or one of the other tags listed at File copyright tags, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in [ your upload log]. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Dianna (talk) 01:07, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:AlvyRaySmith Lo-Res.jpg, which you've attributed to Was in Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission for over 90 days; link in source field goes to a page which grants permission for CC-BY-ND which is insufficient for Wikipedia.. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either
 * make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
 * Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add OTRS pending to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Non-free content, use a tag such as non-free fair use or one of the other tags listed at File copyright tags, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in [ your upload log]. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 12:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry nobody mentioned this before
Please do not write or add to an article about yourself, as you apparently did at Alvy Ray Smith. Creating an autobiography is strongly discouraged – see our guideline on writing autobiographies. If you create such an article, it may be deleted. If what you have done in life is genuinely notable and can be verified according to our policy for articles about living people, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later (see Wikipedians with articles). If you wish to add to an existing article about yourself, please propose the changes on its talk page. Please understand that this is an encyclopedia and not a personal web space or social networking site. If your article has already been deleted, please see: Why was my page deleted?, and if you feel the deletion was an error, please discuss it with the deleting administrator. Thank you. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  19:19, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Alvyray. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the article Pixar, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a COI may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. In particular, please:


 * avoid editing or creating articles related to you and your circle, your organization, its competitors, projects or products;
 * instead propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the request edit template);
 * when discussing affected articles, disclose your COI (see WP:DISCLOSE);
 * avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
 * exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (see WP:PAID).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing and autobiographies. Thank you. Electric Burst (Electron firings)(Zaps) 18:24, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Electric Burst (Electron firings)(Zaps) 21:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

More on COI matters
Hi Alvy. I work on COI issues in Wikipedia along with my regular editing. Thanks for making this statement here of your identity and conflicts of interest in Wikipedia. And sorry for the drama with the ANI filing; that was unnecessary.

A few things. First of all, as you know, nobody on the internet knows your a dog. While your claim of identify seems reasonable, I suggest that you email info-en@wikimedia.org and tell them that you want to validate your identity, and just work through that process with them. This is described here WP:REALNAME.

I will assume you are who you say are.

Wikipedia is a widely-used reference work and managing conflict of interest is essential for ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia and retaining the public's trust in it. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review. Please note that there is no bar to being part of the Wikipedia community if you want to be involved in articles where you have a conflict of interest; there are just some things we ask you to do.

Disclosure step first... You've now disclosed in Wikipedia your identity and COI. To formalize that, please add to your userpage User:Alvyray (currently a redlink, as you haven't written anything there yet) a brief disclosure like "I am Alvy Ray and have a conflict of interest with regard to Pixar, Alvy Ray Smith, and related content in Wikipedia." Just short and to the point; nothing promotional. (Guidance for what userpages are for, is here: WP:Userpage) I will make the disclosures on the Talk pages of the relevant articles, so once you post on your Userpage, the disclosure step will be done.

The second step is what a form of "peer review". This piece may seem a bit strange to you at first, but if you think about it, it will make sense. In Wikipedia, editors can immediately publish their work, with no intervening publisher or standard peer review -- you can just create an article, click save, and voala there is a new article, and you can go into any article, make changes, click save, and done. No intermediary - no publisher, no "editors" as that term is used in the real world.

What we ask editors to do who have a COI and want to work on articles where their COI is relevant, is a) if you want to create an article relevant to a COI you have, create the article as a draft, disclose your COI on the Talk page using the appropriate template, and then submit the draft article through the WP:AFC process so it can be reviewed before it publishes; and  b) And if you want to change content in any existing article on a topic where you have a COI, we ask you to propose content on the Talk page for others to review and implement before it goes live, instead of doing it directly yourself. You can make the edit request easily - and provide notice to the community of your request -  by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. I made that easy for you by adding a section to the beige box at the top of the relevant Talk pages- there is a link at "click here" in that section --  if you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request.

By following those "peer review" processes, editors with a COI can contribute where they have a COI, and the integrity of WP can be protected. We get some great contributions that way, when conflicted editors take the time to understand what kinds of proposals are OK under the content policies. (which I will say more about, if you want - please let me know!).

I hope that makes sense to you.

I want to add here that per the WP:COI guideline, if you want to directly update simple, uncontroversial facts (for example, correcting simple facts about where a company has offices) you can do that directly in the article, without making an edit request on the Talk page. Just be sure to always cite a reliable source for the information you change, and make sure it is simple, factual, uncontroversial content.

Will you please agree to follow the peer review processes going forward, when you want to work on any article or any article where your COI is relevant? Do let me know, and if anything above doesn't make sense I would be happy to discuss. And if you want me to quickly go over the content policies, I can do that. Just let me know. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm don't know how to respond to you Jytdog. Is this how? Yes, I am happy to learn of the COI process and agree to use it going forward. Alvyray (talk) 06:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I have done two of the things you asked for already. I created the user page for Alvyray by making an entry. I wrote an email to the agent for validating my name and identity.Alvyray (talk) 06:55, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks very very much.  if you have any questions about this stuff or other meta-Wikipedia stuff, feel free to ask me.  You can do it here; this page is on my watchlist now.  Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 06:56, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Another page I've contributed to that has a COI warning now is the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). As usual my contributions have documentation attached, but I now understand that that is not sufficient. Similarly for my own page (which I did not create, but I have added a couple of tweaks from time to time and got rid of the horrendous photo of myself where I had a black eye). All this in the spirit of full disclosure.Alvyray (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I saw that you had done that. In the future please just suggest those changes on the Talk page; I am sure folks will be happy to work with you. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Userbox COI
Hi, Alvy Ray,

I placed a template on your userpage a few days ago to help you declare your conflicts of interest with regard to the articles on Pixar and Alvy Ray Smith. This was presumptuous of me, and I apologize: a user's userpage is generally considered rather personal and is for that user to modify and maintain at will. I created the template "" specifically so that editors could disclose their conflicts of interest on their user pages in a standardized format— your case was the inspiration for the creation of that template. You have, of course, already made such a declaration in prose form without the use of the template, and that how it has always been done. You are under no obligation to use the template at all! If you wish, however, you may also make the same COI declaration using the template. It makes very little difference one way or the other. I find the template to be both less intrusive and easier to spot than a prose statement, which I consider to be benefits, but you may do as you wish with regard to using it, and my apologies again for having edited your user page. KDS4444 (talk) 08:05, 20 May 2016 (UTC)